Ain’t nothing like the real thing

I cannot prove to you, my loyal reader, that there is no God. So, it’s possible there is a God, or given the number of belief systems and religions, there are lots of Gods. It’s equally likely that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden. I haven’t seen fairies at the bottom of the garden but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. So, I don’t believe there is a God. I’m as near to 100% certain of that as I can be that there is no God and moreover I’d hate it if I was wrong.

The idea that there might be a supernatural being carrying out surveillance 24/7 sounds horrible. Perverse even. But then, the God of the Old Testament is probably not someone you’d want to cross. Indeed, the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins described him as follows:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

And those are just his good points. He was also the worst mass murderer of all time. Using biblical numbers, God killed 2,821,364 people but estimates suggest the overall figure was nearer 25 million. In the flood of Noah, God was pissed off with some people who were wicked, had bad thoughts. And the whole earth was violent and corrupt. Solution? Drown everyone, all 20 million of them, as any decent God would do. People say, “Yeah, but at least God was better than Satan!” But Satan only killed 10 people and even they were as part of a bet with God. (The seven sons and three daughters of Job.)

Stephen Fry, who described God as “utterly evil, capricious and monstrous”, drew an interesting analogy. Explaining the wonders of the world, Fry said:

“Yes, the world is very splendid but it also has in it insects whose whole lifecycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. They eat outwards from the eyes. Why? Why did you do that to us? You could easily have made a creation in which that didn’t exist. It is simply not acceptable.

“It’s perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living in my opinion.”

I’ve seen too much misery, too much sadness, far too many tragedies to make me believe in a God, or to want to believe in one. From what I have read, if he does exist, he’s a wrong ‘un.

Of course, part of the deal for many believers is the idea that death is not the end, that we will survive our own deaths to live again, this time forever. And we will once again meet those who left us. If I go to heaven, I’ll meet my desperately ill mother, my stepfather full of Parkinsons and Dementia and everyone else who died horrible deaths, as so many did. Where’s the joy in that? If God couldn’t fix them when they were alive, then how come he could when they were dead? And when I die, will he reassemble my ashes from the oven and turn them back into me again? Of course he won’t. Because he isn’t there.

At this time of year, we are constantly reminded of THE REAL MEANING OF CHRISTMAS. Ah yes, that old roast chestnut. It’s here in Bristol, in the form of a faux ‘German market’, replete with biblical Bratwurst and lager in plastic glasses with added Cliff Richard. And nothing says Christmas like throwing up outside Wetherspoons. God would not have wanted it any different. But then, what is the real meaning of Christmas?

Presents? Christmas trees? Turkey? Getting shit-faced? Watching Mrs Brown’s Boys? (I’m being silly there.) Illuminated houses? All this and much, much more, but nothing to do with religion. No. But for all that, I love Christmas.

I love Christmas because I shall be with the ones I love, or most of them anyway. I can have joy, fun and seasons in the sun, but nothing, literally nothing, is better than family and friends. And whatever anyone tells you, a Zoom conversation is nothing like the real thing.

Happily for me, God will play no part in my Christmas celebrations and if by some miracle (and there is no such thing as a miracle) he is watching then I would ask him to find a far worse sinner than me.

I’m not angry with God because he’s not really there and it would be ridiculous to be angry with a character from fiction. The life I have, for all its warts, is the only one I have and the only one I will ever have. And if we’re being honest, we know he’s not watching us anymore than Bill Gates is watching us after our Covid vaccinations.

God is not great. He’s not real, either. Merry Christmas.