I believe in god about as much as I believe in Chucky Cheese. People talk about the dancing curdled chipmunk-rat, I get emails from him inviting me to take my daughter to see him for her birthday, and I see facsimiles of His Image all over the place. Now, typically when strange people talk about my daughter’s birthday, I try to find out where they live, drill small holes in their walls and inject radio-active waste into their living space. It’s not easy, it requires a lot of lead, but it’s worth it. And it’s quieter than shooting them in the groin.
In this case I realize that it’s no use, as Chucky Cheese emails come from a marketing intern who doesn’t believe in him any more than I do. Which is to say that everything DOESN’T HAPPEN FOR A REASON. Really, who invented that phrase? What you’re really saying is that things happen, and then you spend time and brain cycles trying to figure out a way to assign some arbitrary meaning to the fact that you noticed it, and that your worldview is entirely correct.I call it post-hoc rationalization – the sort of thing a brain designed to recognize patterns will do all day and night unless you put some hefty electrical juice between two electrodes sandwiching the gray matter like rye on a slab of turkey.
Here’s an example. I went on a marine conservation expedition many moons ago, which may very well have saved my life, or at least restored my faith in humanity. It’s amazing what living on a sand island for 10 weeks with 25 people will do for a man. Now you may be tempted to say “everything happens for a reason” here, but don’t peak so soon.
On that expedition, I met someone who was a Zoroastrian, which meant that none of us could take the michael as we didn’t know what it meant. Sarah explained to us that it meant good thoughts lead to good words which led to good deeds. I thought about it and thought what a neat way to live your life and better the world. Remember I was pro-humanity at the time, what with the communal living (nay survival amidst plagues of sand flies, deadly scorpion fish and the odd hurricane).
Now, nine years later, I come to do some research on Zoroastrianism, and it turns out that Sarah was a bit light on the details, and didn’t mention the prophets, the weird middle-age goat herd aspects and Mazdaism. Now, here we go. Everything happens for a reason! Yes, here’s my Harold Camping explanation of why, god rest his soul (not that he’s dead yet, but you know, just in case).
I used to have a Mazda (car, not the uncreated god). So I sold it which represents my leaving the belief in good people behind.And then karma taught me a lesson (you know, because My Name is Earl showed me the way out of the trailer park which I never lived in), and now I’m back looking at religion thinking that if I’d been nicer to people perhaps I wouldn’t be driving around in a Police Interceptor (front seat, not back) and that I’d believe in humanity again.
So maybe I need to start with the good thoughts. Back to the three Bs: Buddhism, Boxing and another one that I haven’t figured out yet, and honestly, who wants to get back to the two Bs? It makes you sound like a soft pencil.
