Forest
He said
nothing would be proof for him that God existed.
“Oh
c’mon,” Johannes would say. “If someone had the power to make you think God
existed, in an infinite, cruel indifferent universe, they’d do it….Just to fuck
with you.”
He’d
shake his head, “Jesus comes back performing miracles, I’m not buying it.
Someone’s made advanced technology and has decided to play the Jesus card. Do
you ever wonder why so many “great leaders” thought they had God on their side?
It’s obvious!”
He’d
grin and laugh incredulously, “Of course they did! They got to the very top,
billions don’t, of course God wants them there. Shit, if you had the power to
perform Jesus’s miracles You’d think you were Jesus too.
“Any of
the biblical miracles he could perform, would be achievable, theoretically,
with extremely advanced technology. Walking on water, I wouldn’t buy it? Best
Case scenario is someone built something that repels water molecules or some
kind of antigravitational thing or worst case scenario is it’s some sleight of
hand.
“Coming
back from the dead? We can do that now – advanced medicine!”
He’d
have tears in his eyes by now. It was almost a religious experience.
“You
might say:
‘if he
was God, I could just see him and just know. You know, I’m in the presence of
God, or Jesus, or whatever. He says he’s Jesus does all these miracles and
inside I feel all this love and stuff and I just know.’
Post
hypnotic suggestion! Or he’s invented some kind of mind ray. Still more likely.
“Then
you would ask, what would the motive be of someone with all this power claiming
to be Jesus? Well, people without power claim to be Jesus all the time and
maybe “Jesus” would even believe it too but it still doesn’t make it true. He
could just be delusional…
“Or he
could have all these powers and truly be magic and say he’s Jesus and think
it’s true but that still doesn’t mean God’s real. I mean, in an infinite number
of universe, as my boy, “E” Everett, claimed there are, couldn’t there be one
where a being is created that has all of Jesus’s powers and believes he’s Jesus
but isn’t really Jesus?”
He’d
fold his arms and smile. Q.E.D. Point proven forever.
As ever,
I knew he was wrong, but it wouldn’t do me any good to say so.
Years
before, I’d gotten lost in my local woods. This in its self was an achievement
as they were less than a mile long and half a mile wide. But get lost, I did,
because, I was special. Or it was willed. Or…
I heard a
very high pitched commotion happening nearby, so clambered round a few trees
(scraping my left leg in the process). I saw, on the floor of a clearing World
War 2 occurring.
The
whole thing, in a tiny way, entirely from start to finish. Tiny Hitler, Tiny Hirohito,
Tiny Churchill, the lot. Tiny fighting men and women, Tiny “Buy War Bonds”
Posters, Tiny Metal Drives, Tiny Jitterbugs…
The
thing was, when I looked closer, was that they were all Disney characters. Disney
characters just playing their roles out there in the forest.
Some had
multiple roles. For example Mickey Mouse got to be both Roosevelt and Stalin.
Daisy Duck seemed to be playing most of the female parts – of which there were
several billion (however they were given nowhere near the prominence of the
brave fighting Donalds and Goofys, the indentured Plutos, and the Pete’s lying
dead face up on the frozen Russian fields).
I wept a
tear as the millions of ducks and mice and dogs were marched into the gas
chambers and pushed into shallow graves. I saw Huey fly Enola Gay over the tiny
island nation of Japan and hit Hiroshima - instantly incinerating the thousands of Baloos
who had been going about their daily lives.
I knew
God. If he was going to give me a sign this was it. He defied interpretation
and that’s what this did. It was ineffable.
It was just the right amount of ineffable.
So I never argued with
Johannes about the issue.
