Gordon McLauchlan: Dear God: What's going on here?

COMMENT

After hearing of the callous beheading of an American and a South Korean by a group of people claiming to be doing the work of God, I decided it was time someone dropped him a note.

God, Allah or Whoever

c/o Heaven, Paradise, Valhalla, Wherever.

Dear God: I am wondering why you have insisted on travelling incognito for centuries now while your people commit the most heinous behaviour in your world, claiming they are doing your work.

If someone was swanning around town here torturing, cold-bloodedly murdering, raping and looting and proclaiming they were acting as my agents I would do something serious about it. To start with I would immediately repudiate their actions and if I had the power to stop them I would do so.

I know many sophisticated theologians have argued about why you haven't shown up, that you have given people the Word (the Bible, the Koran, the Book of Mormon and so on) and free will and they will have to play out their own lives, guided by their consciences and will be judged on their actions on some distant day when the trumpet blows.

But what about the ordinary American and South Korean blokes who are victims of men who pose as devout followers of yours, even though they are obviously moral cripples of the worst sort? What about their free will to live?

I am told on a daily basis that if I believe in you, I will be saved for some wonderful heavenly eternal existence. Well, thousands of these moral cripples throughout the world believe in you implicitly under one franchise or another and say you give them licence to commit acts of what I - a simple agnostic - think are gross obscenities against your name.

The point is I need some evidence to believe. You have given me the ability to reason and deduct to whatever limited degree and yet your fans down here insist I have to believe without any evidence that you exist - indeed, the way the world is at the moment the evidence points to the contrary.

You fronted up for Moses and dictated the Koran to Mohammed. Millions believe you dictated the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith. All these things happened in very limited areas to very few people. Why not now when the world is in much more disarray?

The Jews were having a tough time of it in Egypt and you helped Moses sort things out. And yet in the madness of the Holocaust you sat on your celestial hands.

I read the Bible from time to time and enjoy it for a number of reasons, none of them anything to do with you. And when I read the New Testament with its wonderful metaphors on miracles and renewal I think Jesus was pretty cool.

I find hate boring and tiresome and have never been very good at it; and as for bearing grudges I've tried, God knows (oops), but never managed it for more than an hour or two. So why is it that when I honestly profess my doubts in your existence, without wanting to mock you, that believers get angry with me? Why are they so insecure?

I am a small-time sinner. I know I could never harbour the cold hate that prompts men to cut off another's head for some ideological reason; or under any circumstances for that matter.

I've travelled a bit and been impressed by the fact that New Zealand is a secular country, pretty casual about worshipping you, yet its inhabitants are generally more tolerant, less hate-filled and angry than the residents of the countries living under the rule of your franchises.

Almost all the people I know who are relaxed, kind and tolerant in their attitude towards others are, if not unbelievers, far from zealots.

Millions of Christians, especially in the United States, are convinced you have touched them and given them grace. Well, I want to know why you have whispered in some ears and not others. Is it simply that we have to suspend all reason, all cerebral activity, and declare that you exist and that we will follow you blindly, like Job?

It has seemed to me for a long time that people's gods are extensions of themselves. I've known and deeply loved some religious people because their God is what you would expect of them - kindly, decent, tolerant, compassionate and gracious to other people - whereas others wear their faith with arrogance, condescension and exclusiveness. And yet others bear it in spite and hatred.

If I have it all wrong I would be grateful - is this praying? - if you would give me a wink or a nod. Or better still, if you would give the world a big unambiguous sign of what you stand for.

Yours very sincerely,

G. McL.

Footnote: The phone-in polls on Holmes would embarrass any true journalist. At a time when sensible people were still seeking more information on the Soulan Pownceby issue - whether he should be sent to the Olympics - Holmes provided none, delivered a brief editorial in which he referred to the boxer as having whacked a few people after he was released from jail, then asked the audience to vote at a dollar a time.

Then the result of this unscientific, risibly inaccurate poll is offered to the public for their serious consideration. How can any news and current affairs organisation defend this regular farce?