There are roughly equal numbers of people praying for each team to win the big game today, or any game really, from professional sports where freaks of nature feel their outrageously huge paychecks are justified by their God-given superiority, to college sports where athletic ability trumps academic ability, to high school sports where kids are taught that if they can excel in sports they can excel in life.
For the sake of this post, let’s say a million people are praying for one team to be victorious and a million are praying for the other team. In this story I’m gonna be lower-case ‘g’ god. Hey, it’s my blog. Let’s say I have some magical way of listening to a few billion people whenever they dial me up. Also, I have perfect teeth.
So, of all the things going on in my universe, you know, the stuff people contact me about, the pain and suffering, the cancer, AIDS, malaria, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, cholera, hepatitis, meningitis, rotavirus, typhoid, yellow fever, influenza, diabetes, asthma, multiple sclerosis, stroke… all the people fighting for personal freedoms against corrupt and cruel leaders (most of whom claim that I have their back), entire cultures being wiped out in the name of various higher powers, the millions who suffer and die in the face of natural disasters, like earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis, drought, flooding, famine, infestations… the homeless, the poor, the weak, the elderly, the young, the motherless, the fatherless, the jobless, the displaced… of all these things, I can’t forget that there is a big game going on tonight and a handful of privileged men are counting on me to give them strength to dominate another handful of privileged men on the playing field, and about 2 million people feel this is the most important thing going on in the universe right now and they are demanding my attention.
But how do I choose? Seriously, I mean how do I choose one team over the other? I am setting aside all that other stuff for now to concentrate on this game. All that other shit was my fault anyway. I did a terrible job designing this universe, so bad in fact, that Creationism is all but unbelievable to those peons, even after they tried to rebrand it as Intelligent Design. Flattering, but I was not feeling very intelligent when I was putting this mess together.
Back to the game… I’ll tell you a secret. It doesn’t make a goddamn bit of difference who wins. Which is nice. I can sit back and enjoy the game and let these guys showcase their talents. I don’t need (or want) to meddle. Their abilities are the product of millions of years of evolution, hard work and persistent training, great instruction, amazing athleticism and knowledge of the game. So they give me the credit when things work out well. Sweet deal for me. If things don’t go so well, I’m still praised and thanked, never blamed. It’s a win-win-win! I get to ignore all those pesky other issues and enjoy a good game, I take all the credit for the winners, and the losers still bow down to me.
What’s that? You don’t think ‘god’ has time to watch football? Or baseball, or even soccer? Of course I do! Hell, ever since your buddy started praying to me for help for your Thursday night league bowling team I’ve been tuning in for that. I am a very selfish god you know, and I’m only really interested in making myself happy. I thought that was pretty obvious. Your grandma is dying of cancer? A drunk driver is about to hit a school bus? The flu will wipe out between 250,000 and 500,000 this year? Meh… The loved ones of those casualties, like the losers on the field, won’t blame me. They’ll write it off as god’s will, part of my bigger plan, meant to be. You see, I do nothing up here but watch the reality/disaster show that is your life and tune in for a good game whenever I damn well please. I might as well not even exist for how much good and meaningful work I get done! But I’m having a good time! This is a pretty sweet game I have on here… I don’t hate your team. I don’t hate you. Just keep pretending that your problems should be my problems, that I should help you to be better than someone else, and I’ll keep ignoring you. Also, I will laugh my ass off when you slip on that patch of ice tomorrow.
Shit! I gotta go. I just found a Cheeto that looks like a crucifix! Junior’s gonna LOVE this!
skepticandtonic 