The World is a Better Place Today

I used to live with a woman named Rhonda. She was pretty generally excellent, and we were together for four years. I have fond memories and no complaints about her.
When she was a little girl she used to stay with a family friend named Opal while her parents were at work. Opal was not actually related to Rhonda, but she seemed like a grandma so Rhonda called her “Mamaw Opal,” even after she had grown up. Opal was the sort of old woman that the movies think Appalachia is full of: tough but big-hearted, desperately poor, bright but barely literate, and of course devoutly religious.
When Rhonda was a little girl Opal was already old, so thirty years later when I knew her, she was very old indeed, and very sick. When her illness got so bad that she couldn’t bear it anymore, she wrote a letter to world-famous faith healer Oral Roberts, asking him to pray for her. She believed that he had the power to heal her, even from that distance. He wrote back, full of sympathy for her suffering, and told her that of course he’d be happy to pray for her, provided she sent him twenty dollars.

I hear that Oral Roberts died today. I wish I could have been there.

The Meaning of Life?

I was at Richard Dawkins’ YouTube channel last night. I happened to notice in the comments that someone of the Catholic persuasion had posted a short comment on the page. It read, “I just have one question for all you atheists: what’s the meaning of life?”
This is not the first time I’ve encountered this question, of course. Religious folks, when they find out I’m not one of them, frequently ask it. I’ve never had an answer, not because it’s a tough question, but because as far as I can tell it’s nonsense.
The question is not “What must I do to live a good life?” It is not, “What are the essential requirements for a good life?” It is not “What is the purpose of life?” Any of those I could answer. But the question is “What is the meaning of life?” I first heard the question as a child, and didn’t understand it. Three decades later, I still have no idea what they’re talking about.
I could tell you the meaning I take from a story or a painting or a poem or song or even an insightful riddle, because those things at their best are analogous to life and can help us see it more clearly. Life itself, though, isn’t analogous to anything at all; it doesn’t mirror things, other things mirror it. It seems to me that asking the meaning of life is as, well, meaningless as asking what color life is, or what life smells like. It’s every color and every smell. It is every shape and every speed and every distance. It’s all the equations and all the emotions and all the energy and every possible meaning, wrapped up together.
So I’m asking you folks to clarify this for me. I am not going to ask last night’s questioner. I’m not getting into any discussion of any kind on any subject in the YouTube comments section. That way madness lies. So clue me, Blogger folks. What are people really asking when they ask, “What’s the meaning of life?”

If I Was God

π isn’t mentioned in the Bible at all. The reason for this is simple: the Jews had never heard of it. At the time the Old Testament was written the Egyptians knew what π was, and so did the Persians, but the Jews hadn’t discovered it yet. In fact, reading the Bible proves that they didn’t know about π, because the dimensions of circles are misrepresented on a couple of occasions.
If I was God, here’s what I would’ve done. Back when Moses was writing the Pentateuch (figuratively speaking) I would have said this to him:

“Okay, I’m gonna dictate and you write. I’ll go slow, ‘cause you won’t know what I’m talking about and in this case accuracy is important. Okay, you have a circle, right? And there’s a distance across the circle, and there’s a distance around the circle. Now, the ratio between these two distances is an irrational number that will eventually be known as π. I call it “irrational” because it doesn’t have a precise value. The first few digits of π are 3.14159, but you can keep computing it forever and never reach the end.
Here’s the thing: a few thousand years from now people will have these machines that can do really complicated math really fast, and some of them will start computing π more accurately than any person could. Eventually they’ll compute it out to a trillion digits. When they do, the next sequence of one hundred digits beginning with the one-trillion-and-first will be…”

And then I’d give him those digits. I’m God, I can do that, right? I think I’d replace a big chunk of Numbers with a series of these things that people would discover for themselves gradually, so that continuing discoveries would lead to more and more proof that I was real. You know, like “the Creation story is allegorical, actually I designed natural systems that caused life to diversify” or “the Earth (which is much bigger than you think it is) is a nearly spherical object orbiting the Sun (which is A LOT bigger than you think it is), and the stars are just suns that are really far away.” And each one would have a detail that ancient man couldn’t possibly know, such as “the Earth averages 93 million miles from the sun.” That right there would be perfect proof that I really exist, with a new one every few generations so that there would always be one not too far from living memory. Also, I might throw in a few basic agricultural and engineering tips, because the people I’m actually directly speaking to could stand to learn a thing or two and it would improve my credibility if they were demonstrably more advanced than the surrounding cultures. It couldn’t hurt to remove a few of the uglier laws, either. I always had trouble with “God’s chosen people” being a bunch of vicious hillbillies. But π and the other proofs are what’s important.
Of course, accuracy (not to say believability) is not the Bible’s only problem, so also I would have had Jesus say something like this:

First, all men are created equal. I know slavery is all the rage right now, but believe me when I say that men should not own each other, or have power of life and death over each other, and they oughtta get a decent wage for an honest day’s work.
Second, when I said “all men are created equal” I was using poetic language typical of the times, but women are equal, too. Women are every bit as smart and capable as we are and have the same worth as human beings (yes, even if they don’t marry or have children). They deserve to choose their own paths in life, so don’t tell ‘em what to do, don’t treat ‘em like second-class citizens, don’t beat ‘em up, and if you rape one of ‘em you’re the bad guy, not her, and you’re the one that should be punished.
Third, the world is full of people. Many of them come from other countries, speak other languages, or are different colors. However, they are just as human as you are. They love their children and their grandparents, they feel joy and pain, and they deserve life and happiness just the same as you do. Treat them with respect. Remember the “created equal” bit? I’m not just saying that to hear myself talk.
Fourth, of course I’m starting a religion and I expect you guys to go out all over the world and talk to people about me. However, some of them will not believe you. You really don’t have to kill them for this. It’s okay. They just won’t go to Heaven. Isn’t that bad enough? Leave ‘em alone.
These things, of course, are on top of all the other things I’ve been saying about, you know, the whole “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” thing and also the “Do unto others” thing, that you could have picked up from any decent religion but are still really, really true. I know all this stuff sounds pretty radical to you right now, but remember that I am the Son of God and I can see the future. Trust me, this is the direction the world is heading in, and you guys will look really smart if you were first on the boat.

Bang! A few extra verses and the world would be a better place and most of the more trenchant (and true) criticisms of the Bible would become obsolete. In fact, it would be just about impossible to argue that Christianity wasn’t the one true religion. These two passages together would have given Christianity the prestige and moral authority it claims but doesn’t actually deserve. Just a few extra verses, brothers and sisters, and I wrote them all by myself. I’m just a guy. How is it that I thought of this and God didn’t?