Walking With the Devil

The devil’s not a bad guy. He just gets bad publicity. He’s a great travel companion and good drinking buddy. Ironically, he’s got soul, much more so than God. He knows what it means to be betrayed, and he knows what it means to suffer, and what humiliation feels like. He’s been judged from an ivory tower by a zealous despot, and made his own kingdom with other misfits and rejects. God resonates with all of the sincerity and soul of a spoiled rich kid having a temper tantrum.

God Is Not My Co-pilot

God is not my co-pilot. That son-of-a-bitch isn’t even on the plane. He’s had his throat cut and his corpse dismembered and stuffed into a dumpster back at the airport. I’ve stolen his passport. I’ve got places to go!

Faith

So often our confusion over the big ontological questions can be reduced to simple semantic problems. Quite simply, human reason has reached its current position by the use of, and cultivation of, language. The interface of word, utterance, and symbol has made possible every achievement in human history. Without language, we have no coherent thought. Without language, we’re feral. Hence, images, syntax, linguistics, and semantics are our only tools for mapping existence.

Two perfect examples of common confusions, with far-reaching consequences are: 1.Trust and 2. Faith. So recklessly are the two words used that they have become almost interchangeable. They are, however, quite different. Trust is used in relation to reasonable belief substantiated by evidence. Faith is used in relation to unreasonable belief without evidence. Without demonizing the word “unreasonable,” which I honestly have no desire to do, we can immediately see a very clear distinction. Certainly we all have the right to our own irrationalities. It is important, however, to understand when something is rational, irrational, or unintelligible altogether. For example, I trust that when I finish writing and close this book, my written words will still inhabit these pages. I cannot prove that they will, but certainly that is the way that it has happened every time in the past. Hence, I have reason to believe that it will continue to happen that way. I also trust that the words will be readable by others. I trust these two phenomena, because past events have given me cause to believe that these two events will transpire as anticipated. Concrete evidence constitutes trust. Faith, though irrational, is not always erroneous. I have faith that I do not have high cholesterol. I do not have access to test results that would prove to me that I do not have high cholesterol, though I certainly have no reason to believe the contrary. I am young and in good health. This is faith, the phenomenon is concrete, but our knowledge of that phenomenon is incomplete. Faith is belief without a safety net.

The reason that faith is simply not applicable or relevant as a reason to believe in the existence of a monotheist God is that the word “God” is not intelligently definable. It is not possible to reasonably debate an idea for which we have no definition. One cannot have faith in “God” unless one knows what “God” is. If we have no concrete notion of God, it is a meaningless utterance. "God” is an incoherent, unintelligible word. “God” is a signifier with no signified. This is why nobody can actually believe in God, either rationally or irrationally. The claim to faith is simply inaccurate, inapplicable, and out of reach. Everybody is, by definition, without belief in God. When somebody claims to believe in God, they really don’t understand what they’re saying.

Adult Supervision

Everything is scarier without adult supervision. With no safety net in place, everything feels a little heavier, like it counts a little more. There’s no help available when you are without adult supervision. Mistakes are permanent, and your problems belong only to you. They are perhaps your only exclusive possessions. Anything can be taken away from you except your problems, and nobody’s going to try to steal those. There’s no sense in pretending that anybody’s watching or coming to help.

Empty Sky

During my excommunication, I’ve been combing the sky, looking for god, and all I’ve found are clouds. The sky is a unique thing, insofar as the emptier it gets, the heavier it gets. The burden of all of that loneliness increases exponentially the more it is understood. As you further grasp the nature of your involuntary solitude, the notion of anything metaphysical will begin to offend your palate. The concept of god(s) will turn your stomach. There are sickly intellectuals who will convolute logic around itself to baffle away the loneliness. They would have you believe that god is a mathematician and heaven is an algorithm. In my estimation, god is a cruel joke and an insult to our human dignity.