reduced and recycled

I began cataloguing this today, after I received news that Israel would, similarly, refuse to acknowledge Palestine. What does God have to do with that, you say? Well, precisely that: nothing. I imagined Palestinians frowning in consternation, or weeping in despair, going “God, dear God, why?”.

The Palestinian Authority - or is that HAMAS? - advises the hapless BBC reporter in an interview: “We will, by the will of God, rely on our Muslim brethren”. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I almost choked on my coffee.

Muslim brethren? You mean the same ones enjoying hellish problems with Palestinian refugees? Oh, yeah, those. I’ll be hoping for a public declaration of support from the OIC, but I’m not holding my breath - too much to lose? Maybe this is the post-Syriana me who’s speaking, but I’m willing to bet there are, now, quite a number of furtive looks and downcast eyes all ’round.

“Why can’t they respect our democracy?” some people moan, wonder and yell - as if they needed a lesson in American exceptionalism; their whole lives have been subjugated to its demands, they should be used to it by now. America doesn’t really respect democracies that aren’t going to act in its own interests.

Any picture of an idealized America marching forth to reclaim a godless world steeped in Communism, Fascism, or Kronyism should be confined to the dustheap of bad smells. God must hate the people of the Middle East, because they can’t seem to do anything to please Americans.

In that movie Bruce Almighty, God receives email prayers. I think that bounty of prayers just tripled with Israel’s announcement. Thinking about it made me conclude: God is just about the most maligned, hated, abused, criminal being in the world. When things don’t go right, we are wont to yell, “Dear God, why?!”. When in the throes of passion, we are wont to scream, “God, harder, harder!”. On the dawn before battle, crusader-demagogues are wont to declare, “By the will of God, we will crush the heathen enemy, pillage their land, rape their women and slaughter their babies!”.

“Why, God, WHY?!”

“God that feels good!”

“In the name of God!”

God, it appears, is a pervert evoked mid-coitus… or maybe not. It could be argued that sex - making love - is essentially a spiritual communion of two souls in an undying embrace reaching for Nirvana, transcending the sweat, grunts and fluid of the immanent. But who am I kidding; I’ve watched porn stars crying out for God, and there’s absolutely nothing holy about what they’re doing, ‘kay?

God is the cause of all misfortunes - this one I can believe, when I’m not retreating into my faux-existentialist cave reciting learned questions like “Why am I alive?” or “Is my lack of authenticity the source of my angst?” Shouldering too much responsibility for your own fuck-ups is essentially a bad thing, so yes, Sartre’s dead, long live God. Born a hermaphrodite? “Why God, Why?!” Stubbed your toe because you were too busy staring at your colleague’s boobies? “Why God, Why?!”

With enough practice, you won’t need to listen to dead frenchmen anymore.

God is a warmongering, bloodthirsty tyrant: The absolute truth. He sends the Israelites out to crush the Canaanites. He promises vengeance on the enemies of His people. He, essentially being omnipotent, arranges elaborate set-piece battles to boost egos, in the Old Testament. That has gott (sic) to be the reason!

And guess what?! He sanctions fatwas now, too! His earthbound luminaries, I’m hearing, are offering 42 million dollars (USD? MYR?) for the head of that Jyllands-Posten cartoonist! Heck, I’d shed my pacifist diapers and go head-hunting, for that amount. (Qn: Is God an economist, too?)

Hmm.. “God” as pervert, warmonger and the root of all evil.

I thought those jobs belonged to the Devil.