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[PoeticUniverse]

The God of the Agnostics

I came next upon a God sitting on a high fence,
And waved to Him, saying
“Come down and talk the whence.”

“I can’t; I am stuck here, but Salutations to you.
I am the God of Agnosticism, one neither false nor true.
None of the agnostics know if I exist or not,
So here I must stay put a lot,

“Along with the Tooth Fairy,
Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny,
Just in case we all might exist or not,
As a quadzillion-to-one shot.”

“Why can’t agnostics make up their minds?”

“My followers cannot even make or see
Probability judgments about the question of Me.
This is the limitation of agnosticism,

“Perhaps the error of no consideration
Of the likelihood of that for which evidence seeable
Is not even the least bit conceivable.”

“It is a fallacy; what I call the poverty of agnosticism,
Because though being agnostic is reasonable criticism
For some things, such as whether life exists elsewhere,
It is not appropriate for those things undoable,

“For which the idea of evidence is not even applicable;
However, actually, we can actually still talk
About the probability of the event,
While even going for a walk.

“The true fallacy, however, is that the existence ever,
And the nonexistence of You never,
Are not even on an even footing to begin with.
The two are not at all equiprobable cases.

“The burden of proof lies with the believers,
For anything that we can conceive of
Can be claimed to exist, as that we love,
Such as ghosts, spirits, and such forth.

“Are we then to straddle a fence that has no worth?
And, never seen. So, then, at the end of the day,

“Probability creeps into the beliefs of the agnostic way,
For in practice they end up in the lurch,
Not going ‘half the time’ to Church,
But mostly deciding not to go at all.”

“Yes, they still decide that which is ‘undecidable’,
For the fence is very uncomfortable
And so then the superposition

“Decoheres into the inclination
Of non belief—until, right here,
The Extraordinary’s evidence appears.”
He came down off the fence,
For he couldn’t exist and not exist at the same time.
I continued on through the undulating hills.

(We can refer to the fence sitters as non theists
In order to get away from labels like ‘agnostic’
Which might imply that the probability of thinking
God or not is on some kind of equal footing;

Plus that the fence sitters don’t really stay
On the uncomfortable fence but usually…

Go one way or the other way
In life’s practice of the everyday,
Although some might go to church
On alternating Sundays.

In between, perhaps they go
On wild picnics with their sweetie
And drink wine and do all that ‘bad’ stuff,
That we can’t say here, while waiting for some
Extraordinary evidence to appear.

I will soon have a talk with
Old Jehovah Yahweh’s Thee.
He’s not so terrible as many
Have made Him up to be,
But then again He’s not
So great either—He’s quite off,
Just another poor middle manager
Caught up in the layoffs.

I already spoke to the Deity
The God who doesn’t ever interfere
In the running of the universe.

The Pope doesn’t know it here,
But a Deity is what he’s
Leaning toward when he says then
That evolution is acceptable now
For Catholics to believe in (no mind).

The Deity Guy was
Actually kind of a great scientist.
And I already met with
The Creationist’s ID God,
Who while still a Designer
Is, well, not so cool at all, either,

For He gets back to what
The Fundamentalists believe,
And neither, they would say,
Did evolution happen,
Or if it did ever function,
God constantly stepped in
To rectify its direction.

I haven’t really begun
To scratch the surface of all the Gods,
Though, for so many lie now beneath the sod.

I’m only interested in
The person-type Gods of monotheism,
And I’m hardly even getting
Through those variant theisms
That fight amongst themselves
Over Jesus’ divinity, or if there is a Hell,

Or a Devil and some Angels about thee,
And over so many more
And other major differences, totally.

Then there are the multiple Gods,
Now up in the millions,
And the many Gods-who-are-not-persons,
Plus the TAO, the Consciousness,
And some way-out Ones.

There are also hundreds
Of long gone, ‘sure thing’ Gods,
Which I needn’t get into,
Except to wonder, and say:
Is that how the future will
Look at our Gods of today?

I can also skip the many
Weird offshoots that persist,
Like those saying that
The self is not allowed to exist,
Even calling it ‘ego’ to make
It seem so much worse;
I don’t have time for these
And other cult-level verse.)

[PoeticUniverse]

The God of the Old Testament

Of all my rotten luck,
The God of the Old Testament
Appeared and proclaimed,
“I am Yahweh, never absent,
For those schooled from infancy
In My strange ways
Have become desensitized
To My horrific side,

“And so they continue to
Keep Me very much alive,
Through their thoughts;
So, fire away at Me;
I no longer bite that hard, you see.”

“You’re too easy of a target to attack for free—
So it would be rather unfair of me.”

“True, and I won’t deny it—
It’s all there in the Testament.
I was the most unpleasant character
That anyone ever made up in literary fiction.

“I was revealed to be jealous and proud of it,
Petty, unjust, controlling, vindictive,
An ethic cleanser, genocidal, infanticidal,

“Filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal,
Homophobic, misogynistic, sadomasochistic,
And much more, and a Bully—who gave it
Free will only if it matched My own Will.”

“Peace be with you.
How about the New Testament
To replace and hide Your scent,
As many religions have already
Done through Jesus sent?”

“Yes, that Testament is quite opposite in tone,
But I am still the Father of Jesus sown,
So the problem of Me can never really go away.
I am what I was, still here unto the present day.”

“Well, so long. You’re the worst role model yet
That human mammals have ever dreamed up.
Who would imitate, emulate,
Or follow You as a ‘leader’?”

“Well, My followers are those numerous slaves
Who excuse my mysterious [insane] ways,
Along with my exclusive desert tribe.”

“Well, You’re the Boss, and, anyway,
Who ever said that a God
Had to be perfect and good?”

“Everyone that I told—
And those who thought I should.”

“Oh well, never mind; whatever pleases.
So, um, Joseph was not
The biological father of Jesus?”

“No, I was.”

“So Jesus really did descend from David?”

“That was on his mother’s side.”

“Well, my ancestors descended from the trees.
Hey, why don’t Catholics get the 72 virgins
That Islam gives for martyrdom for their sins?”

“I told each religious faith a different story.”

“You also gave a bible half-different
To the Mormon founder,
Joseph Smith, finely engraved
On golden plates he discovered?”

“Sure. I thought at the time ‘why not’.”

“You had Islam add different things
To their Koran as well?”

“Yes of the many more ways to avoid Hell.”

“And You told only the Catholics
That there were umpteen levels of angels
And that bread was your body
And that wine was your blood?”

“Yep, I told just them and a few other selves,
But they made up the Saints themselves.”

“And You presented differing visions
To the Lutherans,
The Episcopals, and the Jewish,
And to many other also-rans?”

“Pretty much,
Except that a King of England
Founded the Episcopals—
The Anglicans, of course,
Since his own religion
Wouldn’t give him a divorce.”

“And you killed everyone but Noah
And his family in the Great Flood, wet,
Even young children and their pets?”

“Sure, again, why not? Life is cheap.
However, My creation of the rainbow
Says that I’ll never be so cruel again.
What can I say—I goofed. My sin.”

“But You are infallible, and even omniscient
And so You know all of the future meant.
You even broke your own commandments!”

“My omnipotence of changing my mind
Got in the way.”

“But your omniscience knew you would…
One day.”

“Yeah, I know—it’s a paradox; oh the strife.
And I can still technically end all life,
By means other than a flood.”

“You burned people in Hell, not saved,
When they didn’t follow
The unfree will that you gave?”

“Yes, because I was not a loving God.”

“Well, God, who made You?”

“No problem—either I was Eternal or I made Myself”

“This is remarkably the same, but for Thee,
As the Universal ingredients would be.”

“Then who would need me—wait,
I don’t want the answer told.”

“Is the Earth only about 4000 years old?”

“Of course not but I may have let that slip to some,
To tease their intelligence apart from being dumb.”

“Do you mind-read
The thoughts of every human,
Using all of your acumen,
And write the earthly script for each event,
Being so omnipresent?”

“I tried that at first, but it didn’t work for Me
To put my finger on every atom that be,
To micromanage its doings for all of thee.”

“That’s called ‘God’s Will’,
By some, even now.
What went wrong?
Was it the where and how?”

“It disrupted the atoms’ normal
And natural movements.”

“And that’s what caused the storms unfocused,
The lightning bolts and the plagues of locusts?”

“Yes, so I stopped making such a mess of things.”

“So the prayers of six million Jews pleaded
In the holocaust went all unheeded?”

“Yes, plus I have better things to do, in time,
My sooth,
Than look after some old experiment of Mine
From my misspent youth.”

“Did you really make Adam and Eve
And all of Earth and Nature, as we believe?”

“Yes, I made Nature,
Including the humans, in My image.”

“It shows in their rage.”

“Thank you.”

“God, it’s ID deja-vu all over again—
I really have to move on.”

“No, wait. I like your questions.
I’m mellower now, this being My new direction.
Not as many strictly admit to Me anymore.”

“How come so many of the gospels were omitted
From the New Catholic Testament,
Like those of Thomas, Peter, Nicodemus,
Philip, Bartholomew, and more,

“As well as whole books kept from us,
Although You told some other religions to keep them,
Such as the Book of Revelations?”

“Those gospels were embarrassing and wild;
They told about My Son doing magic tricks
And practical jokes on people when He was a child.”

“Oh, we never heard much about his youth.
And didn’t You send the Mormons proof
That Jesus spent an early era
In what was to become America?”

“Probably.”

“What about the trillions of galaxies in the sky?”

“They’re just for show and scenery on high.”
“Where’s all your rantings and ravings
That I’ve heard about?”

“I now take Prozac for
My mood swings and bouts.”

“You don’t really exist, do You, as mental,
For how could You have an emotional system—
As composite—and still be absolute and fundamental?”

“No, I don’t exist,
For how could I since I am so horrible?
Human mammals made all of Me up
As a very bad example,

“As it turned out, from their many fears
In the childhood of their species’ years.
Unfortunately, it caught on to their children’s ears.”

“So, yet You still subsist
In this indefinite locus of wishes?”

“Yes, sort of.
I am sustained here since many children
Have learned to obey and listen
To what is-was told to them,

“For this obeying was an
Evolutionarily useful thing,
As many of their obediences
Resulted from warnings of things

“That were truly dangerous,
And so the children grew up
To indoctrinate their own children
In all the ‘knowledge’.”

“We’ll have to offer more reason
To those so indoctrinated.
Now farewell to You, the impersonated.”

“See you. Pay no attention to Me as certain,
But to all those blinded by the curtain.”

He soon dozed off into never land.

[PoeticUniverse]

The Gods Meet One Another

I next encountered all the individual Ones,
The specialized ‘Gods’ of all the Religions.

They didn’t get along at all, not even for an instant,
For all they had in common was their intolerance
Of the others’ greatly erroneous and unjustifiable beliefs
That clashed with their own, for tolerance as a relief
Was truly Not an attitude the jealous ‘Gods’ endorsed.

The followers of each ‘God’ thought that their own
Irrational embrace of myth trumped the others’ known,
And so this led to many of the religious groans.

I watched the ‘’Gods’ battling for a while, steadfast,
In the present, as well as in the distant past,
Their followers’ beliefs scripting the actions,
Conflicts leading to dying for untestable propositions
About where everyone came from and was going to:

Metaphysical Martyrdoms
Conflicted with the Divine Book of Revelations.

Deuteronomy 13:7-11
Stoned those disbelieving in Yahweh,
Killing them, while the Koran eliminated some infidels.

India and Pakistan, different countries domiciled,
Because the beliefs of Islam could not be reconciled
With those of Hinduism, were poised at the brink
Of nuclear war merely because they disagreed, rife,
Over some supernatural ‘facts’ concerning the afterlife.

Karmas ran over Dogmas.

Musharraf suspended Pakistan’s constitution,
To stamp out the growing Islamic militant coalition.

Palestine’s Jews and Muslims scuffled on;
Balkan Orthodox Serbians dueled
With the Catholic Croatians,
As well as with the Bosnian
Albanian Muslims;

Northern Ireland Protestants
Warred with Catholics;

Sudan Muslims discorded
With the Christians;
Sri Lankas’s Sinhalese Buddhists
Went against the Tamil Hindus;

Caucasus Orthodox Russians
And Chechen Muslims
Exterminated each other and their kin;

Iraq’s Sunnis and **** massacred each other
For some very slight dogmatic differences.

I interrupted their skirmishing and said in haste,
“What about tolerance and respect for other faiths?”

They all answered at once and said, in unison’s beef,

“That’s just political talk. If we tolerated other beliefs,
That would be akin to recognizing them readily
As having some credibility, which they certainly do not.
We are saved and they are all doomed, in peril;
We can’t have them exerting influence in the world.”

“So,” I said, trying to make some small talk,
“I’ve heard that You’ve each written a book
That makes an exclusive claim as to its infallibility.

“Congratulations to each of You on being published.
All have made the bestseller list;
However, I have respectfully shelved all of them
Next to the ‘Egyptian Book of the Dead’
And Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’,
In the contradictory book and bible section.

“Hey, how about getting modern and making a film?
I know that a book was a great thing way back,
But a moving picture is worth 10,000 still pictures
Which are in turn each worth a thousand words.”

“Indeed, we will each be divinely inspiring a movie
That will soon be playing in a theater near you.”

“Wait, Guys, I take it back,” I said with alarm,
“Are not all your children doing enough harm
By fighting over your books and morality plays?

“Will people now die for another media—the movies?”

They ignored me and fought on, with their kind,
Unable to see but through their own ‘right’ minds,
Doing the opposite of their teachings of love,
Which they were especially and paradoxically out of.”

Unfortunately, they now represented the largest threat
That human kind has ever imposed against itself—
All due to differences regarding some very improbable
And differing notions about the nature of the universe.

I noted the Land of Evil Demons,
Although sometimes it was hard to tell which
Was which or not witch.

I also bypassed the numerous Gods
Of the instant Cults
That had always gained so many followers,
And bad results.

[PoeticUniverse]

The God of the Religious Moderates

I next encountered the
God of the Religious Moderates,
Whose numbers had been swelling lately, at any rate,
But they had seemed to get stuck in that middle state.

The God of Moderates said to me, in soft oration,

“Greetings. All things in moderation.”

“I bet that You derive from secular knowledge
Combined with religious ignorance.”

“Well yes, modernity has allowed some dust to settle
On the very old unchangeables that do nettle,
And so now people pick and choose,
Invent, or ignore the Dogma’s ruse.”

“Dogma is indeed an unchangeable definition—
It does not admit of progress, by its very definition.”

“True, but I am still their God, of course,
As they have abandoned the wingèd horse,
Virgin births, sexual prohibitions, the value of life—
And they even have some doubts about the afterlife.”

“They betray both faith and reason.”

“That they do in this new season.”

[PoeticUniverse]

The God of Nature

I met the God of Einstein—Spinoza’s God.

“I am the so-called God of Nature,
Being as one and the same with it—no different;
Although that which has no difference
Is really not any different.

“Anyway, at least this is how the people awed
By Nature’s intricacy and beauty refer to Me.

“I am only here in this nebulous vicinity
Because I don’t actually exist with certainty,
But seem to some to be tautological with Nature,
Always existent and beautific.”

“It’s OK, don’t worry about it. That’s how people are.”

“Thank you, and welcome home.”

“You mean I’m back down to Earth?”

“Well at least you have one foot in it through,
Just as I seem to do.”

“I’m going, but why did humans
Invent the theistic and deistic Gods?”

“Man created them in
His image’s inward glance,
Because he was and
Is terrified of his insignificance,
As well as from a fear
Of losing the beauty
Of his life’s fantastic instance.”

“So man just proudly declared
That he was of Special Creation.”

“Yes.”

“Farewell and thank You for Your insight.”

He called after me.

“Enjoy reality—it’s really a place that’s better.
There’s nothing more beyond it.
All comes from matter;

“You’re electrochemical creatures—
As organic and natural
As anything else in Nature.

“Consider this knowledge
As the ultimate humility, if you will.
Live life, love it—while you can,
During your lucky incarnation
From the evolving composites
Of the last 13.75 billion years.
You are here. You have arrived.”

“Panthea, the greatest God there never was…
How to explain? She does what nature does.
As a rose is still a rose by any other name,
Then so is a universe a cosmos the same.”