Steve Toltz - Quicksand

ME: I’d say that sounds awesome. Is that true?

VOICE: The question is not Is that true? , Aldo. Nor Do you believe it to be true? , but Can you believe it to be true?

ME: Gobbledegook. What can I concretely tell the people of earth?

VOICE: Children, if an angel wants to take you under his wing, run to the nearest adult.

ME: What else?

VOICE: I’ll give you a clue.

ME: To what?

VOICE: To the answers you are truly seeking. Tell me, what is consciousness for?

ME: To become aware.

VOICE: Of what?

ME: I don’t know.

VOICE: This is the human condition in one knock-knock joke: Knock knock, it’s me, Death. Who’s there?

ME: I get it.

VOICE: So consciousness gives us awareness of what?

ME: That we are mortal.

VOICE: Which leads us to?

ME: Seek.

VOICE: Seek what?

ME: Meaning. God.

VOICE: You’re always asking, Where is He? Where is He? Why aren’t you asking, When is He?

ME: When is he in Time?

VOICE: Which is relative. Which is circular. Which loops. Am I right?

ME: You don’t half ask hard questions.

VOICE: I’m not asking questions. I’m giving answers.

ME: That I don’t understand.

VOICE: You want an easier clue?

ME: Please.

VOICE: Christian mystics report seeing Jesus, Muslims see Mohammed, Buddhists see the Buddha. What does this tell you?

ME: That we have the power to cast our own mystic visions.

VOICE: Precisely. And?

ME: We’re getting sick of waiting.

VOICE: Waiting? Who are you waiting for? Who are you waiting for? Jesus?

ME: What’s so funny?

VOICE: Imagine on the first day of the Second Coming the priceless look on His face re: biodiversity! Imagine Him saying ‘Do unto others as you wish to be done unto you’ to the subs in the S & M crowd! Imagine your crestfallen Lord rejected for His body mass index not being like it is in the paintings! Imagine a billion people tweeting their ultimatum: ‘An eye for an eye OR turn the other cheek. You can’t have it both ways!’

ME: I’ve always felt we learn more about the cosmos from Buddha’s death by poisoned mushrooms than from Christ’s ostentatious showboating on the cross. Although nobody ever talks about the fact that because the Buddha abandoned his family, his greatest unsung legacy is actually the use of the philosophy of detachment to avoid child-support payments.

VOICE: Let’s face it, Aldo — as soon as the meek discover they are to inherit the earth they turn nasty. Happens every time.

ME: When you’re right, you’re right.

VOICE: Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism are patently insufficient tools for answering 21st-century ethical questions, like, Is sexual intercourse with one’s own clone masturbation or incest?

ME: Ooh. I know this one. Is it incest?

VOICE: Your sclerotic churches, synagogues and mosques have no idea, that’s for damn sure.

ME: This is the pilgrim’s frustrating lack of progress.

VOICE: You look at your own life, Aldo, at your suffering, and what really pisses you off is there’s no one you can drag to The Hague for this ultra-specific crime against humanity.

ME: You want to hear the truth? If there is a God, I’m just so sick to my stomach sick of Him. Who even wants a deity who’ll crash a plane for a juicy haul of souls?

VOICE: Is that what He’s doing?

ME: And frankly, someone whose face you can’t look into might as well be faceless.

VOICE: Maybe He is. And maybe He’s sensitive about it.

ME: And who even wants to be in a relationship with someone who freaks out when you say His name?

VOICE: I can see how that might be a dealbreaker.

ME: And all this here, all my failures, my pain, my loss. Now it’s also personal.

VOICE: How so?

ME: Smite me once, shame on You. Smite me twice, shame on me.

VOICE: So what do you intend to —

ME: Smite me a third time, and I will fucking replace You.

VOICE: There you go.

ME: What?

VOICE: You’re almost there.

ME: What are you saying?

VOICE: What are you saying? You’re so close!

ME: To what?

VOICE: Think.

(long silence)

ME: The secret shortcut to God is to make Him yourself.

VOICE: How many of the born-again are in breach?

ME: I don’t know those statistics.

VOICE: The Calvinists say, Let God in! What do you say?

ME: Let God out?

VOICE: Precisely! What you want in place of universal justice is the Messianic experience without —

ME: The mess?

VOICE: You weren’t praying, Aldo. You were making someone to pray to.

ME: I was?

VOICE: Did you know that over thirty-five percent of all religious people are ‘displeased’ or ‘extremely displeased’ with their deity?

ME: Is that right?

VOICE: And thirty percent of those with no religious affiliation whatsoever are tired of atheism and ready to switch brands but feel there is no viable alternative.

ME: So there’s a market.

VOICE: Hell, yes.

ME: Is there a hell?

VOICE: Forget that medieval crap. Don’t get bogged down in inherited concepts. You need to be creative. What does your old teacher Morrell write?

ME: Morrell? You know Morrell?

VOICE: Imaginations require limits just as creativity requires boredom.

ME: He also said that you achieve your goal only when you forget that you can’t .

VOICE: No one thought an alien god would take off. Nobody thought a known con man like Joseph Smith could sell Mormonism. They drummed up some bullshit cosmology. They faked some visitation from God. They offered suckers water glimpses of salvation for monthly credit card payments. You, on the other hand, have the real thing.

ME: You really think this is viable?

VOICE: God still has star power. Let me ask you, who is always crapping on about creating a better world and leaving a better planet for their children?

ME: Uh, every adult on earth.

VOICE: Right. That’s your fucking market. Don’t you think they should want to leave a better God too?

ME: You’re right! But …

VOICE: But what?

ME: This is a big project. Where do I even begin?

VOICE: Whether the gates of heaven open inward or outward is up to you.

ME: Meaning …?

VOICE: Let me start you off. How about a process of taking back regretted prayers — a 48-hour cooling-off period, if you like.

ME: I see where you’re going with this. Less punitive, more contrite, more inclusive, less withholding. A God who clearly understands clinical frustration, obviously; with thunder, lightning, earthquakes, tsunamis being outward displays of His thwarting His own desires. And we don’t have to let that Peeping Yahweh creep us out!

VOICE: Nice idea. You can opt out of omniscience by simply adjusting God’s privacy settings!

ME: Online confessional booths. Home baptism kits. I’ll need a Thou Shalt Not Kill, a break-out commandment. One that crosses over demographics. Maybe for that we’ll engage the female brainiacs currently hard at work on exegeses of male text messages and set them the task of creating a multistorey celestial realm people can believe in. But hang on. Will people believe in what they know is created? Isn’t that the flaw in this idea?

VOICE: People believe in aliens, astrology, reincarnation, ghosts, homeopathy, cold fusion, karma, fate. They believe you shouldn’t wake sleepwalkers, that chewing-gum takes seven years to digest, that romance and passion will outlive a decade! People are nuts! Cognitive dissonance is a fundamental part of consciousness, the seed just has to be planted. It doesn’t even matter if people know you’ve planted the seed yourself. Confirmation bias will do the rest. You don’t need to worry about that part.