God, Next Time You Make a Universe, Don't Tweak It
By James T. Moore (10/08/07)
Far be it from me, Lord, to tell you how to create things. I have trouble enough writing articles. But, just as a suggestion, the next time you create a universe, please leave it alone once you're done. That way, whatever you create, being perfect, there won't be a need to alter anything.
Matter of fact, if you had left this universe as it was, you could have used it as a template for the next one and not hurt a thing. Because since you are All Good, nothing you ever create can be bad.
For your next creation---just like this one-- you could put seeds in the ground, beasts in the fields, fish in the sea, stars in the firmament, a naked man and woman in a garden, and then look over the whole creation and declare it all to be Very Good. Like you did before.
You could then back off, stop creating, let Nature take its course, and watch your fabulous new universe evolve in splendor and harmony for the rest of eternity. And the naked man and woman in the garden---spiritual beings that they are--- would trip lightly through the endless centuries with no agony, no pain, no problems to solve, no decisions to make, no afterlife to worry about, and no clothes to put on.
But you didn’t do that with this universe. Because, I suppose, the idea of a “perfect” universe began to bother you. Something was missing. Thinking only Good, you figured you wouldn’t be true to yourself, or fair to your creation if you called it quits right there.
What was missing? Freedom.
The man and woman you created had no identity of self, no human emotions, no awareness of life around them, no knowledge of what they were, no idea what it felt like to be free and independent. They were automatons, robots, fine-tuned spiritual machines, with, of course, no awareness of their nudity. Not being able to think for themselves, they would be under your benevolent influence, in your tender care forever. You would be a charitable master, but you WOULD be their master. And THAT would defeat the whole purpose of your creation.
So, though it troubled you to do it, you called attention to that darn Tree. Then, you did a necessary, but not very smart, thing. You told them not to eat the fruit of the tree---knowing full well what happens when you tell people not to do something. This opened the door to “physical” reality, and all hell broke loose: in walked the Devil.
Now, Lord, I only bring the Devil into it because a lot of people believe that Satan didn’t have anything at all to do with this. Some even have the audacity to think that “Lucifer” (another name for Satan) was a Light created by you to tempt the man and woman so they would fall into the “trap” of Enlightenment you had set for them.
I think that’s a crock. I don’t know how anybody can believe that when all you ever really wanted was for the man and woman to be happy and free—knowing that those two things don’t always go together---that you would invent a devil to do the tempting for you.
Still, that was a big dilemma: how to give your man and woman freedom without making them defective, faulty and imperfect. That would have stumped anybody. But you were determined to make them responsible for their own decisions; to know the difference between right and wrong; to return to you as the original, sinless spiritual beings they were. And if it took “trial and error” (and a devil), to do that, so be it.
The man and woman, now seeing themselves as human (and naked) knew immediately what to do. They began begetting, and their kids, being imperfect themselves, began--- killing each other. Then THEIR children began killing people. Then their children’s children began doing their own killing. And over the vast millennia, through thousands of eras and epochs, through endless cycles of ages, and many civilizations, people kept right on murdering, maiming, crippling, raping, torturing, warring and slaughtering as they went.
However, taking another’s life was only part of it. Through the eons of time the human animal, instinctively and sometimes gleefully, invented thousands of less lethal imperfections--- stealing, robbing, lying, cheating, scheming, treachery and every other conceivable infraction along the bloody path--- until the perfect world you created was gradually infested with mayhem, debauchery, chaos, and tragedy.
Today, as I look around at the world you created and see what a mess we have made of your grand design I get the creepy feeling that something got fouled up along the way, and that this imperfect life could have somehow been avoided. And I say to myself, Lord, you got it perfect the first time around. With all due respect, you should have left it that way. And the nakedness? We could have handled that just easy.
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