Running From Safety. (Questions about God or lack therof)

After having read many different posts here from those who are Christian, those who are not so,and those deciding to be/not to be; I wanted to share a section of Richard Bach's writings that resounded strongly with me and hopefully you also. It is quite long so I will be posting in sections. Please read; I think you will at the least find it thought-provoking. He is having a conversation with a nine-year old boy(Dickie) who is his younger self. Bobby is his older brother who died when he was nine.

"After Bobby died" I said, "in my simple survuving-child questions to the inner priest waited the destruction of God-as-I-knew-Him, and my first glimpse of my own truth."
Dickie couldn't imagine I remembered anything significant from my childhood."What priest? What happened?"
"I'll show you what happened," I said. "When I stand here, I'll be me. When I stand there, I'll be the Inner Priest. Okay?"
He smiled, anticipating some fast scrambling on the hilltop.
"'Is God all-powerful?'I ask, little child to knowing elder."
I stepped ahead and turned to look down upon the child I had been. I was a jolly priest now, dark green robe, company logo around my neck. "'Of course! Otherwise he'd not be God, would He, son?'"
"'Does God love us?'"
"'How can you ask?God Loves us, every one!'"
"'Why do people God loves get killed in wars and cruelty, in senseless murder and stupid accidents, why do innocent smart children suffer to death without mercy,why did my brother die?'"
Careful with the voice now, a gentle mask for ignorance. "'Some things are beyond knowing, my child. The Father sends the greatest evil to those He loves the most.He needs to be sure you care for Him more than your mortal brother. Have faith and trust in Almighty God......''
"'ARE YOU GONE HOG-STUPID CRAZY??YOU THINK I'M A NINE-YEAR OLD IDIOT? EITHER ADMIT THAT GOD IS NO MORE ALMIGHTY THAN I AM, THAT THE GUY'S MARSHMELLOW-HELPLESS AGAINST EVIL, OR ELSE ADMIT THAT WHAT GOD CALLS LOVE WE CALL WICKED SADIST HATRED FROM THE BLOODIEST MASS MURDERER EVER PULLED AN AXE!'"

continued.............

"'Okay'"says the padre, all sudden candor."'I'm wrong, you're right. I offered you comfort, you had to have truth. Like so many children, you have just demolished organized religion,Mr. Rational Seeker. You know I can't answer those questions, no priest can. And now you'll have to design your religion for yourself.'"

"'Why?'"says I. "'I don't need religion. I'll do without.'"

"'And leave the mystery of why we're here unsolved?'"

"To leave it unsolved," I told Dickie offstage, "would have been to admit there was something I couldn't figure out. And I knew that if I wanted enough to know, there was nothing I couldn't understand. That, for openers, would be the tenet of my new religion."

I returned to my little play.

"'It'll be easy,'" says I. "'Any child can come up with something better than a slaughterhouse for a world and God with knives in his hands.'"
"'There's a price to pay,'"warns the priest."'Design your own theology and you'll be different from everyone else.....'"
"'That's no price,'"scoffs I,"'that's a reward! And besides, nobody really believes, do they, in God-the-powerless or God-the-killer? It'll be easy.'"
"'My inner padre smiles at that, a superior smile, and dissapears.'"

Dickie watched,absorbed in my theatrics.
continued.........

things to do than to sit around and micromanage the lives of an ill formed species such as ours.

Any God that plans weather and traffic jams is notGod enough for me.

I'll take a loving God. Maybe she set the thing going and then sat back to watch. A little distant, maybe waiting for me at the rainbow bridge.

The male dominated Judeo-Christian-Islamic stuff is sheer oppression.

it gets to your point...

Jonathan Livingston Seagull was good, but I loved Illusions.

"As soon as he left," I said, "I got nervous.Had I been impetuous and emotional in my little outburst?Cool and careful over the next ten years, I put it back together, no italics, no exclamaiton points. It took that long to fit the pieces, but the foundation was finished.Thanks to my brother, I had rebuilt God. Help me with this, Dickie, show me where I'm wrong."

He nodded,eager to be part of a home-made religion.

""Pretend there lives and All-Powerful God who sees mortals and their troubles on earth," I said slowly.

He nodded.

"Then, Dickie, God must be responsible for all the catastrophe, tragedy, terror and death that besets humanity."

He raised his hand. "Just because God sees our troubles, He's not responsible for them."

"Think carefully.Because he's ALL-POWERFUL.That is,He has the power to stop the bad stuff He wants to. But He chooses not to stop it.By allowing evil to exist, He's the reason that it's there."

He thought about that."Maybe...." he said carefully.

"By definiton,then, because the innocent continue to suffer and die, an all-powerful God is not just uncaring, He's unspeakably cruel."

Dickie raised his hand again, more for time to follow than to ask a question. "Maybe...."
///cut some///
"Go on,"he said.
continued....

"Next.Pretend there's an All-Loving God who sees mortals and knows their troubles on Earth."

"That's better."

I nodded."Then this God must watch in sorrow as the innocent are oppressed and murdered by the evil time and again, murdered by the millions asx they pray in vain for help, century after century....."

He raised his hand."Next you're going to say this:Because the innocent suffer and die, our all-loving God has no power to help us."

"Exactly!Tell me when you're ready for a question."

He took a moment, went over what we had said. Then he nodded."Okay, I'm ready for your question."

"Which God is real, Dickie?" I asked. "The cruel one or the powerless?"

He considered for the longest time, then laughed and shook his head."That's no choice! I mean, if the choice is Cruel or Powerless, then to heck with God!"
//cut short sentence//
"The choice is no choice,"I said. "Neither one is real."

"Back at the beginning," he said,"was there something wrong with the question?"
//cut another short sentence//
"Good!What makes the choice unreal, Dickie, is the question:Pretend there's a God who sees mortals and knows their troubles on earth.Fold it any way you want, I did for years, but the minuite you imagine that God sees us as mortals in trouble, there's no way to avoid having to choose one or the other, Cruel or Powerless."

"What's left?" he said."There's no God?"

"If you insist that spacetime is real...that spacetime always has been and always will be, there's either no God or you get the choice above."

"What if I don't insist that spacetime is real?"
//cut small sentence again//
I remembered the moment when I decided not to insist, just for the fun of it.
"I don't know" I said.
continued........

"Which God is real, Dickie?" I asked. "The cruel one or the powerless?"

Heaven and Earth are impartial;
they treat all of creation as straw dogs.
The Master doesn't take sides;
she treats everyone like a straw dog.

-Tao Te Ching (Taoist)

Life is suffering.

-First of the four noble truths (Buddhist).

Life is, spreading life through all;
It cannot anywhere, by any means,
Be anywise diminished, stayed, or changed.
But for these fleeting frames which it informs
With spirit deathless, endless, infinite,
They perish. Let them perish, Prince! and fight!

-bhagavad gita chapter 2 (God incarnate is ordering peaceful Aruna to kill his enemies. Hindu)

Exd 12:12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I the LORD.

(Jew Christian & Muslim)

Beware therefore! Love all, lest perchance is a King concealed! Say you so? Fool! If he be a King, thou canst not hurt him.

-Crowley, Liber Legis (new age/occult)

A few different perspectives on the matter ;)

"Oh come on!"//cut//"and now that you've just killed God I say you'd better raise him from the dead or I promise you are gonna get no sleep!"

"Okay. But I can't raise him from the dead because he isn't a Him."

"He's a She?"

"She's an Is." I said

"Ready, go," he said, giving me back my stage.

"Okay, I withdraw my consent from a God either helpless or unwilling to overcome evil. I do not withdraw my consent from an all-powerful all-loving reality."

"Then you're right back where you started!"

"No. Listen. It's simple." I drew an outline in the air. Here's a door.On the door are two words.Life is.If you want to walk through the door, you see the world in which that's true."

"I don't have to believe Life is," he said, determined not to be caught again by assumptions.

"No, you don't. If you don't believe that, or if you believe Life Isn't or Life Sometimes Is and Sometimes Isn't, or Death Is,then the world has to be pretty well what it seems to be, forget purpose and sense. We're all on our own, some are born lucky, others cry alot before they die, no telling which is which. Good Luck."

I waited for him while he tapped on those doors, pushed them open, lost interest in what lay behind.

"Pretty dull," he said, and leaned foreward, ready for the jump."Okay. Let's say Life Is."
//cut//
"Remember the door says Life Is," I said. "It is not kidding. Invisible letters underneath if you want. No Matter What Seems to Be."

continued.......

"Life Is."

"HA, DICKIE!" I shouted in Samurai, curved sword glittering in my hand."THERE IN ITS COFFIN LIES THE BODY OF YOUR BROTHER! IS THERE NO DEATH?"

"Life Is," he said, trusting. "No Matter What."

I slipped into a black robe, dissapeared my head way back inside its hood, stood on tiptoe, spoke ominous and hollow. " I am Death little child, and I shall come for you in my time, and nothing there be that can stay my call..." //cut//

Still he clung to the truth he tested. "Life Is," he said. "No Matter What."
//cut//
Then, disguised as myself, I said, "Apperances change."

"Life Is," he replied.

"It's easy to say that when you're well and happy, Captain,"I said. "What do you say when you're bleeding, or you're sick, or you're depressed your girlfriend left you, your wife dosen't understand who you are, you've lost your job and you're broke, looking at the bottom as low as you can go?"

"Life Is."

"Does Life care about apperances?"

He thought for a moment. Any question could be a trick question. "No."
//cut//
"Does light know about darkness?" I asked.

"No!"

"If Life Is, does It know only Itself?"

"Yes!"

"Does it know the stars?"

"...no."

"Does it know beginning and ending,"I said, "space and time?"

"Life Is. Always and forever. No."

Why are simple things so difficult? I thought. Is means Is. Not Was or Will Be or Used to Be or May Not Have Been or Could Flame Out Tomorrow. Is.

continued........

Dupe

"Does Life know Dickie Bach?"

Long silence. "It dosen't know my body."

There you go, I thought. "Does it know your........street address?"

He laughed. "No!"

"Does it know......your planet?"

"No."

"Does it know your.....name?"

"No."

Pop quiz. "Does Life know you?"

"It knows.....my life," he said. "It knows my spirit."

"Are you sure?"

"I don't care what you say. Life knows my life."

"Can your body be destroyed?"I asked.

"Of course it can, Richard."

"Can your life be destroyed?"

"Never!" he said, suprised.

"Oh come on, Dickie. Anybody can kill the apperance of me. Nobody can take my life away." He thought for a second. "Not if Life Is."
//cut//(Richard speaking below)
"Lesson's over. You just brought God to life."

"An all-powerful God?" he asked.

"Is Life all-powerful?"I said.

"In its world.In the Real world, Life Is. Nothing destroys Life."

"In the world of Appearances?"

"Appearances are appearances," he said. "Nothing destroys Life."

"Does Life love you?"

"Life knows me. I'm undestroyable. And I'm a nice person....."

"What if you're not? If Life dosen't see appearances, if Life isn't aware of space and time, if Life sees only Life, if Life dosen't know Conditons, can life see you as a good person or a bad person?"

"Life sees me as perfect?'

"What do you think?" I said."Do you call that love? I'm open for suggestions."

continued.........

He was quiet for a long time, narrowed his eyes, cocked his head.

"What's wrong?" I said.

For a moment he looked at me as if he held a detonator in his hand, my beautiful structure took a lifetime for me to learn and he hated to blow it all apart. But I was not his only future, he had his own life stretching ahead, and one cannot live ideas that one cannot trust.

"Tell me," I said, my heart beating faster.

"Don't get me wrong," he said. "I have to admit, the way you lay it out, logically your religion may be true." He thought for a moment."But...."

"But...?"

"But what's it got to do with my life as an Apparent Human Being here on the Appearance of Earth? Your Is is nice, Richard," he said, "but so what?"

I laughed at myself in the quiet.
//large cut//

"What do you know about arithmetic?" I said.

//snip//
"I know the same as everybody else."

"That's good enough," I said."I think that Life is expressed in Appearance the same way that numbers are expressed in spacetime."
//cut//"Okay, let's take the number eight. We can print eight in ink on paper, we can cast eight in bronze, we can chip eight into stone, arrange eight dandelions in a row, stack eight dodecahedron's carefully one on top of the other. How many ways can we express the idea eight?"

He shrugged."Zillions of ways. No end of ways."

"But wait,"I said. "See this torch, and this sledgehammer?We can also burn the page, melt the bronze, turn stone to dust, blow dandelions to the wind, crush dodecahedron's to a splintered mass."

"I get it. We can destroy numbers."

"No. We can destroy the appearanceof numbers in spacetime. We can create appearances, we can destroy appearances."

He nodded.

"But before time began, Dickie, and right this minute, and after time and space have washed away, the reality of the idea eight stands, indestructible by appearances.When the Big Bang has turned into the Big Crunch and all matter is crushed to a particle so small that it no longer exists, the idea eight floats serene, perfect and absolutely uncaring."

"It doesn't care?"

"Now here's an axe,"I said."Chop up the idea of the number eight so it no longer exists.Take as long as you want. Tell me when you're done."

He laughed."I can't chop ideas, Richard!"

"I couldn't either."

"So my body,"he said,"is no more the real me than a written-down number is the real number."
//cut//
continued......

"What other number is like the number eight?' I asked.
//cut//"How many eights are there in arithmetic?"

He thought for seconds."One."

"That's what I think too. The idea of any number is unique, there is no other idea like it in existence. The entire Principal of Numbers depends on dear eight, and without eight the whole Principal would collapse."

"Oh, come on now...."

"Don't think so? Let's say we've managed to destroy the number eight.Quick, what's four plus four? Six plus two? Ten minus two?"

"Oh."he said.

"You've got it then. An indefinite number of numbers, each number different than all the others, each as important to the Principal as the Principal is important to every one."

"The Principal needs evey number!" he said."I never thought of that."
//fairly large snip of extsitentialisim//

"Anyway, once we're IN spacetime,"I said, "we're free to believe that we exist alone and unconnected, we're free to say the Principle of Numbers is nonsense."
//cut//

"The Principle doesn't notice spacetime," I said,"because spacetime isn't. So the Principal doesn't hear anguished prayer or wicked curse, there's no such thing as blasphemy or impiety or irreverence or abomination.The Principle builds no temples, hires no missionaries, fights no wars. It is heedless, utterly unaware when symbols of its numbers are nailed to crosses, hacked to pieces by other symbols and burned to ash."

"It doesn't care," he said, reluctant.

"Does Mom care about you?"I asked.

continued........

"She loves me!"

"Did she know or did she care, last time you played cops and robbers, that you were shot dead ten times an hour?"

"Hm."

"Same with the Principle,"I said."It doesn't notice the games that matter so much to us. Try it now. Turn so that your back is to the Infinite Principle of Numbers, to the Immortal Reality of Numerical Being."

He shifted on the hilltop, turned a little left.

"Speak out:I hate the Principle of Numbers!"

"I hate the Principle of Numbers,"he said, not much conviction.

"Try this,"I said."The Principle of Numbers eats refined sugar, saturated oils and red meat!"

He laughed.

"Careful on this one, Captain. //cut//:THE ROTTEN LOUSY NO-GOOD SAND WORM USELESS SO-CALLED PRINCIPLE OF NUMBERS IS DUMBER THAN HORSEFLIES! IT COULDN'T HIT US WITH A LIGHTNING BOLT TO PROVE ITS CRUMMY SELF EXISTED IF IT TRIED!"

He got lost after sand worm and made up the rest, but finished a fiery enough curse ageist the Principle that it would have been toast if it cared.

Nothing happened.
//cut//

"Why doesn't the Principal of Numbers care?" I asked.

"Because it isn't listening," he said at last.

"So there's no penalty when we trash the Principle?"

"No penalty,"he said.

"Wrong."

"What? It isn't listening!"

"It's not listening, Dickie, but we are! When we turn our back on the Principal of Numbers, what happens in our arithmetic?"

"Nothing adds up?"

"Nothing. Answers come out different every time, business and science dissolve in tangles. Abandon Principle,and it's not Principle that suffers, it's us!"

"Holy cow," he said.

continued....(next one should be last I promise!)

"But remember Principle, and that instant everything works again. No apology required. It couldn't hear one if we shouted. Nobody's on probation, nobody's punished, no scoldings from the Infinite One. Remembering brings sudden healing through all our sums, for even on the imaginary playgrounds of appearance, Principle is real."

"Interesting," he said, not believing but following.

"And now, I've caught up with you, Dickie. Now let's say instead of the Principle of Numbers, the Principle of Life."

"Life Is," he said.

"Pure life, pure love, knowing its own pure self.Let's say that each of us is a perfect unique expression of that Principle, that we are immortal, eternal, indestructible."

"Let's say. So what?"

"So we're free to do anything we want except two things: we can't create reality and we can't destroy it."

"What can we do?"

"Marvelous Nothing, it all its diamond forms. When we walk into Lease-a-Life, what do we expect to rent? We can check out unlimited worlds of appearance, we can buy births and deaths, we can shop for tragedy and delight and disaster and peace and terror and nobility and cruelty and heaven and hell, we can take home our beliefs and savor them in excruciating searing joyful delicious microscopic detail. But before time and after, through every moment, Life Is, and We Are. The one thing we fear most is the one thing that is not possible: we cannot die, we cannot be destroyed. Life Is. We Are."

"We Are," he said, unimpressed. "So What?"

"You tell me, Dickie. What's the difference between victims of circumstance, trapped in lives they didn't ask for, and masters of choice, leading lives they can change at will?"

"Victims are helpless," he said, "Masters aren't"

I nodded. "That's so what."

--Richard Bach, "Running From Safety".

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