An imaginary conversation with Christopher Hitchens
Characters:
- Ethereal Christopher Hitchens (from here on just named Christopher).
- Me (slightly mad, but quite lucid).
Christopher: “Do you believe in God?”
Me: “Yes.”
Christopher: “Why?”
Me: “I think there has to be one thing that is bigger than everything and which created all other things. Something doesn’t simply emerge from nothing, or some kind of singularity that is trapped in an endless cycle of exploding and contracting again. I think that’s quite a poor, lazy explanation.”
Christopher: “Some would say that God is an even poorer, lazier explanation. Why does there have to be something bigger? The Universe seems to work just fine without God.”
Me: “Then who is stirring the soup?”
Christopher: “What soup? What are you talking about?”
Me: “I like to think of the Universe as a big pot of soup. The pot probably wouldn’t fit into the cupboard near the sink with the others, being of infinite size and all, but someone has to stir the soup nonetheless, and perhaps adjust the heat from time to time.”
Christopher: “How ridiculous. So there is a God doing all of this? What does He look like?”
Me: “I don’t know that they are a ‘He’. Maybe they are a ‘She’? Personally I don’t think they are either, after all what would be the point? It’s not like they are going to be out on the dating circuit or something. As for what they look like, if they are bigger than everything, you would have to take quite a few steps back to get them all into frame. Perhaps 10^83598 of them or even further away if you don’t have a suitable wide-angle lens.”
Christopher: “So what does this God do with ‘their’ time?”
Me: “Study their creations I guess, and design new ones. Especially the more mobile, sentient ones, like us. But I obviously don’t have a clue, it’s probably impossible to ever know, and I think it always will be unless you are somehow granted an audience with them after you die at some point, and no one can possibly know that for sure either.”
Christopher: “Why would He only take an interest in the sentient beings?”
Me: “Well they are gifted with imagination, so they are also capable of acts of creation, just on a much smaller scale. Maybe that’s the whole idea, to outsource creation in a way, then pop in sometimes to see how it’s all going, and check out what has been created so far.”
Christopher: “What kind of God are we talking about? Vengeful? Destructive? Benevolent?”
Me: “Quite benevolent I would say. Bad things do happen, sometimes on a massive scale, but they’re pretty rare in all, and don’t seem to be the result of a bad temper, more just a turn of natural or man-made events while their back is turned. God can’t be everywhere at once.”
Christopher: “Well actually, people believe He can, it’s called omnipresence. What about all the bad things that happen to good people? Like innocent babies getting sick and dying, or a nice young couple who perish in a sudden car accident?”
Me: “Well if God spent all their time just looking out for innocent people, then everyone would get wise to that and just go around being completely innocent all the time, and I expect even God would get a bit bored with the extreme lack of variety. I know I would.”
Christopher: “So what do you think of organised religion? Have you tried it at all?”
Me: “I think it’s fine to have a solid framework for belief, as long as the hierarchy, rules and dogma aren’t too far out of whack. But I haven’t really tried any of it.”
Christopher: “Give me an example of ‘out of whack’.”
Me: “Islam has a very good framework, with a noble prophet, the hierarchy seems workable, and the dogma and rules, while sometimes quite dodgy concerning women and waking people up in the morning, seem to work out OK for the most part. Christianity also has a very good framework, and a great central figure, but the hierarchy is quite mental, and not at all humble and kind, as it’s prophet would want. Also the dogma is far, far out and the rules are historically a bit insane and brutal, and everything that Jesus taught, has been interpreted in an extremely detailed and imaginative, but totally barking mad way. I’m really not sure what Jesus would make of the whole thing these days, he might feel like changing his name. Buddhism has one of the coolest prophets of all, and the hierarchy is almost non-existent, but the dogma and rules seem like a lot of work, especially if you’re a Shaolin monk, very rewarding I’m sure, and they always seem healthy and happy, but it’s just not for me, unless I could just be some fat guy sitting under a tree all day, and that was somehow good enough for them. That seems to be the one people cherry pick the most though, as it has all the transcendence and meditation and mindfulness stuff, which is pretty handy after a difficult day. I don’t know about Hinduism or Judaism at all really, so I couldn’t comment, and I never bothered looking into the more obscure or unknown (to me) ones, like Zoroastrianism or Taoism or Scientology or anything like that.”
Christopher: “It sounds like you have almost invented your own religion, although most others would call you blasphemous and insolent.”
Me: “If I have, then it’s a very basic one. There’s no hierarchy, at least not in the physical sense, and literally no rules or dogma at all, outside of “try to be cool to others”. If I’m being blasphemous, then I want to ask, who is getting offended? I’m willing to bet that it’s the religious hierarchy itself, with all its rules, God probably doesn’t give a toss about any of it. Why would God be so easily offended by stuff like that?”
Christopher: “At last, a good point, do try to keep it up. What do you think happens after we die?”
Me: “I don’t think that souls are disposable, single-use items, we wouldn’t really have time to learn anything really useful in one lifetime, so I believe in reincarnation. I think we have to sit alone in silence for a good long while after we die, and think over the events of our lives and the actions we took, perhaps getting a wee tea break now and again. Then when we’ve finally become enlightened by it all, we go to somewhere that seems familiar and comfortable that we knew from our time alive, to learn all we can about the Universe, and chat with any others we want to, and learn from them too. My place will probably be in an amusement arcade, which is located on a giant space station (a bit like Deep Space 9). There will be a quiet room off to one side, where I can use a cosmic computer to check on the living, and follow current events, and perhaps influence things ever so slightly, with enough effort or skill applied. When I have eventually learned and chatted enough, and beaten all my high scores, it’s time to be born again, somewhere else, perhaps on a completely different planet, where I would of course, forget the whole lot, but it would all be recorded by my soul, ready for the next cycle of understanding.”
Christopher: “Alright. I think I’ve heard enough. You are literally an idiot, and you talk bollocks. Why I am wasting my time with you, I just don’t know. Please leave.”
Me: “Um, we’re inside my head, so I’m not sure exactly where I can go, but fair dinkum. Cheerio then.”
Christopher: “Just go, I don’t care how.”
Me: “I seem to remember this conversation with Christopher Hitchens going a lot better the previous t..”
Christopher: “What???”
Me “Oh, sorry.”
Christopher: “Fuck off.”
I seem to remember this conversation with Christopher Hitchens going a lot better the previous time we had it. I might have just caught him on a bad day. I can’t really remember him being so disagreeable last time. I think the conversation was also a lot more coherent and detailed, and my ideas were more interesting and well defined, but I might be completely mistaken, and I was likely going through a manic episode.
I can’t exactly call him to find out how it went originally, even if I could, he would still not have a clue who I was, or what I was talking about, the “original” conversation also being a figment of my imagination. It’s really a lose-lose situation I suppose, with little to gain or even learn from any of it. Perhaps we’ll talk another time. He doesn’t really seem that keen though, so I’ll definitely leave it for a while.
