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Sometimes I feel sorry for God. Having created him in our own image, we - Geppetto-like - won’t let him come alive unless it is on our terms. We define him, categorize him, label him, give him age, give him gender, make him angry, make him sad, set him on a high chair, then coddle him, praise him, encourage him, taunt him, fawn on him, sing lullabies to him … and then put him on a dusty shelf and forget all about him for a week. Until the next day designated for him - the following Friday or Saturday or Sunday, or whatever. We are forever re-inventing him in our ever-shifting self-image. Our distant ancestors saw him as wind and thunder, fire and flood … and a giant sperm-spouting male penis. They magnified him in geometric progression until they couldn’t handle him. So they proceeded to divide him. Surely, with all the duties we ascribed to him, he had to be a committee. And, with all the power we gave him, he had to be cut down to size. God the Creator, God the Preserver, God the Destroyer, God the Father, God the Son. Not enough. It did not explain everything that was happening around us, despite us and inspite of us. So we added mystery. There was a part of God we couldn’t understand, so all of the un-understandables were thrown together into a huge basket called, for the lack of a better term, the Mystery. The bit we thought we did understand, we then peeled him, sliced him, diced him, cubed him, chopped him, minced him, shredded him, and mashed him up into little, manageable bits. Zeus. Neptune. Thor. Saraswati. Kali. Vishkarma. Ganesh. A saint in charge of every day in the calendar. Prophets galore. A thousand Buddhas. Whatever was left of the big God was now an angry one. He got upset easily: if you ate an apple against his orders, you got banished for ever. And then, humanity would pay until eternity for the indiscretion. He became not very forgiving. And very vengeful. Locusts and hellfire and brimstone became his favourite weapons. Earthquakes became commonplace. He would part seas to save the ones he liked, to drown the ones he didn’t. He became hugely egotistical. We were required to sing his glory. All the time. And build huge temples in his honour. Everywhere. He was getting unmanageable. So, we turned him into an old man, gave him a big beard and a frown. To appease him, we went around - as if we are his goondas, and he the big daada, the godfather - beating people into submission, so that they would join us in paying him homage. In the way we told them to, no other. Or else, we just killed the unbelievers. We blew them up. We gassed them. We burnt them alive. We tortured them and then starved them. We took their homes away. And their lands. And their oil. We knew this made him happy. And in his pleasure he started sending us special envoys to act out operas and tragedies and morality plays. One special envoy, for example, would be allowed to suffer at our hands, and in return for his suffering, we would all be forgiven. Why? How? Oh, remember, it’s all a mystery! Having reduced God to our size, we began to scoff at him. Did we really need him anymore? Yes, we do! No, we don’t. Thus began new battles. We broke off our link with God and latched our fate with the monkeys. We could perform our own miracles now. Who needed God anymore? We taunted him. Said we were bigger and stronger. It produced titanic results. We created our own weaponry … this time big enough to destroy ourselves. If that isn’t power, what else is! We, the Destroyer! Who needs God anymore to do it. Sure, we can’t create, but we sure can destroy it all. And, to prove it all, we went digging deep into the earth to find the key to God’s power, the single source that creates all matter. If we could find it, it would be wonderful: we could not only destroy ourselves then - mankind, this earth, all creatures - but we could even threaten to turn the entire universe into a black hole. And, guess what! We found it, we found the 'key'. The God Particle. God, once again, in our own image! Reduced, manageable, in our control. Now, finally, we have it all. The trigger is in our hand, the finger is poised over the red button. Quickly, let’s hand out the Nobels, before we get working with this … this … P-A-R-T-I-C-L-E. What can God do anymore, now that we have now reduced him to a particle. We have him in our fist. Back-off … or else. Boy, we’re so good. God? Oh, just tell him, we’re busy. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. |
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