Saturday, March 31, 2007

God spiel

Courtesy of Atrios, who has the belly for this sort of thing more than I do, comes this report of an attempt to channel the Creator and First Principle by professional radio excrescence Michael Savage:
SAVAGE: And God, who is the center of this monotheistic religion, has said, "Oh, you don't worship me anymore? Oh, you don't like me anymore? Oh, I don't exist anymore? Really? All right, I'm going to show you boys in Hollywood and you girls in New York City that I do exist. But since you're very hard-headed, stiff-necked people, and you don't really believe that I exist because you've gotten away with everything you've done all your life without any repercussions, I'm going to show you I exist in a way that you can't believe." Down came the World Trade Center towers. That was God speaking.

Actually no--I think we can all rest assured that was just Savage talking while holding a flashlight under his chin, not the Prime Mover. First of all, an omniscient being would realize that "I'm going to show you I exist in a way that you can't believe" is a galloping self-contradiction. And since (as anyone with cable TV knows), that would negate all of existence--yet here we still are, existing away--that's the first reason to figure it's just Savage ranting on, not the voice of Almighty.

The second and more important reason, of course, is that the Supreme Deity is already very plainly on the record in this matter--not just with regard to killing in his/her/their/its name, but specifically on the subject of the World Trade Towers attack:
Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again." […]

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Four-word sentences with one-syllable words: simple for some, too difficult for others.

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