M: Can we talk about God's will?

G: D'you want to be in it? Heh, heh. Little joke.

M: You've got quite a sense of humor, don't you?

G: You bet. Just ask Moses. I had him and his bunch wandering the desert for 40 years. I kept giving him signs to follow. He passed through Gaza about a dozen times. He should have caught on when all my signs told him to turn left. Moses wasn't too bright, but he was a heck of a leader.

M: Let's get back on topic. People often talk about how things that happen, most often when that something is tragic or unfortunate, that it is God's will. Are you involved to determining people's fate?

G: We've been over this ground a few times already, but I guess you need to hear it again - no, I don't influence day to day events on Earth. What most people call God's will is just bad luck. Actually it's not so much bad luck as statistics. If kids do what kids do, like being extraordinarily careless, then stuff happens. Every day, some fool discharges a gun accidentally, messing with a dangerous loaded weapon. A bullet can go in any number of directions, but sometimes it goes where someone else is, and you have God's will. What you really have is statistics, and it's your turn.

Look, if you play with dangerous animals, like that Crocodile Hunter guy, your odds are a heck of a lot better that one day you're going to slip up and get killed. I marvel at how people made such a fuss about this guy's death, even going out and hunting down innocent sting rays to punish them for doing what comes naturally. If Evel Kneivel had tried to jump over the Grand Canyon and fell short, getting killed, would you blame the canyon?

Life is full of coincidences. I presume you think about your girlfriend pretty often, don't you? Of course you do. Now it's also true that your girlfriend calls you occasionally, right? Right. Now one time when you had just been thinking about your girlfrind, she calls you. Is it divine intervention? Or is it coincidence?

M: Coincidence, I guess.

G: Ding, ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!

M: So, God, given that I was raised a Christian, and this blog being written in English and attracting a mostly Christian reader, it's probably appropriate to discuss Christianity.

G: It's your blog, but get ready for the complaints.

M: We'll see, but it's not like I'm asking about Allah.

G: True. Christians aren't murderous in the face of critical discussion. So, what do you want to know?

M: Tell us about Christ. There's no real substantiation of his existence. Did he exist?

G: Christ? Sure he existed. We spoke on an occasion or two. He was really quite a nice young fellow, very charismatic.

M: But he isn't or wasn't your son?

G: No, no, he was the son of Joe and Mary. That Joe really doesn't get any respect. Sure they made him a saint, but did his claim to fame have to be that he was married to a virgin who gave birth? Get real. Mary was a real sweetheart and a bit of a prude, but she was no virgin, and Joe was no saint if you know what I mean. Do you really think he would have dragged her ass, pun intended, all the way to Bethlehem if he thought he wasn't responsible for knocking her up.

As for me, this is where I love to do my Bill Clinton imitation - I did not have sex with that woman! Heh, heh. I love doing that joke.

M: But Christianity's whole foundation is that Christ was your son. Does that make the whole religion a sham?

G: Not any more than any other religion as far as I'm concerned. Any religion that claims to have a monopoly on my attentions or my favor is deluding a lot of people. Any religion that presumes that they are better than any other is greatly mistaken. I hold no favorites. In fact, I don't even care all that much about who praises me or who holds me in the highest esteem. As I've told you, I'm just here to observe and be amused.

M: So the bible isn't the Word of God.

G: The bible is quite a accomplishment by a bunch of fiction writers. Oh, it has some foundation in reality, but for the most part it's a bunch of stories written to capture the imagination of their followers, some based on reality, some not.

Let's examine some of it. For starters, what about the beginning? These story writers didn't have a clue how it all began, so they made something up. Now that science has revealed, pretty accurately I'll have you know, how things began, it seems kind of inexplicable to me that more disbelievers didn't materialize when scientists showed their evidence. I guess some folks like to cling to their beliefs no matter what, eh?

Some other bits and pieces of the bible were really pretty thin on believability as well. There's Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt, the parting of the Red Sea, and Methuselah getting to the ripe age of 969. That guy really only got to be about 77 and had spent too much time in the sun, but he moved to a new neighborhood when he was about 70, so he started telling everyone that he was 962. They hadn't seen anyone live beyond about 50 so he looked like he could have been a couple hundred years old or more. But my point is that the bible is full of balderdash like that and yet people insist it is the true "Word of God." Again, get real, folks. Use your brains. You're not apes anymore.

M: So, God, if as you say we are on our own, does that mean that prayers fall on deaf ears?

G: Prayers. I tell you, 99% of all prayers are self serving. Help me with this, save me from that. But even when I get one that's noble enough to ask for world peace or such, I'm not generally inclined to do anything with it. Hey, if you want someone to stop child abuse, get off your knees and do something.

M: Are you suggesting that people take the law into their own hands?

G: No. If someone wants to act on their own and disobey the laws, they better not expect a better life on the other side of death for doing what they think is right. They'll have to deal with the punishment they get on Earth. I've got nothing waiting for them. Death, I'm afraid, is final.

M: That is going to be disconcerting for some.

G: Yeah, I think so. Anyone expecting to be greeted at some pearly gates by a cheerful St. Peter, or by dozens of virgins - I love that one - better sober up. Death is the end.

M: Really?

G: Absolutely. Let's talk about evolution for a moment. Most people with a grip on reality recognize that humans evolved from apes, which evolved from another mammal, which evolved from reptiles that evolved from even more ancient life forms, yet they seem to think that only humans have some life after death. What about worms and frogs? They took a different route in the evolutionary process. Does that mean they failed to evolve a path to the afterlife? No. They just die and decay. Unless there is either a place in heaven for a dead ant, then there's no logical place in heaven for a dead human.

Unless...unless there's some omnipotent God who drew a line in the sand and said that he who evolves beyond the point of self-consciousness gets a place in heaven. That would be me, and I'm breaking the bad news here. This is it. End of the road. Make the best of this life, because that's all you get. You die, you're dirt.

M: Dirt? That's harsh.

G: Yup. Do something with your life. You won't get another chance.

Let's get started

Max: God, I'd like to say what a privilege it is to have this opportunity to chat with you. I'm sure you've spoken to others here, but I think this is probably the first time you've spoken on the record.

God: Thank you. I must say it is true I've spoken to a few people on Earth from time to time, but it's probably not the people you'd think. Most of my conversations with earthlings have gone unreported.

M: Really? Can you give me an example?

G: Well, quite some time ago in your terms, I got kind of frustrated with a caveman, as you would call him, who was fumbling about trying to spear a fish. He didn't have the intelligence to see that water bends light, so he would constantly miss the fish. One day while watching him miss again and again, I waited until he was about to throw his spear and then yelled, "Hey, dumbass!" It was just enough to alter his throw by a few inches so that he speared a beauty of a salmon. Fortunately he saw how his spear pierced the water away from the fish's image yet still hit it. He learned to shoot a little low after that, but he still cringed every time he did it. I might have yelled at him a little too loudly.

M: That's intriguing, but can you give me a more contemporary example of speaking to humans?

G: Did you see Derek Jeter of the Yankees go five for five in the American League Division Series? I was whispering in his ear all night. Take this pitch, hit that one. I love baseball. Wish I'd invented it.

M: Why would you interfere with a baseball game? Don't you have more important things to do?

G: That's the biggest misconception about me, that I'm only interested in the pursuit of the most honorable works. God's work, as they say. Well, I may not be human, but I do like to enjoy myself from time to time. Baseball happens to be my favorite earthly form of entertainment, so I help out on occasion. Why else do you think the Yankees have such a great record?

M: But they lost in the first round in four games this season.

G: I had to go out of town.

M: Okay. What do you do when you're out of town?

G: Hey, the universe is a big place. Actually, your universe is really just a tiny piece of the big picture, so I've got a lot of territory to cover. Most of it is undeveloped so far, but I'm working on a lot of interesting systems right now.

M: Explain, please. Are you saying that you have more than one Earth-like planet?

G: What I like to do is start life in a wide variety of chemical and physical environments and see how they do. It's my hobby. I have to admit that in a lot of ways Earth is probably my best result so far, but you've come a long way recently and I am concerned that you will crash and burn pretty soon. I've had a lot of promising projects, but so far none have been as promising as Earth has. At some point something always goes wrong and everything has to start over. Usually it's some cosmic accident, like a stray comet collision but I've had a few that just went haywire unexpectedly. You know, disease can be a real bummer. Heck, disease almost got Earth a few of your centuries back. You called it The Plague.

M: So we've come the farthest of any other planet?

G: No. I had another couple that got a little further before they started tossing molecular transformations at one another. Boy, that can mess things up in a hurry.

M: So you don't interfere with the development of a planet?

G: Not with any regularity. I let planets go unattended for millenia at a time. Why shoud I interfere with evolution? That's part of the fun. It's only when the development gets to some advanced level that I like to stop by more often. Things are more entertaining.

M: Is that why you're here - to be entertained?

G: Absolutely. Things are developing so fast here on Earth lately that I don't want to miss anything. I figure Earth hasn't got much time left. Sooner or later it will self-destruct, either through the untethered actions of a major power or the accidental unleashing of a deadly disease.

M: Wouldn't you step in to interfere?

G: That's not my style. If Earth can't make it on its own, then maybe some other planet will. I've got a million of them started and nothing but time. You guys are on your own.