For centuries, of course, people had been praying for God to return to Earth. He came back all right, but it was so very different than most people expected. It happened on October 3, 2009. I remember it like it was yesterday . . .
It had been quite cloudy that day, but the clouds parted to reveal a huge marquee announcing that God would appear within five minutes. During this short wait, pastel patterns swirled across the skies while Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” played lushly from the heavens. Then, God’s image began to appear on thousands of monitors that appeared in the sky. Everyone on the Earth was about see this spectacle simultaneously.
As you might expect with seven billion people, it took awhile to get everyone calmed down. The preachers were especially excited; most of them were wearing big smug smiles as they strutted about. “This is it!” many of them barked.
God cleared his throat and everyone waited, for what seemed to be an eternity, for His first words.
“Hello,” He boomed.
Many of you have referred to me by the name “God” or “Allah” or “The Force.” I don’t really have any sort of body and thus I’ve never had any sort of sex organ. Nonetheless, I’m presenting myself to you in the shape of an old man. I thought this might make this presentation easier for many of you.
The preachers stopped strutting so much, and started to look perplexed.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” God’s voice thundered.
Well, pull out your video cameras and aim them right up here. Pay attention, because my appearance is a one-time event. Contrary to most of your holy books, I’ve never before visited Earth. Contrary to many claims of your religious leaders, I’ve never before communicated in any way with anyone on Earth. I’ve never spoken to any of you through prayers. Ever. Anyone who claims otherwise is utterly incorrect.
The preachers got really quiet with that announcement. The brash evangelical leader walking around near me froze in his tracks and dropped his Bible. His mouth hung open and he was in a daze.
God continued:
After I finish today, you’ll never hear from me again. I’m not angry. I’m merely letting you know how I originally set things up as part of my master plan. When I set this universe in motion, I allowed all of the animals, including human animals, to fend for themselves. This has always been my plan. No animosity meant. I do wish you all well.
Tens of millions of people simultaneously began weeping and wailing. Others of us simply watched and listened.
“I’ve come to deliver some special news for both believers and nonbelievers,” continued God. “For you nonbelievers, I obviously exist. Here I am. You were wrong.”
I remember nodding and thinking. “Yep, I was absolutely wrong.”
God then continued.
For you believers, here’s your news: there is no heaven and no hell. What awaits you after death is sweet painless nothingness, just like it was before you were born. I’ll repeat that. There is no afterlife. This doesn’t mean that earthly life is meaningless. Your life on Earth is your only life, so enjoy it for what it is. And, please, there is no reason to go around trying to please me or worship Me. Actually, worship only annoys me. It drives me away to quieter and more isolated places.
Many fundamentalists were aghast at this message. You could see thousands of them looking for anyone who would listen, trying to explain that they had been “betrayed.”
God wasn’t finished, though. “I am only a first-mover type of God. That’s all. Therefore, I’ve never listened to anyone’s prayers. Nor would I alter my omnisciently concocted master plan in response to the any pleadings of human animals, no matter how persistent or eloquent.”
God then paused, scratched His ear a bit, then continued.
If you think I’ve been talking to you through prayers, that’s your own voice echoing around. That’s why the God of thoughtful people is purportedly thoughtful and the God of shallow people always appears shallow. You praying people have been projecting.
It was at this point that the hecklers started heckling loudly: “you’re a fraud! Where is our real God?”
Many of the most fervent believers pulled out their Bibles and other holy books and started citing scripture to convince God that he was wrong. God also noticed that billions of people were calling out “God is testing our faith” or “We will change God’s mind.”
“Believers!” God bellowed, “Please! Settle down and focus on this great opportunity you have to enjoy an full and wholesome earthly life.”
God could also see that many of fundamentalists were hyperventilating.
Take a deep breath, please! There was no Adam, no Noah, No Jesus. There is no heaven. There’s no need for forgiveness, no need for spiritual intermediaries. The only way to connect with me is indirectly, by connecting to nature. Take a walk in a quiet forest. Or study nature. This universe is founded upon many fabulous principles. Humans have already uncovered some of my favorites, including relativity and evolution. Frankly, I don’t get how any of you can find sycophantic readings of self-contradictory ancient verses more worthwhile than studying and celebrating the intricacies of nature.
Some of the young-earthers around me started yelling to God that they were, indeed, scientists, though God merely rolled His huge eyes.
God shook His head and shook his massive index finger: “Humans concocted all the Earth’s holy books for their own human purposes. “I would never have written something so incoherent or anything filled with such gratuitous violence. There has never been any divine revelation,” He boomed, “Not until today.”
Several billion people were still murmuring that what they were seeing and hearing must be a giant hallucination.
Seeing this reaction, God pulled out a huge projector and showed a video he had taken of the Big Bang. He then waved his hand across the horizon, causing the sun and moon to perform a song and dance number.
Still, most of the Believers wept. Or they cursed God, yelling at Him that He was not really God.
God shrugged. “Okay, I didn’t want to do this but it’s important that you believe that I am who I am.”
God then “engraved” His own web site onto the surfaces of clouds scattered across the sky. Notebook computers then started fluttering down from the heavens, one for each of the 7 billion people (with fully charged batteries).
“I’m sorry to do this to you, but it’s the only way.” God then told all of us to log on to his web site and to look up our names (“or the names of your neighbors and friends”) on his incredibly high bandwidth connection. He told us that we could use His website to check out the deepest darkest most embarrassing secrets of any human being on the planet. The noise was almost deafening as people talked to each other as they logged on.
The chattering got even louder as billions of people saw that it was true that they could look up their own names on God’s web site. The clamor got quieter, though, as the people clicked their own hyperlinked names and saw that they could actually review a large table of their deepest darkest secrets, complete with videos and sound. In the first column, they could each view (in reverse chronological order) accurate videos of each of the serious lies they had told throughout their lives. In the second column, they could view videos of each of the times they took something that did not belong to them.
But the seven billion people became totally silent (especially the self-proclaimed holy people) when they started noticing that additional columns had hyperlinks to videos showing each of the times each person had engaged in very embarrassing acts, indeed. The headings to these dozens of columns included the following: “Times you scratched your butt when you thought no one was looking” “Times you cheated on your partner,” “Slothful moments” and “Onanism.”
For the first time in the history of the world, everyone on the planet got quiet. “Ah, I see I’ve got your attention now,” said God.
God’s website included many statistics too. I noticed, for instance, that preachers and “moralists” tended to have many more “incidents” than the average person.
Finally, a child called out, “Are you Santa Claus?”
No, I’m God,” thundered God. “Look, I’ve never really paid much attention to your conduct—though I can summon up at any time. You are like ants to me—there’s so many of you humans now that I really can’t keep up. I’m not showing these embarrassing things to horrify you. I really don’t judge you. I just want to convince you who I am so that we can finish this meeting—I’ve got to tend to another universe I’m creating. It’s in the oven, so to speak.
Today, I’m stopping by Earth to let you know that I am puzzled by the amount of time that many of you are spending on elaborate religions that each claim to be the one true religion. Listen up! There are no saviors or saints! There never will be. You humans evolved brains over time. I had no blueprint for the human animal. I let evolution do that hard work for me.
I’m going to leave now, forever. For your own well being, you might want to consider taking care of each other. Any moral system based on anything but empathy will end up causing massive dysfunction.
God paused one last time, then continued.
For many of you, the whole universe wasn’t enough. Please listen carefully: there is no heaven and no hell. When you die, you’re completely dead. I won’t judge you in any way. I don’t believe in vengeance-I’m not here to deprive you of anything-it simply wasn’t ever any heaven. I wasn’t the one that put that idea in your heads. The only reward or punishment are the natural earthly consequences of your actions. Stop worrying about pleasing me.
Those of you who are parents of young children know why I must not ever stay around. If I were accessible, each of you would be clamoring and struggling for my time, attention and resources, just like children locked in sibling rivalry. When I leave, you’ll have to work it out and get along with each other. Bye, now. Please take good care of each other.
As God’s image began to fade, He called out: “You’re now on your own and you have always been on your own.”
With that, God disappeared and the skies filled back in. This is how seven billion of us were simultaneously orphaned.
Many of us wondered whether we would treat each other better or worse, given the non-existence of heaven or hell. Time provided the answer.
When it fully sank in that our earthly lives were our only lives, more people turned to the future the only way they now could. Most people stopped frightening their children with tales of violent afterworlds. Because we knew that God did not listen, most people stopped using prayers to request favors. Instead, prayer time because more of an opportunity for peaceful contemplation. Many Christians converted to Buddhism. Many others started carrying around the principles of Secular Humanism [1] in their wallets and purses and actively discussing these.
There was no longer a need to fight most wars; we soon realized that most wars were actually disguised religious struggles. We could thus reallocate military budgets to much better uses like taking care of the children of the earth with better nutrition, shelter and preventative medicine.
With the news that there was no heaven or hell, the earth became a more sacred place for all of us. It became the only place we would ever have. There was no longer any point to “worshipping” God. Instead, many more of us focused our efforts on relieving human suffering. We also spent much more effort providing a liberal arts education to each child; we found this to be the best way of instilling a strong sense of empathy in each child.
Most nations immediately took draconian measures to preserve the earth for future generations. For instance, SUVs were immediately outlawed. People started frankly discussing difficult decisions about family planning. Birth control was deemed a fundamental human right across the globe.
There are still some nuts, of course, but they no longer have any political power. Those who continue to invoke God as their friend or bodyguard are dismissed by most of the billions of people who had actually seen God.
Who would have foreseen that God could have given us such an immense gift by completely abandoning us?
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