So, me being god may come as a shock to some of you. Believe me, no one was more shocked than I. However, after several hours of thought, I am completely convinced and absolutely assured of the fact that I am, in my utterly mediocre and completely insecure glory, god.
So what brings me to this conclusion? Just a lot of thinking that I have done over the past week about the nature of morality, and how so many people seem to think that it is dictated by divine providence. Why is killing wrong? Why is stealing wrong? Why is adultery wrong? Well, God says it’s wrong. Oh, I see.
The problem is I don’t see. God can say killing and stealing and adultery is wrong. He’s right, it is. But these things aren’t wrong just because He says they are. It just doesn’t make sense. God can say anything is wrong. Drinking water could be wrong tomorrow. Wearing plaid could be a sin by the end of the week. What if you put ice cubes in your milk? You could be damned to hell because of your potable preferences!
Killing is wrong because it harms someone. Stealing is wrong because it harms someone. Adultery is wrong because it harms someone. It does not matter if God agrees with this or not. This is just the way it is.
However, it still seems that there are people willing to condemn something as immoral simply because God tells them that it is. I just don’t get it.
I believe that God exists, but I cannot prove it. Because of this, I feel that my decisions about right and wrong must have some other source. If I take God as the final authority on morality, what happens if He is one day definitely disproved? What if someone gets on television and tells me, with volumes of evidence, that God does not exist? My entire system would be destroyed, all of my values would be worthless. My opinions would have no basis.
No one bases a system of morality on unicorns or Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster. Why? Because no one is sure that they exist, and any system of strict beliefs that are meant to be followed unwaveringly should have a strictly tangible, defendable source.
Morality yields discussion. People will have different opinions about right and wrong. Discussion is impossible, however, the moment someone says that anything is wrong because God says it is. There is no way to disprove such a statement, but there is no way to prove it either. Arguments degenerate into an endless cycle of affirmation and denial, and nothing ever gets accomplished.
But people continue to look to God to tell them what right is, to tell them what wrong is, to tell them what is acceptable and what is not. My sense of right and wrong has nothing to do with God. I guess God would say that this is wrong.
For many people, God is the only one entitled to pass judgment, which implicitly means He is the only one entitled to define right and wrong. So God is God because He decides right and wrong.
In my world, I define right from wrong, so I’ll agree with all these people. I am god.