Nativities

I need to ask Big Pat when he was born. One of the advantages of having a "two godder" as a religion is that you get two holiday (from "holy day") seasons. I was born in June, which is a very nice time for gift-giving, big bowls of punch, make-up sex and everything else we associate with the mass migration of friends and family to our door.

I only hope Big Pat was born at some distance from June. It will be better for marketing.

Now, as for the details of those births, I think it's fair to say the "virgin" aspect is right out. I have an older sister, and I think Big Pat does, too. Okay, you may say, you can have two virgin births in the same family, can't you? A: Yes, but you don't see any of our siblings fronting a religion, so I think that takes care of that.

Now, the absence of virginity in our provenance doesn't mean the births could not have been the result of immaculate conception, which is something very different. (More than one baster baby is a product of virgin birth, I'd wager.) Well, in my mother's case I don't think so because I think she would have mentioned it. It would have come up. I'll have to check with Big Pat. He's not boastful, so: could be.

Wouldn't that be wonderful for marketing.

What, Us Worry?

So you ask how, as a hot new religion, we deal with the problem of evil? Well, you're knocking on the wrong door. Try physiology, psychology and philosophy, though perhaps not in that order.

As in so many things, let us look to Darwin:

(Man) having some instincts as revenge and anger, which experience shows he must, for his happiness ... check. That is, external circumstances are so conditioned as they are effecting a change in his instincts—like what is happening with other animals—is far from odd, nor is it odd he should have had them. With lesser intellect they might be necessary & no doubt were preservative & are now, like all other structures, slowly vanishing. The mind of man is no more perfect than instincts of animals to all & changing contingencies, or bodies of either. Our descent, then, is the origin of our evil passions. The Devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather.


But mixing religion and questions of evil? That's a toxic brew.

As for our religion, we are deeply concerned with the origin of, and the problem of, naughty. We think there's not enough of it.

The Big Ten

Naturally if you are shopping for a religion you wonder what it forbids and what it stipulates. But you are particularly interested in that larger gray area in which it has no opinion at all because that's where you are going to hold *your* party.

Well, let's make one thing clear: No Ten Commandments in Godz R Us. No Ten Suggestions either, which is an old joke.

Here's our basic rule. Make you own decisions. Which is neither a suggestion nor a commandment but an observation, since that is what you are gonna do anyway.

Right?

(I don't *hear* you.)

If we have a holy scripture, this is it, from the movie Marty by Paddy Chayevsky, Marty the butcher talking to his friend Angie (who is a guy).


Angie: What do you wanna do tonight?


Marty: I dunno, Angie. What do you wanna do?

Don't look at us.

Watching the gods Make the Sausage

I don't like to boast -- not because it's a sin; it's just a personal thing because my dad (that would be grandgod .5) was vain as a tulip and it got on my nerves) -- but in what other religion do you get to read the interoffice memos?

Big Pat writes:


Michael,

Am in agreement with you about the difficulties of incorporating hell in our theology. Let's face it, hell is a bummer. It's been proven that sad people give less money to religious organizations than happy people. But, we do need to fashion an afterlife. I don't see sales, at least in the West, amounting to much without a sublime, guaranteed (with conditions), afterlife. Pray, what are your thoughts?

Patrick

So outside our hell you will see the sign:

This site under construction.

Don't You Dare Hang Up

Naturally you wonder how your two .5 gods add up to the Big 1.0.

I mean, what is our flow chart? Who signs off on what? Are we disorganized and contentious like the Norse or Hindu pantheon? Are we odd and dysfunctional and even paradoxical, the kind of godhead you would edge away from on the bus, like the Christian trinity, with two-thirds of it arguing with itself -- "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?" -- while the other third more or less just sits there like Teller in Penn and Teller?

Well, what we are is a kind of give-and-take operation, rough and ready, no standing on ceremony. We email some, talk on the phone now and then, even have a beer once in a while. If my wife and I (oh yeah; Mrs. god .5; no biggie) were doing Thanksgiving this year -- which we aren't but not for religious reasons; we celebrate all major holidays and then some -- Big Pat would probably come over to talk about things such as whether or not we should have a hell. Hells are good for marketing an up-and-coming religion like ours, but they cause all sorts of other problems. Managing them is a bitch, kind of like that in loco parentis thing at universities.

(For instance: Should a hell be a place of torment or a well of loneliness? One is labor intensive and one isn't.)

Anyway, the lines of communication are open, and Big Pat says it's fine with him if I continue to handle the missionary work, and he will bang together some Holy Scripture.

So we're coming along. Is there anything I could say or do that would put you in a priestship today?

No No No You Misunderstood

He knows when you are sleeping. He knows when you're awake. I hope you don't consider this to be intrusive.

People are writing in. I think there's a petition. They are saying why only .5 of the godhead? Is this some kind of Manichean deal, a religion with one bright face and another dark, even sinister, one?

Or to put it another way, we want to know who is behind the curtain!

Okay. Here's the other .5, one hell of a nice guy. But you were correct that his is perhaps a somewhat darker vision of the world.

We are nobody's punk. We know how it goes down.

So I've Gazed into the Face of .5 of the Almighty and I'm Still Alive?

That's correct. We are not one of those religions with a deity you dare not look upon. You may look upon us, preferably as the logo on the breast pocket of a line of polo shirts in a variety of pastel colors.

We pride ourselves on being accessible. Once we get our Holy Tome completed, there will be a book signing. Until then, we are available to come around to the house for birthdays and backyard barbecues.

Afterwards, we will help clean up, which is more than you can say for some religions.

Big Pat: May I Advise Instant Prostration

Here's .5 of the official godhead.

But What Will We Call It? First Things First

A good religion needs a day or worship, but on what day of the week? Well, why day of the week? A new religion should be (you know) *new*, so here at Godz R Us we are thinking maybe day of the month, day of the year, day of the decade, maybe day of the century.

(But day of the millenium won't work. Think Christmas. Anticipation is great but sooner or later you want the sucker to actually arrive.)

We're goint to spitball some ideas. We are going to walk them up to the edge of the water, and see if there's a parting of the waves, if you know what I mean.

So we'll get back to you on this. Whatever date we choose, it's going to be a great really super day with noise and singing and marching up and down, though we really haven't worked out all the rituals.

Everyone will have to wear a really nice hat, both men and women.

You can count on that.

Priestships are *Free*. What Was I Thinking?

There is, however, a small shipping and handling charge.