Monday, August 26, 2013

Great Balls of Fire

I was blessed enough to get to spend a few days in Hood River, Oregon. More precisely, I suppose I should say around Hood River - there was a good deal of camping in the woods, far away from anything resembling a town. I spent the night of August 11 around Bulo Point, i.e. some really dark woods on a hill, following the recommendation of someone I met in a bar (classic Brendan move, by the way. Taking the advice of strangers in bars is probably what will kill me).

If you want to feel really small without taking hallucinogens, go out to someplace with zero light pollution when there's a meteor shower, go to sleep, wake up at 2 in the morning, crawl out of your tent, think about how far you are from other people, then stare at the sky for a while until you get cold. It worked for me.
Anyway, I started thinking about that argument against the existence of God that says humans can't be that important because we are so tiny in comparison to the rest of the universe that to think we play any special role in the plans of an omnipotent being is foolish. From there, I pondered on how those tiny flecks of glitter in the sky are actually flaming balls of gas undergoing constant nuclear fusion, and hey, that's pretty cool.

Flashback to all those times my mother shouted at me for sticking magnifying glasses between (mostly) flammable objects and the sun. I'm an admitted and unrepentant pyromaniac. Do not ask me for a light if you like your eyebrows. 

There I was, watching the twinkling of violent explosions light years away, thinking "Cool. Fire!" And then I had another thought. "I really like the idea of a God who makes gigantic glowing orbs of destruction and energy and flame for fun." Because if I were an omnipotent being, I'm pretty sure I would make those, too, and I'd never get bored of the things, so I'd make sure they lasted a long time, and I'd also keep churning'em out in giant fire factories so I'd never run out. Unlike humans. I'd probably get bored of those after a few thousand years and stop making the things. 

I initially meant this to be a comforting post, but now I realize that the conclusion to draw is that either there is no God, or if there is, he and I think alike, and I'm not entirely sure which one is more terrifying.
The most terrifying Venn Diagram I have made yet