An Alternate Origin Story

In the beginning, there was everything already: planets, sky, bushes, people, buildings, books, drinks, musical instruments, tape recorders, ice cream cones, grass skirts, Rhode Island, telescopes, digital watches, sexy stable boys, the disowned Velvet Underground album Squeeze, cardboard cutouts of Jesus, VCR 4-heads, arugula, Thanksgiving break, plastic keychain toys for babies, the King's Quest computer game series, square colored memo cards, racism, George Burns, masturbation, internet trolls, "Hills Like White Elephants" student interpretations, fingernail clippers, photographs of dead people being sold for five cents apiece, Smurfette, stains on a Frenchman's bathroom sink, the TARDIS, children who could sing the jingle for Krazy Glue, beard dandruff, open mic karaoke, boat anchor chains, Tylenol PM, the smell of an aluminum bucket full of crayons and erasers, elephant tusk controversies, dried lily pads in a scrap book with butterflies on the cover, the Articles of the Confederation, slam dunk contests, paper airplanes made with Hello Kitty stationary, WordPerfect 5.1, tetanus, Leanna Foxxx's fake breasts, the Gladney Center for Adoption, furries, conspiracy theories, Zildjian ride cymbals, 1840s camera tripods, New Coke prototypes, alt.tv.twin-peaks, all of the lead singers for Tower of Power, Babylonian theology, Regular Scent Dry Idea underarm deodorant, teeth fillings in transit to Atlanta, the Age of Reason, adobe huts, the Acronis Secure Zone, canker sores, Lotus 123 spreadsheets, sod, Avenue Q, plankton, quilts made of T-shirts worn in elementary school, Germany, the Horsehead Nebula, Song-Poem collectors, grocery store receipts, spend the night parties, white Chiclets, dinosaur sex, Humbert Humbert, donkey rides up the Grand Canyon, The Pirate Movie, hip-hop translations of the Bible, mitral valve replacement surgery, Hüseyin Kıvrıkoğlu's great-grandmother, No Fear Shakespeare, Phillip Joll, false etymologies for the Tagalog language, the clitoris, Dave's Records of Guelph, failed recycling programs, stardust, the dropping of the letter O in the word opossum, the R65 in South Africa, gaydar, soccer trophies, foreign exchange students who pretend to not know the language, three day weekends, the Naval Battle of Awa in 1868, Scott Walker's later albums, historic gazebo tour pamphlets, the buffy-tufted marmoset, potatoes, the 2002 US Open, the WEDWay People Mover, the asteroid belt 15034 Décines, the Faisalabad Railway Station, Egyptian feminism, childhood interest in tumbling, the peak of the Hochfrottspitze, abandoned planetariums, Scarlett Johannsson nude photograph leaks, moonshine, treacle, and Dan Quayle. For starters.

Eventually everything got to be too much, so it began swirling into itself, until everything was compressed into a tight ball. This was not done by anything or anyone outside of itself, and it was not done for reasons of morality. It just happened, as one might expect. And there the tight ball sat.

And then, as one might also expect of something that contained all of these things, it finally exploded. But everything did not re-exist at once. The universe unfolded slowly, starting with hydrogen or whatever. Everything expanded, and eventually the earth was formed and all of that business happened.

And now here you are, motherfucker.

God and Babies

After three miscarriages, my wife was diagnosed with a "uterine septum," a little malformed wall hanging down from the top of the inside of her uterus, making it look like a little heart. This septum was not allowing room for attachment to the uterine wall, and this (we're more or less certain) caused all three miscarriages. Fortunately, after my wife was diagnosed, we learned that there was treatment for the problem: a relatively un-invasive surgery where the doctor goes in, finds the septum, and -- in the doctor's words -- "trims it out." So trim it out he did, and the next pregnancy was a successful one, producing what they call, in the business, a "take home baby," a girl. So I'm a dad now.

Even though infertility wasn't our issue, we were recommended to infertility specialists (since they also handle related problems). The motto on their pamphlets and website is "For couples with infertility, miracles happen every day." They also have a place on their website for submitting "miracle memories." Now, if by miracle they simply mean "something good and unexpected," then fine, because this was both. If they are referring to the work they themselves do as miraculous (meaning wondrous, amazing), then fine, because it is. But if they mean that some sort of divine intervention or circumventing of nature was involved, then I have to take issue with whoever decided to use that word.

My baby is not a miracle. If it weren't for medical science, she almost definitely would not be here. She's my medical science baby.

Why I Am a Football Heathen

I've never been more afraid to publish a God Blog post than the following. I wrote it last year and decided it would fit on this blog (though I didn't originally write it to be published here), then sat on it like a coward. Yes, I've written about the Bible, evolution, Christianity, atheism, Islam, Scientology, and Santa Claus, but never about something people get this passionate about: football. If this is my last post, you'll know that some fan tracked me down and put a stop to my blasphemy.

Rusty W. Spell, Ordained Minister

Last November, I became ordained as a minister with the Universal Life Church Monastery. They only have two tenets: 1. To promote freedom of religion. 2. To do that which is right. It's not connected to any religion, and it even welcomes atheists (who, of course, are fully capable of following the two tenets). So I am now able to perform marriages, funerals, baptisms, ceremonial rights, last rights, and exorcisms. I can start my own church, ordain new ministers, and I can absolve you of your sins. Since I'm humble, you can simply call me Dr. Rusty W. Spell (a title it took me a bit longer to receive than this one). Anyway, I thought I should let readers of my God Blog know. Not sure why I didn't get around to it earlier.



Oh yeah, I remember. I recently purchased this nifty card from the Monastery. I carry it in my wallet with pride, just waiting for someone to muse aloud, "You know, I sure wish I could be baptized." (I prefer dunking for full metaphorical impact, but I will sprinkle if you insist.)

Some might ask, "But Minister Spell..." and I will interrupt and say, "No please, please. Russell Wayne Spell, PhD will do." And then they will continue, "Isn't this a scam? Aren't they just hoping that, after you become ordained for free, you'll want to buy the wallet card and the ordination certificate and the clergy badge and the parking hanger?" Maybe. What's your point?

If it's a scam, it's a scam I can get behind. I think that the people running the Monastery are sincere in wanting their "We are all children of the same universe" message to be heard, so I'm willing to chip in to make that idea more public. And the product delivers what it promises. It gives you permission to do all of these things with authority.

I mean, naturally, I could already absolve you of your sins before becoming a minister. You know why? Because there's no such thing as "sin," at least not as an invisible substance we inherited that can only be dissolved by spiritual magic. At the most, it's a word to describe the things we do that others may not exactly appreciate. When a cat eats a lizard, is the cat sinning? Does a tree branch sin when it falls and hits you on the head? If you like, I can also forgive you for having a survival instinct or the hiccups.

This card and this title, "minister," is meaningful because I say it is. Why is the Pope so powerful? Why is Pat Robertson listened to? What do they got that I ain't got? Getting this little card is the same as the Scarecrow getting his diploma or the Tin Man getting his clock heart. Was the Wizard wrong in giving them tokens of things that was in them all along? No. Tokens are nice. I've done my homework, read all the holy (and unholy) books, wrestled with a million angels, peered into the abyss. The least I can ask for is a 2 x 3.5 inch piece of plastic that says I've been a good and faithful servant of myth and morality. I like my token, and it was worth whatever silly amount of money I paid for it.

Don't forget though: I really can perform weddings and all that. So can notary publics, so whatever, but my thing works too. All proper and official. Yes, sure, they want you to buy the coffee mug, but the free part is the most valuable, and the life quest that eventually led to a "be a minister in less than 24 hours" website is priceless.

The Cosby Show: The Juicer

In season two of The Cosby Show, in an episode called "The Juicer," Dr. Cliff Huxtable brings home a new gadget: a juicer that he demonstrates to the family, making it look fun and appealing, especially to his youngest daughter, a cute and innocent six-year-old named Rudy. Dr. Huxtable makes it clear that this is his juicer and that no one is allowed to touch it.

One day, Cliff and his wife Claire leave their thirteen-year-old daughter Vanessa in charge of Rudy, but Vanessa is preoccupied with her friend on the telephone and largely ignores her. When Rudy and her friend Peter are bored, they go to the kitchen to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but there's no jelly, so they use her dad's forbidden juicer: shoving grapes into it and leaving the top off. Naturally, they make a terrible mess. Both children flee the scene of the crime, hide, and feel ashamed.

When Cliff comes home to see juice all over the kitchen, he is predictably angry, though calm. Dr. and Mrs. Huxtable (Claire) first have a talk with Vanessa and scold her for not doing her duty in watching her little sister. Claire also points out that Cliff was partly guilty because he made the juicer look so attractive. Then Cliff and Rudy have their special talk. She earnestly apologizes, and Cliff reminds her of why what she did was wrong. She is told that she has to clean up the mess, with Vanessa's help. It is a very sweet scene between father and daughter, and it ends with a tender kiss.

But is this what should have happened? No!

First, since Cliff was both forbidder and tempter, he should have convinced Rudy that the temptation was actually carried out by another person altogether (because good and evil can't exist in one being), insisting that this evil person was some lowly creature. Vanessa seems to be the best scapegoat for this scenario. Cliff has already blamed her for not watching Rudy -- apparently expecting a young teen to be the equivalent of a parent -- so blaming Vanessa for the temptation itself is the next logical step. Rudy, being impressionable, will easily believe the new version of history, and this will cause enmity between Vanessa and Rudy for the rest of their lives. Dr. Huxtable, meanwhile, can be secure in his role as the all-powerful, all-good forbidder.

Of course, Dr. Huxtable doesn't need a wife either. As a doctor who delivers babies, he can bring life into the world, and he doesn't need anyone to point out when he's done something wrong, since that will damage his all-good reputation. So Claire should have never been in the picture to begin with.

Next in the story, Cliff should have used his skills as an obstetrician to make it so that -- if his daughter eventually has children -- she will have an especially painful labor. It's obviously what a disobedient daughter deserves. As for Peter, Cliff should have instructed him that he and Rudy are no longer equals in friendship. Instead, Peter is now the dominant friend and should behave accordingly, since Rudy was the one who put the fruit in the juicer. But Peter will be punished too: he will not be able to eat as much food as he wants because he'll have to work for it now (a terrible fate for a fat kid).

Because, of course, what should have ultimately happened is that Cliff should have kicked the pair out of the house altogether, forever, so that they didn't mess with any other appliances, now that they probably knew how to use them as well as Cliff, causing them to be like him, with the knowledge of the right way and wrong way to use gadgets. Maybe Cliff could give them an extra set of clothes first, though, to be nice, before sending them on their way. Cliff should also have placed attack dogs at the entrance of the house (especially the kitchen), to make sure the couple -- especially Rudy -- never come back.

And if this harsh and seemingly unfair punishment leads to these innocent, helpless children having a rough life, maybe eventually giving birth to a son who becomes the murderer of his own brother, so be it.

May 21, 2011: In Perspective

As you've probably heard or seen on billboards, Family Radio, founded by Harold Camping, has said that Judgment Day and the Rapture will be on May 21, 2011 (at about 6:00 pm, in whatever time zone you're in) and that the end of the world itself will be later the same year on October 21 after five months of suffering for those left behind. The Rapture will be accompanied by earthquakes and will take about three percent of the population.

Of course, mainstream Christians do not believe this prophecy. They know that one god created everything in the universe, that he was a father who begat (without a mother) only one son, both of whom -- along with a magic spirit -- are part of a unit that is actually three entities in one. When this creator god created the first two humans, a snake tricked them into eating a piece of fruit, so sin began and mankind was cursed. But one day, a woman who had never had sex was impregnated by the magic spirit and gave birth to this son of the god in human form. This god in human form was nailed to a piece of wood so that humanity's sins could be forgiven, but three days later (after diving into the underworld first, where the punished are tormented forever) he was brought back to life and floated upward in the sky where his father lived. But, one day, the son of this creator god will return to judge those living and those who have died (a resurrection of dead bodies occurring somewhere in this timeline), appearing in a cloud in the sky with trumpets being blown by creatures who are immortal and live in the sky but are not themselves considered gods. Anyone who accepts that the human version of the son of the god is in fact the actual son of the god (especially if they also ceremonially are covered with water, eat crackers, and drink wine) will be forgiven and called up to the sky, but those who do not will suffer until the world finally ends.

But to say that this judgment day is going to be Saturday is too far-fetched to be believed!

Belief In Marduk

As you all know, Marduk is the ultimate god. When Marduk defeated the chaotic Tiamat and created mankind out of the blood of her rebel husband Qingu, his father Ea bestowed all of his power onto Marduk himself. Fifty gods were then absorbed into Marduk so that the became the supreme being. His tower was built in Babylon, which is the center of the universe. This is all recorded in the Enuma Elish, written around 1800 BCE, which is also known as The Epic of Creation.

However, some people do not believe that Marduk exists. Some are atheist, some are agnostic, and some believe in strange gods. The following is a list of arguments that attempt to explain why Marduk does in fact exist.

The Teleological Argument (Argument from Design) -- Just look at the world around you. Doesn't it seem like a huge coincidence that humans need water to drink, air to breathe, and food to eat, and here we are in a world that supplies all of those things? Did you know that if the earth weren't tilted just so that nothing could live on the planet? Not to mention the beauty all around us: the waterfalls, the rainbows, the mountains. All of it couldn't have come about by chance. There must be a designer. The Enuma Elish tells us that, when Marduk defeated Tiamat, he split her in two and created the earth and the sky. Her tears became the Tigris and Euphrates river. Her breasts became mountains. Marduk established order in the cosmos, telling the stars, moon, and sun how to behave. He set up our calendar and established time itself. None of this would have come about if it were not for Marduk. He is the intelligent designer, and he is the true answer to the question of how things got here: not evolution, which science cannot even prove and is just a theory.

The Cosmological Argument (First Cause) -- Everything that exists has a cause. You know that you came to exist because your mother and father brought you in to this world. They exist because their mothers and fathers brought them into this world. That tree was once an acorn, which came from a previous tree. And so on. So what caused it all? Something had to, right? We know that Ea was Marduk's father and that before Ea there was Anu who was the son of Anshar who was the son of Lahmu who was the son of Tiamat and Apsu, who is known as "the first one." So Apsu was the first one, the first cause, but Ea defeated Apsu and then Ea gave all his powers to Marduk. Therefore, Marduk exists and is -- essentially -- the first cause.

Argument from Morality -- We know that morality exists. Why don't we murder people? Why don't we steal? Why don't we eat babies? Because those things are immoral. But where does this idea of morality come from? If Marduk had not established the cosmic order of the universe, then we would have no morality at all, no right and wrong, and all would be in chaos. We know that Tiamat was evil, not because of anything she did necessarily (though we now call what she did evil), but because Marduk (who is wise above all) felt the need to defeat her. William Lane Craig reasons this way: 1. If Marduk doesn't exist, then morality doesn't exist. 2. Morality does exist. 3. Therefore, Marduk exists. Note that morality is beyond science. Science doesn't care if we shoot someone in the head or not, because science just thinks we're a series of atoms randomly put together. But Marduk cares, and so we don't kill. The fact that murderers are punished proves that all of our laws are based on our belief in Marduk's existence.