It is of course perfectly inconsistent to hate God *and* claim that He
doesn't exist. But that inconsistency has the noblest of pedigrees,
and is the exact opposite of what orthodox theodicy requires - to
attribute all the evils of creation to God *and* assert that one loves
Him.
I find gnosticism appealing: the Creator exists, and is mad;
consequently there is no sanity in creation and the only rational
response of any sane person to the created order is to diskard it
uterly. There exist hopeful and despairing versions of this creed. The
hopeful version says "smash capitalism (or whatever the prevailing
idiocy may be) and replace it with something nicer". The despairing
version says "why bother? You'll only get something even more dumb and
violent in its place". Actually, I don't find either of those
positions compelling, so maybe I'm not so hot on gnosticism after all.
Burroughs is good on this subject, explaining why a Many God Universe
makes more sense - you ask god X why such-and-such atrocity is
permitted to take place, and get a shrug: "No good asking me. Hustling
myself". Maybe god Y is having a pissing contest with god Z, and
you're the lucky recipient of that golden shower. There's no One in
charge. As below, so above.
Dominic
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