Faith, simplified.

As screwed up as our world is, it's hard to keep from asking, "How can God let this happen?" Here's my two cents' worth on where God is in all these.



Why do bad things happen to good people? Worse, why do the greedy, manipulative opportunists get to live the good life? Optimistic Christians say it’s God’s way of keeping us on the straight and narrow. Pessimistic Buddhists say life is inherently miserable, and that accepting this is the only way to transcend it. Every faith has its own way of explaining this undeniable reality. Not to put any particular religion down, but I must say that none of these explanations have ever really made sense to my sometimes overly logical mind.

Big problem. To stop believing in a God is out of the question. But at the same time, I’d like to have a God I can actually believe in. And honestly, I’m not so sure I can stay faithful to a God who in my lowly human capacity for comprehension can only be one of two things: (1) a prankster whose favorite pastime is pissing the crap out of people, just to see how far their faith goes; or (2) an indifferent bystander who watches idly as the devil throws shit into the fan.

For years I pondered on this, and eventually what I came around to is a rather amusing concept of God and man. Ultra-right-wing purists beware: this may make you want to stone or burn me at the stake. But for whatever it’s worth, I think I may have just figured out a way of reconciling the concepts of an infinitely merciful God (the bedrock foundation of Christian faith), free will (which is probably the only thing differentiating us from the animal kingdom), and reincarnation (which, although scientifically unproven, is also empirically impossible to disprove). Fancy these postulates, if you may:

1. The point of human existence is to earn our place in God’s kingdom. We are given an entire lifetime to do this. And it’s all our call—God does not meddle into our affairs. Our fortunes and misfortunes are all consequences of our use of free will. The catch is that we are graded for the choices we make and the deeds we do. Come closing time at the end of our life, we get audited to see if we’ve stacked up enough merits to gain entry into the company of angels.

2. Hell is neither a place nor a dimension, but a condition known as Earthly life. For those of us who don’t get it right the first lifetime (and therefore do not get admitted into Heaven), there is no real penalty. There’s no eternal damnation in the fires of hell, or anything of that sort. Instead, we get a second chance—our souls get sent back to earth, to literally live life all over again. This, of course, means having to survive the cruelties of the world all over again.

3. God gives us infinite chances. If the second lifetime doesn’t work for us, no worries. We simply get sent back again… and again, and again, until we get it right, or God gets so exasperated with the world that He just decides to trash the whole thing, whichever comes first.

Quite a simplistic way of putting it, some might say. But seriously, does faith really have to be complicated? It’s not like God doesn’t want us to stay in His company, He does. So why in Heaven’s name (no pun intended) would He make things difficult for us? The way I see it, He simply wants to protect His home from rowdy drunks, and so He tells us to go take a walk, sober up, and then come back.

At the end of the day, all I want is to make sense out of this twisted world and keep my faith. And if coming up with a few twisted ideas of my own is the way to do this, then maybe in this case, the end can justify the means.