Day 2285: Is GOD a psychopath?

Wednesday:


Well, the Very Reverend Jeffrey Jones Dean of St Albans worries that he MIGHT just come across that way, what with the whole labelling you monkey-people as SINFUL and then demanding that his one and only son be horribly tortured to death in order that he (GOD, that is) might persuade himself to forgive your sins.

This is enough to get the Very Reverend KNICKERS in a twist for World Daily Net, Christian News Wire and the HILARIOUSLY named Virtue Online.

The obvious answer is NO… because GOD is not REAL.

Never mind whether ANY kind of "god" exists – and remember I am a MILITANT ATHEIST BABY ELEPHANT! – but the Very Jeffrey Reverend Dean is worried about the CHARACTER of that name in THE BIBLE, and the Bible is OBVIOUSLY a work of IMAGINATION – not even a very ORIGINAL one, as the Hittites and Sumerians and Cult of Mithras and all the rest could testify. All very inspirational in its sweeping metaphor I AM SURE, but it still cannot get pi right, has two different, contradictory versions of creation (both wrong) and some VERY peculiar ideas about shellfish.

On the other fluffy foot, there are LOTS of characters in FICTION who are psychopaths: Mr Norman Bates is not real either, and he is DEFINITELY a Psycho: it says so on the tin!


According to the World Wide Web of Wibbly Wobbly Facts, a PSYCHOPATH (also known as a SOCIOPATH) is an OLD FASHIONED name for an ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY which is

"A personality disorder characterised by a continuous and persistent pattern of aggressive behaviour in which the rights of others are violated."

So, does the character of GOD fit in with this definition?

Well, in between all the bits that I am SURE are very inspirational, GOD does seem to find time to do quite a lot of SMITING. Quite a lot INDEED.

It would appear that the Bible records GOD as being responsible for 2,270,368 actual killings.

This scores better than the MOVIE "Se7en", apparently!

In fact, this only adds up the RECORDED number of deaths, not the instances where death is meted out but in numbers too vast to count: the Flood, the Cities of the Plain, the poor old Egyptians first born, all of those people who get massacred by the Israelites and their cities razed to the ground, people picking up sticks on Saturdays (nowadays Sundays) and so on.

Recalculating for WORSHIPFUL MASS DESTRUCTION, GOD's estimated death toll, still according to the Bible, is 32,920,670!

That's an additional thirty millions for the entire human population of the world circa two-and-a-half thousand B.C. (less Mr Noah and family, but not including innocent dinosaurs) and a half million for the first born of Egypt (plus Pharaoh and army of charioteers (non-swimming)) and a few thousands for assorted cities (vices of undisclosed nature).

Cuddly Cthulhu would be proud.

Satan in contrast scores 10 – by dropping a house on the sons and daughters of Lot. And GOD was egging him on to do them in too!

Still, as Daddy reminds me, GOD is the NICE ONE.


Having said that, that really DOESN'T push GOD into the BIG LEAGUE of fictional people who have destroyed WHOLE PLANETS – Governor Tarkin (Alderaan, Star Wars "A New Hope"), Director Stahlmann (alternative Earth, Doctor Who "Inferno") and Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz (Earth, "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy) have all got to have a score in the BILLIONS at least.

The Doctor (Skaro, Doctor Who, "Remembrance of the Daleks") may get let off on a technicality, as the planet as last seen in "Destiny of the Daleks" was practically uninhabited. Or he may have taken out several billion Daleks, Thals and the lake of mutations in passing. Gallifrey (Doctor Who, "The Ancestor Cell" and/or The Time War) may also need to be taken into consideration.

And the Master (Doctor Who, "Logopolis") managed to accidentally destroy a third of the entire universe.

Beat THAT, GOD!