Finite Gods

Finite Gods

Michael Cannata

            In my search for truth and the meaning of Life, I sometimes turn off the TV and think about things. I know, it's a scary thing to do, but if you’re a serious student of Life like I am, you have to look at it once in a while. Maybe read a book about it. On a really desperate day I might even join in on Life. Not my own life necessarily, but someone's… or something's.

            The problem I have with getting in touch with the way I feel about Life and its meaning is that, when I do, I always start feeling like I've lost something. Or that something is missing. I begin to feel aimless. I already suffer from terminal forgetfulness anyway, and thinking about Life just makes it worse. All in all, it makes me feel that my life is just time to be spent searching for what I've lost; my faith… my youth… the remote... whatever.

            I've searched in vain for many of the things that other men have searched for and have never found any of them. I've searched for truth, for justice, I've searched for loose, easy women. All are hard to find.

            The hardest thing to find for me anywhere has been God. I have lots of questions that I would like to ask that only God, if there is such a guy, can answer. But God is harder to find than a mouse in a cat house.  

            I don't believe in gods in general, but I think they are fascinating creatures. And, having been raised as a catholic, (through no choice of my own, mind you) I find The GOD of the greatest interest. Once I heard of him and learned that he didn’t live in my neighborhood I started looking for him too.

            Now I admit that I’ve only covered the New England area and bits and pieces of other states. I’ve been to Las Vegas a lot but I’ve never looked for him there. I figured that Sin City is the last place he would hang around. But God, who is supposed to be every where, is nowhere to be found in my neck of the woods.

            I used to jokingly ask people if they have seen him around, but too many people took me seriously and started telling me, often in a not nice fashion, where to go to find him. Usually I was told to look in a place I am not flexible enough to see, let alone check. And I don’t think my head would fit anyway. But I still have questions that I would like answers for.

            I sometimes ask people if they can name something that they have that God can never have, or something they know that God doesn't know.  Some give me thoughtful and considered answers, some give me a slap on the head. The most unreliable answers come from the folks who say they've seen him, or work for him.

            Most of my questions are silly, but some are not.  Does God have a best friend... or a playroom? Has he ever known the embrace of a mother's arms? Has he known the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat? When he made the earth, what did he plan to do with it? If he made us, why doesn’t he hang around with us instead of hiding all the time?

            Mostly what I want to ask is what is it like to be a God? And more to the point, why does he want to be one? I've fantasized about what it would be like to be a Supreme Being and I have a pretty good imagination. Honestly, I have to tell you, to me, it doesn't sound so great. If you look at it, it must be a lonely thing to be a Supreme Being. To be bigger, better, smarter and just all around superior to everyone that exists. I mean, who would he hang around with? What mortal would be able to relate to God the way they do a friend who comes from their neighborhood or went to the same school with them.? It’s like being the BMOC at a college with one student.

            If you can never experience things like winning and losing, laughing or crying, succeeding after trying for so long you were really beginning to feel stupid in a serious way... if gods don't feel things like that... what’s so cool about being one? Suffering the irretrievable loss of someone you love, or feeling the prideful glow of personal achievement is something human that God can't experience.

            If you can create a universe and everything in it; if you have complete dominion over its very existence, once you've done that, what's left to do? What is the next reason for being once you're done? That's it! Go home! You win every game; you can beat up everybody in the world. You can do everything better than every body. Where do you go from there? If nobody has a chance of beating you or winning any games, eventually nobody will want to play with you anymore.

            I haven't found “The God” or any of the lesser gods yet. However, in my long and intense searching, I have found the answers to many of the other Mysteries of Life. After a rather lengthy and meandering quest I have found out where to find human conscience. And I am sure there is life after death; although it's nothing at all like heaven, and I'm pretty sure I can prove it. And not just to the O.J. jury.

            I can also prove that the following popular myths are quite true.

·         U.F.O.'s are real.

·         There are such things as ghosts.

·         There is magic.

·         The end of the world is not only coming, it's a lot closer than you think.

·         Dreams can come true.

·         Re-incarnation is both true and mandatory.

·         There are such things as psychics, little green men, monsters, heroes and Irish people who don't have an "O" in front of their last name.

            I think that I can explain just about every sort of phenomena that you can name. All of the dreams, visions, hallucinations and illusions that have been experienced by specific people and mankind in general have a single source. Many have brought inspirations that produced wondrous achievements. Some have served as portent for even more spectacular tragedies. And God had nothing to do with them.

            Man does not need to believe in God to make it through life but man seems to like the idea of there being one just in case. We give him credit for all the wonderful things that happen in life, but we also have him to blame when things suck. We made him the biggest, strongest, smartest and most powerful being ever. He’s one of a kind. No one comes close… and that’s the problem. Being the one and only means he is alone and lonely.

            We don’t need gods. We can exist with or without them. But gods need us. God can’t exist unless we believe in him. God did not create life, Life created us all, including Gods. Gods are not superior and people are not all equal. If gods have any power over our lives it’s only the power we give them. Gods are pretty special, but so are we. They have all the power, but we have all the fun.

            I think that, if they are real, gods need a way to play. They need us so they can know how to feel. They need us to help them experience what they have created. Gods are really rather pitiful and deserving of our sympathy. They are infinite entities who long for the finite. Immortals that can conceive all things possible but cannot experience any of the possibilities. They can imagine but never suffer the joys and terrors of the mortals that they created. We and all the things that live are life in all its infinite incarnations. We are what gods need to play.

            While we feel as humans, that we should strive to be as our gods; in reality, it is those gods that dwell in the realms of omniscience who envy us as we are. While we aspire to join gods and rise to heavens, I think that the gods wish they could join us. They are beings who can never know how it is to be. They create life but they can not know what it is to live.

            Creating life may be a God’s job; but getting a life is his goal.