by Jim Stark
"No problem,” said the driver. “It's been a long day."
The actual report of the subgroup—double-spaced, laser printed and only four pages long—was so diplomatic and general as to be of no great use. It skirted many of the issues that would be of concern or help to Bishop Doyle. Steve was bags-under-the-eyes tired, and he didn't look forward to coping with Bill. What he wanted was ten hours of sleep, dreamless sleep, a physical and mental recharge. But duty called, and Bill Doyle was, after all, his friend—arguably his responsibility.
Here we go, he said to himself as he opened the manila folder and found the rough, handwritten notes he'd made for himself as the discussion had raged in his subgroup. There were perhaps thirty pages in all, and he flipped through the lot of them before doing any actual rereading.
It had been his habit to jot the initials of the speaker beside every entry, and he was surprised to see how many times “QS” showed up. These initials stood for Quincy Smith, a twenty-three-year-old bookstore clerk who made a point of telling everyone about how his parents had tried to make up for his boring surname by calling him Quincy, after some crusading coroner in a TV series from “the olden days,” which for him meant the 1980s.
Quincy was the most annoying person Steve had met in many years. He wasn't really that annoying, but it had been a long time since Steve had had to deal with any annoying people. Most people did their best not to be annoying when they were talking to Bishop Sutherland. But now the starched, white Berlin Wall that used to surround his neck was gone, and coping with Quincy Smith was a lesson for Steve on what life was like for the flock.
Quincy had a penchant for saying things that were worthy of note, and then smiling, as if he'd just landed a roundhouse right. Steve was a newcomer to the ranks of atheism, and he had felt resentment every time he was compelled to jot down things that Quincy had said. Still, in his notes, the initials QS were written beside almost half the entries, even though there were six people in his subgroup. As an exercise in humility, he decided to review all the QS entries first, then double back and reread the rest.
QS—belief in God doesn't prove there is a God—unbelief in God doesn't prove there isn't a God—if there actually is a God, and He wanted us to know Him, He did a lousy job of it
"Lousy” was Steve's word. Quincy had actually said “piss poor,” but Steve couldn't make himself write that down. He buzzed open the gray-tinted window to his right and looked out at the neon signs and the streetlights. Soon he would be across the Champlain Bridge, across the south-west corner of the city of Gatineau and into the countryside, a blackened place at this hour, the way ... he almost thought the way God intended night to be. God was a tough habit to break, he was finding.
He didn't want to go back to his notes about Quincy. It bothered him that this guy seemed to take pleasure in trashing religion. At one point in the L.A.P. discussions, there had been a confrontation between Nancy Ferguson, the kennel owner, and Quincy. Steve had ended up acting as the mediator, and his mind drifted back to that numbing conflict as the car passed through Ottawa's west end.
Nancy was apparently a devout Presbyterian, quite involved in her parish in Carp. She presented a spirited apologia to the group, telling one and all that faith was a good thing, and that believing in God was a matter of free will, of choice, no matter what the LieDeck might say about anything. “If I say I believe in God, that's the end of the discussion,” she had declared with a smack of her open palm on the desk, “just as if I were to say I believe in love, or in human rights. With your damn permission, Quincy, I am, and I always will be, in charge of me!"
Good point, Steve remembered thinking at the time, even if the presentation was a tad heavy on enthusiasm and innuendo. Nancy's faith seemed as well-founded as that of most true believers, and she had held her ground against the argumentative bookstore clerk.
But then the gloves had come off, and after several typically snarky Quincy Smith barbs, she had told him that he could fuck right off with his God damn LieDeck fetish, that she was under no obligation to test her faith on the thing and friggin’ well wouldn't do it. In the heat of battle, she had alluded to the four billion people or so who agreed with her, and she had called Quincy a “fucking faith-basher.” That was the one that popped the cork.
Steve had felt torn then. His entire adult life had prepared him to jump in with both lungs and support Nancy's point of view, to amplify and buttress her faith with elegant turns of theological phrase. But he now found himself, at least technically, on Quincy's side ... not a place he wanted to be. For most of the spat between Nancy and Quincy, he had settled for “non-directive leadership,” the politically correct euphemism for ... well, chickening out.
He turned a few pages and found the notes he had taken during that contest of wills. Quincy, he remembered, wasn't willing to be insulted without putting up a feisty defense.
QS—if I said aliens didn't exist, you wouldn't call that faith-bashing—evidence of existence of aliens stronger than evidence for existence of God—you wouldn't get offended if I said “Believing in aliens is a crock"—the sorriest truth is that if I tried to convert people to a belief in an alien entity with 1/4 the powers of your Christian God, you'd put me away in rubber room and hit me with psychoactive drugs and anti-depressants in the sincere hope that you could cure me of my deluded faith
Steve half-smiled as he remembered his reaction to that tirade. It wasn't the substance of what had been said—that was a point well made, he supposed—it was the feeling he'd had of genuinely wanting to see Quincy Smith locked up in a psychiatric ward. It was a terribly mean thing to think, and Steve's adult life had been ruled by a field full of stop signs, one of which was: “Thou shalt not think mean thoughts, because if you do, you'll just have to confess them later.” Now that the old rule book had been chucked out, he had to admit to himself that it was okay—and it was fun—to think mean thoughts—especially about the irrepressible QS.
He remembered interjecting at that point, asking Quincy outright why he felt compelled to antagonize people. “I don't antagonize people,” he had said; “I protagonize them.” A middle-aged man in the group had then faulted Quincy for inventing a word, for working on the premise that “bullshit baffles brains,” at which point Quincy Smith had astonished everyone by apologizing! He then rephrased his comment, redefining himself as a “social expectorant,” and dove right back into the elegant tongue-lashing he'd been delivering to Nancy. Steve looked down again at his notes.
NF—humanity's will to believe goes deeper than just a wish to avoid death or fear of death
QS—what does that mean, “deeper?"—deeper where?—deeper into what?—if all we have to go deeper into is our emotions, then fear of death is as deep as it gets—you want to see how deep faith goes compared to the fear of death?—I'm Jewish on my mother's side—Jewish history full of episodes of messianic fervor—we're always looking to see if this or that rabbi is the Messiah—back in 17th C., thousands of Jews got ready to return to Jerusalem, to follow this Turkish rabbi called Sabbatai Sevi—only problem was locals got hold of him—told him unless he converted to Islam, they'd kill him—he converted to Islam, a better-red-than-dead sort of deal—left his followers pretty screwed up—fear of death won, hands down
NF—what about all the Christian martyrs and martyrs of other faiths who died rather than renounce their faith?
"Zing,” said Steve under his breath. He loved it when Nancy scored a zinger. And he wondered if he was beginning to enjoy the process, the cut and thrust, the war of words, the act of battle, the idea of risking symbolic death, preferably inflicting it, only to live to fight, verbally, another day. He also thought he caught a nano-glimpse in his mind of him and Nancy doing the deed ... yikes! He'd have to deal with that later. He turned his eyes back to his notes.
QS—if our intellects are the deepest well of existence we can tap into or be, then who's to say what is deep, or deepest?—you say that this thing goes deeper than that th
ing—you're free to believe stuff like that and you're also free to put it forward for others to consider—and I'm free to say “bullshit"
—the fact is that billions of humans feel compelled to say that they believe in God, and that is proof of nothing, theologically speaking—human beings have felt compelled to believe all kinds of dumb things—a pope once declared the Earth was flat—bleeding a patient was done to speed up healing—a few years ago, millions of African men believed that having sex with a white woman was a cure for AIDS—I really don't want to be disrespectful of other people's beliefs, but I'll tell you this free of charge—if the entire human race said that eating rat shit would purge my soul of evil, I still wouldn't eat rat shit—and I'd laugh at the lot of you if you did any different—does that make me a nasty guy?
No, thought Steve. That, in itself, doesn't make you nasty, but you are nasty. Smart, educated, but nasty.
And yet Quincy Smith was not alone in expressing such strong feelings. A lot of people who had been loyal to God and generous with their parish or their favorite TV evangelists were feeling ripped off in recent days. It was alarming, frightening, for Steve to witness the intensity of emotion that was wafting around the L.A.P. on this subject and on other issues. His people were being buffeted about by the introduction of the LieDeck into their private spaces ... and so were the other people on the planet ... all of them ... at the same time!
The Patriot car rolled across the Champlain Bridge. Steve felt a sense of aloneness that he had never known before, even during his darkest moments under the cassock. He buzzed up the window to within an inch of the frame and leaned his throbbing forehead against the cool glass, allowing the sliver of night air to pass through his thinning hair. It helped. He was further soothed by the blackness of the water down below. There weren't any actual ice floes left, he knew, but the river was still frigid ... like the road ahead for humanity, he mused. He turned back to the manila folder on his lap.
QS—a religious doctrine is an opinion stated as fact without proof—accepting a doctrine is a leap of faith we make based on the reliability of indoctrinators, clergymen, God's best human buddies—main job of clergy is to indoctrinate, recruit, to shove opinions down throats, to make others agree that God must be exactly as He is interpreted to be by those who say they are His agents—God, if He exists at all, has no opinions—He doesn't need them because He is the ultimate know-it-a
Steve recoiled at the sarcasm that seemed to worm its way into Quincy's every word. He also wondered why the word “God” still got capitalized in his notes—even “He” and “His,” when they referred to God or Jesus. Another habit I suppose I'll have to break, he thought.
QS—who rakes in the most dough on this planet?—governments of nations, corporations and religions, in that order—governments give back security and social services—corporations give back goods and services—religions give us a pack of lies and fears—all religions claim to have a lock on divine truth, but they all contradict each other—best case scenario is they're all completely wrong except one, which is completely right—very odd that people actually believe clergy—nobody's got the guts to come right out and say “Hey, check it out; the King is stark fucking naked"
Steve closed his eyes, rested his soul, his psyche ... whatever. Quincy Smith is so ... offensively self-assertive, so God damned ... He didn't finish that thought. He was oddly annoyed at himself for swearing, even internally, in a way that perpetuated the illusion of an unseen and all-powerful player in all human lives that people were deathly afraid of if they were smart. He was becoming an atheist, and didn't like it much. No, he already was an atheist, so had to figure out how to live all over again. That was the problem, and he'd come to resent the way that thought jumped in to fill the predicate space in so many of his sentences, even in his private thoughts.
One more shot, he said to himself, although I'm not quite sure why. He began reading his notes again.
QS—if we assume one religion got it right + all the others are heresies, why should we assume that it must be one of the great religions that got it right?—because they've got the most followers and the most money?—the great religions used to sacrifice virgins, behead infidels, burn witches—more than half a million in Europe, by some estimates—and charge money to get into God's good books—their credibility is at least suspect—maybe some little sect or cult got it right—what about that religious leader in the Philippines who had his followers running around deflating car and truck tires because that's what God wanted?—what if he had the real key to salvation?—what if Jehovah's Witnesses got it right, and God only wants 144,000 people in heaven due to housing shortage?—odds of you or me getting in would be about as good as winning the 649 lottery!—maybe shaving heads and hassling people at airports is theologically correct—what about that cult that teaches that the rational mind is the root of all evil, and our use of that faculty is a surefire ticket to hell?—problem: if you say religion stinks, Christians (other believers) will define your behavior as deviant and say that you oppose goodness and light and endorse evil—maybe in future, belief in God will be considered deviant!—atheists and agnostics should band together and fight the prejudices that the “Godists” lay on us—we should form a union and go on strike and ... ?
Steve chucked his notes back into the manila folder, put the whole works into the briefcase, and slapped the lid down. Out of sight, out of ... sight, he said to himself with a weary sigh. How do I get God out of my mind after all those decades, after all that praying? he wondered. At least I can put that abrasive little prick Quincy out of my mind.
He had tired of the scalding put-downs and insults, but try as he might, he couldn't seem stop the whirlwind that was Quincy Smith. What a bitter man, he thought, although he was unsure why he was being so defensive, why he still felt so protective of God, of the Church, and of religion in general, or why it felt unseemly to listen to someone roast a mere myth. Conditioning, I suppose, he decided privately.
If there's no God, then what exactly is the Church? Assuming that the Pope and the cardinals do believe in God, a premise that will surely be tested very soon, then they are in the business of spreading their sincerely-held beliefs, even if those beliefs have no foundation in fact. But what if ... Steve had difficulty even thinking that thought ... what if the Pope is just like me and Bill? What if he finds out that he's an atheist? What if he stands on the balcony at the Vatican, saying the Credo, and his oration gets punctuated with beeps? Would people see the Church as a scam? Would that in fact be the proper perception? Would there be judicial inquiries, and lawsuits? Would people decide that Karl Marx had actually written one unstupid thing when he said that religion was the opiate of the masses? Would there be a collective psychotic episode if a few billion true believers went through simultaneous withdrawal from this powerful narcotic? Would priests and nuns be whipping out résumés, looking for honest work? What would become of the priceless treasures hoarded by the alleged Vicar of Christ? And what of the good work that is being done by missionaries, of many faiths? Oh, what a tangled web...
Either God exists or He doesn't, he thought again, deliberately. If there is a God, then Bill and I have lost our faith. But if there is no God, then Bill and I have shed ... a mental disorder, I suppose, and found ... what? Ourselves, I suppose ... or what's left of us.
Too many questions, he told himself. It would take time to get through all this, and even if he could conjure up possible or tentative answers on demand, most of them would be of little help to Bishop Doyle. He shook his head and wondered how in the world he would approach the discussion that he had to go through with his former colleague.
He also made a mental note to get in touch with Victor, and set a definite time when they could get down to work on that paper Victor was supposed to write, based on those reel-to-reel tapes that he'd made on the impact of the LieDeck, his ideas about ... how did he phrase it? Consciousness evolution?
He and Victor had talked brie
fly on this subject, or about Victor's conception of it, and what Steve had heard sounded ... well, “flaky” was the word he had thought of at the time. On the other hand, he now considered, some people might find it just as flaky that billions of people would go to church every Sunday and dump perfectly good money into a plate in order to think that they were eating the body and drinking the blood of a two-thousand-year-old Jewish guy who hallucinated that God was his daddy!
My oh my oh my, he said to himself as he searched for an expletive to replace the usual sexual and religious ones, I'm ... starting to think like Quincy Smith! He shook his head once more, harder this time.
This was virgin conceptual territory for Steve, and the absence of landmarks was as frightening as the loss of his old friend, prayer. A light dusting of mist formed on his face, and his stomach felt like a toddler lost in a shopping mall.
Then a stray thought crossed his mind. When he had used his LieDeck to confirm that he didn't believe in God—that was almost a week ago—he had assumed that it meant he was an atheist. He had been so shaken up to finally know for sure that his faith was gone that he hadn't really looked at the exact meaning of the experience. Sloppy thinking, he said to himself.
He took his LieDeck from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, switched it to the pin signaling mode, and turned it on, holding it in a damp hand. He bent over so the driver wouldn't hear, and he was thankful that the slightly open window was providing enough background noise to cover his mission as they passed by the garages and dépanneurs of Aylmer.
"There is a God,” he whispered into the mike. Oops. He'd forgotten. It didn't work if you whispered. In a barely audible voice, he repeated the hopeful statement directly into the mike, but the pin tapped his palm, as he knew it would. He'd gotten that far last time he did this.
"There is no God,” he said, in the same thin voice, and again the pin called him a liar, or, more precisely, told him he didn't believe that either. So! he thought as he turned off his LieDeck, I'm not an atheist after all! I'm an agnostic!