A Humanist in the Bible Belt

Is God a Petulant Little Boy?

The equation of the entity known as God with a petulant little boy is not new. Rod Serling used it in a Twilight Zone episode decades ago. A ten-year-old monster played by Billy Mumy had by the beginning of the teleplay evolved absolute power, and used it to gratify his every whim. He had "thought" the rest of the universe out of existence, and only his terrified family survived, living their lives in constant fear that he would turn their heads inside out or commit some comparable atrocity if he so much as imagined that one of them had affronted his extravagant ego. Not until the episode was over did viewers realize that it was about the birth of god.

Nor was the birth of God restricted to The Twilight Zone. A movie starring Eric Braedon, under his original German name, was about a computer that had as many nodules as the human brain, and gradually took over the world. It slowly enslaved its technicians, and when it tired of playing with them it blew up a couple of cities to prove that it could not be turned off and would not tolerate any form of disobedience. But only when it informed the Braeden character at the very end, "You will learn to love me," did the movie’s true meaning become apparent.

Similarly, in the second Star Trek pilot, in which William Shatner took over the captain’s role, a character played by Gary Lockwood developed absolute power and became absolutely corrupt. To this day, many hardcore Star Trek fans are unaware that the episode was about the birth of God.

What all of those screenplays had in common is that "God," even when played by an adult or a computer, was as capricious and egocentric as the petulant child in The Twilight Zone. In other words, he was depicted as precisely the temperamental, spiteful, vicious, vindictive, megalomaniac, "Do it my way, see!" serial killer described in the Judaeo-Christian Bible.

Would anyone be taken by surprise to encounter a spoiled brat who demanded that he be served hamburgers on a Wimpy plate, but hot dogs on a Goofy plate? Or so manipulated his surroundings that all who came into his presence were required to be similarly served? But what of a President or Prime Minister who imposed such customs on his citizens, and criminalized violations of his whims? How long would it take the citizenry to recognize that he belonged in a mental institution? Behavior that is barely tolerable in a nasty little boy would be totally unacceptable from anyone else, right?

So what about a parent/head of state/lawgiver who decreed that eating a salami sandwich was permitted for everyone under his authority, and eating a cheese sandwich was permitted, but eating a salami-and-cheese sandwich was not permitted? Or that drinking wine was compulsory on a specified date in Israel, but prohibited in Salt Lake City? Or that leaving home without cashmere gloves would anger him, or leaving home without a turban? Or that eating meat was virtuous on Thursday but immoral on Friday?

A human who laid down such rules would be recognized as an ill-bred little kid who had never grown up. So why is a god that imposes similar capricious, pointless, indefensible ordinances credited with the right to do anything it wishes? Are god addicts genuinely incapable of recognizing that their deity’s behavior differs in no way from that of a petulant little boy? Are they mind-slaves who dare not recognize what is in front of their noses, for the same reason the enslaved masses in the communist empire dared not even think that their lawmakers were plain evil, in case they talked in their sleep and a snitch overheard and reported them to the thought police?

God was created in the image of kings who could do anything they wished, whose every whim was law, and who were allowed to act like petulant little boys because nobody dared rebuke them. Is it any surprise that God turned out to be a carbon copy of the nasty little brats who created him?