What God is

Something truly beautiful from Jacob's synopsis of the final episode of Battlestar, and on why Baltar's speech about God truly, truly sucked so much. Rob and I turned to each other as one at the point where Baltar suddenly started randomly talking about God, and Rob said, "Is it just me, or did this suddenly start to suck a lot?

And here's why, at least, to me, the theist in that equation (aside from the fact that it took our steak, cut it up into tiny pieces, chewed it for us, and forcefed us, as opposed to letting us think for ourselves about the Battlestar God/s):

I like the implication of a double-blind in which the Gods have a personal stake in your personal well-being, while also being infinitely infinite to the point where you're just part of one big dance, so stop trying to make God the mascot for your temporary, self-contained bullshit. That God's not projection, God is wild magic you can't possibly comprehend: God's the forest, you're just a tree, or the river that feeds the ocean that feeds the river, all that. Instead, you get this mangled "we are all special which is how we know that God exists, except God doesn't really care so we aren't special, except we are."

Incidentally, Jacob was raised by a pagan and an atheist, like Morgan will be, which is interesting to me - especially how he pegs onto the goddess-related imagery that is very strong in certain parts of this show. And it's fascinating seeing the perspective of someone who was not raised to see it through a monotheistic, Christian lens, because, even if you leave it in adulthood, there's always a part of first-generation apostates that will see things through that lens. I resent it, and I think the greatest gift I could give my children is to give them freedom from those constraints.

But, yeah, that's God!