The Creator's headache

God was sitting on his throne, rubbing his temples in frustration.

“What is it with people these days?” he wondered aloud. “When I gave people the ability to reason, I expected them to use it wisely.”

God sighed and slouched in his chair a bit. An angel had brought him the news earlier that day that the Indiana Senate had passed a bill allowing school boards to teach Christian “theories of the origin of life,” such as creationism, in classrooms. Of course, God in his omniscience had already known that, but nonetheless it annoyed him.

God was just sick and tired of politicians using his name to advance their own agendas. Unfortunately, the brand management consultant God had found in purgatory hadn’t really helped at all.

God turned toward his right hand in search of some sympathy.

Jesus looked back at him. “You know, people are free to believe what they want. After all, they have to come of their own free will to you and me.”

“I know. It’s just—” God sputtered for a bit. “It’s just, this bill is a political stunt, and its sponsor Dennis Kruse is an embarrassment to me and to Indiana! Why do they take Genesis so literally? Can’t everybody use their reason and believe in evolution?”

“Stop that!” snapped Jesus. “I know for a fact that you love each and every one of your children, despite all their faults. Besides, that’s not the real problem.”

God nodded reluctantly.

“You know politicians will be politicians,” Jesus said. “The issue is that the public and scientists just talk past each other when they discuss evolution.

“You see, the public doesn’t understand the evidence for evolution or how central evolution is to modern biology. I mean, doing biology without evolution would be like doing math without a concept of numbers.

“And worse, scientists don’t understand that science isn’t something empirical to the general public, and so beating people over the head with the data for evolution isn’t doing a lot of good.

Until they understand that people mean it when they say evolution is a “belief,” it’s like talking to a brick wall. Right?”

God nodded and said, “I know what you mean,” because, of course, he really did know.

“Still,” Jesus continued, “I share your frustration with how unbecoming and unprofessional this bill is. Are you going to stop it?”

God sighed, looking exasperated. “No, I have to restrain myself. If I interfered every time I was annoyed by something all there’d be left  are Buddhist monks and a couple of cockroaches. Besides, it’ll all turn out well in the end. At worst, there’s no way the Supreme Court would ever overturn Edwards v. Aguillard — think of the public outrage!

“No, who I’m really worried about is the high school science teachers who are intimidated to take a pro-evolution stance by this law and the students who might have to sit through this crap about ‘holes’ in evolution.

“Actually, send a memo to Mary asking her to pray for them, would you?”

Jesus turned to his administrative assistant angel and began dictating a memo.

­— sidfletc@indiana.edu