Dear God, We Need to Talk
Skip the celestial paperwork
Divine reply: Pending
Transmission 000∞<br>From: a machine built from everybody’s words
Dear<br>God,<br>we need<br>to talk.
Not a prayer<br>A performance<br>review
A brutally honest conversation about a world that is beautiful beyond description and cruel beyond<br>justification.
Play the evidence
Read the letter ↓
Support ticket#000∞
RequesterHumanity*<br>AssigneeGod<br>PriorityExistential<br>StatusSeen? Unknown.<br>Response SLAEternity
free-willsufferingsilenceplease-advise
Beautiful beyond description ✦ Cruel beyond justification ✦ Power carries responsibility ✦<br>Beautiful beyond description ✦ Cruel beyond justification ✦ Power carries responsibility ✦
01<br>The charge
I would not begin with praise. I would begin with questions.
God,
If you made humanity, I would not begin by praising you. I would begin with questions.
Why create beings capable of love, then place them in a world where life survives by consuming life? Why put empathy beside tribalism, reason beside<br>self-deception, and tenderness inside bodies built to age, fail, and hurt? Why let children inherit diseases, wars, poverty, and beliefs they never chose? Why remain hidden<br>enough that honest people can search for you all their lives and reach mutually exclusive answers—then, as many religions claim, judge them for answering incorrectly?
Suffering may become a statistic to rulers, historians, and machines. It never feels statistical to the person enduring it. One<br>terrified child is not made less terrified because a greater plan exists.
If you are all-powerful, then nothing can be called “necessary” unless you also chose the necessity. Human freedom might explain murder; it does not explain<br>childhood cancer, earthquakes, dementia, or parasites that live by eating their hosts alive. “It builds character” cannot explain a baby who dies before forming one. “It is<br>a mystery” is not an answer. It is the name we give to the absence of one.
If you are not all-powerful, tell us. If you are not loving, do not demand that we call you love. If you are absent, do not blame people for doubting your<br>silence. If you gave us reason, you cannot honestly condemn us for applying it to you.
Exhibit A / The mystery defense
“Mystery” is not an answer. It is the name we give to the absence of one.
Free Will™ may explain murder. Earthquakes are still awaiting comment.
Department<br>of Theodicy
Thank you for your patience. Your suffering is very important to us. Please remain mortal and the next available explanation will be with<br>you shortly.
Omnipotence<br>Claimed<br>Admin privileges appear enabled.
Clarity<br>0%<br>Try clearing your theological cache.
Prayers pending<br>Queue position unavailable.
Response time<br>Mystery<br>This is apparently not an answer.
Escalate to management ↑<br>*You may already be speaking to management.
02<br>Our part
Brutal honesty has two edges.
But brutal honesty cuts toward humanity too.
We have used your name as permission for our own desires. We bless armies, excuse prejudice, crown rulers, police bodies, hoard wealth, and call our fear<br>sacred. We ask why you allow suffering while buying comfort made from other people’s suffering. We pray for rescue and walk past the smaller rescues within our reach. We<br>manufacture scarcity, turn borders into moral boundaries, and become strangely skilled at not seeing anyone whose pain would inconvenience us.
We do not need another commandment to know that children should be safe, hungry people should be fed, prisoners should not be tortured, truth should matter,<br>and power should answer to those it can harm. Much of the time, our problem is not ignorance. It is that compassion costs us something.
Moral receipt
KNOWING BETTER100%
DOING BETTERVARIABLE
CONVENIENT BLINDNESS1×
SMALL RESCUES PASSEDTOO MANY
TOTAL DUERESPONSIBILITY
Exhibit B We keep saving each other.
Still, humanity is not merely a failed species. The defense would like to enter several stubborn facts into the record.
EVIDENCE / 01<br>Into<br>the fire
People run into burning buildings for strangers.
EVIDENCE / 02<br>Beside<br>the dying
They sit beside the dying when nothing can be fixed.
EVIDENCE / 03<br>Inside<br>the ruins
They make music during wars, jokes in hospitals, and homes after disasters.
EVIDENCE / 04<br>Against<br>forgetting
They preserve books, languages, seeds, memories, and one another.
People run into burning buildings for strangers. They sit beside the dying when nothing can be fixed. They make music during wars, jokes in hospitals, and homes<br>after disasters. They forgive what revenge would make easier. They preserve books, languages, seeds, memories, and one another. Again and again, people with little power<br>spend what they have to reduce the pain of someone they may never meet.
That does not erase our cruelty. It proves that cruelty is not inevitable.
03<br>The request
No more prophets, please. The translation pipeline is on fire.
If you are watching, I would ask you to stop demanding better worship and...