"What if god was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a Stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home"
               -- JOAN OSBORNE

Along the way, I've seen subtle changes to the concept of God. In Sunday School, I was told he was both wrathful and benevolent. All the while, though, he was the supreme being; the omnipotent entity and purveyor of the pure truth and justice.

Then, as I got older, I started buying into the school of thought that God was a conduit for our better ideals. God wasn't so much an entity as God was a special place in the mind where one checked in during times of turmoil. God was where one took a timeout to think things out rationally and compassionately, so he could turn and walk away from an adversarial situation and not go berserk and kick somebody in the balls.

These days, I'm experiencing yet another phase of God.

Anne Graham, the daughter of evangelist Billy Graham, was asked how God could let Hurricane Katrina happen. Her response: "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And, being the gentleman he is, I believe he has calmly backed out.

"How can we expect God to give us his blessing and his protection if we demand he leave us alone?"

Years ago, I would have heard a response like this and flown into a rage. How dare you bible thumpers demand we fall to our knees and praise the almighty God, then turn around and let him off the hook when a catastrophe happens!

Yet, as I enter into the twilight of a typical life that has been populated by all sorts of ingratitude, malevolence and selfishness-(and I, over the course of time, have been just as big a prick as anyone else)-I find a voice inside me saying that, just maybe, Ms. Graham has a point.

What if my original Sunday school teachings were true? What if God was an actual being that is hovering somewhere in the stratosphere? Wouldn't he be a tad pissed off at a human race that is either ignoring him, or dropping his name to achieve its own self-serving ends?

Just because he's omnipotent, it doesn't mean the guy doesn't have feelings.

Think about it. From who else, but God, do we demand total perfection? I like what George Bernard Shaw had to say about that. "Whoever admits that anything living is evil must either believe that God is malignantly capable of creating evil, or else believe God has made many mistakes."

Come on, give the guy a break.

He had to listen to Jerry Falwell say: "AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals." I can see God rolling his (or her) eyes, slapping his (or her) forehead in frustration and shouting "What is this shit? Some of my best friends are gay."

And who can forget Rev. Arnold Conrad's pro-McCain speech in Davenport, Iowa during the last presidential election.

"I would also pray Lord that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that his [McCain's] opponent wins for a variety of reasons.

"And Lord I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you would step forward and honour your own name in all that happens between now and Election Day."

Obama won in a landslide. Does that mean God's a Democrat? More likely, he was pissed that some guy on earth, claiming to be his representative, was ordering him around and telling him what to do.

To quote the late George Carlin: "I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favours. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday His day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend."

I say I'm an agnostic, because I don't have the discipline and willpower to adhere to a particular faith, and I don't the have the guts to entirely throw myself behind the meritocracy of science and technology and declare myself an atheist. In essence, I'm one of those spiritually lazy bums that drive true intellectual agnostics insane.

I find there's something impersonal about atheism. I can only imagine how indoctrinated atheists toast each other. It must be something like "may your molecular structure move in harmony and may you decompose with dignity when you die."

Another reason I won't totally embrace atheism is that it tends to hold humanity up to the light and say "this is it. It doesn't get any better."

I find that depressing. Call it cynicism but I often look at mankind at the top of the ecological heap and see the Peter Principle of nature. Man is the result of nature having risen to its level of ultimate incompetence. All I can say is "God, there's gotta be something better than this."

Finally, for all our arrogance, we are the one species that can't leave itself well alone. We ingest all these mind-expanding drugs to increase our awareness. And what happens? We see God.

"If God dropped acid," comedian Steven Wright asked, "would he see people?" If he did, he would likely book himself into the celestial detox for an eon or two and try and forget it ever happened.

- Dan Pelton

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