“No, I Won’t Vote Trump (and Maybe You Shouldn’t Either).*”

How Christians sold their birthright for a bowl of Trump stew.

(*And no, this doesn’t mean you should vote Biden. We’re talking bigger fish than who sits in the Oval Office)

Recently, my mom said to me, “I know you don’t love Trump, but I sure hope you’ll be able to get past that and vote for him this time.”

This is my response. Not just to my mom (who I adore!) but to all my Christian friends who wholeheartedly support Trump.

I grew up Christian, Republican, and conservative. As a 10-year-old, I stayed up way too late watching Ronald Reagan give his winning acceptance speech in 1980. What I mean to say is: I speak as a bona-fide lifelong member of the Christian conservative tribe.

More importantly, I’m speaking to you like you’re my mom or dad or sibling.

I love my parents! They taught me how to be a Christian, a man, and a citizen. I am uncomfortable disagreeing with them—and with you. Thus, I say the following with trepidation and respect:

Your support for Donald Trump is an error, and a deeply poisonous one.

Before you tune out, let me add: I understand why you support him.

There’s an old political saying (coined, ironically, by James Carville) that goes “It’s the economy, stupid.” The idea is clear: nothing matters more than a president’s impact on the country. If the economy (and related concerns) is better because of him, then nothing else matters.

Not mean tweets. Not infidelities or crass comments. Not orange skin and comb-overs.

My Trump-supporting Christian friends keep asking me: what about Trump’s policies don’t you approve of?

The honest answer: nothing, really.

There’s something bigger at stake. Something of inestimably greater importance and value.

It isn’t “the economy, stupid”.

It’s your soul, beloved.

Along with the souls of those we are meant to be reaching.

Christians in America have sold their missional birthright for a bowl of political stew.

I know that’s a charged statement. I know it stings—and probably incites a defensive, angry retort. Please bear with me and remember: I don’t hate you. I don’t think you’re a deplorable.

I’m talking to you like you’re my moms! I love my moms!

Just sit with me a minute as I try to make this case.

As Christians, we have exactly one primary allegiance and mission: our allegiance is to God, and our mission is to preach the gospel and live it out.

We do this by being, as Paul said, “all things to all men, that some might be saved.” And we live the mission out by exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit.

What does this mission look like in the era of modern evangelicalism and Donald Trump?

Like it or not, the American church has unabashedly wed itself to politics, particularly the Republican party, and specifically Donald Trump.

What is the practical result of this?

Evangelicals have gained political influence at the expense of missional relevance.

When unbelievers think of Christians today, they do not see Jesus-followers.

They see angry, spiteful, vindictive MAGA evangelicals revering a man who, in almost every respect, defies the tone, attitude, and message of the biblical Jesus.

“But Trump’s not a religious leader,” I hear you objecting, reasonably enough. And this is technically correct.

But like it or not, the evangelical church has so identified with Trump that an unbelieving world cannot be blamed for viewing that allegiance through a distinctly religious lens.

Frankly, lots of Christians talk about Trump in unambiguously religious (not merely political) terms: as God’s chosen, or His anointed, or a Christian standard-bearer. One can’t blame the world for conflating our religion and our political ringleader.

So. Let’s assume that Donald Trump was, in fact, an entirely effective president. Let’s assume his policies were good for the country. And let’s even assume that plenty of people deserved to have a little metaphorical sand kicked in their faces for decades of unfairly denigrating conservatives.

Let’s say Trump was good for “the economy, stupid.”

Has he been good for the church?

More specifically, has he been good for your soul?

What fruits of the Spirit, fellow believer, have you exhibited more as a result of Donald Trump’s ascendancy?

For your own sake, not mine, be truly honest with yourself:

Does your identification with Donald Trump cause you to experience more love for those around you?

Or, in fact, more fear?

In your years of consuming conservative media, have you exhibited more joy?

Or more worry?

What about patience and kindness? Have those fruits increased in the age of mean-tweets, mocking one’s political enemies, and “fuck your feelings” Trump yard signs?

Over the past several years, have you exhibited more generosity toward those who are different than you? Or more spite and mean pleasure at their misfortunes?

Has your faithfulness to God and his mission increased? Or instead your faithfulness to political/national allegiance?

How about gentleness and self-control? Have those fruits been more abundant in your life, despite the influence of a leader whose entire persona is based on brashness, ALL CAPS shouting, and a proud repudiation of impulse control?

I’m going to state unambiguously: the fruits of the Spirit in the current American church are demonstrably—and tragically—lacking.

And if you believe otherwise, I implore you to step out of your circle, if only for a moment.  Ask a liberal non-believer friend for honest feedback: “what traits do you see in Christians today?”

What is sadly evident in the current American church are the fruits of all-too-human frailty: fear, cheerlessness, anxiety, impatience, spite, suspicion, conspiracy, anger, and brashness.

Christians have embraced political citizenship at the cost of losing their gospel relevance.

Worse, at the cost of their own Spirit-led sanctification.

As a result, the church is missionally—tragically—crippled.

I say again, it isn’t “the economy, stupid.” It’s your soul, beloved.

I’ll grant: the state of our national union is surely of immense importance to God.

But it’s nowhere near as important to him as the state of your individual soul. Or the health of his church. Or our mission to reach the lost.

Emphatically: God will never, ever prioritize the good of a nation over the health of his church, his gospel, or his ultimate kingdom.

If Trumpism has weakened the church’s soul and mission (it has), then we can be dead-certain of two things:

First: this is absolutely not God’s plan or intention. It’s a serious mistake to believe that Trump is “God’s anointed.” God will never orchestrate any good that comes at the cost of his mission or church. Only humans must “break a few eggs to make an omelet”. God’s power is in the perfection of sovereignty, never “voting for the lesser evil”.

And second: this is absolutely not Trump’s fault.

It’s our fault.

Despite what the liberal left claims, Trump is not a villain. At worst, he’s an opportunist. I don’t even think he would shy away from that label. He would embrace opportunism as part of the Art of the Deal (along with never admitting defeat).

The fault arises from our own exceedingly understandable demoralization at how conservatives have been mocked for decades, and from the merciless bullying of culture to swallow increasingly preposterous ideas, and even from the not-incorrect spiritual sense that things are deeply wrong with the world.

These are all perfectly understandable reactions.

And yet they have made us susceptible to uncharacteristically low urges.

Being demoralized has awoken in us an urge toward defiance.

Being mocked has pushed us to find pleasure in mockery.

Being bullied has ultimately (and inevitably) led us to rally behind a bully.

Trump isn’t beloved because he’s a great leader. He’s beloved because he’s Bully-in-Chief.

The poison of Trumpism is not Trump’s fault. He’s just a willing beneficiary, tapping into our wounds, our deep-seated demoralization, and our frustration of powerlessness.

We grew impatient with waiting for God to defend us and right the world’s wrongs.

So, just like the ancient Israelites, we elected a King instead.

We replaced a messiah who preached turning the other cheek and loving our enemies with a president who encourages striking first and destroying the opposition.

I totally understand this.

Giving in to those long-denied urges feels really good.

But it’s like scratching a poison ivy rash: deeply satisfying for a moment, followed by a deeper and more prolonged inflammation.

It’s time we stopped scratching our baser itches.

It’s time we, as the bride of Christ, re-ordered our allegiance.

It’s time we divorced ourselves utterly from the muck and meanness of human politics.

This doesn’t mean abandoning our responsibilities as citizens.

But it does mean re-prioritizing that responsibility so it never, ever interferes with the winsome work of our first mission: to love God, to allow the fruits of his Spirit to manifest in our daily lives, and to “be all things to all people so that some might be saved.”

What does this mean?

It might mean talking like a liberal when you’re with a liberal (and that will be much harder if you’re wearing a MAGA hat).

It might mean finding value in the convictions of your Gen Z family member even if you don’t like how they vote those convictions.

It might simply mean not openly displaying your politics, so the voice of your vote never drowns out the whisper of your witness.

Because nobody wants to be converted to the gospel of Trumpism.

And like it or not, that’s what the current evangelical church has become.

For God’s sake, mom and dad, friends and neighbors, mentors and pastors and fellow Christians all across the country: don’t sell your Christlike birthright for a bowl of political influence.

Fall back in love with the long-term peace and glory of dying to self, loving our enemies, and trusting God’s ultimate plan over any merely human political institution.

Because just like Esau back in Genesis 25, it isn’t that the stew we’re hungry for is a bad thing.

It’s that our God-given birthright is infinitely, immeasurably more important.

Are Christians Kind of Stupid?

Controversial hot-take for my Churchy Smart Friends: are Christians kind of stupid?

Hear me out.  I don’t mean “stupid” in terms of intellect, but in terms of curiosity, intellectual rigor, and self-awareness.  A perfectly intelligent person can lack these things—in fact, it happens all the time. 

And many Christians seem to fall into that category.

Looking around at the modern church—at our worship lyrics (COUGH, sorry, I’ve got a lion in my lungs), at the books we make bestsellers, at the leaders we rally around—I fear a distinct and pervasive trend of… well, stupidity.

Not intellectual weakness, but intellectual abdication. 

There are exceptions, of course. 

In fact, I am drawing my concept of stupidity from one of Christianity’s greatest thinkers.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote much about the concept of willful stupidity. 

Pictured: more bravery, wit, and faith than a stadium of Osteens

In a nutshell, Bonhoeffer suggests that stupidity is what happens when one’s faithfulness to an ideology becomes more important than one’s faithfulness to objective truth.

When this happens, all information is put through a filter: does it confirm or undermine my ideology? 

If it confirms my ideology, then the information is, by default, true.

If it undermines my ideology, then the information is, by default, false.

The actual truth of the information is secondary, or completely moot.  This is why people respond the way they do when someone points out the falsehood of something they posted on Facebook.  They aren’t grateful to be spared the embarrassment of posting an untruth.  They are angry that someone has dared to undermine their ideology.

And this happens way, WAY too often in the current American church.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer would be dismayed, to say the least.

It would be parody if it wasn’t reality.

This is less true in some demographics outside the church.

In the “secular” world, there seems to be a renaissance of big-think.  Philosophers, economists, and psychologists write bestselling books and present lectures to sell-out crowds.  Thinkers like Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Malcolm Gladwell, Douglas Murray, and many others attract massive followings.  Their books—dense and challenging to a deliberate degree—are devoured by a growing demographic of people hungry for ideas, for intellectual rigor, for challenging concepts and foundational truths.

But in the church?  We make bestsellers of things like “Heaven is For Real”, which was clearly dubious from the beginning, and turned out to be completely made up. 

We flock in droves to movies like the counter-productively awful “God is Not Dead” (and its cringe-inducing sequels) where atheists are straw-man villains and confirmation bias might as well get an executive producer credit.  

We pump out endless “worship” albums with music so inbred and lyrics so nonsensical that no one outside the church would ever force themselves to listen to it. 

We elevate pap-peddling superstar pastors and carry water for proven abusers, so long as we find their preaching easy on the ears, or sufficiently affirming of our beliefs.

We are, in short, stupid. 

Not unintelligent.  Stupid, according to Bonhoeffer’s definition. 

We have checked our intellect and put on ignorance as a shield from hard ideas, challenging questions, intellectual rigor, and simple curiosity.

Sadly rare is the curiosity that once drove Christians to explore the sciences, that propelled them to philosophize and plumb the depths of the mind, that fueled some of the biggest thinking of the last thousand years.

Pictured: more intellect, curiosity, and rigor than a superdome of Lucados

This is why most of my favorite thinkers today are atheists, agnostics, or just plain irreligious.  And why I find so much Christian media to be empty, unchallenging, simplistic, and frankly, embarrassingly stupid. 

I’ve had well-meaning Christian friends tell me it’s dangerous to engage with content produced by unbelievers.  As if Christianity is a house of cards subject to collapsing at the slightest oppositional breath, rather than a foundational edifice of truth that has withstood the challenges of the greatest minds (and converted many of them) since antiquity.

But an objection arises.  I hear you asking: what about apologetics? 

Yes, many Christians are interested in apologetics—the construction of intellectual arguments in support of our faith.  This is a good thing, I suppose. 

But for most such people, apologetics are merely a form of intellectual cosplay. 

R2 Sproul-too and C. S. Lewpio

Most armchair apologists collect arguments and facts and talking points, but rarely do they seem to fully understand them—much less the ideas they purport to refute.

All too rare is the Christian eager to fully understand—to consider and digest and engage with—any truly honest opposing ideology.  They approach discussions with non-believers (almost exclusively in the performative arena of social media) with a jingling bandolier of rebuttals, firing them off verbatim, without legitimately engaging with the other person.

Most apologists are like geese—they’ve eaten a kernel of truth, and they poop it out exactly as it went in, unchanged and undigested.

The second-to-last thing most Christian armchair apologists will ever utter is: “You make a good point.”  The LAST thing they will ever utter is an honest “I don’t know.”

The problem is: no one can truly think unless they can concede a good point, or understand an opposing argument well enough to comprehend why people believe it, or admit what they don’t know. 

That takes curiosity, and intellectual honesty, and wonder, and humility, and a love of actual, truth.

More, it takes a deep and foundational love of the Truth Giver.

Perhaps, in our put-on stupidity, we’ve made an all-too-basic mistake: we think the Truth Giver needs to be protected from scary, opposing ideas. 

When, in fact, the exact opposite is true.

So.  Am I wrong?

I could be, of course.  Perhaps I am a bit too cynical about the modern American church.  Perhaps I am paying attention to all the wrong things.  What think you?

Is the current church less stupid than I am giving it credit for?

If so, what am I missing?

If not, what can be done about this?  How do we re-awaken to our God-given vibrance of intellectual honesty, curiosity, wonder, and self-awareness?  For our own flourishing, the health of our message, and the glory of God?

Let’s Talk About This Picture

I really, really need to talk about this picture.

It appeared on a friend’s Facebook page (I deliberately cropped it to make that apparent) in a repost from some man named Sohit about how women are beautifully complicated in all their wonderful ways, and there’s no wrong way, and you’d better love your woman, you men you, because or else.

Except: this picture went with it.

Why?

I’ll tell you why: there is no why.

And here’s the really astonishing thing: somehow, amidst the thousands of comments and reposts of this otherwise fairly banal bit of Facebook wisdom, nobody seems to be commenting about the picture. I think they aren’t talking about it in the exact same way that people don’t talk about the loud fart somebody ripped in a crowded elevator.

Or, I don’t know, maybe a lot of people think this is exactly the perfect image to accompany wisdom like, “ If you choose a working woman, you have to accept that she can’t take care of the house full time.”

But somebody really has to talk about it. That person is us. It’s going to be weird. But we have to go there. We owe it to our own existence.

First, just stop and take a good long look at the drawing. Meditate on it. Really soak in it.

Do you see it? This drawing is the artistic equivalent of one of those hilariously off-putting stories written by an AI bot after being forced to digest a thousand mediocre novels. In short, I am just shy of refusing to believe this was drawn by a human. If I had to guess, I would say it was crafted by an alien who learned about human romance by decoding tabloid covers in a checkout line. Or a set of IKEA instructions.

But let’s zoom in a little. The first thing we are forced to notice is the remarkable amount of effort put into not showing even the slightest hint of a face. Why? Perhaps you are thinking it’s because the artist doesn’t know how to draw faces. That was my first thought as well, but I quickly rejected it.

The faces are hidden because– stay with me here– the faces are not there.

Clearly, there is nothing on the front of these people’s people-heads but perfectly smooth, blank nothing. They’re like moons. Or like Schrodinger’s cat, perpetually in a state of waveform flux between alive and dead– only in this case between howling nothingness and a swarm of eyes, snouts, beaks, and gills.

ZOOM. AND ENHANCE.

How can I be certain of this? Zoom in. Look really close. Do you see it? Of course you don’t because there’s nothing to see. Not a hint of an eyebrow, not a shadow of a smiling cheek, not so much as a lonely freckle. What artist would go to such painstaking lengths to refuse to show even the slightest intimation of a single human feature?

Again, if I had to guess: the alien artist was shy, and always stood behind the humans he observed. A more audacious alien artist might have feigned a guess at what human people had on the front of their hair, but not this one. This artist chose the craftier, subtler, safer approach.

Next: let’s drink in the environment. Where is it? When is it?

My first, breathless guess was: starship. Why else is the ceiling canted so low over the figures, and embedded with a window showing the romance and absolute terrifying zero of perpetual cosmic night?

Look at those stars. Those aren’t the twinkling stardust of any earthly evening. That’s the brittle black of stellar oblivion.

In space, no one can hear your zipper.

Which changes the context completely, doesn’t it? Perhaps these are the last two people awakened from a thousand years of hyperspace, still woozy with hibernation sickness, clumsily trying to relearn the act of human love in the name of perpetuating the species.

But then: there are records on the table. Which is definitely a table, not a bed or a couch. Definitely a table. With records on it. And a portable record player, which is apparently playing one of the records.

You’re probably tempted to think the record is playing some old romantic song, something performed by some variety of Neville. But again, I believe we have to reject this first impression.

Why? Because look at the man’s posture. The suggestion is that he is helping the woman’s top off. But is that really what’s happening? He has one hand pushed awkwardly up her back. But the other is pressed to the table next to her. And I am almost willing to swear that the knuckles are white and there is a thin sheen of sweat between palm and table. This is not the posture of a man lost in the heady throes of passion. This is the posture of a man firmly thinking “I WILL NOT REMOVE MY LEFT HAND FROM THE TABLE TOP UNLESS I AM TOLD EXPLICITLY TO DO SO.”

Am I making romance right??

Which perhaps explains the record player.

Is it not playing music at all? Is it maybe playing one of those old instructional records, the kind with a stern but smiling voice that guides the listener through dance steps, or Italian cooking, or, in this case, the step-by-step tactics of maneuvering human beings into the reproductive act?

Now let’s look at the clothing. The figures are both wearing long-sleeved white form-fitting tops. Is that coincidence? Does the artist only know how to draw one kind of top? If we could see the right front breast of each shirt would they bear matching logos of identification? Are these poor people members of the Clonus Project? Or are they both just unimaginative dressers?

So many unsettlingly unanswerable questions!

But then we come inevitably, inexorably to: what is she wearing on the bottom?

Are those pants? They can’t be pants, right? They’re way, WAY (ahem!) way too clingy and… there’s no other way to put it… cleft-defining to be pants.

One is tempted to say this is nearly Not Safe For Work (or Facebook). And yet it… it is?

Is it actually, technically, “sexy”? Why is it, somehow, so thoroughly and emphatically not sexy? It’s like the porn equivalent of the uncanny valley: close enough to be almost erotic, but inexplicably off-putting just enough to be as sensual as drinking paint.

The (pants??) are clearly drawn in such a manner as to immediately demand the viewer’s gaze. In fact, the composition itself is extravagantly designed to accost your eyeball by force, drag it to the divided globe of this anonymous, faceless woman’s rump, and make you trace sticky trails of optical juice all over it.

I can’t help picturing the artist quietly weeping as he drew the lady’s hind-parts, moved as he was by the sheer beatific power of his creation. I believe, with ironclad conviction, that the artist spent more time lovingly shading and smoothing those gradient cheeks than he spent on the rest of the drawing combined (especially the not-faces).

So, they can’t be pants. But are they pantyhose?

Why pantyhose? Maybe yoga pants? Jogging tights?

But if so– if any of those– look at the knee. There are wrinkles there. Pant-wrinkles! They are pants below the waist!

Is that possible? Is this some sort of reality where a man’s touch in the small of a woman’s back magically transforms her slacks into pantyhose, and we are witnessing the event in progress?! Have I lived a life worthy of gazing upon this mystical vision?

At this point, it would be understandable if you needed to take a little break.

But believe it or not, we aren’t done dissecting.

Why are the man’s hands outlined so adamantly? What is the artist demanding that we see about his hands? Is he trying to distract us from his inability to draw faces by making us look really, really hard at the hands?

Hands are hard to draw. And these ones are only sorta OK. I don’t know what’s happening with the man’s right thumb, for example. It appears to be a sort of flipper extending along the entire length of his palm. And honestly, do any of those fingers look capable of bending? I don’t think this is evidence of bad art. The fingers are obviously deliberately drawn that way! They are drawn as solid single-bone digits!

This is a universe where hands are equipped with unforgiving flesh rods instead of fingers! And the artist is watching us watch, demanding that we reckon with it!

We must reckon with it!

The wine bottle and glasses are very nice, though. I think it’s probably a Merlot. This seems like a Merlot kind of scene. Don’t you think?

The Bible: Time for a Modern Evangelical Rewrite

Come on, fellow Christians, we knew this was inevitable. Why just this Sunday I was at the grocery store and encountered a lovely woman– early sixties, white, clearly dressed in her church clothes– brazenly shopping the busy store without any sign of a mask, and making open, challenging eye-contact with every person she passed.

This is who we Christians are now. And it’s high time we embraced it.

The only problem is the Bible itself. Unfortunately, it no longer represents today’s American evangelical Christian. This is a little awkward, what with all those verses about loving one’s enemies, and obeying authorities, and humility, and peacemaking.

Sheesh. I mean, who wrote this stuff? Some limp pinko long-hair?

Honestly, the gospels themselves are deeply problematic. As modern evangelicals know, all of our hope is in politics. We absolutely have to win the country back from those secular humanist Demoncrats. Anyone who doesn’t understand that it’s always the most important election in our lifetime is a wimpy coward, a whiny moderate, or Mitch McConnell.

But the Jesus in the Bible is way too apolitical for us Americans now. The people of his time desperately wanted Jesus to be a political savior. And over and over he told them that God had a bigger plan than just, say, freeing the Jews from Roman occupation.

Instead, Jesus told them to give to Caesar what was Caesar’s.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine him saying to evangelicals today: “Give to Biden what’s Biden’s: your respect; your tax dollars; your submission to his authority. And give to God what’s God’s: your ultimate hope and trust, your worship, your unflagging devotion. Those don’t belong to any president. Not even Trump. Only to God.”

Friends, that flag just don’t fly in today’s American Christianity.

Or what about the apostle Paul? His comments to be “all things to all men that some might be saved” is seriously, deeply problematic. It’s almost like he’s suggesting we set aside political differences for the sake of the gospel.

Does Paul seriously expect us to find a way to be liberal–to respect liberal values– when we are talking to a liberal so we might eventually be able to share God with them??

Maybe Paul could do that back in his day, when all he had to worry about from his political enemies was imprisonment and execution. Paul never had to deal with your gay liberal niece on Instagram.

So I think you can begin to see why it’s high-time the Bible got a modern evangelical retooling.

Now before you doctrine wonks get your purple neck-ties all in a knot: we aren’t talking about a total re-write. Some parts of the Bible are still just fine and dandy. The whole Sodom and Gomorrah bit is just fine as-is. We especially like the smiting parts of the Old Testament.

But let’s be reasonable: if the liberals can talk about the Constitution as a “living document” and re-imagine it in their own image, then surely we can do the same with the Bible.

So just to get things started, I went ahead and re-wrote the Beatitudes. It’s a work-in-progress, but let me tell you, once I got started, it really wasn’t all that hard.

Read it over, see if it doesn’t perfectly capture today’s modern American evangelical, and represent the kind of red, white, and blue kick-ass Christianity that we can all hang our MAGA hats on.

And for that sixty-something mask-less church lady at Giant Eagle: you just keep right on truckin’, big sister. Covid might kill you and your family, but that’s a small price to pay for FREEDOM.

The New American Evangelical Kick-ass Beatitudes

1. Blessed are the Republicans, for theirs is the kingdom of making America great again.
2. Blessed are the openly defiant, for they shall KNOW THEIR RIGHTS.
3. Blessed is Trump, for ye shall have no other presidents before him.
4. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after conspiracies, because wake up, sheeple.
5. Blessed are they who return hate for hate, because screw that whole “turn the other cheek” thing.
6. Blessed are the pure in ideology, for they shall cast out the RINOs.
7. Cursed are the peacemakers, for they’re too gutless to fight the people we hate.
8. Blessed are they who turn their religion into a perverse caricature and receive mockery for it, for they shall call it “persecution”.

Republican Hulk: An MCU Analogy of the Rise (and Fall) of Trump

“We have a Hulk…” 

The following is an attempt to understand how Trump happened, and what has become of the Republican electorate in his wake. 

In brief, I propose that the Republican voting base has followed the same story arc as the Incredible Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (with apologies to Mark Ruffalo).  Trace the following timeline (part history and part prediction) and see if I’m wrong.

Republicans until 2015: Bruce Banner

For most of recent history, Republican voters have been mild-mannered, hard-working types, quiet by nature, and generally dismayed by the clamorous rancor of the extreme left. Like Bruce Banner, they mostly just wanted to be left alone to do their thing.  And yet they were increasingly provoked—encroached upon, belittled and insulted by pop culture and complicit Democrats—in an attempt to demoralize them into total obscurity.

Republicans in 2016: “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry!”

Then along came Donald Trump.  He succeeded in coalescing this historically individualistic group into a singular behemoth by promising to kick sand in the face of their enemies.  Trump essentially said to Republicans, “If you get angry enough, we can win.” And like Bruce Banner in the first Avengers movie, Republicans said:

Already simmering with repressed rage, Republicans responded volcanically, transforming into the Hulk and plowing Trump into the White House like an orange sledgehammer. 

With their rage finally boiled over, they became drunk on it and refused to give it up.

And yet, what they rallied behind wasn’t any traditional Republican or conservative ideals.  They were rallying exclusively behind a personality, Donald Trump, pledging undying fealty to him simply for daring to represent them after years of mockery (or milquetoast complacency) by everybody else.

A few traditional conservatives (ahem) recognized the problem in this, and tried to talk them down.

Republicans 2017-2019: “Sun’s getting real low…”

Granted, if we all looked like Black Widow this would be a lot easier.

This works just enough to keep Republican Hulk nominally in check, at least while their guy is in office.  Trump keeps his end of the deal by rabble-rousing their political enemies with constant glee, to the delight of Republican Hulk, now fully abandoned to a baser, more brute nature.

But then along comes the next election.  Trump primes Republican Hulk for a landslide victory, while simultaneously provoking them with the idea that if he doesn’t win, it’s because of massive voter fraud. Republican Hulk believes this completely, because unlike Bruce Banner, the Hulk is pretty dumb.  He wants only to smash, and is content with any excuse.

Sure enough, Trump loses the election. Republican Hulk starts to growl with burgeoning rage.  And a few reasonable voices (Ahem!) attempt to talk the Hulk down again…

“Sun’s getting real low, big guy. And that’s not a Q-anon reference.”

Republicans in 2020: Hulk Ragnarok

Only this time the Hulk’s having none of it. 

Republican Hulk turns on anyone, even former allies, who don’t share their rage-fueled lust to destroy.  This is the Hulk of “Thor Ragnarok”.  Trump, like Jeff Goldblum’s GameMaster, has been pitting his pet gladiator Hulk against all opponents (“fake news”, Democrats, anyone who doesn’t sycophantically support him) and relishing the resulting swathe of destruction.  Republican Hulk now hates the mild-manner Bruce Banner that they used to be, and vows to never again be such a little wuss.

Republicans in 2021: Hulk vs. Hulkbuster Armor

With the Trump-provoked incursion into the Capitol building, resulting in five dead, Republican Hulk has lost all sense of control, purpose, and ideology.  This is Hulk from “Age of Ultron”, rampaging through the city, destroying for no reason, blinded by a frenzy of aimless fury. 

Moderate voices (AHEM!) are no longer trying to placate Republican Hulk and explain/apologize for them.  Now, we have no choice but to be Tony Stark in his Hulkbuster Armor attempting to forcibly take the big guy down.

Like Tony, we moderates feared this day would come, and have mentally prepared.  Republican Hulk represents decent people—the country’s Bruce Banners—who have forgotten everything they once stood for and abandoned their identity to a bully demagogue.  There is no talking them down anymore.  They have to be subdued by force until they can regain control of themselves.  Like Tony Stark, we don’t want to hurt them.  We don’t hate them.  We just need them to stop rampaging until they can remember who they are and come to their senses.  Please, please, just come to your senses.

Republicans after 2021: Pouting Hulk

In the wake of this, Republican Hulk will not, in fact remember who they are and come to their senses.  They will be like Hulk in “Infinity War”: demoralized and petulant, that Hulk refuses to engage in even a worthy battle, defying Bruce Banner’s pleas. 

Like Pouting Hulk, Trump Republicans will retreat in angry petulance.  They will not support moderate Republican candidates.  They will deliberately allow their own party to starve into irrelevance, simply out of bitter pouting over the defeat of their demagogue.  This will last a good long time.

Republicans eventually: Smart Hulk

Ideally, eventually, Republican Hulk and Republican Bruce Banner will realize they don’t have to be one or the other.  Like Smart Hulk in “Endgame”, they will reconcile the two, strengthening their Banner side with a steel backbone, and restraining their Hulk side with moderation and intellectual honesty.

This is an ideal situation, of course, and possibly too much to hope for.  But I’m an optimist, and I love a good story. 

Maybe next time I’ll tackle how the Democrat party is analogous to Loki.

And now a few essential take-home points:

Republicans: stop conflating Republican Hulk with conservatives/conservatism. Republican Hulk isn’t conservative any more than MCU Hulk is a scientist. Quit whinging about how “conservatives are under attack and being censored online!” Nobody minds you representing conservatism. For God’s sake REPRESENT CONSERVATISM. What everybody minds (and understandably censors) is Republican Hulk rampaging online, spouting Q-anon, gun-toting, threat-level, TAKE THE COUNTRY BACK, militia-mongering BS.

So stop doing that. Become Bruce Banner again. And tell your friends to do the same.

Democrats: stop crowing about how awful militant Republicans are after applauding militant Democrats. You can’t say of your group “violence is justifiable protest!” and then condemn violence when it comes in Republican flavor. Those Republicans storming the Capitol represent a huge chunk of America that feels they’ve been denied a voice (in mainstream culture, at least) for many years. Were they right to interpret that as an excuse for violence? In the strongest words, NO. They were reckless, blinded idiots operating out of frenzy.

You’re right that the insurrection in the Capitol isn’t the same as the violence and looting that happened during protests across the country last summer (and in previous years). But only by technicalities and matters of degree. Is it worse to traipse around the Capitol like jackasses with malicious intent, or to loot and set fire to businesses belonging to your neighbors? Both resulted in property damage, injury, and loss of life. Both were fueled by opportunistic politicians. Both were justified in the name of offense and justice.

I suggest that they are either both reprehensible abuses of their cause, or neither. Double standards are the ugliest and more pervasive thing about our current political state. If it’s hunky-dory when your guys do it, but terrible when the other guy does, then there’s something seriously wrong with your sense of intellectual honesty.

Both sides: Stop burning the bridges. Like it or not, both sides need each other. Kept in balance, liberals and conservatives balance the dual natures of humanity. If you truly succeed in “destroying” the other side, all you’ll accomplish is to saw off the branch you’re standing on. So quit it.

Loki needs Hulk, and Hulk needs Loki. They can hate each other. They just can’t afford to destroy each other.

“Bad Thinkers” or Desperate Copers? Why Americans Really Believe Conspiracy Theories.

In his Aeon Article “Bad Thinkers”, Quassim Cassam tries to explain why people embrace conspiracy theories. Referring to a fictional example (Oliver, who believes that 9-11 was an inside job) Cassam says:

“Oliver believes what he does because that is the kind of thinker he is … there is something wrong with how he thinks.”

Oliver has “bad intellectual character”, Cassam says. The result, simply put, is a particularly endemic gullibility.

For an article that attempts to explain why so many people embrace conspiracies, this strikes me as a disappointingly simplistic explanation.

I myself have given this problem a lot of thought. I have engaged at length with people who believe conspiracies, from chem-trails to anti-vaxxers, all in an attempt to understand why they embrace not only the seemingly ridiculous theories, but the fringe “experts” who propose them.

I don’t at all believe that it can be explained simply by the “bad intellectual character” of gullibility.

What I observe in conspiracy theorists is a potpourri of three distinct, nearly universal factors.

First: Where coherence fails, confirmation takes over.

In an age of endlessly conflicting, even contradictory information, people necessarily choose their sources in part (or mostly) on how much those sources validate their own pre-existing worldview.

We see this happening before our eyes: in a time of pandemic, conservatives have become anti-maskers (because they distrust the government and tend to believe science has been politicized), while liberals have become ardent mask proponents (because they prefer top-down regulation and tend to view science with near-religious zeal). In both instances, people have chosen their trusted sources based exclusively on how those sources validate their existing political ideologies.

Conservatives tend to exhibit this trait rather more than liberals, since they tend to view “mainstream media” as politically liberal (not without reason) and science as weaponized against them (also not without reason).

This has resulted in conservatives embracing increasingly fringe, dubiously-credentialed “experts”. The quicker and more thoroughly these experts are censored and debunked, the more conservatives believe they must be espousing the truth. The most preposterous conspiracies will often be shared alongside the admonition: “Quick! Watch this video before YouTube takes it down again!”

Second: Never underestimate the Allure of Secret Truth.

Some people are simply inclined to be suspicious of broadly accepted facts. To them, the truth is not an open book embraced and understood by most. Instead, it is a secret treasure, hidden away by the nefarious and/or ignorant.

In their mind, the truth is only revealed to the elect few (like them) who are brave enough to seek it out, no matter the cost to their own reputation, security, or even their life.

And realistically, there have been just enough examples of government cover-ups and genuine conspiracies to give fuel to those clinging to such a worldview.

For acolytes of the flat-earth theory, for example, criticism, mockery, and official debunking are all viewed as exactly the sort of push-back that the truly enlightened should expect from the backward, ignorant, and tyrannical. Persecution is a badge of honor.

People of all political persuasions and social ideologies can exhibit the “secret truth” mentality. It explains 9-11 conspiracies, JFK assassination theories, Bigfoot, UFOs, and endless other fringe ideas.

For the believer in secret truth, the more arcane the conspiracy, the better, because even fewer people will believe it, thus making them even more rare and elect for uncovering it.

This mentality might, in fact, fall under the rubric of Cassam’s “bad intellectual character”. And yet I don’t believe that the “secret truth” fallacy is a flaw in and of itself. It’s just normal human curiosity overfed into heresy, fueled by a desperate need for significance.

Think about it: how many flat-earth conspiracy theorists do you know who are, in every other respect, fully actualized, healthy, and well-rounded human beings?

Third: Gullibility is less prevalent than deliberate blindness.

It’s all too easy to say that people who believe conspiracies are gullible. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, that they are too stupid to see the stupidity of their beliefs.

I don’t believe that conspiracy theorists are gullible (or stupid) as much as I believe they’ve become so overwhelmed with the chaotic complexity of the world, and the self-cancelling nihilism of modern media, that they’ve chosen to deliberately blind themselves to all but the parts that seem to make sense.

This is an understandable (if perhaps unhealthy) reaction. We shouldn’t mock them for putting on blinders. If anything, it might encourage us to examine which blinders we’ve put on ourselves.

For example, those of us who loudly proclaim that we never watch Fox News (or CNN) are simply fooling ourselves into treating our own blinders as a virtue.

So no, I don’t believe Cassam’s theory about people who believe conspiracies is any improvement over previous explanations. In fact, I believe his theory of “bad intellectual character” is a sort of smug self-congratulation, diminishing the complexity of humans, and the real difficulty so many people experience navigating a world that has become, in their lifetimes, a bottomless morass of conflicting, propagandized information and tribal extremes.

Viewed through these three lenses, on the other hand, we see how conspiracy thinking might worm its way into our own worldview, influencing how we consume media, interpret “facts”, and choose our trusted sources.

By understanding what motivates the more extreme examples of conspiracy theorists, we might more empathize with them because we see how, to perhaps only slightly lesser degrees, we all exhibit the exact same tendencies.

Dear White People: If You Really Want Change, Stop “Feeling Uncomfortable”.

Regarding America and race, it’s fair to say that we are living in a time of long-overdue upheaval. In the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of four cops, it seems that all of America has finally awakened to the reality of deeply problematic racial issues.

We need to address these issues, and for the first time, it looks like we may have the will and perspective to do so.

Which is why I reject the idea that we white people need to “be uncomfortable”. To “sit in it” (our racism and privilege).

We live in a culture that is surprisingly comfortable with prescribing to other people what they need to do. Repeatedly, I’ve been told (particularly online, and particularly by my white friends) that it is my duty to stew in discomfort for my part in racial inequality.

This idea has taken form in lots of recent books, but it is neatly summed up in this essay which has been shared by several of my white friends. “I don’t want you to feel at ease,” writes Kandise Le Blanc. “I don’t want to vindicate your white guilt. It’s yours to reconcile.”

I’m not going to debate the idea of “white guilt”. I’m not interested in whether all of us white people bear some responsibility for racial inequality. In fact, let’s assume we do.

What I question is the productiveness of feeling bad about it.

Recently, an online friend of an online friend (a woman who knows nothing about me except what can be gleaned from a profile picture) instructed me to “feel uncomfortable”, and then to seek out some black voices to educate myself.

The thing is, I actually began “educating myself” by listening to black voices long, long before the tragedy of George Floyd.

Two decades ago, I started reading books like the biographies of Frederick Douglas and Malcolm X. I sought to learn about the experience of people who were much different than me.

I wanted to understand the world beyond my own experience.

Strangely enough, as I listened to those voices and observed their experiences, I never felt any of the self-focused discomfort that is being prescribed today.

Even stranger, I didn’t sense that the black voices of decades past wanted me to feel that.

What I felt– and what I sense that they desired– was anger. And responsibility. Not the responsibility to feel bad about being white, but the responsibility to use my skills, voice, and yes, privilege, to affect change.

For me, that meant writing stories. Stories like “The Nightmare Pearl” that features a young black girl living in hiding from a justice system that she knows won’t be fair to her– and the confused white friend who has never had to fear a cop or distrust authority.

Stories like the one in my final game, Dream Revenant, in which a 60’s era white man must adjust to the death of his young black friend at the hands of the KKK– a death he eventually learns was caused by his own Klansman father.

I wrote these stories because unlike preaching to each other on social media, stories bypass all of our filters. Stories construct empathy. They erode ingrained prejudices.

I wrote these stories to help us all explore the complex relationship we have with racial injustice in America. To foster sober understanding and build bridges of empowerment.

I don’t have a LOT of influence. My stories and games haven’t changed the world. But it was what I could do. It was– and continues to be– my responsibility to use my voice, my skills, and whatever limited influence I have to make whatever limited difference I can.

But here’s the thing: If my response to learning about racism had been to stew in my own white guilt, to “feel uncomfortable”, to “sit in it”, I never would have written those stories. I never would have progressed to proactive responsibility. I never would have used what I have to do what I can.

It’s anger that empowers me to try to make a difference. Anger, and a sense of deep injustice– that things are not as they are supposed to be– that fuels me to use my privilege and influence to act.

Shame doesn’t empower to action. Nor white guilt. Nor stewing in self-flagellation for being white.

Honestly, isn’t “feeling uncomfortable” just a form of perverted self-righteousness? Isn’t it another way white people can make it all about themselves?

C. S. Lewis said that true humility isn’t thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.

White guilt is unproductive because it’s just another form of thinking about ourselves.

It’s time we white people thought of ourselves less.

That’s real humility. And this is very much a time for humility.

On the other hand:

If you are a white person who resents the idea that you should learn about the black experience in America, maybe you do need to get past your own pride and self-centeredness. If that makes you uncomfortable, then perhaps you should feel that and get through it.

If you are a white person who bristles at the idea of responsibility in terms of racism– if that idea makes you feel uncomfortable (and therefore angry)– then I suppose it does behoove you to feel that and get past it.

Because responsibility, in this instance, isn’t necessarily the same as blame. Responsibility is empowerment. It means that you have the position and influence to make a difference.

And thus the responsibility to do so.

And if you are a white person who experiences the lazy racism of callousness toward the voice of black protest, then I suppose it will require some pain and discomfort to break out of that selfish inertia, to face the reality that not everyone’s experience is your own.

Some white people, then, do need to wade through their discomfort with the reality of racism in America. Some white people may even need to atone for some injustice and hate they themselves have spread, or their families.

The problem with telling ALL white people that they need to “feel discomfort” is simple: the white people who need to feel it won’t (because it’s too broad a brush), and the white people who could be empowered to act will be too busy self-flagellating (on behalf of the white people in the first category).

I want to see us, as individuals and a nation, confront the history and reality of racial injustice and systemic racism in our country. I want to see us empowered to take action to undo that injustice, and be a better people.

And that is why I wish we’d stop telling all white people to stew in self-centered discomfort, to hide away under the rock of white guilt.

For a lot of us, we need to be doing, not feeling. We need to be thinking about ourselves less, not less of ourselves.

That’s how change will happen. And change needs to happen.

Five Rules for Modern “Thinking”

Everyone wants to be an evolved, intelligent, effective member of society. As thought processes and reasoning change with time, however, it can be difficult to keep up. The following are five tips to assure you are intellectually up-to-date, living fully in synch with modern rationality.

1) Bad People Get Their News From Biased Sources, But Your Biased Sources are Different

We all know that you can recognize the validity of any political news story based on its reporting source. Some “news” outlets are clearly partisan and biased, aimed cynically at the sad dupes who already agree with their pandering slant.

But be prepared: those same angry, intellectually dishonest people will claim that your news sources are also biased and partisan, only to the opposite extreme.

They will claim that your objection to their sources is a double standard.

You can safely dismiss this criticism, and not just because you can (and should) dismiss any and all criticism from the opposing viewpoint. The claim of a double standard falls apart instantly once one understands (as you surely do) this simple fact: their side’s “news” is slanted toward lies, hate, and stupidity, while your side’s news is biased only and exclusively toward the truth.

This is clear even to the other side. They just can’t bear to admit it.

Understanding this fact, we can safely assume that news from those other sources must be examined with the most stringent skepticism (if not automatically rejected), while news from your sources can be instantly accepted as flawlessly true, a pristine light of journalistic integrity in a swamp of “fake news”.

Clearly, this is not at all a double standard. It is an essential and reasonable reaction to a potentially confusing world of nuance, moderation, and complexity, all of which are counterproductive to the goal of total ideological purity.

2) If it’s Remotely Possible to Believe the Worst of Someone, it is Your Moral Obligation to Do So

If there is one essential, functioning principle of our age, it is that we are waging an ongoing battle of good versus evil. Our side stands for truth and beauty, while the other side wages hate and destruction. Knowing this, we can feel supremely confident making blanket assumptions about other peoples’ motivations, intentions, and guiding beliefs.

For example, when encountering an ambiguous but slightly controversial news story, our first imperative must be to determine the political/religious/social views of the people involved, no matter how tenuously related they may be to the story.

If those views turn out to be even slightly in favor of the opposition, then we should assume that the people involved are absolutely terrible in every possible way. This is key even if they strongly deny believing/thinking any of those things. It is entirely possible (and likely) that we, being on the side of good and truth, understand their internal thoughts and motivations much better than they themselves do.

In fact, the more they deny our allegations, the more certain we can be that they are true, and much worse than initially imagined.

By assuming the absolute worst in everyone even slightly tainted by the other side, we preserve the purity of our ideology and assure moral victory.

Occasionally, this may mean even turning on those who, at one time, seemed to ally and agree with us. We must feel no sympathy in those instances. Ideological purity is a constantly evolving process of rejecting the dross. There is no such thing as being too careful.

3) Always Define the Other Side by its Most Hilarious/Offensive Members

While we all know that, ideally, we should only associate with those whose views are in complete agreement with ours, it is sometimes unavoidable to have family or even friends on the other side of some political/religious/social issue.

It might seem reasonable, in those instances, to define our view of the opposition by the family or friend who represent them, but we should be careful to do this only when that person exemplifies the absolute worst traits (racism, stupidity, eccentricity, immorality, etc) of that ideological tribe.

It is safer by far (on the off chance that you might actually like said friend or family) to always define the opposition by its most comically extreme, impersonal, public caricature.

The reason for this is clear: if you define the opposition by the person you know who represents the opposition, it will become harder for you to believe that only stupid/evil people support the opposition.

Since the key to modern thinking is an absolute certainty that the other side is stupid and evil, we must always choose extreme, loud, public symbols—cartoonish avatars that, by essential definition, we do not personally know—to define their side.

By so doing, we accomplish two important goals. One: we enable our side to maintain seamless certainty that the other side is utterly bereft of even the slightest virtue or dignity. And two: we may succeed in shaming those family or friends who, by some lapse of morality or intellect, identify with that other side. At the very least, we may pressure them into hiding their shameful views. At best, we may shame them enough to force a change of opinion, thereby granting them the right to speak their convictions aloud.

4) It’s Not the Same if Your Guy Does it

Having firmly established that we must assume the worst of any person based on their oppositional political/social/religious views, we may now approach the equal and opposite conclusion: that anyone who shares our views cannot be evil or stupid.

These twin axioms can be summed up in a simple equation (AKA Clintrump’s Law): The guilt of any allegation is inversely proportional to the accused’s association with my approved ideology, multiplied by the severity of the alleged act.

Thus, when confronted with, for example, an accusation that a politician has had an illicit affair, our first question must not be, “is this true, and if so, how immoral is it?”

Instead, our first question should be, “is this politician on my side?” If the answer is no, then we must assume that he is a serial womanizer, deserving of nothing but contempt and removal from office. If the answer is yes, then we must assume he was sorely tempted just this once, is deeply remorseful, and deserving of our forgiveness and respect for his authenticity.

If it turns out the affair was with, say, a cross-dressing foreign terrorist spy, then our initial assessment should only be deepened and permanently ossified.

5) Centuries of Debate Can be Solved With a Single Meme

There is a somewhat backward idea that intelligent people can disagree on complex issues. This leads to the assumption that debate on difficult topics is the only way to respectfully and genuinely hone ideas, test assumptions, and ultimately approach something like ultimate truth.

We now know that this perspective is backwards, and even counterproductive.

Having understood that the other side is simply evil and stupid, we know that it is inherently dangerous to allow them to voice their views at all, much less to honor them with debate.

Thus, true ideological purity is best measured by a singular, stubborn, abject ignorance of the opposing viewpoint.

This serves two purposes. One: it safeguards our own viewpoint (and that of our youth) from any dangerous challenges. And two: it frees us to believe that centuries of intellectual debate can be “destroyed” by a single meme, quote, or emotional anecdote.

These are the bedrock cornerstones of our confidence. Without the conviction that all issues can (and should) be forever settled with easily-sharable click-bait, we may eventually feel the temptation to engage our own critical thinking. Worse, we may end up having conversations—even respectful debates!—with actual people who disagree with us.

Be on your guard against this, at all costs. Post the memes instead, thereby broadcasting your complete ideological certainty, along with your tacit unwillingness to consider any other perspective. This is the only way to assure your ongoing ideological purity, to be welcomed into the tribes of modern “thinking”.

And just to be sure, if you do not adhere to this perspective, or continue exhibiting all of the other traits of modern “thinking” listed above, the rest of your tribe will notice. We will come for you.

It’s not personal. It’s just the only way modern “thinking” works.

Why You Aren’t a Computer Simulation (But Elon Musk Might Be)

Recently, a New York Times article asked the question: Are we living in a computer simulation? Then adds: let’s not find out.

Why? Because if we are indeed living in a computer simulation, and the programmers of that sim find out we’re onto them, they might just pull the plug on our universe.

Unless what they’re studying is how humanity would respond to finding out we’re living in a computer simulation, in which case we’d better carry on or risk forcing those hyper-advanced geeks to reboot our universe and start over.

“They’re onto us.  Delete them before they find my directory of Sonic the Hedgehog porn”

A lot of people believe this theory, or find it so plausible as to be virtually assured. Elon Musk says the chance that we are living in “base” reality is a million to one. Even everybody’s favorite science teddy bear, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, believes it’s about fifty-fifty that we’re all just figments in a futuristic virtual reality.

And honestly, the theory seems plausible enough when we look at the world around us and see merely a web of interconnected (albeit complicated) actions and reactions; a universe that could plausibly be dictated by some sufficiently advanced computer program.

Except for one major thing—a thing I can’t believe these super smart people haven’t taken into account.  A thing that isn’t in fact, in the world around us at all.

It’s this:

The idea that you are a computer simulation stops being plausible when you ask: why does that matter to me?

“Why am I worried that Andy Dick might not be a real person?”

Meaning, if you, the reader of this blog, are merely a digital figment in a futuristic simulated universe, why should you experience any internal, invisible, conscious reaction to it?

What purpose would that reaction serve?

Why, in fact, should any of us have any internal, conscious self-awareness at all?

Elon Musk might argue that the internal consciousness—the part that makes you aware of being you and not anyone else—is an essential component of the simulation.

But why? What practical purpose could that possibly serve?

The machinations that occur inside your internal consciousness don’t affect me, as another person, until they motivate you to some action. For this reason, it would be non-essential (and terribly inefficient) to program billions of computer figments with rich, internal consciousnesses when all that matters to the simulation is their resulting actions.

“Self-awareness (being, by definition, only useful to the self experiencing it, and not at all to the simulated universe at large) would be utterly superfluous.”

Think about your own experience of other people. You have no direct interface with the inner consciousness of any other single being. Your only understanding of other humans is through symbols they present to your senses—the words and actions that comprise the sum total of our experience of the rest of humanity.

Thus, if a simulacrum of humanity was created for some advanced experiment, words and actions would be all that was needed to accomplish its purpose.

There would be absolutely no reason for you, as an actor in that simulation, to experience any internal self-awareness, since that self-awareness serves no purpose to the simulation’s outcome.

Instead, you, as a simulated figment, would be to the computer what all of the rest of humanity is to you: mere bundles of words and actions responding to a complex code of environment and programming.

Basically, high-res Donkey Kong

In short, even if some advanced civilization were to develop the capability to invest a simulated personality with self-awareness, there would be no practical reason to do so. It would be far easier (and more ethical, which we will come to in a moment) to simply rig each simulated personality to behave and speak according to that complex code of environment and programming.

Self-awareness (being, by definition, only useful to the self experiencing it, and not at all to the simulated universe at large) would be utterly superfluous.

Thus, in a simulated universe, you would not be consciously reflecting internally on what all this means to you, as a self-aware being. You would instead be a symbolic figment, like a non-player character in a video game, whose programmed actions would henceforth be nominally altered by this new input.

Since you are internally aware of this distinction, then you can feel confident that you, at least, are not a mere line of code in some hyper-advanced simulation.

Unless, of course, self-awareness is (for some reason) necessary to the simulation.

Which bring us to the ethical consideration.

Imagine a civilization advanced enough to create simulated personalities that experience self-awareness. Would not this civilization also understand the responsibility inherent in creating such a universe of beings? Certainly they would understand that the moment self-awareness is granted, a person is created.

With the insertion of consciousness, mere inert programming becomes new life.

Why else do we care about these two?

Conclusion: since you, reading this, have self-awareness—an internal and invisible consciousness of being you and no one else—then we can logically infer from this one of two comforting assumptions:

One: that we are probably not the simulated creation of a hyper-advanced computer model, since there would be no value in creating simulated figments with conscious self-awareness. It would simply not serve the simulation in any measurable, practical way to include such a complicated and ethically problematic detail.

Or two: that even if we are computer simulations imbued, for whatever reason, with conscious self-awareness, then it stands to reason that such an advanced society would also understand the ethical responsibility of creating what is, essentially, sentient life, and would treat it as such.

Unless, of course, that society is both hyper-advanced and painstakingly sadistic, which is possible, albeit highly unlikely (despite my conviction that humanity is, at best, only accidentally good, and only sometimes). I simply don’t believe that a truly sadistic culture could survive long enough to create such advanced computer technology as would be required for self-aware digital life.

So: Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Elon Musk, and the rest of us can breath easy knowing that either we are, in fact, “base reality” (most likely) or at least that our programmers know and respect that they’ve created a form of life deserving of preservation.

So how do the smartest minds in our universe miss this fairly obvious clue that we aren’t in grave danger of being turned off/rebooted?

Maybe it just proves that sometimes the smartest people are likely to miss the simplest truths.

Or maybe it proves that the purpose of this simulated reality is to make me believe that I’m smarter than Elon Musk and Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Both explanations seem equally likely to me.

Why Christians Should Watch “Good Omens”. With their Teens.

Perhaps you have heard of the new Amazon Prime series “Good Omens”, based on the novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Perhaps you are aware that thousands of Christians petitioned that the series be cancelled because, among other things, it allegedly normalizes Satanism.

Perhaps you are one of those Christians. And perhaps you are one of the people who find it hilarious that the petition was aimed at Netflix instead of Amazon Prime.

This post is for both of you. And everyone in-between.

I am a Christian who not only loved the novel “Good Omens” but watched the series and enjoyed it immensely.

Worse (or better, depending on which of the above categories you fall into) I watched it with my teen kids. And I think you should as well.

Here are the five reasons why.

1) It’s Bible fan-fiction.

Back in the eighties, when I was a kid, eschatology (the study of the End Times and the book of Revelation) was a huge fad. All of us Christians were obsessed with books like Hal Lindsey’s bestseller “The Late, Great Planet Earth”. Our youth groups showed us campy Christian horror films about the Great Tribulation. We ate up conspiracies about how the UPC code was the Mark of the Beast, and how, before too long, we’d all have one stamped onto our foreheads or wrists.

And then we grew up a little. The end times didn’t happen (yet!). And we all gave each other a sort of sheepish look and silently vowed never to speak of it again.

To the extent that, after I watched the first episode of Good Omens with my 14-year-old daughter, she said to me, “so, is that stuff actually in the Bible?”

Perhaps we’ve sort of gone too far the other way.

Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are atheists. And yet they clearly have at least an intellectual fascination with the Bible. It shows. They get loads of details spot-on. And this counts for something.

When the four horsemen of the apocalypse are being summoned, they are given (by a cheerfully hapless deliveryman) a sword (War), a set of scales (Famine), and a crown (Pollution/Pestilence). This is all straight out of the book of Revelation. Most Biblical neophytes probably recognize that.

And they ride motorcycles.  Because horses.  Get it?

But when Death, the final of the four horsemen, is summoned, he is not given anything. Instead, the deliveryman offers a verbal message: “Come and see”.

This is a curious detail for the authors to include, because it will only mean something to the sort of people least likely to read/watch “Good Omens”—namely, Christians.

I looked up the relevant Bible passage. It’s in the sixth chapter of Revelation:

“And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, ‘Come and see’. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.”

Why would Pratchett/Gaiman include a detail like this? A detail that most of those reading “Good Omens” wouldn’t recognize or understand?

Because originally, they were writing mostly for each other. No publisher had suggested their collaboration. It was a project between two friends, both of whom had a fascination with the Bible, despite rejecting its main premises.

They weren’t thinking about Bible references that other people would get. They just knew that they would get them.

That sort of appreciation for the Bible as source material, as rich narrative foundation, tells us something about the importance of the book. Pratchett and Gaiman exhibit an attitude that many modern atheists have lost: that it matters to read the Bible, to know it, even if you end up not believing it.

As a believer, I encourage this, and want my kids to see that it matters.

2) “Good Omens” provides an invaluable insight into an unbeliever’s perspective.

While the story may be Bible fan-fiction, it’s clearly written from a perspective that misses the fundamental message. But it does so in a way that is somewhat common. As such, it provides the thinking Christian an invaluable insight into the mindset of those who choose not to believe.

If you don’t see how this is important, I expect you wouldn’t also have seen why Jesus went to the sort of parties he did.

During one early scene in “Good Omens”, the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley are observing the parade of animals filling Noah’s ark. Crowley asks Aziraphale what this is about, and the angel sheepishly admits that God plans to wipe out most of humanity. The demon looks on at a group of goats, blinks, then turns back to Aziraphale. “Not the kids, too?”

It’s a bit of a joke, of course. But the point is clear: it’s the demon who has qualms about wiping out all of humanity. The angel, on the other hand, is seen as complicit in a sort of heartless, divine doomsday.

As Christians, this is a perspective on the Old Testament that we must be prepared to respond to, with respect and understanding. To our unbelieving friends, our first reply might be “I want to validate your commitment to fairness, tolerance, and mercy. Those are excellent, excellent things. If you really are curious to know why a God of both mercy and righteousness would paradoxically take such extreme courses, let’s talk.”

It’s essential for believers not to shy away from those discussions.

And how can we be prepared to have those discussions if we don’t have some idea what the unbeliever’s typical perspective (and understandable objections) might be?

“Good Omens” is like a primer on an unbeliever’s perspective of Christianity. It may not always be comfortable for the believer to read/watch, but it is extremely illuminating if your intention is to be relevant to your irreligious friends.

3) “Good Omens” serves as an allegory about humans and religion.

Whether you are a Christian or an unbeliever, I challenge you to shift your perspective on “Good Omens” by one degree: view it not as a story about angels and demons, but as an allegory about eternal, divine matters in the hands of nearsighted, fallible humans.

Once we view the story’s angels not as divine beings but as occasionally misguided and overzealous Christians, we see their flaws less as blasphemy and more as cringy real-world examples of believers taking matters into their own hands, making arrogant assumptions, trampling people as pawns, generally giving God a bad name.

Looked at from this perspective, “Good Omens” changes from a comically blasphemous farce to a razor-tongued satire. For Christians, it becomes a mirror forcing us to ask ourselves: how likely is it that I come across like John Hamm’s Gabriel-– arrogant, glib, more committed to being right than showing love?

“The world’s not just going to end itself.”

Further, from this perspective, the relationship between the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley (the heart of the tale) is no longer a challenge to the dichotomy of good and evil.

Instead, it’s a picture of a believer whose commitment to ultimate Good not only doesn’t preclude him from befriending the unrepentant: it actually encourages him to. To the extent that both of them are bettered by that interaction, and (arguably) the “demon” is ultimately redeemed.

Too many Christians live their lives the way the bulk of “Good Omens”’ angels do: far more committed to their culture war than to the subtle persuasion of lifestyle evangelism. Too few are willing (as Aziraphale did with Crowley) to view unbelievers as fertile ground rather than chaff for the hellfire.

4) In “Good Omens”, God wins, Satan loses

Amazingly, God never appears on-screen in the series. Instead, God is represented throughout in the form of the narrator.

What does this tell us? That from the very beginning of the story, God is in charge of everything that ultimately happens. God is not only aware of Aziraphale’s inner doubts, human compassion, and fraternization with “the other side”, God is actually cultivating and harmonizing those things, all for the ultimate good, despite what the rest of the angels and demons might have in mind about “the Great Plan”.

In short, God is the ultimate Good Guy in “Good Omens”. This is no small thing!

But of course (you might breathlessly point out) in “Good Omens”, the Good Guy isn’t actually, in point of fact, a guy at all.

God is voiced by a woman: academy award winner Frances McDormand.

Christians, before you get your choir robes all up in a knot, think for a moment about  current culture. If God, as narrator, were introduced as yet one more man—as the stereotypical booming voice from above—how might the typical modern viewer react?

Like it or not, big male voices are no longer automatically viewed with warmth and reverence. They are just as easily met with ire and suspicion.

By choosing a woman to provide God’s voice, the creators were communicating one thing: this character is a reliable narrator. This character understands the human story better than any other. In a milieu of duplicitous angels, comical demons, and questionable institutions, this character– God– is trustworthy, relatable, and ultimately, unequivocally, fortunately, in complete control.

God is not defeated in this story. On the contrary, the implication from the very first spoken words of the series is that God wins.

Satan, on the other hand?

Satan is represented as a monstrous beast, the creator of the anti-Christ, the author and driving force of the evil of Armageddon. We can quibble over the theology of that premise, but here’s the essential thing: Satan loses. Unequivocally. Satisfyingly. Utterly.

So just to check the scoreboard on this one: In a story written by two atheists—a story at least nominally intended to lampoon and satirize religious institution—God is represented as a reliable narrator orchestrating true, rare goodness, found in the humblest and most surprising of places, to overcome both his misguided servants and a committed demonic horde, for the purpose of redeeming the world and destroying Satan.

I don’t believe this is a story that Christians should be picketing.

Instead, this story should give us some hope that even those who don’t believe in God and the Bible have some instinctive, fundamental appreciation for God’s ultimate Great Story—the “Ineffable Plan”, as Aziraphale puts it.

I, for one, find this encouraging.

5) “Good Omens” is extremely entertaining and funny.

I saved this for last, not because it’s more or less important, but because it’s a thing that we believers should be cognizant of.

As one of my Facebook friends pointed out in response to the Christian backlash against “Good Omens”: “Why can’t we conceive that god has a sense of humor?”

Unlike Jesus, we Christians can just be a frowning bunch of sticks-in-the-mud, can’t we?

“Good Omens” is genuinely funny and entertaining. Even if it was blasphemous and demeaning to our faith (which I think is a stretch), when we militantly protest such stories, we run the risk of coming off as grim, joyless, judgmental fussbudgets.

We allow ourselves to be defined by what we oppose more than what we believe.

And that sort of thing just doesn’t win anyone to God. It only entrenches the already far-too polarized sides.

So lighten up a little. Take a joke. Further, use that joke for a moment of humble self-reflection. Crack a smile. Watch the scene in “Good Omens” when Crowley the demon runs into the church to rescue Aziraphale the angel and has to jump around like a barefoot kid on a hot beach, hissing “Ow! Ow! Holy ground!”

And stop trying not to laugh. It’s funny!

Don’t be afraid to read/watch “Good Omens”. Crack a smile. You won’t go to hell if you think it’s secretly funny that Crowley’s name used to be “Crawly” because he was the snake in the Garden of Eden.

Be happy that two atheists thought enough of the Bible to read it and make their own conversation-provoking story out of it.