God, are you there?

One of my favorite musicians, Josh Ritter, often sings through religious metaphors with a connection to what I understand is a sort of Midwest Protestantism. The real thing, though, is that I have no idea. Some of my favorite songs speak of the Sermon on the Mount, the apostles, the virgin, but I have never read the either testament. I have a degree from a literature and a history department, and I have never read one of the most important books ever.

I have read countless hagiographies, a Boethius more than once, but not the Bible. I wonder, for I don’t know, would it have been controversial to teach these texts. Is it impossible be objective, because objectivity is scandalous when it comes to the closest you can get to God? So, my life abounds with religious metaphors, I even write them in myself, but I don’t even know the structure of the book.

I was teaching a lesson last week, a student asked me how they wrote down the bible. How disappointed I was in myself that I couldn’t answer. I had a vague reckoning, based on knowledge of how religious texts in general were written down. I know that Joseph Smith ‘found‘ golden plates in upstate New York, but I don’t know who wrote the new testament.

I’m sure one day I will read these books. Of course, it would surprise me if it were the case that a majority of American Christians had read the bible front to back. But, most of them have been in a Christian service. I don’t think I have ever. I live in a starkly agnostic world. My mother and her parents, Jews who don’t go to synagogue, my father an atheist, his parents Italian hippies.

So, I never would’ve been protestant, even if God had spoken to my parents. This thing that dominates American politics and mindset. I recall that JFK, not so long again, had to fight anti-Catholic prejudices in his presidential run. If the dominant American ethnic majority is the WASP, I am only one of the adjectives. So, who is this God, and why do I keep on hearing him?

I have told myself previously, that just as none of Chaucer’s stories were original, I am just participating in the most popular reference point in Western culture. But Protestants, must actually believe in something, and the same thing that kept me from critically analyzing the bible, should play a part in how I write, and the media I consume.

So, I ask myself, is it even possible to understand this culture. Believing in God, going to a protestant Church, seems as foreign to me as being a Buddhist monk in Tibet. You don’t believe me, but, believing in a Protestant God feels like treason. It is core to my being, that I am not that. I can grow, and I can change, but a forgiving God doesn’t fit well. But I know very little of the violent God of my Ashkenazi ancestry. I exist as part of a Jewish culture on the fringe of Judaism. Too liberal for Crown Heights or Flatbush, I had to live in Westchester, where Hebrew school was too expensive.

I wonder if I can ever understand what it is like to believe in God. Is it like how I believed in Santa? Is it like how that narrator in A Prayer for Owen Meany, can just barely believe it, until his friend predicts the future? Is this Catholic guilt which I hear so much about, that tugging feeling of wanting a world with meaning, a world with something magical, that I felt in fifth grade, or is it just the constraint of discourse and taboo leaking into my friends subconscious, and whispering to them what their priests and mothers would scream and shout (So I imagine.)

They, too, may not be able to conceive of never believing in God. I could read a study, look up papers, talk to the people in my life. I imagine it like this:

“Good morning, ***** how are you?“

“Good, except the fucking bus driver.“

“Probably because you keep on yelling at them.“

“They like me.“

“That’s what you say.“

A moment of silence passes.

“I’ve been thinking, about that moment when they asked how the Bible was written. I was ready for the previous question. I know how history is written, but my staggering incompetence in that moment, astounded me. I am glad that you were there.“

“It’s not that strange that you didn’t know.“

“Yeah, but it made me realize, just as with my ethics lesson, that I know nothing about believing in God.“

“I thought you were Jewish?“

“But I’ve always been atheist.“

“I assumed that’s just what you tell the kids.“

“So, what about you?“

“Oh, I don’t think about it much, my family is protestant, so, so am I.“

“But do you believe in God, have you believed in God?“

“Yes.”

“How?“

“It’s just the only thing that makes sense.“

And then, seeing the awkwardness in the air, I would change the subject, and feel the privilege which let’s me not believe disgust my co-worker. And God-forbid I actually spoke to someone I really know, or someone I feel more comfortable with. What would I say then? What insensitive thing would I say then. As alluded to in my poorly imagined conversation, I taught a lesson to my students where I told them that politicians should have ethical position beyond their personal religion because they represent people of multiple religions, including atheists. Afterwards, I realized that I had no idea if I had handled that conversation in the right way. I know how to speak in all sorts of politically correct progressive ways, but I have no idea if there is a sensitive way to speak to people about their religion. Should I hedge each sentence, with an agnostic acknowledgment, like a land acknowledgment in an email signature? Must I not use the lord’s name in vain? Should I make clear my openness to various interpretations of the trinity and the sacraments?

Truthfully, I have always hated religion. Judaism, perhaps the least of it’s genre, but only because it had been a victim. Today, Judaism is destroying itself, it is doing the thing that previously it had not done, engaging in the activity which its avoidance of had made it unique.

I had fallen for Ethos. I am disgusted with myself, but I cannot stop the feeling it. Political commentators ask activists if the condemn Hamas. In the same tone I ask myself if I can really condemn Judaism. And the answer is difficult for just the same reason. I understand it. But just because I understand something, should not stop me for saying what it is.

I have always known what it is. Just another religion, just another lie, just another of the grossest excesses of culture that tries to tell us what is right or wrong in the place of facts. Don’t ask a scientist, ask Jesus, ask your rabbi, ask Moses, ask Donald Trump, ask Kamala Harris. Don’t you dare look at the facts, and if you look closely, well here’s a survey. Big oil paid some scientists to p-hack a study that they could headline: It’s your fault, but don’t you dare read closer because the subheading is: It’s not your fault, but it might be. And don’t you dare look at the methodology, the study used monkeys as a proxy for humans because the university wouldn’t give them permission to use human test subjects. Look, things are just complicated, leave it to the experts. Look, let this foundation for research tell you what it is. No, thinktanks aren’t just lobbyists in disguise? Who would sell our people’s lives for political power. The president, the prime minister, the head of state, he’s doing it because he thinks it’s right, because he’s the holiest man you’ve ever met, he would never do something just to stay in power.

I have always been angry, but I don’t want to kill firstborns, I don’t what a plague of locusts, I want the truth, so let’s keep God as a metaphor, because that’s all he is. Metaphors reach for the truth. That’s what stories are for, and that’s all these books are. And since I don’t here anyone raving about the Bible’s prose or irreverent humor, I’ll keep in on my want to read list for now.

So, if you’ve read this far, congratulations to myself, I must’ve done something interesting to get you to read my blog. But, aside from that, if you’re offended, if you’re surprised by the twist this story took, surprised, offended that I went from discussing carefully tiptoeing around religious sensitivity to declaring my full out hatred for it. Ask yourself if you’ve ever truly believed in anything, because there is one thing that I believe: that if God is there, and they are good, then they don’t care what I believe, and if they are not good, then when I die, I will just move on to a different kind of hell.

Sincerely, fuck off, and good luck,

Jacob Piazza