God's Odds

Originally posted on 6/14/2009 

I'm not a religious person. While I haven't completely written off the idea of a Supreme Being, neither have I committed it to incombustible paper with indelible ink. At best, Our Heavenly Father is scrawled on a Denny's napkin with one of those little pencils they give you at putt-putt golf and filed away between a rejected Jack and Jill Magazine manuscript (I knew I shouldn't have patterned that talking squirrel after Simon Cowell, and based the kidnapped princess on Amy Winehouse), and a rough draft written with a Sharpie marker on the back of some High School Musical-themed holiday wrapping paper of a pilot script for a proposed Englebert Humperdinck sitcom. I'm sorry, but stuck as I am on this third rock from the Sun (I've got a decade old rejection slip from them, too, along with a Jane Curtin refrigerator magnet), I see no evidence of divine intervention, divine revelation, miracles, guardian angels, the supernatural, the paranormal, Bewitched-caliber magic, or even an 8-ball reading not fraught with internal contradictions. No, the closest I've ever come to spiritual transcendence is the occasional coincidence.

The occasional coincidence.

Now, that might be something to grasp at, a reason to make that leap of faith. If you could only form a religion around a coincidence. Hmm...

I remember one time I was driving home and decided to put on an oldies station. The first song I heard was "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head". About halfway through the song, guess what happened? It started to rain! I pulled my car to the side of the road, got out, and started dancing with joy. A coincidence had occurred! Suddenly, the universe made sense! Hallelujah!

Just as suddenly, landing smack dab in a puddle, it made no sense at all. What exactly was I supposed to do next? Cast aside all my possessions and follow B.J. Thomas to the ends of the Earth? I didn't even know where the hell B.J. Thomas was! Was he still alive? Was he performing in Branson, Missouri? Was he on The Surreal World ? So many questions. So few answers.

No, if you're going to form a religion based on a coincidence, I'm afraid it would need some other savior than B.J. Thomas. Well, I suppose you could also throw in Burt Bacharach and Hal David. That would be some Holy Trinity, huh? Still, it just doesn't seem weighty enough. It doesn't seem historic enough.

There are indeed historic coincidences. One involves September 11 and the twenty dollar bill. It came out shortly after the terrorist attacks that if you fold a twenty a certain way, you'll have a picture of what looks like the twin towers on fire.  Fold it another way, and you'll get a burning Pentagon.

Well, that's certainly a historic coincidence. But there's already far too much religion surrounding the events of September 11. Also, a sect based on the twenty dollar bill? I think our society worships money enough as it is.

When I was a kid, I had a comic book that featured an ad for a two-headed Lincoln penny. Why Lincoln's head was on both sides, I have no idea. I suppose it could have been a mistake made at the mint, and thus worth a lot of money, but numismatists have their own publications, don't they? Or the coin could have been simply fake, but a counterfeiter is taking quite a risk advertising in a comic book.  Can't G-men read X-men? Anyway, in the ad's sidebar, there was a list of some of the amazing similarities--coincidences!--between the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations, such as:

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to congress in 1946.

Lincoln was elected President in 1860, Kennedy in 1960.

The names Lincoln and Kennedy both contain seven letters.

Both were involved with civil rights.

Both lost children while living in the White House.

Both were shot on a Friday.

Both were shot in the head.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.

Both successors were named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald in 1939.

Both assassins are known by their three names.

Both assassins names are comprised of fifteen letters.

Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and was caught in a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.

WOW! Those are coincidences of historic proportions, ones you could build a major religion around. Welcome to the Church of Coincidental Assassinations. Lincoln could be the Old Testament, Kennedy the New. And just as Judaism has Jerusalem, Catholicism has Rome, and Islam has Mecca, so, too, this religion could have Dealey Plaza as a place of pilgrimage. Or maybe it should be Ford's Theater.

Hmm. I see a possible schism developing.

Another historic coincidence involves the very founding of our country. On July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both signatories to the document, died within hours of each other. Well, I don't have to tell you the religious implications of that coincidence. The United States is God, and God is the United States. American exceptionalism by divine decree! We can do anything, because God is always on our side! We can invade other countries! We can invade countries with oil fields--

As with any religion, any god, Doubt soon rears its ugly head.

Againistan

I was 17 when the student radicals took over the U.S. embassy in Iran, an event that so angered me I felt President Carter was within his rights to drop an H-bomb on Tehran, even if it killed all the hostages and just about everybody else. Now, before any of you peaceniks out there get angry, let me say I no longer feel that way. I'm glad that Carter didn't drop an H-bomb, an A-bomb, a neutron bomb, a jellied gasoline bomb, a buzz bomb, or even a cherry bomb on Iran, when it would have been politically advantageous for him to do so. He later won the Nobel Peace Prize both for the Camp David accords, and his efforts to promote peace after he left office. But, as far as I'm concerned, he could have won solely for restraining his inner hawk in his final year of office, even at the cost of re-election.

22 years later, two planes flew into each of the World Trade Center towers, and one flew into the Pentagon, resulting in close to 3000 deaths. I was angry about that, too. In spite of the greater loss of life, or, for that matter, any loss of life (as scary as they seemed at the time, the Iranian hostage-takers of 1979 didn't kill anybody) I didn't want the H-bomb dropped this time. Call it maturity. Still, I felt we had to do something. Those deaths had to be answered. That had to be avenged. Or else they all would have died in vain.

It soon came out that a Middle-Easterner by the name of Osama Bin Laden, and a terrorist organization he headed called Al-Qaeda, were behind the attacks. They were headquartered in Afghanistan. Another group called the Taliban, which ran Afghanistan, wouldn't give the killers up. That was belligerent enough for me. President Bush was well within his rights to declare war on Afghanistan. Barring that, the Taliban. Or at least Al-Qaeda.

Instead, Bush declared war on terrorism. He declared war on a word.

Still, it seemed like a war on Afghanistan. The Taliban were soon toppled from power, and Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were on the run.

Problem was, nobody seemed to run after Bin Laden or Al-Qaeda. And, in a remarkably short time, nobody seemed to care. Not the mainstream media, not the business community, not the political establishment (including the Democratic half of that establishment), and, finally, not even We, The People.

Because we were now going to go to war with Iraq. That would avenge those 3000 deaths on 9/11, even if they were 3000 deaths Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with. The war with Iraq started out well. A statue was toppled. Hussein was caught and hung on live cell phone. But it was a war we didn't seem to know how to end. So far, about 4000 Americans have died in Iraq so that the 3000 dead of 9/11 won't have died in vain.

A week ago, President Obama reminded us again of 9/11. He also reminded us of the original villains of the piece, Bin Laden and Al-Qeada. And he reminded us of their original headquarters, Afghanistan. Except that's not their current headquarters. They're now in Pakistan, something the Pakistanis have recently denied. Wherever they are, maybe on the moon, we're now in Afghanistan, and will be even more in Afghanistan in the next couple of years.

Obama spoke out against the war in Iraq, and, to some, that gives him credibility, or at least cover, in the Afghan buildup. I can only hope he's doing the right thing. People who spoke out for the war in Iraq have been speaking out for a renewed war in Afghanistan, and the President, perhaps coincidentally, seems to be heeding their advice.

Except for the deadline for withdrawal. The hawks are upset about that. I'm not too happy about it either, but for a much different reason. It makes me wonder if this isn't all for show. We just can't seem to get any closure on this thing. This thing being 9/11. 3000 died. And 4000 died in Iraq. We can't let them all die in vain. We have to do something. So lets have a surge in Afghanistan like the one we had in Iraq. Show that we're serious, get the bad guys to back off some, declare Bin Laden dead or irrelevant, declare victory, and then scram.

Hopefully, they can do this without too many more dying for those who died in vain.