A moment ago, everything was fine. James was uncharacteristically happy with what he had written but in an instant, that all changed. A fantastic feeling of dread washed over him. It stopped his pen. It stopped his breathing. It just stopped, everything did.

Then a voice appeared, “Hello James”

James looked up. His eyes scanned the room for signs of life. He was alone. A hallucination?

“James, the voice is here.”, noted the voice.

James was quiet. He surveyed again looking for a clue.

Finally, he gave in, “Who are you”, James said without making it a question.

“You know, James”

“No. No I don’t”

“I am God, James”.

James stood up. He walked around the room searching for something that might be producing the voice.

He paused, thought, and then gathered. What was this?

“Indeed. God. And what is it you want?”

James walked to the living room to escape.

“Why do you not believe, James”

The voice was just as clear in the living room. If this was a trick, if there was audio equipment involved, it was well done.

“God doesn’t normally just come and speak to people, does he?”, James stalled as continued in vain peeking around the room.

“Why do you not believe, James”, repeated the voice.

James realized the noises he made as he moved about the room seemed separate from the voice. Separate in that the voice was not part of the sounds. It was somewhere else. The voice was independent of the noise. He switched on the television and turned up the volume to full.

“You still hear me, James”

James stood frozen. Despite the blaring TV, he heard the voice with perfect clarity. The voice was not sound, not sound entering his ears. It was a voice simply entering his mind.

He turned off the television and sat. He re-analyzed the situation.

James spoke only with his mind, “What do you want”.

“I do not want anything, James”

“Then why..”, he realized he felt awkward only speaking with his mind.

Using his voice, “Then why are you here?”

“Am I? Am I here James?”

“Well, whatever.. Or wherever you are. You’re talking to me. From my vantage point that means you are at least a little bit ‘here’”

James emboldened, “And you want to know why I don’t believe in you? Aren’t you omniscient?”

“Yes”

“And omnipowerful?”

“Yes”

“And omnipresent?”, James barked.

“Yes, so why am I here?”, said the voice and for the first time phrasing a question as a question.

“I would guess that if you’re omnipresent, then you’re here because you’re everywhere.”

With his shock waning, James considered himself to be in one of three possible situations: He was either a stooge in a fantastically elaborate charade, he was full-on hallucinating, or he was speaking to an all-powerful being. Further analyzing it would seem prudent that in the cases of hallucination or God, he really shouldn’t piss either off. Then again, how do you piss off an omniscient being?

James shouted, “WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME!”

“Why don’t you believe, James.”

“Well, clearly I’m starting to believe something given that you’re talking to me! My long-held disbelief was rather rooted in a lack of evidence. And the foundation for that argument is rather crumbling about now.”

The voice seemed unfulfilled, “you believe something”

James surprised himself in how indignant he could be addressing something ostensibly all-powerful.

“Well, I have not determined whether I am truly hearing you or whether you’re a hallucination. Then again, if you’re omniscient, you’d know that wouldn’t you?”

The voice responded, “I would”.

James defended, “You know. This is why I don’t believe. If you give some people evidence, like say PARTING THE FUCKING RED SEA right in front of them, and you leave the rest to listen to charlatans about your ‘word’, the folks without hard evidence might just be inclined to not give a crap.”

“But again, you’re omniscient. You know that. You know why every single last person believes in you or doesn’t. And it’s starting to be…”

James raised his voice, “In fact, you know how this conversation ends. You know everything I’m about to say. Actually it’s far bigger than that isn’t it, you’ve known for thousands of years that this conversation was going to happen and every word that was to be exchanged. Millions of years even — heck, even before time!”

The voice was silent.

James continued, “So let me get this straight. You have gotten pretty much the whole world to worship you except me. And that’s sort of a sticky bee in your bonnet so you decide to come have a chat with me about it.”

The voice stopped him, “You are making assumptions, James”.

James only momentarily considered re-evaluating his attack, “So here’s why I don’t believe in you Mr. God. If you were omniscient, you wouldn’t be asking me why I don’t believe in you. You’d know that there was a time when I did believe in you. When I was young and naive and didn’t question what I was told. But then unfortunately for you, I learned. And the more I thought about it, the less sense you made. Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God create some pitiful ants like us here on Earth, then give us ‘free will’ and then tell us if we use that free will to worship you, we’ll get to go to heaven after we die presumably so we can worship you for all eternity instead of going to hell where we get to burn forever! Kind of a Hobson’s choice isn’t it? Kind of ridiculously stupid don’t think you? Isn’t that, I don’t know, extortion?”

“That’s actually not a lot of ‘free will’ is it? Worship me or burn forever. Sort of like ‘Give me your money or I’ll shoot you in the head, which if you choose the latter you’ll get my money anyway and I’ll lose my head’. By the way, worshipping you forever sounds heinously boring and only marginally better than burning forever I’d imagine. But given it is ‘better’, that’s the option most people choose isn’t it?”

“Not to mention, if you’re ‘omnisicient’ then you already knew, zillions of years before all of us were born exactly every last thing we’d all do. You knew before Earth existed exactly which of us would end-up in Heaven and which would end-up in Hell. Sure we have ‘free will’ but given that even one omnisicent being exists, our free-will is basically fated to happen only one way. If you KNOW what’s going to happen, our free-will is predestined. Your existence precludes chance in any shape or form. Your existence precludes choice just by absolutely knowing all choices that will ever be made!”

James fell silent a moment. He caught his breath. The voice remained silent too. He thought about what he had said. It was passionate and even angry, but it was right. He looked up.

“And really — what’s with this worship business anyway? You really get off on creating beings to worship you? You know… actually you do know… to me you don’t come across as all that particularly clever. If you’re all powerful and have some childish need for people to suck up to you, you could have just created beings that don’t need to sleep, eat, or pee that just sat there 24/7 worshipping you with none of this pretend free-will business. You could even just make them permanently happy to worship you and then you’d be happy because you created some peon beings to worship you and they’d be happy because you know, you made them that way.

Are you seriously this petty? Creating beings so that they worship you? Seriously? Are you all-powerful and all-petty? You’ve got nothing better to do than to fucking hang around and smile that you can create some creatures who worship your magnificence? And a magnificence you’ve decided to define I might add.”

The voice stopped him again, “Again James, you are making assumptions.”

“What assumptions! Didn’t I rather sum it up? Why the fuck are you here? Whatever the purpose of your visit, there is a resolution you’re looking for. And given that you already know the outcome, not to mention the fact that you’re, you know, all-fucking-powerful, you could have waved your little finger and made the outcome happen without all this trouble of stopping by my house. You could have blinked me out of existence, or altered my brain, or simply changed the utter fabric of the fa-riggin Universe and made me scream your praises from the highest mountain top. But instead you decide to come here and have a little chat with me to see if you could convince me to worship you? Why come have a chat about it? Why waste the time?”

The voice paused, “James, I am not ‘in’ time.”

James stopped. He now realized one of his “assumptions”.

The voice continued, “And I do not waste effort — I do not expend effort. Having a conversation with you for what you understand to be a millenia or altering your mind in what you’d perceive an instant are no different.”

James further understood “assumptions”, at least a little. All-powerful and all-knowing inherently implies infinite. This God would not be “here” in the sense of his attention being devoted to James, he is everywhere. The God was not kidding, it would not expend any effort whatsoever to “be there” as it already was there — it was everywhere.

Was it though?

“So you’re actually omnipresent?”

“I am”

“And all powerful?”

“I am”

“How do I know that?”

God answered James’ question. “You do not. But does that matter? By your definition of power James, you are not very powerful at all. So as long as I am more powerful than you by a sufficient margin, being ‘more’ powerful and ‘infinitely’ powerful would be indistuinguishable to you.”

James was taken aback with God’s directness. He considered tempering his tone. But did that matter? God of course, knows everything he’s thinking.

“Correct.”, God interrupted.

Being respectful is a human reaction to other humans. It doesn’t particularly apply here.

“Also correct.”, God kept butting in.

“So you don’t care how I speak to you”

“I know who you are.”, God said simply.

James thought a moment. It was very difficult evaluating how to speak to an omniscient being. In essence, it was absurd. He knew everything that was going to be said. He knew the future. In fact, God created everything including how James thought about things. In one sense, God talking to James was God talking to himself.

“Then… why… why do you care if we worship you”, queried James.

“I don’t. Those were your words. You are referencing what religion has told you.”

James face lit-up, “Ha! That’s what I always thought! Well actually, I always thought you didn’t exist. But if you did exist — why would an all-powerful being go to the trouble of creating some pitiful creatures who, if properly convinced by others of those pitiful creatures, would then worship that all-powerful being? It makes no sense!”

God agreed, “Per your definition of ‘sense’, you are correct. But per another of your assumptions, I do not ‘care’ about anything — per your definition of ‘care’”

James was rather perturbed with God always worrying about his definitions of words.

“Also James, ‘free will’ were your words too.”, God responded.

God’s response was quick and familiar. So much so it made James think God was not all-powerful. There was too much humanity there.

God continued, “You’re still making assumptions James. Assuming I am powerful enough to appear all-powerful to you, you can never be sure if I am merely more powerful than you or infinitely powerful. If I am the former, I will appear to be the latter.”

God was right. Well, of course God was right. He was God after all. And if by some chance he was ever not right, he’d merely change the universe until he was right. Assuming, well, he wanted to be right. Whatever “right” meant.

“I’m assuming that despite what the bible says then, you’re not a jealous God.”

“No”

“So you do not get jealous or angry or happy or sad”

“Correct.”

“And given that want, love, and hate are all simply ‘human frailties’, you don’t do those either”

“No.”

“But you could choose to experience those emotions could you not?”

God didn’t answer and James didn’t wait for an answer.

“So why did you create us?”

“Again, that is religion James. I did not particularly create you. You exist because I do. The Universe exists because I do. The Universe is infinite, you were sure to exist.”

James didn’t quite get that one.

“So you don’t care about us.”

“The simple answer James, is no. But the real answer is more complex. I am infinite. All possibilities exist. In some of those possibilities I infinitely care for you. In some of those possibilities I care for nothing. But by your definition of ‘care’, no, I do not care about you. You will consider yourself to be in existence for a brief moment in time. Before and after that, you will not consider yourself at all. To the universe, you are so brief and so small that it would be easy to say you never were.”

James was becoming uncomfortable with this discussion.

“Then why are we here?”, he asked.

God replied, “Why do you think there is an answer James?”

“Because.. Because if there isn’t an answer, then I think I believe you don’t care. You exist but it doesn’t matter.”

God continued, “So you believe after all.”

James answered, “Apparently”

God countered, “But you didn’t believe in me exactly. You believed in a God that, at least in some small way cared if you lived or died. In some vain hope that despite all your evidence to the contrary, there would be some all-powerful being that kept some sort of score up there”.

James felt empty, “Yes”.

God closed the door, “And now you know that there is a God, James. But a God that isn’t at all like you thought. That has no definition for the word ‘care’ much less one it would apply to you. A God that looks at you no different than a random atom or some empty remote corner of the Universe. A God that is not so trivial as to create beings to worship it because worshipping it would be meaningless. A God does exist James and as it happens, to that God — you are without exaggeration, nothing. Absolutely nothing at all.”

James sat back down at his desk. He picked up his pen and looked at what he had written earlier. He grabbed the sheet and crumpled it to the floor.

He began to write something new.