“No, not really. Why should I?” I replied, somewhat taken aback.
“Don’t you know who I am?” he demanded.
“Nope, not a clue. What the fuck are you doing in my room, anyway?” I shot back.
It seemed my flippant disregard for my own personal safety and belligerent assertion that he had no right to be where he was pissed him off a bit. I could swear he swelled another inch or two in height.
“I am the Angry Hand of God.” he stated, flatly. I could almost hear the capital letters in his tone.
“Oooh! Lovely! Which one?” I was growing annoyed.
“I am the Angry Hand of the one true God, here to punish you.”
“I see… and what, exactly, are you here to punish me for?” I asked.
My feathered friend was clearly aggravated. He puffed his chest out and twitched his wings in what I suspect he thought was a menacing fashion. The sword looked a bit broader, perhaps sharper…. Interesting.
“You have ignored God. You are a sinner. You show no humility to the Higher Power.” he said, again with the capitals clearly enunciated.
“Look,” I said “I didn’t think god was so insecure that he needed that much attention. From me, no less.” I countered, pointedly trying to verbalize the lack of capitalization.
“It is not your attention that God requires, but your faith and servitude.” the angel said, exasperation reading clearly on his now dirty face. He raised the sword again, a little flash in his eye. I took a step backward, bumping into my bedside table.
“Do you deny the charges laid against you?” he asked.
“Not for a second” I replied. “Faith, to me is little more than belief in the absence of proof. I’m very much a hands-on kind of guy. If I can’t see some sort of concrete proof of the existence of something, I’m bound to question it. Besides, man invented religion, not your “god.”
I only just managed to avoid making the little parenthesis gesture with my hands, not wanting to push my luck too far just yet. He lowered the sword and sagged noticeably.
“You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?” he sighed.
“You’ve left it open to debate, so… yes. In my opinion, there is no god. Man invented gods and religions to explain things that they couldn’t figure out or that scared them. The early shamans of animistic and earth-based religions were go-to guys for their tribes. After awhile, they realized the position of power their status provided and sought to capitalize on it. All they had to do was look skyward, shake a few fetishes, and make grand statements to get fed without having to hunt or gather. Not a bad scam, right? As the tribes started settling down and forming communities, some rules became necessary. Enter the shaman, priest, or priestess. Of course, rules are rather useless without consequences to back them up and, voila! We have hell, the underworld, the belly of the beast and whatnot.”
I stopped to catch my breath and study the angel’s face to see if any of this was sinking in. It was. His robes looked dingier, the sword smaller and blunted, less menacing. Not wanting to lose my momentum, I rolled right back into my diatribe.
“Nearly every religious text is purported to be the word of god, and yet, as far as I can discern, they were all written down my humans. Think about it, history is written by the people who are cruel enough, cunning enough, and adequately lucky to win the wars. Who can truly say that any text is anywhere near accurate and not a piece of heavily edited propaganda for one king or emperor’s own personal agenda? Sin? Don’t even get me started on that. Your god wants me to think that I’m a wretched sight to behold? Fair enough, but if he made me, why did he leave these flaws in the plan?”
The angel interrupted, “God gave you free will! You chose to be a sinner!”
“Sure, okay. I’m a sinner and I’m going to hell. Great. What a way to live your life, operating under the threat of some eternally unpleasant thing happening after you die. A pretty good way for the clergy to hold some power and demand money to support their lifestyle, don’t you think? Nobody can back up the claims of heaven or hell, nobody has come back and said “Hell really sucks”. The easiest way to get people to do as you like is to make them afraid of not doing it. So, if your god created hell, he’s a bully. I hate bullies. If your god created this planet and all the living things on it, why doesn’t he do a little more to protect it? Why doesn’t he prevent the wars, famines, and environmental degradation? There’s no evidence of benevolence. Where is your god? Why does he let children suffer? Original sin? Because we’re all born evil and can only be ‘saved’ if we bow down to the church and subjugate our will to your god?”
The further the angel’s staunch beliefs were shaken, it seemed his certainty of his own existence was beginning to fade. The angelic garb is now tattered, his wings crooked, the feathers skewed and manky looking, and the sword… The sword now held all the threat of a small, half-rotted cod. Sure, if he were to strike me with it, it’d sting a bit, but there’d be no risk of never needing to buy another shirt.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t agree with what you are saying, nor what you believe. You should know, however, that I would defend your right to your beliefs and freedom to express them with my life. All the same, I don’t want to hear it. Evangelism is bad enough. Angelic evangelism? For fuck’s sake! Why don’t you have a word with the pious hypocrites who claim to represent your god and secretly commit grievous sins, according to whichever book they claim to have mastery of?”
My visitor had shape-shifted once again. His shoulders now hunched, his physical size had diminished to no more than my height. The sword had disappeared and he now held his tarnished halo in his hands, staring glumly at it as it cracked in half and crumbled between his fingers. I patted him half-heartedly on the shoulder and looked him square in the eyes.
“Maybe you should just leave. You’re not getting anywhere with me. I’m stubborn as can be. You won’t change my mind.” He kicked at the little pile of dust that was his halo, muttered something in a language I didn’t understand, and shrugged.
“Alright, fuck you.” he said in the most dejected tone I’ve ever heard. With a puff of smoke and a lingering aroma of burnt feathers, he disappeared.
