A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT GODLESS, IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER...
What sort of book is Godless? It's coming-of-age story, a comedy, a tragedy, a drama, an adventure. I've been told that the title makes it sound like a scary, violent tale about someone or something evil. It is not. My intention was never to equate godlessness with evil. They are not the same thing at all. I was thinking of the temporary godlessness that descends upon a person who is actively searching for his or her faith. Maybe I should have called it "Churchless."
Godless is neither pro- nor anti-religion. The main character. Jason Bock, is Roman Catholic, but he could as easily be Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim.
Godless is not about God. It doesn't weigh in on the existence or nature of a Supreme Being. It is not about which religion is the truest, or the best. It's about how people--teenagers in particular--deal with the questions that arise when their faith has been shaken.
If you strip away the whole religion thing, Godless is about a big fat nerdy kid named Jason Bock who has an excess of smarts and imagination, and his relationship with his even nerdier snail-collecting best friend Shin.
Godless is about the power of ideas--Jason conceives the Chutengodian religion, he sets it in motion, but he is unprepared for the consequences. This is a latch-key teenage moment--our first conscious realization that the expression of our own beliefs can have a huge impact on the beliefs of others--especially our friends. It's about discovering personal power, and the heady experience of plying it.*
WHY I WROTE GODLESS...
Godless was inspired by two events in my life.
First, I read a story about Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormons. According to church teachings, Joseph was just another 14-year-old kid who was vaguely dissatisfied with the faith of his fathers when God called young him as His prophet. After several years of spiritual preparation, Joseph was visited by the angel Moroni, who revealed the location of golden tablets containing the Book of Mormon. Joseph soon went on to create one of the most successful modern-day religions. Reading his story I thought, wow--what an incredible coming-of-age story that is!
Then I remembered something I hadn't thought about for more than 35 years--a brief teenage interlude when I and a few of my friends devised a mock-religion worshipping the St. Louis Park water tower. It was a summer goof, a way to be irreverant and...well, teens are easily bored, y'know? Anyway, we had this whole epistemology, a pantheon of water tower gods in which the towers belonging to other cities were lesser deities, and so forth. It was something I did for a few weeks one summer and then forgot about.
One thing you learn when you write teen books--all those uncomfortable, embarrassing memories you worked so hard to erase, they're still in there. It all came back to me in a rush.
Godless is not a memoir. It's fiction through and through. But the feelings and the questions raised by the characters are quite real. I know. I was there.
REGARDING MY PERSONAL BELIEFS...
I was raised Catholic, and as a teenager I had many of the thoughts I attribute to Jason Bock in Godless. I was obsessed with religion, studying the amazing variety of Christian and non-Christian faiths. I believe I became a better person for having explored the many questions asked, answered, and avoided by the religions of the world. At least I hope I did.
Am I now a religious person? Well, I believe in religion. I believe religions have the power to do good, to help people live together, and to live with themselves. I also believe that religions can sometimes breed and channel destructive forces, as evidenced--on both sides--by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Religion can be both powerful and dangerous. I believe in it, sure. It's like asking if I believe in automobiles. Or guns. Or drugs. Or fire.
When I was seven years old--what Catholics consider the "Age of Reason"--I cornered my father on the Santa Claus question. We were on the way to church, just the two of us in his '58 Chevy wagon, something we did at 5:30 every morning during Lent. I demanded to know how it was possible that a fat man in a red suit could perform his annual miracle. After a bit of squirming, my dad admitted the truth to me. That was the beginning of the unraveling.
We would have these conversations about the nature of God. He had an answer for everything. One day, again on the way to church, I was grilling my dad about God's dimensions and capabilities.
"Does God know every single thing I am thinking?"
"Yes, Pete."
"Does God know what I am going to think next?"
"Yes."
"Could God blow up the moon if he wanted to?"
"Yes."
"Is God everywhere?"
"Yes."
"Is God inside my little finger?"
"Yes."
"Could God make two plus two be five?"
My father, who was a lawyer, an accountant, and who had been educated by Jesuits, thought for a moment. Then he said, "No, Pete, God couldn't do that."**
That was a classic crack-in-the-dike moment. Over the next several years, one question led to another to another. The Bible and church teachings did not alway supply the answers I sought, so I looked elsewhere.
What did I find? I found that I did not (and probably never would) know enough about the true nature of the univese to tell anyone else what to believe, and I came to distrust the words of those who presumed to do so. I also learned to recognize and respect the power of religion, and of faith.
I do not worship; neither do I scoff.
11/3/04
* If you would like to share your personal religious beliefs with me, please email blackhole@mywayistheonlyway.com.
** Eventually I came to disagree with my father's answer. That is, I don't necessarily believe that an omnipotent supreme being exists, but if he/she/it does exist, then he/she/it (being omnipotent) should be able to alter reality in such a way that two plus two could equal five--or any other number. Or any other thing, for that matter. This falls into the same category of questions such as, "Could God make it so that History had never happened?" or, "Could God make it so that God did not exist?" Such questions usually reduce to questions of meaning and language. and are best explored by people who have WAY too much time on their hands.
Godless is neither pro- nor anti-religion. The main character. Jason Bock, is Roman Catholic, but he could as easily be Protestant, Jewish, or Muslim.
Godless is not about God. It doesn't weigh in on the existence or nature of a Supreme Being. It is not about which religion is the truest, or the best. It's about how people--teenagers in particular--deal with the questions that arise when their faith has been shaken.
If you strip away the whole religion thing, Godless is about a big fat nerdy kid named Jason Bock who has an excess of smarts and imagination, and his relationship with his even nerdier snail-collecting best friend Shin.
Godless is about the power of ideas--Jason conceives the Chutengodian religion, he sets it in motion, but he is unprepared for the consequences. This is a latch-key teenage moment--our first conscious realization that the expression of our own beliefs can have a huge impact on the beliefs of others--especially our friends. It's about discovering personal power, and the heady experience of plying it.*
WHY I WROTE GODLESS...
Godless was inspired by two events in my life.
First, I read a story about Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormons. According to church teachings, Joseph was just another 14-year-old kid who was vaguely dissatisfied with the faith of his fathers when God called young him as His prophet. After several years of spiritual preparation, Joseph was visited by the angel Moroni, who revealed the location of golden tablets containing the Book of Mormon. Joseph soon went on to create one of the most successful modern-day religions. Reading his story I thought, wow--what an incredible coming-of-age story that is!
Then I remembered something I hadn't thought about for more than 35 years--a brief teenage interlude when I and a few of my friends devised a mock-religion worshipping the St. Louis Park water tower. It was a summer goof, a way to be irreverant and...well, teens are easily bored, y'know? Anyway, we had this whole epistemology, a pantheon of water tower gods in which the towers belonging to other cities were lesser deities, and so forth. It was something I did for a few weeks one summer and then forgot about.
One thing you learn when you write teen books--all those uncomfortable, embarrassing memories you worked so hard to erase, they're still in there. It all came back to me in a rush.
Godless is not a memoir. It's fiction through and through. But the feelings and the questions raised by the characters are quite real. I know. I was there.
REGARDING MY PERSONAL BELIEFS...
I was raised Catholic, and as a teenager I had many of the thoughts I attribute to Jason Bock in Godless. I was obsessed with religion, studying the amazing variety of Christian and non-Christian faiths. I believe I became a better person for having explored the many questions asked, answered, and avoided by the religions of the world. At least I hope I did.
Am I now a religious person? Well, I believe in religion. I believe religions have the power to do good, to help people live together, and to live with themselves. I also believe that religions can sometimes breed and channel destructive forces, as evidenced--on both sides--by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Religion can be both powerful and dangerous. I believe in it, sure. It's like asking if I believe in automobiles. Or guns. Or drugs. Or fire.
When I was seven years old--what Catholics consider the "Age of Reason"--I cornered my father on the Santa Claus question. We were on the way to church, just the two of us in his '58 Chevy wagon, something we did at 5:30 every morning during Lent. I demanded to know how it was possible that a fat man in a red suit could perform his annual miracle. After a bit of squirming, my dad admitted the truth to me. That was the beginning of the unraveling.
We would have these conversations about the nature of God. He had an answer for everything. One day, again on the way to church, I was grilling my dad about God's dimensions and capabilities.
"Does God know every single thing I am thinking?"
"Yes, Pete."
"Does God know what I am going to think next?"
"Yes."
"Could God blow up the moon if he wanted to?"
"Yes."
"Is God everywhere?"
"Yes."
"Is God inside my little finger?"
"Yes."
"Could God make two plus two be five?"
My father, who was a lawyer, an accountant, and who had been educated by Jesuits, thought for a moment. Then he said, "No, Pete, God couldn't do that."**
That was a classic crack-in-the-dike moment. Over the next several years, one question led to another to another. The Bible and church teachings did not alway supply the answers I sought, so I looked elsewhere.
What did I find? I found that I did not (and probably never would) know enough about the true nature of the univese to tell anyone else what to believe, and I came to distrust the words of those who presumed to do so. I also learned to recognize and respect the power of religion, and of faith.
I do not worship; neither do I scoff.
11/3/04
* If you would like to share your personal religious beliefs with me, please email blackhole@mywayistheonlyway.com.
** Eventually I came to disagree with my father's answer. That is, I don't necessarily believe that an omnipotent supreme being exists, but if he/she/it does exist, then he/she/it (being omnipotent) should be able to alter reality in such a way that two plus two could equal five--or any other number. Or any other thing, for that matter. This falls into the same category of questions such as, "Could God make it so that History had never happened?" or, "Could God make it so that God did not exist?" Such questions usually reduce to questions of meaning and language. and are best explored by people who have WAY too much time on their hands.