Bethany arrived Friday evening and so we have our third house guest. Actually, our fourth, if you count Mom and Dad separately. I haven’t really spent much time with her, though. Obviously, she and Chhav have been staying up till God-only-knows-when.

She brought a book for us from her mother, something I’ve wanted to read for years once I learned what it was about: Mere Christianity. Bethany said it’s the best apologetics she’s read. I’m interested in it because it attempts to begin in a way similar to Berger’s theology from anthropology. I’m doubtful that it will lead me to re-convert. Well, that’s not quite right — I’ve never really been a Christian in my whole life, if I’m completely honest. That’s a strange thing — I’ve never really thought about it before, but I guess it’s the case. Anyway, I’m interested to see how Lewis’ argument develops.

I went to work yesterday for a little while. I’m not sure I really accomplished enough to justify going in — I did two chapters of QC changes. It was enough, however, to make me realize the utter stupidity of what I’m doing now. The more QC crap I get, the less likely I am to make the actual changes. I’ve been writing “No” by so many of the changes. But it’s a really unhealthy production model because it just pits us against them.

I think they’re checking for too many things. The result is that they miss a lot of things. For example, telling me to make “Emperor” lower-case in “Holy Roman Emperor” sometimes, but not always doing so. This is all the more troubling because of the fact that it’s in the style guide as “Holy Roman Emperor.” The result is that I feel like a lot of these changes are somewhat arbitrary. Another example: in one profile someone had me change “modern-day Some-Country” to “present-day Some-Country”; later, QC wanted me to change some reference to 16^th-century France to “modern-day France.” This is ludicrous. And it amounts to nothing more than a waste of my time and their time.

What should they be doing? Checking for consistency between dates in lectures and profiles; making sure we have “r.” in front of reign dates; checking grammar and syntax; making sure everything is in accordance to the style guide. Instead, they’re fucking editing the stuff a second time. Even checking for “content gaps.” (God, I am so sick of our little lexicon of “content question” and “cat-1” and “content gaps.”) But not, for God’s sake, re-editing every little line. Especially in this plagiarism project — and this close to the damn deadline. It really amounts to nothing more than a waste of time.

After spending two and a half hours inputting someone else’s changes (yes, I am a little resentful that they don’t do it themselves — ever hear of “tracking changes?”), I met Bethany and Chhavi at (guess) Fanuell Hall. We wandered around there for a while, then started toward Downtown Crossing to go to Harvard Square for dinner, and on the way, they decided they wanted to stop at Marshall’s.

Just after that, we came to the Old Town Meeting Hall (I think that’s what it’s called) and there was a woman sitting on the stoop at the Meeting Hall, begging. “Spare any change?” she asked everyone as they walked by, and her voice was so flat and empty that it was heartbreaking. I told Chhav and Bethany to go on to the store and I went back to Starbucks and bought a cup of coffee and a hot cocoa. I went back to where the woman was sitting, sat down beside her and said, “I brought you something warm to drink. I have coffee here and hot chocolate — which would you prefer?” At first she looked at me as if I were a complete idiot, then she said, “Hot chocolate,” and I thought to myself, “Good thing you didn’t assume she just likes coffee.” We introduced ourselves — her name was Vikki. Immediately I began wondering what I could say. I didn’t want to just leave the cocoa and run off. I asked her if she had any place to go that night. She explained that she has an apartment in Lynn (I think) and that she has two boys — “I’m out here for them.” I was wondering how she could afford an apartment on just begging, but I didn’t ask. We talked for a while, then I left, giving her the seventy-five cents I had left over from buying the drinks and wishing her luck.

I’m not sure what I accomplished in doing that, but it felt nice to be giving something to someone. I felt like I was doing that in Lipnica all the time — giving my time and my attention, at the very least — and I’ve missed that for the last year. Of course I can’t say anything to Chhavi about that. She’ll encourage me to volunteer at homeless shelters and soup kitchens all the time so that I’ll snap out of my depression. I do want to snap out of my depression, but I’m not really sure I want to give up the idea of going back to Lipnica.

9:46 PM 55 Adams Street, Malden MA

This evening Bethany showed us pictures from her missionary trip to — of all places — Scotland. Those hinterlands of heather are certainly bastions for pagans — have been for ages. Anyway, she was talking about people basically communing with the Holy Spirit and describing praying for people — people who, I might add, had been smote by the Spirit or something, lying on the floor, unable to move. Or, “Here’s a picture of us, just worshipping.” Apparently when they had free time they just broke into worship sessions. I must admit it was really difficult to figure out things to say. How can you converse with someone who’s so happy about something you think is such a crock of shit? It’s a tricky thing.

I really don’t understand that mentality — the whole purpose of Bethany’s life is to worship God and sing his praises. That just seems like a terribly boring way to go through life.

And it really brings serious questions to my mind about the nature of this God she’s worshiping. Would I want someone always praising me? Certainly not — that’s nothing but megalomania a human being. Why is it any different in God?

Perhaps someone would answer that it’s in appreciation. And to that I would reply, “Appreciation for what? Creating me? He didn’t create me — my parents created me when they had sex. Creating the human race? Well, fine — perhaps I should be thankful, but I don’t see that he did the greatest of jobs.”

That’s what it really boils down to — why in hell did God create humanity? The Westminster Catechism says, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” So that’s why God created us? So that we would glorify him? What kind of insecure God needs puny humans “lifting him up?” Why would he want such a thing? Does he need such a thing?

More questions — when did God realize he’d fucked up and that Adam and Eve (speaking strictly in Christian terms here — I’m taking what the Bible says as truth for the sake of argument) were choosing knowledge over him. (Isn’t that frightening in and of itself? God created a Tree of Knowledge, but then forbade his creation from messing with it. And what’s this shit about God not tempting?) So God creates humanity; Adam and Eve mess up and choose knowledge over life or obedience; they are immediately estranged from God. So he hatches this scheme of sending himself — or part of himself — to Earth to pay this price he’s going to exact from everyone’s ass once they die. Lots of questions here, and one follows the other:

1. Did God not know that Adam and Eve were going to fuck up? Or, to broaden it a little more, that humanity was going to be such a miserable disaster?
2. If he did know, then why didn’t he make things a little more fair? Why didn’t he give Adam and Eve a little more knowledge? Why didn’t he make the urge to be good (as C. S. Lewis goes on and on about in Mere Christianity) a little stronger?
3. If he didn’t know, then he’s simply not the omnipotent God Christianity claims him to be.

The most logical conclusion is that he did know all along and that this whole Christ scheme was part of the plan in the beginning. But why? So that humans would need God all the more? So that we could feel thankful to God because he didn’t give us what we deserve?

It all centers on God’s motives for creating us. And I don’t really know that Christianity answers that in and of itself. So Christianity answers the question, “Where did this sense of right and wrong come from?” and it answers the ever-vexing question, “What happens when we die?” but it doesn’t touch at all — at least adequately — “Why the hell are we here anyway?”

I really can’t escape the conclusion that Christianity is just a stupid religion. It makes perfect sense — if you accept a few basic premises. But I don’t accept those premises and that’s where all the trouble starts.