by Jeff Pollard
23
Renee lays on her back, looking at the orange sky. She stares at it, mesmerized by the many suns. A fluttering of wings approaches. An angel lands nearby, walking towards her.
“Here,” the angel says, holding out a bible towards Renee. She doesn't move. The angel sets it on the ground, then takes off and flies away.
“They think they're missionaries,” Renee mutters, picking up the book. She contemplates burning it, pissing on it, tearing it to shreds. She settles on throwing it away as hard as she can. She lays back down.
“You can think of a way to beat them,” Patrick says. Renee opens her eyes and sees Patrick standing over her, silhouetted against the orange sky of hell.
“Are you really here or am I imagining this?”
Patrick kneels down beside her, putting his hand down on the porous black rock. “If you were imagining me, would I know that?” Patrick replies with a sly smile. “It seems rather presumptuous to assume that an imaginary friend would have meta-cognition.”
“How do you know it's even possible for us to fight back?” Renee asks. Patrick helps her sit up.
“Because, there's gotta be a way, this can't be it. The whole world of Solipsis, every last person, cast into hell for eternity? I can't believe it. Come on, get up, we have to carry on.” Renee again doesn't budge. Patrick gives up. He sighs and lays down beside her. They hold hands, looking up, hypnotized by the swirling flames in the sky.
“There's no property of the universe that requires there to always be a hope or a chance. It's entirely plausible that we have no hope at all. We're like sailors stranded at the bottom of the ocean in a dead nuclear submarine, praying for a rescue, but we were doomed from the moment the accident occurred. There's nothing for us to do.”
“How do you know there's nothing you can do?” Patrick asks.
“We can't fight back in Solipsis, they can respawn and we can't. And even if we could somehow defeat them, there's nothing for us to win. Even if we somehow killed them and took back control of this place, they still have control of the computers, and we can't get to Earth to do anything about that.”
“But you've always been good at solving problems,” Patrick says hopefully.
“It's an impossible problem,” Renee says simply, lying back.
“Maybe you just aren't thinking about the problem in the right way,” Patrick says.
“Meaning what?” Renee asks. He doesn't respond. Renee turns her head towards him, pressing her cheek into the craggy rock. He has vanished. Renee sits up, immediately feeling woozy. In the realm of the computers, they have us beaten. But they still have to maintain control. The only way for us to get out of here is to change their minds. How do we change their minds? Renee's eye find the bible.
Renee awakens on the desert floor to an angel walking towards her. “Want some water?”
Renee sits up and refuses with a shake of her head. “You look familiar,” Renee muses. Her eyes search the face of this angel. “Seth? Right?”
“Yeah,” he replies quietly. He sits across from her holding a clay jar of cool water.
“You remember me?” Renee asks.
“Yeah,” is all he says. His eyes dart toward the fresh volcanic rock.
“Why are you doing this?” Renee asks.
“Because, in the long run, it's for the best. A little pain and suffering for a few days or weeks is nothing compared to eternity in hell. If we can convince these people to accept Jesus, then we can save their souls forever. Can't you see that's a worthy cause?”
“Who are you trying to convince?” Renee asks.
“Are you ready to come to the lord?” Seth asks. Renee glares at him.
“Maybe. I have some questions first,” Renee says quietly. Seth seems very uneasy. “What convinced you it was true?”
“I have felt the presence of the lord personally,” Seth says.
“I don't mean on an emotional level, I mean philosophically, logically, what made you consciously believe it was real?”
“You can't separate the two.”
“Well, you say you've felt the lord's presence,” Renee says, Seth nods, “so then it's easy for you to believe. But I've never felt the lord's presence, making it very difficult to believe. Doesn't that make the question of faith drastically different for us. How is that fair?”
“You have to let God into your life,” Seth replies.
“But he can do anything, so why leave me hanging with no awareness or feeling of his presence,” Renee asks.
“You're letting logic get in the way.”
“How else can we understand the world but through logic?” Renee asks.
“The lord doesn't follow logic, he doesn't have to. He created logic, so when you start trying to prove his existence, you'll run into trouble. Knowledge only exists because he created it, he created rationality and logic, and so the very concept of something 'making sense,' is dependent on the lord having first created it. It's then clear to see that something that existed prior to and outside of the rationality and logic we posses would also not have to follow the rules or make sense within them. You see?”
“Do you really think that torturing all these people is what god wants? You think he'd rather have people devoting their lives to worshiping him in the hope that he'll reward them in the afterlife? If I were god, I wouldn't need to have my ego stroked constantly. Why would I want a world filled with sheep? I'd want people to be themselves, have fun, to be creative, to discover new things, and I'd prevent them from too much suffering. The fact that the holocaust happened, that's game over for the concept of a loving god.”
“Concepts are the construct of men, therefore they are fallible,” Seth replies.
“Well then you're starting from the assumption that god does exist and working backwards to prove that his existence doesn't have to make sense because he exists, it's circular reasoning,” Renee says dismissively.
“But I just told you, logic doesn't apply,” Seth replies.
“This is gonna be harder than I thought,” Renee sighs.
“What? Are you trying to change my mind?” Seth asks. “No offense, but you're not going to change my mind. Please, take some water.”
Renee refuses. Seth stands up and walks away.
Renee stares into a horizon of lush green trees swaying gently in the wind.
“You're not going to change my mind by attacking the existence of God,” Seth says, walking next to her in this lush forest. “You'll have to accept that I know God to exist and personally feel his presence and that I somehow know that it's not a delusion. Those things have to be given, argue within those terms.”
“How do I do that?” Renee asks.
“You don't have to convince me there is no god,” Seth replies, “that's going to be impossible. But you can try to change my mind about whether this is the right thing, whether my dad is really doing the lord's work. That's the weak link in all this.”
Renee meditates, her eyes flutter. It's been days. Though the suns don't rise or set, perched forever in the same spots in the sky. Her mouth is dry, her lungs burn, her stomach has collapsed in on itself. The damage being done to her body isn't real, but the pain is.
Why bother? I'll probably never even have the opportunity to argue with Lazarus. Even if I did, I wouldn't be able to change his mind. It's a fools errand. I'm just indulging myself toward madness.
Renee awakens, sitting up, every joint aches. An angel sits meters away, staring at her. “Would you like some food?”
“What's the catch,” Renee says. Her throat is so dry she can barely speak.
“No catch,” the angel offers her bread and wine. Renee takes it, suspicious. “You know, in heaven, you will be reunited with your family.”
“There's no such place,” Renee responds.
“All you have to do is cooperate, and we will save your soul, and we'll pull the plug on your brain,” the angel says. “Then your mind will finally join your body in the afterlife, reunite
d in heaven.”
“Are people actually falling for this?” Renee asks.
“It's not a trick,” the angel responds. “We're saving your souls.”
“I can't believe you actually think you're doing the right thing,” Renee replies, disgusted. “You're ruining the lives of thousands of people. You're a bunch of murderers.”
“We're only allowing people to die like God intended. It's not murder.”
“It's assisted suicide then,” Renee retorts. “If you just left us alone, we could have lived for hundreds of years, being good human beings, helping others, saving lives.”
“Humans are not meant to be immortal,” the angel replies.
“How do you know that?”
“You're obviously not ready,” the angel says, getting up. “I'm wasting my time. You'll change your mind once the real fun starts.” The angel smiles creepily. He turns and starts walking away, picking up his pace and starting to flap his wings. Just before he takes to the air, a rock slams into his right wing. Renee pumps her fist in celebration. He gets into the air, but tumbles, crashing to the ground in a cartwheel. The angel tries to stand up, but its right leg is broken. It is unable to stand. Renee walks up to the stricken angel, clumsily flailing around. The person behind the angel doesn't physically feel any pain at all, he's sitting at a console, not directly linked in to his nervous system.
“Save this,” Renee says as she slams down her rock-covered foot in the angel's face, bludgeoning it to bits. The angel becomes completely still. It might appear like Renee has killed the angel, and perhaps it's accurate to describe it that way, but the real person who was controlling the angel has simply disconnected from his now useless avatar. The only way for him to save the avatar would have been to get it to a televator. Without eyes that was going to be nearly impossible. He can however disconnect, and then respawn in a new avatar, but he will emerge from a televator, and there aren't any nearby. In fact, only a handful of televators are still accessible, all strictly guarded, and none near the trapped souls in hell. Renee lays down beside the dead angel, falling back into a fevered dream state.
Seth returns, waking Renee from a shallow sleep. The pain won't allow her to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. She's been in this spot in hell for days, losing all track of time and reality. The angel she murdered lies beside her, bludgeoned.
“What do you want?” Renee asks of Seth. He doesn't offer, he comes up to her, pouring water at her face. She turns away, the water pours down her face, filling the cracks in her skin.
“Please, drink,” Seth pleads.
“Leave me alone.”
Seth holds his hand out. “Please, let me help you.”
Renee glares up at him, wanting nothing more than to beat him senseless. “You want to help me? Then come down here and look me in the eye when you talk to me.”
Seth hesitates, then crouches across from her. His eyes again dart downward. The virtual eyes point in the direction his real eyes are pointing as he wears an immersive helmet.
“No,” Renee says strongly. “Look in my eyes.”
Seth's virtual eyes attempt courage, taking short looks at her. She reaches her cracked, bloody hands for his cheeks, locking his gaze at her.
“I want to help you,” Seth says bravely.
“I don't want your help,” Renee replies.
“Please, even if you don't believe, just come with me, go through the motions, maybe you'll feel something. Your just going to suffer in here until you accept your savior. So go along with it.”
“You idiots are so deluded you think you're doing the right thing,” Renee says, “it makes me wanna fucking puke.”
“Why are you so closed off to the truth?”
“You only believe in this crap because you were indoctrinated as a child,” Renee replies, “I wasn't indoctrinated, so I haven't been brainwashed to see the truth.”
“And you were indoctrinated with atheism.”
“Fine, so we're both just products of indoctrination, shouldn't we then have to keep an open mind and consider all possibilities?” Renee asks.
“But you atheists are so sure of yourselves,” Seth replies.
“Says the torturer.”
“This is all for your sake, to save your soul from eternal torment. The ends justifies any means.”
“Only from your point of view,” Renee replies. “From my point of view, you're murdering and torturing innocent people so that they'll believe in your invisible man in the sky. It's barbaric. It's downright evil.”
“But where do you get the authority to call us barbaric? You have no ground to stand on to call us evil. Without God there's no such thing as good or evil. Only through God can we have objective moral truth. Like it or not, when you make such a judgment, you're using your God-given morals to make the claim.”
“That doesn't make any damn sense,” Renee replies. “What does an invisible sky-god have to do with morality?”
“Well if there's no God, then rape and murder are fine, you still lose the argument.”
“That makes no sense, are you listening to yourself? Let's suppose that there is no god, we know that there's no god, we're just animals living on a rock in space. That doesn't then mean that life has no meaning. It has whatever meaning we give it. Morality is based on the happiness or suffering of conscious minds. If I do some action that harms other people, then it's wrong, where does god enter into the equation?”
“Okay, so you're a utilitarian. I see, so let me pose to you a moral dilemma, as a utilitarian,” Seth says. “Let's say you're a doctor and you have five patients that are dying. One needs a kidney, another needs a lung, a heart, a liver, and so on. They're waiting for donors, but none come. If you do nothing, these five will die in a few hours. But, you notice a man in the waiting room has the right blood type, all the right factors, so that if you take this man, put him under, take his liver and kidneys and heart and lungs, that you could kill this one healthy man and save the lives of five others. Would you do it?”
“Who told you this, your pastor?”
“Would you do it?” Seth persists.
“No,” Renee replies.
“See, your morals aren't coming from utilitarianism, as a utilitarian, this dilemma has no room to wiggle yourself out of. Save five and sacrifice one, you must do it. But you don't, that's because there is something deeper at work, a sense of the soul, the dignity, the importance of human beings, that they can't be used like numbers in an equation. God gives us this.”
“First off, I've taken an oath to do no harm. Secondly, your moral dilemma is a good hypothetical, but your analysis is completely wrong.”
“I've got you, that's the end of the argument. If your morals are materialistic, then you have to sacrifice the one to save the five, it's that simple,” Seth says.
“Okay, listen very carefully. The problem with that argument is that you're saying utilitarians can only do this math of number of persons living or dead,” Renee replies, “but there's far more to it. Let me ask you, if you were one of the patients, needing a liver, and they took some guy, euthanized him and gave you his liver to save your life and the lives of others, would you be happy knowing that a man was killed to save you?”
“No I wouldn't, because I know that humans shouldn't be treated like numbers because I have a God-given morality.”
“Okay, fine you think that, but let's imagine that this is a world without god, you're an atheist. They kill someone healthy to save your life and the lives of four others. Are you okay with this?”
“Absolutely, if I'm a utilitarian, then yes, it's the right thing to do.”
“Well you're wrong, because let me tell you how I would feel, as an atheist. If someone was murdered to save my life, I might be thankful to be alive, but it would weigh heavily on my mind. There are some people who would rather die with dignity than have someone murdered to save them. Now, imagine living in a world where you know you could be murdered and have your organs harve
sted at any moment. Imagine every person walking around everyday with this knowledge in the backs of their minds. Do you think that the world is better off with all of that suffering, than it is to allow five to die? Which world is better off, the one where they murder people and harvest organs, thus letting more people to live, or a world where people aren't afraid they're about to be murdered any moment by a doctor? It's easy to see, as a utilitarian, that aggregate happiness is higher in the world where we respect human life than it is in the world where we don't. A utilitarian doesn't just look at the number of people dead or alive, but at the quality of living of everyone.”
“You're not ready.”
“Yeah, you're right, I'm not ready to exchange my working mind for a brainwashed one. Move along little demon, go spread your bullshit somewhere else.”
“What if you're wrong?”
“About what?” Renee asks indignantly.
“What if there is a God, and you've wrongly chosen to be an atheist. If there is no God, like you think, then what difference does it make? What do you have to lose?”
“Pascal's Wager? Really? You know that's been thoroughly debunked.”
“Ad Hominem!”
“That's not Ad Hominem,” Renee says, shaking her head.
“Appeal to authority then.”
“Okay, I'm going to destroy Pascal's Wager, so pay attention, since you apparently don't have the attention span to, I don't know, ever try googling it and reading about it for five minutes to realize how non-sensical it is.”
“I'm listening,” Seth says through gritted teeth.
“So Pascal's Wager basically says that if god doesn't exist, it doesn't matter if you believe in him or not, you might waste some time or money, but ultimately it makes no difference. But if god does exist, and you don't believe in him, then you are punished for eternity. But if he exists and you do believe, then you are rewarded infinitely. So with that dilemma, you obviously should just believe because you have nothing to lose, so you might as well believe in god. Right? Did I cover it all? Just want to make sure we're on the same page,” Renee says.
