Mr. Deity
This is a funny bit. I came across Mr. Deity (written and produced by Brian Keith Dalton--he's the guy playing Mr. Deity) in a conversation with a friend of mine, and on a lark, I went home, dialed up YouTube and checked it out. Mr. Deity is a funny little white haired man (which of course he should be) who is running the universe according to a plan he has in mind, and the series (there are five episodes so far) give us a behind the scenes look at his core thinking, or lack of such. His balding assistant Larry has great misgivings about some of Mr. Deity's decisions, but still, he supports and upholds Mr. Deity's right to do what he wants, being as he is the God of the universe. Jesus, a name Mr. Deity has trouble remembering, is a Hollywood hunk who we see weighing whether or not to accept Mr. Deity's offer of complete and equal partnership in this enterprise, knowing that he's going to have to go down and live a sinless life and get crucified for it. (For which of course, there is no insurance--as in no coverage in heaven's corporate insurance plan.)
I have a wide range of reactions to this lampooning of God and His process of creation. First of all, this is great production work, very funny writing, and the acting is on the nose. So of course my first reaction is to laugh...laugh hard. I suppose if it didn't make me laugh, I wouldn't pay attention. But Mr. Deity is getting lots of hits on YouTube and iTunes, and the more I think about it, the less happy I am. The creators are hoping to finagle their way into a half-hour television series, and at the rate this is going, it wouldn't surprise me if they got their wish.
Creator Brian Keith Dalton is obviously having fun. The FAQ's over at mrdeity.com reveal what I think is a pretty benign desire to have fun at the expense of religion, which of course, comics have been doing forever. Dalton is a former practitioner of something, is not interested in offending people, and has plans in the works to take on the "angry atheists" as well.
Of course the problem is that these images of God are very powerful and play into our inability to deal with certain intellectual problems that any faith in God raises. They start with the classical question of theodicy (God and the existence of Evil...why would an all powerful God allow suffering, etc.), and move on to deal with other mind-bending aspects of Christian Theology, some of which they get right, some of which they get wrong. (Apparently Adam and Eve couldn't have sex before they ate the apple.) Of course faith in God raises intellectual problems. So does the atheism/evolution paradigm. (Just why does that fish crawl out onto land?)
Actually the real concern has to do with the post from a couple of days ago...the Neil Postman problem. The real question has to do with how the thousands, perhaps millions of people watching Mr. Deity process what they are seeing. Do they actually examine them? Do analysis for the truth of what they're seeing? I think Christians can learn some things from Mr. Diety, and certainly non-Christians can, too. But truthfully, to talk about deep analysis is just to take the fun out of the whole thing. My fear is that people will laugh and be greatly entertained (I certainly am) and walk away saying to their friends, "See I knew God was a stupid idea," and leave it at that. End of story, case closed.
And all you have to do is read the YouTube comments and see.
I'm sure God has a sense of humor, and can laugh at Himself along with the best of them. But I'm not sure Mr. Deity helps us move to a deeper understanding of the awe and wonder of creation, which for my money, couldn't possibly arise from time plus chance plus nothing.
Offended? Not really. Sad...in the end, profoundly.
...of course He is beyond us...
9:58:08 AM 
