Wrath of God

When I was a child, I thought like a child. I spoke like a child. I reasoned like a child. And I had scabby knees from falling over like a child.

And I often wondered about the "Wrath of God". What was this "wrath" of which the Bible spoke? Well (a) it was liable to be poured out, (b) you didn't want to have it near you and (c) it sounded a bit like "broth" (not, as Drayton seems to think, like "lath"). So I concluded, reasoning like the aforementioned child, that it was a kind of primevally intelligent killer-soup of judgement. If you upset God then he would pour out his wrath upon you and it would then kind of gloop around the neighbourhood, consuming what it might devour. After it had enveloped enough evil-doers, it would presumably be satisfied.

Of course, at this more enlightened age I now know this isn't true.

In fact, I am now supposed to believe, God never gets wrathful, and has no need to pour out his wrath. He's a much nicer God than that.

And I look at the exploitation of children, and the traffiking of women, and the ability of some companies to negotiate their way out of taxes. And I look at the way we've devastated the country with road infrastructure so people at place "A" can work in place "B", while people at place "B" can equally work in place "A". And I look at the way we've doomed some people to low achievement, by expecting nothing of them and then labelling them as failures. And then blaming them for the moral failures we've encouraged them in. And I look at the way we effectively condone unfaithfulness in relationships amongst the famous - and so excuse it among others.

And I ponder an economic system where the banks throw money at you until you can't pay it back, then get the government to fund them because they've been so stupid. But the governments are weak because they've borrowed so much money themselves, to buy your vote.

You know, that killer-soup idea probably wasn't any worse than the one where God's never angry?