The trip from Carlisle to Inverness was surprisingly unstressful, though it is much easier being a passenger than a driver. The traffic was light and the way was clear and the scenery was stunning in the sunshine (and even when the clouds gathered around the mountains). I was sitting in the back thinking about the script (and in cutting a character I may have made a significant step forward) and also about God (wondering what protests and potential trouble I might be finding at my destination).
Someone had emailed me to say (including the God is not mocked line that I think comes on the template complaint letter in the back of the Bible):
"Dear Mr Herring
Why would God, if the there was a God, want to send people to hell for watching your show? Is there something in your show that, if there was a God, could be classed as offensive to Him? I know from a verse in the bible He doesn't like to be made fun of. "Be not deceived; God is not mocked" that verse goes on to imply that if you do mock God then there will be consequences for that. Is that enough to send people to hell? Its not the coming to see your show that damns people to hell but ultimately the unbelief in God, Jesus said these words in John 8:24 "... for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." This judgement for unbelief and "sin" is, of course, assuming there really is a God.
From my point of view if there really is no God believing in one hasn't done me any harm, but if there is a God how will it be with you?"
It's one of the more reasonable emails I have had, so I passed some time by replying to him saying,
"Yeah that's the spirit. Unless of course you've chosen the wrong god of the thousands available or the wrong branch of the church in which case you're burning in Hell with the non-believers.
I would hope if there was a God he would judge us by out actions rather than because we had guessed which god was really real or more likely believed in the god that our parents told us to.
Do you really think he can't take a joke? The all powerful being in the universe couldn't possibly be harmed by anything I say, but if you actually watched the show you would see it is in large part very complimentary to Jesus and most christians.
Here's hoping it doesn't turn out to be Zeus in the end, for your sake!
All the best
R"
Once again I have to admire the certainty that these people have that they have managed to solve the riddle of life. I'd be shitting myself at the odds of my guess being right (there must actually be millions of gods if you include all the ones throughout history). My guess would be that God would look more favourably on someone who hadn't believed in any god, than one who had actively supported a rival. And then even if you choose the right God, what if you have failed to interpret his message correctly? Again I think he'd be more pissed off with you, because you should have got what he was about. It's a minefield.
The truth is that it probably doesn't matter what happens when we die (largely because it will be the extinction of us all as conscious entities). Religion is here to make us feel happier when we are alive. So if it gives this man comfort to think that believing he is in some way more secure, then that's kind of OK, right? Whatever gets you through the night. Life's pretty terrifying in places and we can pretend our way out of a lot of that fear. It's just a shame that because of the way the human race is we have managed to make a comforting notion actually give us more cause for fear by imagining a God who is going to kill you or burn you if you mock him or don't believe in him, despite the fact that he has left no real indication of which of his incarnations is the most likely one.
I was thinking of the comment by the Dundee minister that I was childish and juvenile (and he's absolutely right) but what is more childish and juvenile than not being able to take a joke and by reacting violently if someone is even lightly mocking you. I can largely take a joke about myself, certainly without feeling the need to kill the person making it, so in my mind that makes God even more childish and juvenile than me. Only a child would punish you because you'd made an incorrect guess (especially if he had deliberately obfuscated the evidence) and not even a child would burn you in an everlasting fire. Let's face it, even a child forgets about their anger at a slight within minutes. The God that some people worship is a massive childish prick. I really hope it doesn't turn out to be him that is the real God, but if it is it won't really matter what you've believed when you're down here, because he is insane enough to pull your legs off and flush you down a toilet whatever you thought.
Ah well.
Anyway we got to Inverness OK and although I was spectacularly tired it turned out we had little to worry about. Steve who runs the venue greeted me with the news that someone had graffited the front door of the venue over night with the words, "Blasphemy is no laughing matter. Shame on you." Which ironically enough was quite a funny thing to put and I wasn't entirely sure that God or Jesus would approve of such vandalism. In fact I think that this might be one of the things that makes them angrier with the people who believe in them. Plus it was a little bit half-hearted. There was anticpation of protestors and I worried now that something might actually kick off, but as it turned out no one at all came to stand outside and complain and in fact very few wanted to sit inside and watch. There might have been 50 people in the cavernous room, which made for an intimate, but slightly tricky gig. It was hard to get any atmosphere going and there certainly weren't going to be any rolling laughs. It seems I actually got more people in the audience
the last time I did this venue in 2007, which is something of an aberration. But I gave my best and thanked my lucky stars that my whole tour was not so badly attended (it wasn't so long ago that this would have been the norm). These few seemed to enjoy it, though remarkably tonight's Trevor also tried to get up on the stage when I told him to "Come with me". Perhaps he had read yesterday's blog and thought he'd join in with the fun, but if not it's a bizarre coincidence that I have done so many gigs and then suddenly for two in a row the same misunderstanding occurs. He did seem genuinely bamboozled, so who knows?
I can't say that it delighted me to have come this fair for such underwhelming ticket sales, but hope those few dozen people got something out of it and weren't too embarrassed on my behalf. It's a shame because it's hard to justify the effort and expense (on behalf of the venue as much as myself) if so few people are interested in seeing the show. And yet the only way to build a crowd (beyond getting a TV show) is to keep coming back to a town year on year.
Anyway, it's almost worth the effort to take the piss out of the few people there for having made up a monster thus giving themself a tourist trade. As we drove back to our hotel in Nairn I looked over the loch, hoping to spot the fictional creature. I didn't see him, but the shallows of the loch were glowing with an eerie flourescent grey which was beguiling and beautiful and mysterious. It's easy to see why people make up fantastical stories to explain this world, though it's also astonishing that there have been people who have set out to discover why things actually happen, rather than taking a guess. I am beguiled both by the weird and wonderful world and by the factual explanations.
