It’s April 1st once more, and I think we all know what that means!
Bingo! It’s the annual Feast of Saint Cellach of Armagh! And as we all contemplate the life and legacy of this Irish Archbishop of the 12th century canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, what better time to announce my new spiritual awakening!
I awoke this morning with a fire in my heart, a bruise on my forehead and a copy of Atlas Shrugged beside me on the carpet where I apparently passed out. I don’t remember what happened last night, but whatever it was left me inspired with religious fervor!
After all, Ayn Rand worshipped the egoism and megalomania of self-styled Übermenschen, and argues that as the foremost creative and productive force in society they should have near unlimited license and entitlement to force others to comply with their uncompromising personal vision. And who embodies that idea better than the over-over-over-overman himself, God?
This was the revelation that led me to found a new religion, based on a new and superior interpretation of the Bible!
Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you the Church of the Universal Ego! We (and that’s the royal “we”) are a a Christian church and non-denominational at least until we make it big. And the tenants of our new faith are provided for your digestion below!
- Supreme Being: The Church of the Universal Ego believes in one divine Creator of heaven and earth, and like most creative people, the Creator has egocentric tendencies. We ascribe the existence and meaning of mankind to the essence of the Creator which we call the Universal Ego, and it is our divinely ordained purpose to love and worship the Creator as our heavenly father, lest we offend the Creator’s considerable self-regard and incur the Creator’s wrath.
- Creation: We believe that the Creator made the earth in seven days as part of a vanity project that He pursued out of boredom. The Creator spent the first five days narrowly focused on the worldbuilding which left Him exhausted, and when He recognized He needed to add some central characters He made mankind in His own likeness in a low-effort way to identify with them and make them relatable.
- Original Sin: The Church of the Universal Ego subscribes to the doctrine of Original Sin, which mankind incurred upon themselves by disobeying the Creator and eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, making them unworthy to stay in the Garden of Eden. Now, if you’re wondering why the Creator would put the Tree of Knowledge there in the first place, we believe that after creating the characters and setting, the Creator noticed there wasn’t really much of a story to his story, and the result was unengaging. He introduced the Tree of Knowledge to create a source of conflict, and tainted the fruit with Original Sin to give mankind some character flaws that would make them more compelling and to further drive the plot.
- Problem of Evil: Traditionally the problem of evil asks why an omnipotent and benevolent deity would tolerate the existence of evil and suffering in mankind. This question, which has puzzled philosophers and theologians for centuries, is fully resolved by the doctrine of the Universal Ego. The Creator isn’t a benevolent deity per se; He enjoys performing as a benevolent deity for creative purposes. The universe was conceived as part of a wish-fulfillment project where the Creator performs as a self-insert author surrogate character – an idealized version of Himself which is almighty, all-loving, liked by everyone and the all-around best. The Creator made the human race to love and worship Him, and to do so we must embrace His central dichotomy – that He is Creator-as-author and Creator-as-character. We must show Him gratitude when He offers salvation to us from the sin in the world which He is directly responsible for, and rescues our souls in the end times He will inevitably contrive. And we must accept the great mystery of our faith in which Creator we happen to stumble across based on His mood.
- The Bible: We believe that the Old and New Testament of the bible was written with the divine inspiration of the Creator. If you’re wondering why the Old and New Testament have such dramatically different tones and messages, the doctrine of the Universal Ego dictates that the Creator came up with the idea of New Testament when He realized that His creation had serious plot problems. The most important of these problems was that the world revolved around the Creator, but the Creator’s character was also inaccessible. He was (at least for story purposes) all-loving and all-powerful, but the admiration mankind felt for Him was still impersonal and esoteric. People could respect His unknowable, almighty spiritual power, but they couldn’t really relate to that faceless perfection. To resolve this problem, the Creator decided to take the story in a bold new creative direction, building off the framework He had already established and introducing a reimagined version of Himself that everyone could fall in love with. This is the reboot we now call the New Testament. The Church of the Universal Ego takes no position on the longstanding fan wars of which Testament was better. Suffice it to say, the original had the grander epic setpieces and dramatic moments, but the reboot had a more heartfelt, personal and inspirational story. In short, we say that it comes down to a matter of personal taste.
- Jesus Christ: As a Christian Church, we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son and savior of mankind. We believe the Creator begat Jesus Christ in the flesh as way to reinvent Himself and His character and add personality to his divinity. Indeed, the Creator took considerable care to make sure Jesus was as broadly appealing as possible – a lovable, caring guy; prim and chaste, but also genial and unjudgmental; a philosopher but also a simple man who worked with his hands; a morally upstanding devout preacher who would also turn water into wine to spice up a wedding; a refined man with royal blood who still possessed down-to-earth concern for the poor and down-trodden; a man of radical social beliefs who is yet unthreatening to conservative sentiments; a divine superhuman who wielded all the power of the world, and yet a vulnerable human being who could suffer pain and even die for the audience’s sympathy. He could inspire admiration and fear, urgency and comfort, awe and sorrow – virtually any emotion the audience needed. The Church of the Universal Ego contends that the message of Jesus Christ is universal and for all peoples – if it wasn’t, the Creator wouldn’t have workshopped Jesus so hard to make the character such an instant classic for everyone.
- The Trinity: The Church of the Universal Ego subscribes to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, though not as outlined in the Apostolic Councils. Our doctrine dictates that the Trinity was a necessary canonical explanation for major plot holes that were exacerbated by the introduction of the Jesus Christ character. In concept, it was simple enough to state that Jesus was the son of God; but eventually the Creator had to explain how Jesus needed to be worshipped as if he were God, and wasn’t lesser than God, and how that could be the case if there were really one and only one God. The solution? The Trinity – an inspired retcon that allowed the Creator to represent Himself as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit whenever it suited the plot. We think of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as different ‘personas’ which the Creator will put on – a bit like an actor who plays different roles, but also different roles that all represent the same character. Got it? If you don’t understand it, that’s alright – part of the convenience of the Trinity is that it’s reasonable enough at face value to be acceptable to a casual audience, while being too technically complicated for them to take interest in understanding it fully. The only people who care about the details are bishops, doctrinaires, theologians and other superfans – and they’re already invested in the story canon after all. The Creator surely appreciates their enthusiasm to try and fill in the details themselves, although the bloodshed over this issue was certainly regrettable.
The Church of the Universal Ego wants you to know that whoever you are, wherever you are, you have a place in creation; and there is a Creator out there who loves you and has a plan for you and a part for you to play.
And you better play that part and play it well – ‘cuz if you don’t, that same Creator will become a cold-blooded auteur, and He will take note, judge you, and punish you passive-aggressively – or worst-of-all, break character. You will not like Him when He breaks character…
There will be hell to pay,
Connor Raikes, a.k.a. Raikespeare