WHY I WILL FIGHT GOD

by Mallory Ortberg · March 28, 2016

WHY I WILL FIGHT GOD: OKAY

  • THEOLOGY: I AM GOD’S WORST DAUGHTER AND I WILL FIGHT HIM UNTIL HE LOVES ME
  • IF THERE ISN’T A GOD I WILL FIGHT ISN’T-GOD UNTIL IT BECOMES GOD AND LOVES ME TOO
  • THERE MAYBE ISN’T A GOD BECAUSE HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A CAVE AND SEEN HOW MUCH TIME IS IN THERE, AND TIME DOESN’T HAVE YOUR BEST INTERESTS AT HEART
  • THERE MIGHT BE THOUGH
  • PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS LIFTING THEIR HANDS UP IN CHURCH LIKE HOW BABIES DO WHEN THEY WANT YOU TO PICK THEM UP WHICH MEANS GOD NEEDS TO START PICKING AN AWFUL LOT OF PEOPLE UP AND IN MY OPINION GOD SHOULD HAVE STARTED A WHILE AGO AND SHOULD PROBABLY HURRY UP
  • PEOPLE DIP THEMSELVES IN WATER JUST TO GET GOD TO PAY ATTENTION TO THEM AND I THINK GOD OUGHT TO PAY THEM AT LEAST A LOT OF ATTENTION BECAUSE THEY’RE GOING THROUGH A LOT AND THEY WENT TO ALL THE TROUBLE OF GETTING DIPPED IN WATER JUST IN CASE GOD NOTICED
  • I ONCE MISTOOK THE FEELING OF SAFETY FOR THE CONDITION OF SAFETY AND I’VE WANTED SOMEONE TO BLAME EVER SINCE
  • THIS WILL ALSO SERVE AS A REMINDER TO GOD THAT I DO NOT PLAN ON EXPERIENCING SUFFERING OR DEATH AND WOULD APPRECIATE THE SAME TREATMENT FOR MY LOVED ONES
  • IT WOULD BE GREAT IF THIS COULD WORK FOR EVERYONE BUT IF IT ONLY PANS OUT FOR ME AND MINE THAT’S OKAY WITH ME
  • I JUST “FEEL READY” TO GET IN THE MIX
  • I’VE NEVER BEEN IN A FIGHT BEFORE BUT I THINK THAT MIGHT WORK TO MY ADVANTAGE BECAUSE A I DON’T HAVE ANY BAD FIGHT HABITS TO UNLEARN AND B I’VE BEEN SAVING UP ALL MY FIGHT ENERGY FOR THIS ONE
  • I FEEL LIKE GOD IS GOING TO RESPECT MY SCRAPPY ENERGY AND GUMPTION EVEN IF I DON’T MAKE IT TOO FAR INTO THE FIGHT

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.


78 Comments

  1. VioletandIrises +252

    “I ONCE MISTOOK THE FEELING OF SAFETY FOR THE CONDITION OF SAFETY AND I’VE WANTED SOMEONE TO BLAME EVER SINCE”

    Why did I have to read this at work where I don’t have the ability to curl up in a ball and wrap myself in blankets?

    7. occhiolic +20

      man, just buried that gut-puncher in there to wallop unsuspecting and vulnerable readers…

    8. tinypaperme +23

      This is why I keep a blankie and pillow in my desk drawer. In case Mallory sees through my soul.

  3. JGlows +98

    When I want to fight God, it’s typically due to painful and horrible childhood diseases, child abuse, animal abuse, dementias, and also genocide. Like WTF GOD THIS IS SHIT THESE POOR PEOPLE AND INNOCENT ANIMALS. Which is oddly enough a paraphrase of the end of the book of Jonah.

    I like how your fighting God is about theodicy, ontology, and love.

    1. ashurredly +40

      Oh, no, I thought Fight God Club rules were about telling everyone to fight god as per the Ascension.

    2. middlemarch +110

      Does Fight God Club include insurance for hip injuries? (Intractable bible nerd need to make obscure Genesis joke.)

    2. elliottggish +5

      why did you have to say this now i am thinking about will and lyra and how they are in love but will never see one another again :(((((

  8. middlemarch +63

    (Ok but this is kind of my Easter in a nutshell? And also that’s kind of a good and healthy and personally productive thing? And is it just me or have Mallory’s all-caps posts been POINTEDLY REAL of late? I’m looking at you, “Why You Are Lonely: a Text Game.”)

    1. sarahgundle +35

      I hadn’t seen that and I just went and read it and “ANTICIPATORILY BLAMED OTHER PEOPLE FOR NOT CALLING YOU WITHOUT ONCE ASKING YOURSELF WHY YOU CAN’T CALL THEM
      – ASSUMING ANY TIME SPENT TOGETHER THAT YOU HAD TO INITIATE IS SOMEHOW LESS AUTHENTIC THAN REQUESTS FOR TIME SPENT TOGETHER THAT YOU ACCEPT” is basically exactly what I stressed about last night without really realising it and now I feel both ridiculous and in good company.

      1. middlemarch +35

        Oh, man. “BELIEVE ‘PERIODICALLY EXPERIENCING THE HUMAN CONDITION’ MEANS SOMETHING IS FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN WITHIN YOU” and “CONSTANTLY LIE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS THEN WONDER WHY YOU FEEL LIKE NO ONE KNOWS YOU” literally broke me in the best ways possible a few weeks ago.

        Like, not to be too intense of a Mallory Ortberg Evangelist, but I hold that post completely responsible for spurring some important reflection and changes in my life right now.

  9. stirringsofconsciousness +81

    I once explained my theism to my Jewish atheist FIL as, “I want to kick Him In the balls for doing such a bad job.”

  10. halloweenjack64 +161

    OK YOU KNOW THAT ONE SONG “SOONER OR LATER GOD WILL CUT YOU DOWN” WELL PREEMPTIVE STRIKE MOTHERFUCKERS

  12. beakbreath +86

    Making your first fight a fight with God is a good strategy, like when new chess players sometimes defeat top-ranked ones because they don’t really know what they’re doing.

  13. fcjaugusta +86

    WHAT IF GOD TURNS OUT TO BE A LOT OF GODS JUST MINDING THEIR OWN BUSINESS AND NOT EVEN PRETENDING TO BE OMNISCIENT OR ANYTHING, WHAT WILL YOU DO THEN?

      2. ofTrebond +13

        I’m pretty sure that was the overarching plot of Xena (second to the romance, of course), which is to say: ideal life plan.

  17. queenofbithynia +95

    this is how you get to be God yourself, Kronos-Ouranos style. as if you needed telling. it is one tragedy of my life that I am a little too late to be your John the Baptist. “get ready, mallory’s a-comin'” I would have said. but what even is the point now

    p.s. if god does not reply in the comments it is because he is scared

  18. Goomaly +28

    This is pretty clever and all but sometimes it just sucks being an atheist.

    Or maybe I just need another cup of coffee? Hard to tell the difference.

    1. queenofbithynia +63

      it’s true, it’s no fun to fight god if you’re an atheist cause all you got to do is unbelieve at him until he shrivels up and pops like a soap bubble, you don’t get to bust him a good solid one right in the jaw. but I mean if you like you can believe him back in little bits, like believe in his white beard so you can pull it a bit to taunt him, and then believe in his kneecaps so you can whack em with a crowbar, but just keep it a light pretending-style belief so he doesn’t get a good firm foothold in reality and pull himself in all the way. you would hate to be responsible for that, generations of atheists to come would curse your name. oh it gives me the shivers to think of.

      1. Goomaly +27

        Now that I’m getting warmed up, if I’m imagining a god I’d prefer it to be a lady, but I’m pretty sure a lady god wouldn’t have fouled it up so much, so a) she is impossible, too, and b) I wouldn’t want to beat the shit out a lady god, I mean really.

        Also I enjoy imagining god as a being from another dimension that I have opened a portal for, like surrounded by candles, chanting the Lord’s Prayer.

    2. grumblyqueer +19

      Yeah, but by being an atheist you strike the realest blow of all against God. He is a nonentity unto you; you get to be the popular girl on the middle school bus deliberately ignoring the lesser girls until they shrink from the sight of you, if the lesser girls were theological concepts.

      1. Goomaly +11

        If the lesser girls were theological concepts… that means god is the maidens at the wedding who ran out of oil for their lamps.

        I should do Biblical interpretation more often.

    3. terb +14

      Fight Space. Just look up at the night sky and shake your fist and say imma fight you infinity. Imma fight you good.

    2. ofTrebond +30

      I’m inclined to be cremated in the event I ever die, but now I’m worried that I’m taking away my skull’s opportunity to be part of some creepy art structure.

    3. bignorseblog +30

      Time happens differently in caves. In high school we went on a school trip to the south of France and visited an underground cave full of stalagmites we had to climb down into via ladder (no skulls). I later wrote an essay about how time seemed to have pooled up down there, it felt compressed and of a higher density somehow, as if the pressure was about to displace me and I would shoot out of the hole like a champagne cork. I got the equivalent of a C.

      I WAS ROBBED

      I WILL FIGHT YOU MRS FREDERIKSEN

  20. extrayarn +40

    re: point two, I was reading a book a while ago (possibly “My Jesus Year”?) and at the end the author, who is uncertain about the whole God thing, goes to talk to a rabbi who tells him to just keep showing up at the synagogue, and God will find him eventually. I have found that advice extremely useful in my own spiritual life.

    1. betsymore +60

      Haha that rabbi also know how to maintain their minyan / keep butts in chairs, even if they’re unbelieving butts.

      2. fromthelandwithlove +12

        I mean the believing is totally tangential to the presence. Which I find kind of comforting.

        In related news, we needed a minyan Friday night so strongarmed students who don’t usually come to services to come to services, and one of my students was like “Can’t I just be present in my heart?” “NO!”

  22. bonncat +17

    Brilliant as ever! Also, I am completely on board with any content that even vaguely smacks of dystheism, because there’s so little of it out there (outside the heavy metal community, I mean).

  24. marylizwhite +13

    Mallory, have you (or anyone else here) read a book called Not God’s Type by Holly Ordway? I think it might appeal to some Toasties. The subtitle is “An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms” and it’s a really interesting read! She also tries to fight God, but is a little more chill.

    1. speakingofcake +3

      Just looked that up, and was disappointed to find that the author is anti-choice, which appears to be linked to her religious beliefs (maybe it pre-dated her conversion, but it’s not unreasonable to assume it’s a post-conversion position). For that reason I won’t be reading the book – the premise is interesting and no doubt intelligently argued, but all her rationales are tainted for me by her unethical (in my opinion) political belief.

      I wish more converts could be like Nicole: finding and accepting joy in faith and belief, but not suddenly changing all their political positions to fit the perceived ‘party line’ of the religion.

      It makes me wonder if some (especially very dramatically announced) religious conversions are really about faith at all, or if it’s just the top layer of a swing to right wing politics.

  25. cowshark +53

    Going by the picture, perhaps the title should be Why I Will Dirty Dance With God.

  27. neeelkomol +11

    JUST A STRANGER ON THE BUS
    TRYING TO MAKE HIS WAY HOME

    DON’T HURT HIM TOO BAD, MALLORY. A COUPLE GOOD BRUISES SHOULD DO IT. MAAAAYBE A BLACK EYE. AMEN.

    1. neeelkomol +7

      Wait no this was the week of all the blasts and suicide bombers all over the world. Ok fine fuck him up.

  29. pontmercyblog +9

    “I am god’s worst daughter and I will fight him until he loves me” had changed my life for at least one week, possibly more, in a way that is good.