God Is Not Mocked

Gregory Bateson's last book, Angels Fear, argues the truth of the statement God is not mocked by explaining it in a way that thrills me to my toenails. I translate his explanation thusly: in the long run, the truth counts. At the end of the day, the territory is the territory, no matter what the map depicts. In other words, in human terms, in human social terms, if nicotine is carcinogenic, but the myth says it's the cigarette (and the scotch) that makes Bogie so attractive (not his genes, the makeup, the script, the lighting ... Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall), and you think Camels are mild, or, It's the taste! then at the end of the day, you'll still have cancer. God is not mocked.

If human beings are expelled from the Garden of Eden, but then stumble on the Americas and take them from the natives, saying that God rewards the good guys, but then we black ball the best guys, gush goods at the most compliant mediocrities, in the end, will our votes, our will, our self-deceits trump the truth? or will we all have cancer no matter what we edit for television, or drivel at the universities?

Can the actual universe be a dangerous place if we all conscript children into school and tell them they're free?

Is it the carcinogen that causes cancer? or the Nielsen rating that prevents it?

In other words (if Bateson is right, and Korzybski, and pk): reality will have the last word: only it won't come as words.

There are and will be consequences for human behavior. The pathological lies told by our major institutions: government, school, church can pacify us only so long. In the end it won't be just Jesus and his disciples who are dead.