11 Dec 2016

Maybe God Is Trolling Us

Religious 14 Comments

I am quite certain that most people will dislike this post, but for the few who see what I’m saying, I hope you appreciate the new angle I may open for you.

First, a digression. I am an unabashed troll on Twitter and Facebook (and sometimes on Scott Sumner’s blog). However, I would argue that I’m a good troll. My purpose is never to hurt someone’s feelings, but instead to say something funny and/or intelligently provocative. I am just about always either (a) trying to directly entertain people and/or (b) educate them. Even for the people who are my “targets”–where perhaps I will point out what I think is a contradiction in their professed positions–my ideal outcome isn’t that I “blow them up,” but rather that they see it and then grow from the encounter. (For example, no matter what cockamamie inflationist scheme he cooks up next Thursday, I will go to the grave grateful for Nick Rowe freeing me from my mental prison regarding the government debt debate.)

But what’s funny is that a lot of people GET REALLY MAD AT ME when I troll them, especially if they don’t know me. (For example, sometimes I troll close friends on their Facebook posts, but their friends don’t know who I am and they bite my head off for “attacking” their friends.) They may think I’m stupid, insensitive, cruel, and oblivious to their personal situation. They think I’m trying to hurt them when really I’m trying to help them.

OK I think you guys see where I’m going with this. I think in addition to realizing He is utterly good, when we encounter God in the afterlife we will look back at the (previously) inexplicable events from human history and say, “Ohhhhhh… OK that’s really funny.”

14 Responses to “Maybe God Is Trolling Us”

  1. Bob Rooney says:

    Like when Jesus said “Give Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar” and Brutus was just “Ok then…”?

    • Andrew_FL says:

      Julius Caesar was assassinated decades before Jesus was even born. Christ’s contemporary Caesar was Tiberius

      • Bob Rooney says:

        According to Romu God is at least a 4D deity, so before and after dont apply to him…

        • Andrew_FL says:

          That doesn’t explain how Brutus would be familiar with Jesus’s ministry

  2. Tbz says:

    Jeeze Bob, what if God is a 13yo kid in his parents basement playing Earth-World on his quantum computer and that he’s just a sadistic teen?

  3. Andrew Keen says:

    When I first finished reading this post, I was a little horrified at the implication. Upon further reflection, I think it’s an interesting perspective that makes a lot of sense if we (Christians) truly believe what we say we believe.

    It’s like you’re good trolling me in this post about God good trolling the world. Pitch perfect Bob.

    • Brian says:

      “It’s like you’re good trolling me in this post about God good trolling the world.”

      +1

  4. Andrew_FL says:

    “(For example, no matter what cockamamie inflationist scheme he cooks up next Thursday, I will go to the grave grateful for Nick Rowe freeing me from my mental prison regarding the government debt debate.)”

    If you consult my rough guide to Market Monetarist Quality, Nick Rowe is one of the highest quality. A year hence the rankings have changed very little except that Sumner has moved down somewhat, ironically in spite of agreeing with him in general on Trump.

    I sure hope nobody thinks of me as a good troll.

  5. Khodge says:

    God and the afterlife: Sounds about right.

  6. Gene Callahan says:

    “I will go to the grave grateful for Nick Rowe freeing me from my mental prison regarding the government debt debate.”

    Unfortunately, he locked you in HIS mental prison, but I suppose if it’s nicer than the one you were in…

    • Andrew_FL says:

      No disrespect but what the flying finagle are you talking about?

      • Bob Murphy says:

        He thinks Nick has hoodwinked me into not realizing that it’s all just about taxes and transfer payments, and government debt has nothing to do with it.

    • skylien says:

      The economic profession, the art of locking others into your own mental prison. Noone was better than Keynes in that respect in my view. And with the added bonus that I think he was the only economist who wasn’t even in his own mental prison himself. It seems it was specifically designed for others…

  7. Laura says:

    I am certain God has a sense of humor. He made toddlers.

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