The Church Of the Black Monolith

Alright. I can see that Eleven Names will probably be in a rut for a while, I'm becoming increasingly psychotic, I don't believe Zach will update before the Mayan Apocalypse and Thomas is in dire straits himself.

So. I reached out to a friend of ours and here is Andrew Michael, talking about belief. I figure that's a spartan enough introduction, I'd rather you draw your own conclusions.

So I’ve been doing the Christian thing for about a decade now, and I’ve got to say I enjoy it. Sure, it has its drawbacks, but all things considered I think it’s a pretty good way to spend eternity.

But lately I’ve been thinking. The economy’s down, and everyone’s feeling the burn. Even the hilariously wealthy are in trouble, so I figure it’s only a matter of time before it’s felt all the way at the top. I don’t want to be caught with my spiritual pants down, so I’ve decided that I should pick out a fallback deity. You know, just in case one of those TV Evangelists raptures up their flock or something. I don’t think I could be an atheist; I’m just not cut out for it. I need another god to fall back on if this whole Jesus gig doesn’t pan out.

After much deliberation, I’ve decided that if things go wrong up top, I’m going to worship the Black Monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Oh sure, there’s a lot of religions with more clout. I mean, Islam’s got a billion plus and counting, and Judaism would be a comparably simple adjustment—trade out pork for the ability to charge interest, a few other swaps and we’re good to go—but I think the Black Monolith is the god for me.

Much like the girl who goes out on a few dates with a total nerd after breaking up with the rock singer who kept cheating on her, I’ll admit that part of what draws me to the Black Monolith is that it’s so different from my old God. For starters, Christ is both man and God; the Black Monolith is neither. The Black Monolith is simple and straightforward. It’s an incredibly advanced piece of alien technology. Okay, that’s a bit complicated, but the rest isn’t. It’s black. Its dimensions are a perfect ratio of 1 X 4 X 9. That’s it.

I mean, even simple things like the deity’s appearance in major world religions get argued to death. There’s that whole disagreement over whether Jesus was a black guy, Arabian, or that pleasant hippy-looking dude. Portraying the image of the Prophet Muhammed is a strict no-no. The Black Monolith is much simpler. It’s a black block that has dimensions in a perfect ratio of 1 X 4 X 9. End of discussion. Yet another plus under the “Black Monolith” column is that it is quite possibly the easiest god to illustrate (of those whose worshippers allow them to illustrate them, that is).

Another attractive difference to the Black Monolith is that the Black Monolith never speaks. Now I know, that makes most people think it isn’t a god at all. But personally, I think that makes it a better deity. Because the Black Monolith never speaks, it is never misinterpreted. I need not worry about some cryptic parable that has been analyzed for thousands of years about trying to keep an angry from mob from raping houseguests to death and has been interpreted as meaning that the pretty Asian girl at the ten minute oil change place must obey my will because she was born with a uterus and I was not. I always figured that it was because I’m the one ponying up the thirty-five dollars, and even then she’s allowed to say, “No.” Especially if the focus of my will isn’t related to changing my car’s oil. The Black Monolith is content to wait silently for her and myself to finish our business transaction as equals.

The Black Monolith’s constant silence has another pleasant side effect: anyone who claims it is speaking to them can instantly be written off as a liar. The next time a comet comes near the Earth, dozens of gentlemen of questionable background will proclaim that almost as many gods have sent them messages on the comet’s true nature. Followers of other religions must consider whether or not their god (if He, She, It, or Some Combination of the Above has been invoked) is in fact truly speaking through this individual. Not so for those who worship the Black Monolith. It doesn’t speak. Ever. So when dozens of misguided folks drink their special brews of Kool Aid or Jell-O or other poison-laden sweet treat, the one who claims the Black Monolith sent him will be crying into his poison brew instead of drinking it. Those tears are tears of loneliness, by the way.

Part of the Black Monolith never speaking is another thing I like about it—the Black Monolith doesn’t make any demands. It seems like barely a month goes by without one hearing about God telling someone to do something that no one would ever want to do. You know, steal a bread truck and drive naked until apprehended by the authorities, blow up a schoolbus, etc. The Black Monolith will never ask me to do anything like that. Furthermore, it doesn’t draw lines in the sand that point out what I can or can’t do. The Black Monolith has no qualms with me drawing pictures of it while I eat a bacon cheeseburger I’ve purchased courtesy of money paid to me as interest on a loan. As deities go, it’s very tolerant.

Speaking of tolerance, no deity is more tolerant than the Black Monolith. All the Black Monolith cares about is if humankind has reached a cusp where it most deploy its cosmic-level Swiss Army Knife powers. Now, this wouldn’t be such a big deal if people weren’t so insistent on reading things out of holy proclamations that don’t seem to be written there. For instance, as a worshipper of the Black Monolith, one does not have to worry about eternal damnation for something done with another person in a bedroom.

Since the Black Monolith does not speak and has no holy texts, it’s very difficult to get mad at other people in the Black Monolith’s name. Waging a war over the Black Monolith is almost impossible, since the only offense one can commit in its eyes, or rather, sensors, is to worship another deity. Even that may not be a sin to the Black Monolith. Since it doesn’t speak, one cannot be certain.

Which is not to say that the Black Monolith is without morals. Its whole purpose is to push humanity down the path toward galactic worthiness. It does this when we reach certain cusps of existence; for instance, when the first caveman figured out that bludgeoning a pig to death and then eating it was a viable survival strategy. Unlike so many other gods, the Black Monolith is endlessly patient. Essentially, it exists to help us, but not until we get far enough on our own—it is ready to let us get our temporary license, but not until we pass the written exam. Whether we pass that exam at fifteen-and-a-half or at forty-five doesn’t matter to the Black Monolith. Should we decide to wage war in its name, the Black Monolith will stalwartly refuse to help us until we’re done with our little tantrum. It’s ready to provide us with interplanetary travel as soon as we’re ready to act like adults.

But what I really like the most about the Black Monolith is that it is never a hypocrite. It bothers me when anyone says one thing and does another, and in the case of omniscient beings, I really find it inexcusable. Anyone who knows exactly what will happen at every moment of history now and forever should not have to preach love and forgiveness in one eon and then demand that His followers go Palestine and kill the heathen bastards that live there the next. It’s just unprofessional. The Black Monolith is beyond this sort of behavior. Sure, it may not know exactly when we’ll be ready for it to collapse Jupiter into a miniature sun, but it knows we will be someday, and is prepared to wait.

Did I mention the Black Monolith is full of stars? Because it is. That’s no reason to like the Black Monolith all on its own, but it’s a rather nice added bonus. It’s rather like booking a hotel room and finding out you’ve been upgraded to a suite. You’d never book the suite in the first place (it’s really not worth it. I mean, how much time do you spend in the hotel room on vacation?), but when you find out that you’ve been moved into one, it really brightens up your day.

So when you consider everything, the Black Monolith has a lot of positives without most of the drawbacks associated with most religions. It has a set of morals, it likes progress, and it gently dissuades nonproductive behavior. It watches over us, and is ready to give us a boost whenever we make the right decision. But it doesn’t meddle. It doesn’t ask me to do anything specific, only move towards progress for the human race, which I suppose most people do automatically. It kind of leaves the whole afterlife thing up in the air, but it seems like most of the time that the afterlife is only used as dangled carrot. Rather than waiting for me to die to get my reward, the Black Monolith is prepared to give me neat stuff while I’m still alive. This is a real plus because I haven’t paid off my car yet and I’d hate to leave that unfinished. Plus, I can’t say I’m a fan of dying. And I get these rewards for helping humanity do stuff that’s good for us in and of itself.

Now, I don’t think worshipping the Black Monolith is really going to catch on, at least not yet. Some people would point to the fact that it’s just something that Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick thought up forty-odd years ago, and thus people have conclusive proof that it doesn’t actually exist. I’d counter that, when you get right down to it, most gods’ concrete evidence may be older, but it’s not much more rigid. Also, none of them won any Academy Awards for Best Visual Effect, which is another feather in the cap of the Black Monolith.

The big problem is that the Black Monolith doesn’t have any holidays. And that’s why it will remain my second-string deity.