Congrats; you are part of God’s reality TV show!

Remember the last reality TV show you saw? You might’ve laughed at it. You might’ve cried. You might’ve become so angry that you vowed never to watch TV. You knew that, despite what they were telling you about it, it was utterly unreal. How could people be so stupid? So cutthroat? So dramatic?

Let’s entertain for a moment that we have a creator and that he pays attention to us and what we do. I guess this in itself is just one of many theological fallacies and assumptions I’m going to make. But I think it’s a good thing to think about. Let’s assume that this creator is perfect. Wouldn’t a perfect creator who knows everything not need to create people? He can already run the simulation in his head, figure out people are stupid, and then go on with his life (unless we are that simulation currently going on, and reality as we know it is just a lie, like the cake).

Well, all of those theological conundrums aren’t fun to talk about. I don’t really know why a perfect creator would create us, and I guess that’s one reason why I am not perfect and omniscient myself. I don’t understand why the perfect God would put us on an earth with incomplete information and expect us to jump through hoops to get back to him. We have so many obstacles here…caused by our own imperfections and the temptations of evil forces. Why? Is it so we may progress to be a little closer to perfection ourselves? Couldn’t we have just been made perfect? Do we have to work, work, work at it?

I dunno. Those things sound very noble (or maybe they don’t), but what they don’t sound like is fun. What if…instead, our creator had a more curious aspect in mind…what if after years of building things, destroying them, rebuilding, pondering about things beyond our consideration, he wondered what would happen if he made the most flawed, insane, inane creatures ever…and then put them in an arena together?

Reality TV. We all have aspirations of this goal — winning a million bucks, being crowned the best singer in America, getting to date some sleazeball celebrity, or living with our creator once again — but what we don’t know is that we are ill-equipped to reach whatever goal we have. And this creates some comical relief for everyone watching: people in American Idol don’t realize they look like fools and sound even worse until Simon grills them a new identity. Similarly, all of us stumble around in faith, doubt, darkness, and alleged enlightenment and we think we’re on this completely real, legitimate path, but we don’t know anything.

What does God think about this? Does he shake his head? Does he laugh? Does he turn off the TV occasionally? How comical it must be — I think — to watch people with no idea whatsoever how reality REALLY works scramble for an elusive prize. How silly it must be to watch people get serious, get cutthroat, say they definitely know things when they don’t, kill for things that are uncertain.

I thought of a God who would be willing to wager with Satan over a man’s life, take away all that he has and then bet on whether he will stay righteous…and I thought, “Wouldn’t this be such a cruel creator?” But now I’m not so sure. It’s pretty funny in a sick, sick way. And we aren’t perfect, so how can we know what truly is “sick”?

How silly of me! A perfect God isn’t constrained by such human reactions and human emotions. Maybe even a perfect being can’t see the beauty behind the ugliness of reality TV.