The slouching man who had asked if I believed in God straightened up a little and turned to look at me directly. In a much quieter voice he then asked me, "So, just what is your idea of God like?"
I sat and pondered that for a few sips of my drink. I looked at the man and thought to myself, "Cripes on a cracker, this guy is going to be a pest."
"It would be easier for me to tell you what I don't think God is, and much quicker, too. In my opinion God is not some temperamental, bearded old man sitting on a throne of gold selectively awarding wins to whichever team has the most faithful players, or deciding that New Zealand needs another earthquake because there are not enough people in that country attending church services."
His face had a surprisingly attentive look on it as I said that, so I decided to keep on talking.
"In my view, God is not even an entity. God doesn't exist as a thing, especially not as a thing that resembles a human, male or female."
"Oh?," The no longer slouching man said. "What is God then? The Force like in Star Wars?'
"No, nothing like that. I find the whole idea that there is a force out there in the cosmos that can be harnessed in such a way that a person will be able to disregard the laws of physics or control the thoughts of other people to be comical."
"The best way I can explain what my concept of God is would be to say that God is not a being or a force or anything that grants special favors or bestows divine rights to a select few. God is order, but not an enforced order. It's just the order of things, the order of the randomness of everything."
"That makes no sense to me. How can that possibly be God?" He shook his head a little when he said that.
"Look," I replied, "There are more things..." Then I caught myself. I wasn't going to start quoting Shakespeare to a guy in a bar.
"Okay, it doesn't make sense to you. Well, the idea that an old bearded guy made a virgin pregnant so she could give birth to a son who is essentially him, and then have that son/him become a preplanned sacrifice in order to make salvation possible for the sinning millions doesn't make sense to me. Let's call it a draw."
Then it was my turn to be surprised, for the no longer slouching man said, "Yeah, that story is pretty far-fetched to me as well, I just threw that out when we first started talking to see what your reaction would be."
My brow furrowed a bit when he said that, and I replied testily, "What the actual fcuk? Are you just some bored drunk? Man, get away from me."
"I apologize for the subterfuge, but when you walked in I saw immediately that you were an approachable person, and I have been yearning to have an intelligent conversation with someone ever since I left the monastery. I've asked a lot of people that question in the past 18 months, and I've had answers ranging from the conventional Christian to the almost militant atheist, but I've never had anyone tell me God is order."
The look on my face must have already conveyed what I was thinking, but I said it anyway. "You were a Monk?'
"Yes, yes I was, for almost 7 years. Benedictine to be exact. In New Mexico. Before that I was in the Coast Guard, and before that I went to the University of Massachusetts."
"Knock me over with a feather, I've never met a Monk before, or a former Monk for that matter. Why did you leave the order?"
"Lost my faith. The monastic life gives a man a lot of time to think without distraction, and all my thoughts lead me to doubt, and slowly those doubts became convictions."
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