Playing God

A fire-themed deity ditty

Mortal: And therefore, O God, I pray thee, if thou hast one ounce of mercy for thy suffering creatures, remove from this world the curse of wildfires!

God: You reject the gift of fire?

Mortal: How can you call wildfire a gift? You call chaos, carnage and devastation a gift? I call that madness!

God: I said the gift of fire, not the gift of wildfire. And I don’t call those things gifts, although now that you mention it, perhaps there are aspects of them - and of wildfire - that some might consider gifts.

Mortal: Outrageous!

God: Evidently. So do you reject the gift of fire?

Mortal: Not so fast. I’m talking about wildfire. Fire is something I can get behind. Stories by a campfire, cooking, warding off the darkness. We humans wouldn’t be who we are today if it weren’t for fire.

God: I agree completely. But do you agree that fire - the kind started by humans - can cause problems?

Mortal: Yes, of course it can! The campfire smoke might get in your eyes, you might burn your food. You might even burn yourself. I burnt my finger cooking once and it really hurt!

God: Did you run it under cold water?

Mortal: Yes but it still hurt.

God: I’m sorry to hear that.

Mortal: It’s okay, I learned an important lesson. Once burnt, twice shy!

God: That almost sounds like a gift.

Mortal: I see what you’re doing there, you’re twisting my words. Cut it out!

God: Sorry. So while you agree that human-caused fires can be troublesome, you see no need to ask for my help in avoiding those troubles.

Mortal: I’m wary of declining your help…

God: That’s okay, you can always ask again later.

Mortal: Thank you. In that case then, no, we don’t need your help to avoid the problems our fires cause. We just need to be smart: to take precautions, set rules and laws, enforce them, employ good design principles, learn from our mistakes, and so on. If we can do all of that, the problems of human-caused fire will soon be but the flickering of a candle in the wind.

God: Out of curiosity, just how are you all faring with the troubles of human-caused fires?

Mortal: Terribly! Doing all those things is really hard! But why are you asking, you already knew that, didn’t you? Don’t you know everything?

God: One question at a time please. I suspected human-caused fires were indeed causing you trouble, but I always like to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

Mortal: Anyway we’ve gotten right off track. I was talking about wildfires, not human-caused fires.

God: Do human-caused fires ever become wildfires?

Mortal: Yes.

God: And would you like my help with those wildfires, or just the ones not started by humans?

Mortal: You’re making fun of me!

God: Look I don’t mean to upset you, I’m just trying to understand your request.

Mortal: I appreciate that once a human-caused fire gets out of control, it’s hard to distinguish it from a wildfire -

God: Did you say extinguish or distinguish?

Mortal: I said distinguish and stop interrupting me!

God: Sorry.

Mortal: Where was I? Oh yes, I’ll grant that once it gets going, there’s not much difference between a wildfire started by humans and one started by natural causes.

God: On that front, I agree with you.

Mortal: But the start, the cause, the prime mover in all this - it’s us, us humans. That makes all the difference. And like I said, although we may not be doing so crash hot right now, it’s within our powers to stop those fires -

God: I’m very pleased to hear that.

Mortal: - and so we must face up to our responsibility and do what must be done to curtail any negative side effects of human-caused fire.

God: But you want me to stop the other wildfires.

Mortal: Yes! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time! Haven’t you been listening?

God: I have. Why do you want me to stop the other wildfires?

Mortal: What?! How can you ask a question like that? I must be going crazy.

God: You seem quite sane to me.

Mortal: I wish I could say the same for you. Obviously I want you to stop those other wildfires because of the terrible harm they cause. The devastation, the carnage, the chaos? Remember?

God: I do. But those harms don’t compel you to seek similar assistance from me when they arise from human actions?

Mortal: No!

God: Ok, I was just checking. So you’d like me to remove all wildfire from the world, excepting of course any wildfires caused by humans.

Mortal: Wouldn’t that be amazing?

God: It might be difficult.

Mortal: Difficult? How could anything be difficult for you?

God: I don’t know where you get your information, but I can assure you that some things are difficult. Making a square circle, or a spherical cube, for example.

Mortal: Well, that’s different. I’m not asking you to do anything impossible, just remove wildfires.

God: Which one of heat, fuel and oxygen do you want me to remove?

Mortal: Hmm?

God: Heat, fuel and oxygen. You know, the building blocks of fire? The sun, plants, the air.

Mortal: Oh God no! Don’t remove them!

God: Alright. Do you want me to stop the chemical reaction that turns them into fire?

Mortal: Oh, that sounds good.

God: That might put a spanner in the works for human-caused fires.

Mortal: Oops, your right. I didn’t think of that.

God: Would you like me to stop lightning?

Mortal: No, don’t do that! Lightning is spectacular and awe-inspiring, as is its twin, thunder.

God: I concur wholeheartedly.

Mortal: Hmm. Can’t you just put out any wildfires before they get too big?

God: How big is too big?

Mortal: You know, big! Really big. Like, huge, mega. Those awful fires that kill thousands and millions of animals, that fill the air with choking smoke, that destroy our homes and everything we hold dear, that take the lives of innocent people and the valiant firefighters trying to save them. Those ones.

God: So, shall we say a million hectares? About two and a half million acres?

Mortal: Yes, get rid of them!

God: But everything below that level is ok?

Mortal: Wait a minute, no! I remember some truly devastating fires that have been much smaller than that.

God: So… one hundred thousand hectares? Ten thousand?

Mortal: Oh, I don’t know! I guess it depends where the fire is and where people are and where.. all the other things are… Can’t you just get rid of the ones that cause harm?

God: Harm to?

Mortal: To people and our homes and towns and cities. And to the animals. And the air and waterways.

God: What about to plants?

Mortal: Well yes, of course.

God: So, don’t allow fires big enough to harm a single person, animal or plant?

Mortal: Now you’re being ridiculous. Of course it doesn’t matter if a single tree or shrub or blade of grass burns.

God: Even if that tree or shrub or grass is next to a house? Or home to an animal? To say nothing of the insects, fungi, microbes and other living creatures that might call the plant home.

Mortal: Oh, you’re being impossible! I just want a world where people and the environment are safe from the scourge of fire. Is that so hard to understand?

God: No, it’s not. Let’s try a different tack. What would happen if there were no fires in the landscape, for a long time. Let’s say you humans managed to keep your own fires under control to boot.

Mortal: Now you’re talking!

God: Things would be different.

Mortal: You’re darn tootin’ they would! We’d all be able to sleep easy - us humans, the birds, the bees, you name it!

God: And what about the plants?

Mortal: Well, they’d love it. No fires to worry about. They’d be going gangbusters! That might actually be a problem, come to think of it, at least for a while.

God: Plants going gangbusters?

Mortal: Well yes, if there’s too much fuel there might be a greater risk of wildfire. But that’s where you come in. And perhaps the risk would die down after a while.

God: I see. Which plants did you say would go gangbusters?

Mortal: I didn’t. Dammit. I didn’t think of that. I guess some plants would do better and some might actually miss fire, come to think of it. The same is probably true for animals too.

God: And insects and fungi and microbes?

Mortal: Yes of course!

God: But perhaps disadvantaging - or at worst causing the extinction of - a few species is a small price to pay for the peace of mind of not having any wildfires.

Mortal: What? We’re eliminating wildfire to reduce harm, not wipe out whole species! Gah, this was supposed to be simple, why do you make everything so complicated?!

God: I’m making things complicated?

Mortal: Well, someone is!

God: I couldn’t fail to disagree with you more.

Mortal: Ok, so maybe eliminating all wildfires isn’t the best idea. But we’ve gotta do something, right?

God: Like what?

Mortal: We’ve gotta take action! We’ve got to try and manage the situation! Don’t you see all these harms? All these risks? And you want to sit idly by and do nothing? You really do move in mysterious ways sometimes.

God: I’m not trying to!

Mortal: Says you. Anyway, maybe I could pick your brain about the best way to reduce the harms caused by wildfire.

God: Any time.

Mortal: Maybe we could even minimise them!

God: You think?

Mortal: Yes! If we could minimise the harms, but in a cost-effective way, you know, getting the most bang for our buck… We’d be on our way! Of course, we’d need to stack them up against all the other harms out there, and all the other ways of spending our time and money and - well, I might need to get back you in a little while.

God: Take your time.

Mortal: Can I ask one last question?

God: Please do.

Mortal: I’ve heard of hellfire, but seeing as you got me thinking about all the good things that fire can bring… could there be fire in heaven too?

God: What makes you think I’m not relaxing by a fire right now?

~~~

First of all, allow me to apologise to anyone offended by this. For the record, the above dialogue is fictional (to the best of my knowledge) and any resemblance, real or imagined, to any people, real or imagined, or deities, real or imagined, is purely coincidental. There is a lot of hurt in this world and it was not my intention to add to it. I suppose my purpose was to entertain (illuminate might be putting it too strongly). Although now that I think of it, my writing is more of a ‘not for purpose’ endeavour than anything goal-oriented. I just felt like writing, okay? In particular, I felt like riffing on the dialogue theme, which regular readers will know I’m fond of. And even more in particular, I was inspired by the charming dialogue penned by Raymond Smullyan, Is God a Taoist? If you don’t like it, blame him. [Ed. Perhaps I should have taken another leaf out of Smullyan’s book and called this post Is God An Arsonist?]