OGU vs. MU

This blog has lately seemed to be in some danger of turning into a theological debating society. To avoid possible sanctimony, I present as an antidote Mr. William S. Burroughs:

Consider the One God Universe: OGU. The spirit recoils in horror from such a deadly impasse. He is all-powerful and all-knowing. Because He can do everything, He can do nothing, since the act of doing demands opposition. He knows everything, so there is nothing for Him to learn. He can't go anywhere, since He is already fucking everywhere, like cowshit in Calcutta.

The OGU is a pre-recorded universe of which He is the recorder. It's a flat, thermodynamic universe, since it has no friction by definition. So He invents friction and conflict, pain, fear, sickness, famine, war, old age and Death.

His OGU is running down like an old clock. Takes more and more to make fewer and fewer Energy Units of Sek, as we call it in the trade.

The Magical Universe, MU, is a universe of many gods, often in conflict. So the paradox of an all-powerful, all-knowing God who permits suffering, evil and death, does not arise.

-- from The Western Lands. Reading Burroughs is very much enhanced by having heard his W.C. Fields-esque delivery, so here is the almost-seasonally-appropriate video of A Junky's Christmas, narrated by the author.