So, God, Nu?

The underwhelming.

“They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds,” he told Radio Times magazine. “I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs.”

That’s David Attenborough, back in 2009, on how he answers creationists when they press him about why he doesn’t believe in the wonder of God’s handiwork.

The question of God in modernity — maybe the question of God at all — has been on my mind of late, obviously, because of the shootings in Texas this weekend. But it’s more the lemmings-like way the far Right has been absolving and praising itself by casually tossing thoughts and prayers into luft.

Aside from being ineffectual and cavalier, it’s patronizing and insulting.

Like this gem from House Speaker Paul Ryan

“It’s disappointing, it’s sad, and this is what you’ll get from the far secular Left. People who do not have faith don’t understand faith, I guess I’d have to say. And it is the right thing to do is to pray in moments like this, because you know what? Prayer works. And I know you believe that, and I believe that, and when you hear the secular Left doing this thing, it’s no wonder you have so much polarization and disunity in this country when people think like that.”

So all that matters now is that those engaging in such sanctimonious sops believe in the sops.

That’s convenient.

Prayer works better when accompanied by a semi-automatic weapons ban.

There was also this.

“We’ve been reporting this shouldn’t happen in a church,” Earhardt said during an interview with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). “But I was downstairs talking with some people that work here that we all talk about our faith and we share the same beliefs. We were saying there’s no other place we would want to go other than church.”

With any luck, one with a trauma unit.

Anyway, that’s Ainsley Earhardt of — wait for it — Fox News. She has a baby girl who just turned two.

Just saying.

And this

Governor Greg Abbott of Texas wants you to know that all things considered, what happened on Sunday was no biggie.

“Remember, even though we’re facing these severe tragedies — whether it be what happened in Sutherland Springs, or what happened in Las Vegas, or what happened in New York last week, or what happened in London earlier this year — we have acts of evil taking place, and because they are close in time to us right now, we think this is something heavy right now. But put this in the context of history. Look at what happened with Hitler during the horrific events during that era,” he said.

They were Jews, governor, human beings, like the people in the church — not events, not talking points.

The governor has an adopted daughter.

Just saying.

During the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, after the towers came down, after nearly 3,000 people lost their lives — no, check that, murdered by people who love God and were praying that the towers would come down (maybe prayer does work … for some) — this formed in the wreckage.

Many took “the cross” as a sign that God was with America during this national tragedy. Forget the deaths and mutilations and the loss of all reason, two pieces of fabricated steel melted together was reason enough to believe God was on our side.

For the love of Omnipotence Lite, how low are we going to set the bar so God can clear it?

My second favorite atheist (Hitchens being my first), Stephen Fry, was once asked what would he say if he got to — and there really was a — heaven?

The newly married-broadcaster was asked what he would do if he found himself at the “pearly gates” after his death.

“I’ll say: bone cancer in children, what’s that about?” he said.

“How dare you. How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that’s not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil.”

Have to figure at least some of those killed during the attacks in Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Aurora, and Sandy Hook — especially the children, including the 14 who died Sunday — would agree.