How we cite our quotes: Chapter.Paragraph
Quote #4
Let's face it, he'd [Bob] eked some serious mileage out of the God thing. Getting that old guy to drag his son up a mountain? Cool! Smiting of the firstborn? Yes! Turning the errant into pillars of salt? Fun! Once upon a time it had been all burning bushes, plagues of frogs and partings of the seas, scaring the living daylights out of his creations by booming down in scary voices and handing stone tablets out of the sky. Now he was barely allowed to make a parking space become suddenly available. (16.10)
So Bob means to say that most of the stuff that happened in the Bible was him acting out heavenly Punk'd episodes? How does that change how we understand these moments?
Quote #5
They [the whales] were the only species with the intelligence to contact him directly, bypassing not only human intervention, but also Bob, for they (quite sensibly) did not believe in him. (28.24)
Well, it does sound like a smart move not to rely on either Bob or humans. But it's a little weird that the whales don't believe in Bob, since we know quite well that he exists. Is Rosoff suggesting that belief matters more than whether or not something actually exists?
Quote #6
Bernard wanted very badly to believe that he and God had a single goal, and that the goal involved the eradication of suffering. Not that he believed, exactly, that suffering could be eradicated. But he believed in the process, the desire to make things better. Without human perfectibility as a goal, he could see no purpose to life on earth. (30.2)
Bernard's faith seems to be more in human ability than in God. This raises a question for us: is it possible to have a religion without some sort of God or other supernatural being?