Then you do mean to sink the ship with the other hand?"

"Yes."

"It's not like you."

"How do you know that?"

"Quite easily. Here you are taking care of a poor little boy with one arm, and there you are sinking a ship with the other. It can't be like you."

"Ah! but which is me? I can't be two mes, you know."

"No. Nobody can be two mes."

"Well, which me is me?"

"Now I must think. There looks to be two."

"Yes. That's the very point.---You can't be knowing the thing you don't know, can you?"

"No."

"Which me do you know?"

"The kindest, goodest, best me in the world," answered Diamond, clinging to North Wind.

"Why am I good to you?"

"I don't know."

"Have you ever done anything for me?"

"No."

"Then I must be good to you because I choose to be good to you."

"Yes."

"Why should I choose?"

"Because---because---because you like."

"Why should I like to be good to you?"

"I don't know, except it be because it's good to be good to me."

"That's just it; I am good to you because I like to be good."

"Then why shouldn't you be good to other people as well as to me?"

"That's just what I don't know. Why shouldn't I?"

"I don't know either. Then why shouldn't you?"

"Because I am."

"There it is again," said Diamond. "I don't see that you are. It looks quite the other thing."

"Well, but listen to me, Diamond. You know the one me, you say, and that is good."

"Yes."

"Do you know the other me as well?"

"No. I can't. I shouldn't like to."

"There it is. You don't know the other me. You are sure of one of them?"

"Yes."

"And you are sure there can't be two mes?"

"Yes."

"Then the me you don't know must be the same as the me you do know,---else there would be two mes?"

"Yes."

"Then the other me you don't know must be as kind as the me you do know?"

"Yes."

"Besides, I tell you that it is so, only it doesn't look like it. That I confess freely. Have you anything more to object?"

"No, no, dear North Wind; I am quite satisfied."

"Then I will tell you something you might object. You might say that the me you know is like the other me, and that I am cruel all through."

"I know that can't be, because you are so kind."

"But that kindness might be only a pretence for the sake of being more cruel afterwards."

Diamond clung to her tighter than ever, crying---

"No, no, dear North Wind; I can't believe that. I don't believe it. I won't believe it. That would kill me. I love you, and you must love me, else how did I come to love you? How could you know how to put on such a beautiful face if you did not love me and the rest? No. You may sink as many ships as you like, and I won't say another word. I can't say I shall like to see it, you know."

"That's quite another thing," said North Wind; and as she spoke she gave one spring from the roof of the hay-loft, and rushed up into the clouds, with Diamond on her left arm close to her heart.

So in an attempt to explain the contradiction between a purely good being doing evil things and still able to be considered good, we have an infinite being justifying being capricious, condescending and culpable by saying "Hey, it's just me. Deal."

Right - o.

You can't escape the inconsistencies and impossibilities of one children's story by appealing to another children's story. Well you can try, as Roy does, but not without the help of lots and lots of crack -- either to see the point or defend against the entire absurdity of it all.

But that's the point. It's God. You just can't understand.

Fine. If we can't understand something that is plainly wrong, then we also can't understand something that is plainly right. Our entire sense of moral certainty doesn't exist, nor does our capacity for reason, understanding or perception of reality. Which means that we also can't know that whatever a god teaches really is good because we have no ability to really discern such a thing.

In our world, people who can't believe what their senses are telling them are severely disturbed. Their inability to perceive reality is given the medical term schizophrenia -- a total disruption and breakdown in the functioning of the mind. It's a disability, a tragedy and very difficult to watch happen to someone you love. Which, by a quick and dirty analogy, must make us schizophrenics in the Meta-Cosmos of Eternity. Of course, we can't really even know that.

Nor can we even know that we don't even know that. Nor that we even know that we don't even know that we don't even know that we don't even...