John on Chocolate

You know you like it. Sometimes, like me, all you can think of is chocolate. Come on. You know this is true. Sometimes it dominates your thinking. You cannot wait to have it. You fantasize about it. You must have it. It is probably the best natural high we experience.

So why is chocolate such a powerful motivator? It's not like we need it. We just want it. The power of chocolate is so strong it motivates some thin people into obesity; some kids to waste allowance money; some chefs direct these urges toward disgusting recipes like chocolate-covered ants; and it drives the candy and dessert industries, including Betty Crocker cookbooks.

Chocolate just does not look like something that a divine being would create. It is way too powerful of a motivator. The three masters of suspicion, Nietzsche, Marx and Freud all argued respectively that the three motivators in life are Power, Money, and Sex. But they forgot to add chocolate. Yum. (SNARF, chew chew chew chew….burp.)

So why did God make our desire for chocolate so strong? Why didn't he make the taste less pleasurable? The pleasure of chocolate is just too strong as it is. We all know this. It can’t possibly be my own self-control that’s the problem. With an evolutionary hypothesis this is what we'd expect to find, for our desire for sugar energy is good for the survival of our species. But under a theistic hypothesis it makes no sense.

If the pleasure of chocolate was reduced there would be less obesity, and less health problems. Or, chocolate could've been created so as not to be pleasurable at all. God could've made the desire for energy to be something of an instinct where we only want to do it when we want energy, and then also created our desire to have energy periodically. If this is what God had done instead, I wouldn’t have to hear all that crap about me needing to behave myself, have self-control, and having to do something about all that unsightly drooling. It’s God’s fault. I’m not the least bit responsible.


Moreover, the urge for chocolate seems to be too strong for most of us to overcome it. So why would God create us with this powerful urge and then make it so we got fat and unhealthy if we gave in to the urge too often? I mean, is God nuts, expecting us to actually control our behavior? To consume too much chocolate certainly involves gluttony, does it not? But Jesus is found to prohibit gluttony. What about eating too much chocolate? What's wrong with that? Most people in today's society, even Christians, eat too much of it at times and barf all over the carpet, like I do. And what about diabetics, and people allergic to chocolate? Why would God create this strong urge for them and also make it so they can’t eat it? This too makes no sense on a theistic hypothesis.

Hey, I'll even bet all this talk about chocolate will cause some readers to do a search right now for a chocolate bar in the pantry, even Christians. Say it isn't so. Christian, you go to the candy store. Yet you feel guilty about it. The problem is that any prohibitions that make you feel guilty about this do not come from God.

The bottom line is, God is an idiot if he expects us to actually monitor our own behavior and become responsible on terms of the management of our health and welfare. If He really existed, He’d encase us all in plastic bubbles and never let us out.

Now excuse me, I’m going to go stuff myself with an 18-wheeler’s worth of “Special Dark”.