Vivisection, atheism and scientific progress

I don't believe in God. I don't believe in gods. I am an atheist. This is not a life choice. I just find it impossibly implausible. Santa and the tooth fairy are more believable to me. My Dad was never convinced that man went to the moon so how do you expect me to believe in a god?

For today though I am going to try to envisage what my god would be like, if there was one, which there isn't.

If there is a god then I imagine that the world is an experiment. My god is some kind of scientist. Now, there are two forms of scientific experiment in my conscience; drugs trials and animal experiments. I think we are in an experiment of this sort.

If I had a planet full of life, that's the kind of thing I would do.

I imagine us as rats in a maze. The maze is rigged with electronic doors that release treats if we follow the right path; girl rats, money for buying rattish things, ratty food and clothes. Our world is a ratty maze. We are rats in a cognitive behaviour experiment. We are watched and the being watching us is a god. We learn the behaviour that rewards us. We learn behaviour that is not natural to us. That's what these rat experiments are for. They don't test what rats do in their natural homw, they test to see if they can get rats to salivate at the sound of a bell, shake with fear at the colour red.

The god changes the parameters, the rules. Some days we get punished for things that we thought we would be rewarded. Our jobs change to see how we react. We are isolated for periods of time to see what happens to our stress levels.

There are many experiments going on at once. There are colonies of rats who are fed too little and others who are supplied with too much. The experiment looks at survival rates. Sometimes two or more colonies are forced together, their environment shrunk, to see at what point the rats kill each other. How far can you push a rat before it cracks.

The next experiment will look at the effects of heat on us. Gradually the heat will be turned up and the effects will be observed and recorded.

Sometimes I can imagine that god.

There is another one though. God the chemist. We are all part of a drug trial. Each one of us is fed various doses of experimental medication to see how the chemicals interfere with our perception of the world. Some people have their senses dulled, others heightened, just to see what happens.

Some of these trials go wrong and personalities develop a multitude of disorders and disabilities. But no matter - the results are recorded and the trials continue.

I am a rat in a maze who is part of a drug trial. Everyday, either the maze changes or my perception of it does. Some days I am released from the physical maze only to be imprisoned by the chemically produced one. There is no escape. If ever I get close to the exit, the god/scientist pushes me back and the pattern of the maze is changed. If I get too happy, my drugs are changed to level me out again.

Sometimes life really does feel like living in The Matrix, and briefly I feel as if I can see the code. This is not living. It is not real. Owning things is not happiness. Money is not happiness. They are the rewards of a cognitive behaviour trial that is investigating how human beings can be kept imprisoned and satsified at the same time.

I am the subject whose behaviour goes unrewarded. I am the rat who is never happy. I am the rat who never gives up trying to escape.