God created people, alright? Even if you don’t believe in God, just assume that God created people. Alright. And then the people created a bunch of stuff. Mostly, the stuff was crap.

And God was all like, “Wait, what are you doing with all that crap?”

And the people immediately got all defensive, like “What? Nothing. It’s our stuff. Why do you care?”

And God was trying to be diplomatic and pointed and said, “Alright, but where are you going with that thing? It doesn’t look safe.”

And the people rolled their eyes and said, “We’re going out. Who are you, the cops?”

And God was all, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, but are you really? That doesn’t look like such a good idea.”

And the people were all, “Stop being so overprotective, we’re not children. You created us like fifteen minutes ago.”

And God was all, “Fine. Fine. Alright. Alright.”

And then the people took all their stuff, mostly crap, into the world. And the world, a lot of bad stuff happened to it to be honest.

And then God mumbled, “Told you.”

But did the people then stop and say, “Oops. Our bad.”

No.

The people immediately turned to God and looked incredibly upset and cried, “Why didn’t you stop us? You could have stopped us. Now this is your fault!”

Get it? Because that’s our nature, us humans.

-Fredrik Backman, Things My Son Needs to Know about the World

I love this book! I wouldn’t say I agree with all of his humorous banter here, but if this was all true, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Fredrik Backman studied comparative religion at a university in Sweden, but never finished. Instead, he quit school to become a truck driver. After that he wrote an international bestseller, “A Man Called Ove,” published in 2012. He simultaneously released his first book of nonfiction, “Things My Son Needs to Know about the World.”

His most well-known and beloved, debut novel, “A Man Called Ove,” was also made into a movie in Swedish, and there is a rumored adaptation in English expected to star Tom Hanks.

He also pokes fun at the atheists in his humorous book. He asserts, “Do you know who God is particularly important to? The people who actually don’t believe in God.” He says that in his experience, those people are most likely to bring him up and want to talk about Him. As much as they claim to not want to talk about God. And sooner or later, as if they have some “trump” card to win every God argument, they will say, “If God exists, then why are there wars?”

Backman’s response to that question is his humorous interplay above. Sounds like the perfect response to an elitist know-it-all who doesn’t really care about God or want to hear an answer to their question.

Truthfully, they want to convince themselves and put away their own insecurity and doubts.

Isn’t it funny, all the things caused by mankind that we blame on God?

It sounds very familiar to Adam and Eve’s response after The Fall, doesn’t it?

Adam: “It was the woman you put here with me.”

Eve: “The serpent deceived me.”

Shame and blame was there at the very beginning.