Thor's Day: A conversation with Bill Gates

By Ken Marks

Some time ago I came across an extraordinary quote in a biography of Bill Gates. He told his biographer:

Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning.

I would have guessed that time management was important to him, but I had no idea that he entertained thoughts about the efficiency or inefficiency of religion. This struck me as completely over the top, yet I had to acknowledge that Gates is one of the clearest thinkers that America has ever produced. Might he actually have a good point? I wrote to him to try to understand better, and to my astonishment, he invited me to interview him on the subject. As an exclusive to the readers of Moristotle, I herewith reproduce the interview.

Bill...may I call you Bill?
    Please don't.

Um, Mr. Gates, what's so terrible about sitting in church for an hour on a Sabbath morning?
    So you're starting by asking the obvious. Well, all right...Do you know what happens to the brain when it's subjected to the far-fetched homilies of a tedious pastor—or priest or rabbi or imam—over and over, year after year? Neurons die, by the billions! It's self-inflicted dementia. You might be familiar with the Evans-Weintraub study in which they show a strong positive correlation between regular church attendance and early-onset Alzheimer's.

But can't a churchgoer just tune it out if he or she likes and, say, think blissfully about a brook running through a meadow of spring flowers?
    Of course, but the churchgoer can do that at home if it's quiet meditation that's wanted. Why go to church to do it?

I see. Well, what's so important about saving an hour? Really, what might be accomplished in so short a time?
    A great deal, actually. I once coded an entire DOS print routine in less than an hour. But those who lack this gift might do home repairs or build a bird house for the backyard. And if they can't finish in an hour, they can make a good start and accomplish it in stages. That instills the discipline of working toward a goal.

But the Sabbath is supposed to be a day of rest.
    Oh, good grief! A rest from labor, yes, but what if that labor is more like recreation? If you must be so painfully orthodox, how about pursuing a hobby? Say, mounting a few rare butterflies or putting postage stamps in an album? If that's still too much, how about reading a good book other than the Good Book. Maybe one that expands your mind with new ideas or enriches your knowledge of the world. And if even that is out of bounds, how about staying in bed for the purpose of being fruitful and multiplying? There's practically no end of alternatives that are both reverent and constructive.

Is there anything else about conventional religious practice that you think is a waste of time?
    Oh, yes. Prayer for one.

Ah. So you're an atheist.
    Not at all; I'm a believer. It's just that God continuously looks into our hearts and minds and knows if we need His help and deserve it. He doesn't need to be asked for help even once, much less repeatedly. I imagine that when someone makes a special point of beseeching Him, He must say, "OK, OK. Enough already!" You know, prayer is actually an insult to God because it presupposes that He isn't omniscient.

You said, "Prayer for one." Is there anything else that's a waste?
    Yes, worship and ritual—anything that one does to obtain God's favor. God created men and women in His image—not only an image of His outer form but an image of His inner virtue. That means He intended them to be self-respecting and to act with dignity.

OK, I'll indulge you. What do you imagine God says when people worship Him?
    He says, "Pitiful, just pitiful!" If He didn't have perfect self-control, He would retch.

What a horrible image! I guess that would pretty much mess up the universe.
    Indeed.

Well, I grant that you make a good case, but don't you agree that the wastefulness of religion isn't all that awful? I mean, think of all the other ways we waste time every day of our lives.
    Yes, there are a great many, but surely wasting time in many ways can't be an excuse for wasting even more time. We have to minimize wasted time no matter how it manifests itself. Need I remind you that time is money?

Are you giving me financial advice?
    Yes.

So there you have it. Iron logic from one of today's preeminent thinkers. It affected me deeply, to the point that it altered my consciousness. For example, it now occurs to me that it's time to bring this silly post to an end. I have more profitable things to attend to.
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Editor's Note: Our apologies to Bill Gates, whose religious beliefs are completely unknown to us. The quote is genuine; the rest is the author's fiction.
Copyright © 2012 by Ken Marks