Gods prefer simple, vicious games, where you Do Not Achieve Transcendence but Go Straight To Oblivion; a key to the understanding of all religion is that a god's idea of amusement is Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that divine beings find pleasure in chaos and unpredictability, reflecting on the nature of existence and religion.
Terry Pratchett's quote conveys a thought-provoking view on the relationship between gods and human experiences. It implies that rather than guiding humanity toward enlightenment or transcendence, deities may take delight in the randomness and tumult of life, akin to a game of Snakes and Ladders, where players face setbacks and unpredictability. This perspective invites deeper contemplation of religious beliefs and the absurdities of life, suggesting that understanding the divine might require acknowledging its playful yet cruel nature.
In practice
During a lecture on the unpredictability of life, one might use this quote to illustrate life's complexities.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
This, in fact, is the power of the imagination, which, combining the memory of gold with that of the mountain, can compose the idea of a golden mountain.
Be a good human being, a _x000D_ warmhearted, affectionate person. _x000D_ That is my fundamental belief.
Corporate responsibility extends not only to the customers, the resources and the workers of the present, but also to those of the future.
The Tao is near and people seek it far away.
Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell.
Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not.
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