Imagine there’s an actual sentient God — a universal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-controlling glowforce with His/Her finger on the button of absolutely everything, and Ethan Hawke‘s Reverend Toller comes over, sits down, takes a swig of whiskey and asks, “Will you forgive us for what we’ve done to this world? Will you cut humankind a break for polluting and greenhouse-gassing and over-developing so much of your good green paradise?”

God would take a breath, clear his throat, take Toller’s hand, look him in the eye and say, “Forgive in what way? Even if I felt like forgiving, what good would it do? It’s a crazy question. Century after century humans have asked it, and the answer has never changed: “I don’t forgive. I never have and I never will. There’s only one rule of the physical universe, and you’ve been hearing it since you were just a proverbial knee-high. As you sow, so shall you reap. And you know what that means.

“Put another way, I’m not in this. It’s your planet. If you want to flood your low-lying cities with sea water and turn the green verdant hills into toxic waste dumps, knock yourselves out. You’ll be ruining the lives of your grandchildren and especially your great-grandchildren, of course, but fuck ’em, right? The fact that you can’t see any farther than the tip of your own nose is not my affair. I’m not a judge or a referee or even a landlord. You want the real truth? I don’t even exist. Okay, I shouldn’t have said that. That was raw. I’m sorry. I blurt stuff out.”