I'm not going to make many friends with this post, but that's never my intention anyway, so oh well...
"Everything happens for a reason."
Is that not the most stupid, insane, bullshit statement ever? Everything happens for a reason? What kind of reason could there be for a 6-year old girl dying of Leukemia? Girl gets leukemia. The family's health insurance drags their feet over paying for anything to do with her care. Therefore, the family nearly goes bankrupt trying to pay for a treatment that might possibly save their child's life. However in the end, it doesn't work. The father withdraws into himself and becomes a workaholic because he doesn't know how else to deal with his little girl's death. The mother, who just lost her child, is now abandoned by her husband when she needs him most. She develops a drinking problem, and the entire family, once happy, spirals out of control until tragedy after tragedy falls upon them.
I completely made that situation up, but it could easily happen, and I'm sure it's happened thousands of times before. Again, what was the reason for that? And, if there was a reason, who decided what the reason is? God? Does God decide the fate of everyone? Is that what it means when people say "everything happens for a reason?" Do they mean it's part of God's plan?
What kind of asshole God would do that to a little girl and her family? I was raised a catholic. I went to catechism and did all that church stuff. I was taught that God loves us all. Yeah? Well, he sure has a fucked up way of showing it.
God loves us all... except for the people he just randomly decides to shit on for no apparent reason other than it fits into some cosmic plan in some indiscernible way. Then you get the bat shit fucking insane religious people that come along and say, "God loved that little girl so much that he brought her to the kingdom of Heaven early." Fuck these people. Seriously... When you have to start dipping into ridiculous reasoning like that, you need to just give up and admit that the whole ideas of everything happening for a reason, God's plan, and God loves us all is just bullshit.
Then there's prayer... Say that little girl's family was religious (and it doesn't even matter what religion). They undoubtedly prayed every day for a miracle to save their child. Every day they prayed and hoped and wished as hard as they could that God would hear them. Religious friends of the family offered their support and prayers. Hell, knowing today's world, all 400 of their Facebook friends probably chimed in saying they'll keep them in their prayers. Then the girl dies, and those same people who endlessly prayed for the girl turn around and say, "well, God had a special purpose for her in Heaven."
Well, that ties back into God's plan. If God had a special purpose for her, then why the fuck did you bother praying in the first place? You pretty much admitted that God does whatever he wants whenever he wants. If he has some sort of giant plan for the universe, why would he change it because a few people decided to pray? It's a contradiction.
Even if you don't believe that God has a plan for everything that ever happened and ever will happen, even if you don't believe in predestination, wouldn't you be pissed off that God didn't answer your prayers? Shit, if I had a 6-year old daughter dying of cancer, and I prayed to God for her life only to have God completely ignore me, I'd say fuck that all powerful deity. I would have been better off praying to her doctors. At least they tried to do something. God just sat around and let it happen.
Hunger, poverty, war, disease, natural disasters, United Health Care... All of these are signs that if there really is a God, he just doesn't give a shit about us. He doesn't love us. He doesn't care for us. If he exists, he just lets us be. He doesn't answer prayers. He doesn't perform miracles. He just sits back, maybe with a big bowl of popcorn, and watches us destroy ourselves and the planet. In God's eyes, the human race is nothing more than a multi-trillion dollar Roland Emmerich film.
Do you see why I have a problem with God and religion in general? When you start using logic, it makes no sense at all. That's not to say that I'm against the notion of spirituality. There are a lot of things that we'll never know and understand about this universe. I believe that there has to be some purpose for the existence of the universe. There has to be some way it came to be, and it only makes sense that a higher power (whether it be an intelligent power or some other form) must have created it. I just don't believe in the God that religions try to push on people. I don't believe in the hocus pocus aspects of them. I don't believe in God having a son, Jesus. I don't believe Mohammed was a prophet of any kind. I don't believe Moses spoke to a burning bush (unless he was high off his ass), and I certainly don't believe he waved his staff and parted the Red Sea. They're all fairy tales, just like every other thing that goes into these so-called Holy Books.
If you want to treat religion as a social club, that's fine. It can be just like those Star Trek conventions where people dress up like Spock and speak Klingon to each other. It's utterly meaningless, but those people enjoy it and find camaraderie in it, so it's fine and harmless. They really get into it, but none of them actually believe Captain Kirk, Spock, and the Starship Enterprise really existed. That's the way religion should be. People can get together and talk about their favorite episodes from the Bible, perhaps the one where Jesus healed the cripples, and then go home to their normal lives.
Like I said at the beginning, I'm sure I won't make friends with this post, but this is how I really feel about this stuff, so it's about time it made an appearance on my blog. I plan to write more entries about stuff that doesn't make sense in the future.
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8 comments:
United Health Care... All of these are signs that if there really is a God, he just doesn't give a shit about us.
No kidding. When we had UHC as our health insurer, I spent over 20 hours on the phone trying to get approval for an outpatient surgical procedure to improve my daughter's strabisimus. I escalated into two levels of supposed managers only to be told again and again it wasn't covered because it was "cosmetic".
It is partly cosmetic -- she's been teased since kindergarten about it -- but it also impeded the development of her binocular vision. I guess in the world inhabited by whoever makes health insurance coverage decisions, it doesn't matter if you have depth perception.
Just to go along with the pessimism - I've always had one thing that bothered me: "Everything will work out for the best"
Yes, you're right. If you keep thinking that, over time, everything will work out for the best. Unless you die. But then you won't have to worry about that thing anymore, and you'll never know that everything did not work out for the best
It's called the "just world fallacy." Lots of people think this way to find order and justice in a random world. Karma, victim blaming, and "people get what they deserve" are also included here.
That homeless man is lazy...how do you know?
She was "asking" for it (during a rape case)....why, because she was wearing a short skirt?
It goes back to white hat/black hat mentalities.
I am sorry to say that I don't have any concrete answers for you Pharmacy Mike. Not everyone accepts organized religion or even the notion that there is a God or higher power that is bigger than us all. But what I do know is that many people turn to religion to make sense out of a completely chaotic world. And although you may dismiss prayer and "talking to God" as simply insane peope do believe in prayer. Sometimes when someone you love becomes ill it is all you can think to do for that person. And to those individuals that believe in prayer it can help them in a way because they believe it will help them.
One of the fundamental principles that someone who believes in God and organized religion must accept is the fact that you must believe in something that isn't tangable, measurable, or physically seen. That is what is incorporated into the whole idea of faith. Whether you think they are right or wrong is irrelevant. What they have done is accept something based on faith. And faith is the cornerstone of all religions.
I personally grew up in a home that was religious. My parents brought me up in the church and I was in regular attendance on Sundays. As I have become an adult I no longer attend church but I still believe in God and the idea of a higher power. Why God allows such horrible things to happen to us is your guess as much as it is mine. I don't have the answers for you. But what I will say is that Christianity is based on the idea that God allows us to be free and make choices for ourselves. This means we can even choose not to believe in God or in organized religion. But in practice allowing us collectively as humans to have free will does have it's consequences. I don't know where the disease and death in the world comes from or why it happens but I am sure that any God or higher power that exists couldn't possibly feel any better about pain and suffering than any of us do. That idea would go against any notion of a "loving God" that is another cornerstone of Christianity and most other organized religions.
What I have grown to accept is the fact that there must be something bigger than myself and every other human on this planet. The great mystery that we must all learn about individually is the mystery of death and what happens to us after we leave this world. I don't know what will happen to me after I take my last breath but I do know that I am prepared to meet whatever higher power exists and justify my life and all of my actions. To me living in a way that I think is good and right and treating others in a manner such as I would like to be treated myself is my answer to what my purpose in life must be. But I will find the real answers one day when I die and I could be completely wrong. Who knows. Thus is the mystery of life!
I too was raised as a Catholic, but didn't attend Mass for a very long time after marriage, possibly because my marriage was to someone who was raised in an atmosphere of respect for higher powers in life, but didn't see Christianity as the whole answer (Buddhism, Shintoism, Confucianism--and just plain respect for others).
I was reluctant to persuade my spouse to my specific form of Christianity as the priest that was instructed us on the marriage cana was arrested out of town for soliciting young men at the time.
Over the years, I couldn't help but remember some of the fundamentals from the catechism instilled at a young age, to focus on life as proscribed in a book somewhere.
In my experience, the longer I live, I have come to some same realizations as the Redheaded, particulars of a religion don't really matter. In my case, I cannot erase my upbringing, but bring to my life interaction a spirit of positivity, that no matter what happens, we humans are in this whole thing together, and with a belief in some higher good or purpose personified by a just God, there is something to strive for and a reason to have faith.
I used to bend over backwards to make things easier for others (sometimes at the expense of myself or family) that I perceived as having a worse time than I, but then I realized justice is also something I have to answer for, and despite my interpretation of what is right is good for all, there's only so much I as a single person, can do to influence others, and it starts with fair, balanced, and kind personal interactions. And respect for individual dignity of others.
I think we can't go far wrong if we remain well-educated, and keep our intent beyond any narcissistic tendency to focus on our emotional response to what's going on around us and try to work out what can be done in the best interest for humanity.
I agreed with your post almost entirely. I don't know if god exists; I almost wish I had the blind faith that some people have because I'm jealous of the comfort that it brings them.
I do disagree with your comments regarding pray. I thought like you did until about 10 years ago. I was a teenager watching a popular TV show at the time; I heard something that I had never thought about before and it has stuck with me all these years. It made me regard prayer in an entirely different way.
Here is the transcript:
Jen: How can you have so much faith in prayer? Just because you pray doesn't mean it can change God.
Grams: Oh child you've got it backwards. Prayer doesn't change God. Prayer changes me.
God does answer prayers. Sometimes, he just says "no".
FYI, you spelled "prophet" wrong. Probably the autospell checker's fault, but just so you know.
- Pharmacy Kid
Thanks... I'll fix it. I'm just so used to thinking about "profits" that it's just natural for me to spell it that way.
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