Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s just a normal Wednesday… either way, I’ll be short:
What the fuck is with the sudden call to prayer for the residents of Joplin, Missouri? Seriously, why?
Either:
A: You don’t believe in an omnipotent god, so the prayers are meaningless. You might as well be petitioning a potato.
or
B: You believe in a god with all-encompassing power who decided to devastate an entire town as if it were Sodom or Gomorrah all over again.
Seriously, you’re either praying to a non-existent god, or you’re praying to a god that has the ability to manipulate the weather, listens to prayers, but decided to squash a town all the same… What kind of sick, sadistic tyrant are you people spending your Sundays on?
Don’t give me any mealy-mouthed excuses about “Job” or testing of faith… That’s horseshit and you know it.
Pray for Joplin… yeah right. Ask god to help out. You’d be better off praying that Joplin turn its back on religion in its entirety. Where was god when his storm hit? He’s all-powerful but can’t be bothered to help out or take the blame on death and disease. Fuck him. That’s right, fuck capital H Him! And if he’s got any power at all, may he kill me in my sleep tonight. Come on, I’m morbidly obese, I’ve got apnea and I’m more than a little drunk. I’ve given him a hell of a head start. If he can’t kill me tonight, he’s a pussy…
Okay, yeah, I’ll blame the wine. I’ve got four half-written posts typed up but I wait until I’m going on six hours sleep for the entire week and two bottles of wine deep before I decide to write something up from scratch? Fuckit, I’m going to bed.
May 25th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
PS: Yes I am aware that I am offering a false dichotomy. Sorry, that’s how poorly-thought-out rants work…
PPS: The offer to kill me in my sleep is good for this one night only. When I die of poor health, (and medically speaking it will be sooner rather than later,) you can’t extend god’s killing spree by weeks at a time. Tonight or never. That’s it.
May 26th, 2011 at 6:07 am
You understand the reason you’re still around is that:
A: God is teaching you a lesson.
and
B: he knows what I’m gonna do to him if he zeus zaps you before we go to WDW together. Lisa is, after all, very much looking forward to the entertainment value of that trip. She seems to think that Shatner and the Trekkies were but a pale preview.
See you tomorrow.
May 26th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
You mentioned Joplin and the storms… God DIDN’T create the storms! It was tranquil and peaceful on Earth until sin was brought into this world by Adam and Eve. Then the world started to decline. WHY did God allow Adam and Eve to sin? Because we ALL have free will. It’s our choice to sin or not, not God’s, or else we would all be automatons. When Nana died at such a young age it WASN’T by God. It was the consequences of her choosing to smoke, eat sugary substances, etc. THAT is why she died! When little children are raped and killed THAT is because a predator decided to rape and kill them. Sin! It’s that simple! The blame on death and disease starts SQUARELY on Adam and Eve.
May 26th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
I love you dad and I’m really glad you join in here on the comments and please keep doing so, but you know I can’t let that one sit. I’ve got lots to say on this matter but I’ll try to keep it short, to the point and civil…
Sin. The great equalizer. The great scapegoat. Anecdotal stories that can excuse any of God’s bad behavior and make Him look glorious in the meantime. Taking my argument out of the logical realm and immersing it squarely into the Christian mythos and allowing their rules as a base premise:
Every time something bad happens, the religious claim it wasn’t God’s fault. It was mankind’s punishment for… for what exactly, being born?
Adam and Eve were set up for the crime of knowledge. They were given a veritable playground where everything was taken care of and they could lounge about and enjoy their lives. But they wanted more. They were curious and they wanted to learn. They risked everything to discover the truth. Good for them! If I ever have to be accused of a crime, I hope it’s something as noble as yearning for knowledge.
But they were convicted and evicted, forced to live the rest of their lives outside of the favor of God. And what did this give them? Children. How beautiful is that? They can try your patience, they can drive you to the end of your wits, but raising a child is a wonderful experience that I can personally say has forced me to grow in ways I never expected. So maybe I thank my great, great, great,x,x,x…grandparents Adam and Eve for their sin…
Adam and Eve were thousands of years ago, why are we still holding on to their crimes? For the last two-thousand years, Christians have been told they are sinners. They shift the blame to Adam and Eve and then they shift the punishment to Jesus. They willingly and gleefully cast their sins onto a scapegoat who will die a gruesome death in their place. If Christians are not responsible for old sins AND they don’t have to suffer for their new sins, then what is the point in belonging to the club?
Convenience and cowardice. I will not accept the blame for someone else’s sin just as I will not place all my faults at the feet of an innocent man. These basic tenants of Christianity are abhorrent to me.
I’ll carry my sins on my own head. And if I am judged, I will stand proud, hold my head high and say, “Yes, I have done these things. Most of them good, some of them bad. In total, this is who I am and I will not apologize for that” as opposed to the bible-believing Christian who hides behind their Christ by saying, “Yes, I am a miserable, guilty sinner worthy of punishment but you promised you’d kill this guy instead of me.” Any being who prefers the latter over the former is not an almighty judge but a powerless clerk, mindlessly processing paperwork and refusing to look up from his desk when he hears the cries of injustice because he simply does not care.
Sin is an excuse. Sin is a “get out of jail free” card for God to act like a bastard and remain blameless. Does He love his subjects? “Yes.” Can He help them? “Yes.” Then why doesn’t He?
God is so great and powerful that he can manipulate the passenger list of doomed-to-crash airplanes to only include people that have openly sinned and free-willed themselves into a death-sentence. 120 sinners crashing to the ground, a random child chokes to death on a hot dog. 90+- people were killed by tornados, 3000+- people were killed in the WTC collapse, 800,000+- people were murdered in Rwanda… and every single one of them were being punished for the sins of Adam and Eve? Every single death deserved and justified by sin, God remains blameless…
How much blood must we feed to this monster of a God before he is sated, before he starts to behave like a God worthy of my devotion and prayers?
Old people dying from the choices they’ve made in life is easy to use as a shield but it becomes harder to swallow when God has to explain why people die of cancers they didn’t invite or why He LET the predator hurt the innocent child. Is He loving or not? Why did he (in His divine plan for every living thing) steer the tornado into town? Is He all-powerful or not? After all this, if God is able but unwilling, or willing but unable, what is the use of praying? He’s going to do whatever He wants to do, prayers are meaningless.
What is the difference between praying to an impotent or sadistic god versus rolling the dice on random chance? The only answer I can come up with is, the dice don’t require worship or 10% of my pre-tax income…
May 26th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
While we are discussing original sin. I have a general question.
Why is it that Adam and Eve deserved such an horrible fate for the sin of disobedience?
What parent (correctly, it seems, since the assumption is that god is infallible) totally banishes their kids for one mistake?
Why was disobedience so terrible that it not only doomed Adam and Eve, but thousands of generations of their offspring?
If the tree of knowledge was so dangerous why did god not protect the kids from it? (When my niece lived with us, we covered the electrical outlets, and we locked cabinets with poisons in them. I don’t mind the painful lesson, we all have to learn, but I protected her from stuff that would kill her in the environment she was living in. It seems to me that God went out of his way to do the opposite)
That’s without asking the really hard questions about why any of the biblical “truths” can be accepted when even it’s followers regularly, universally, ignore it’s teachings and commands.