(Warning: angry Sunday post)
I read a truly distressing article about a multiple homicide involving children. I won’t dwell on the details — I could have picked any atrocious story. But get this:
On Sunday, the community turned to prayer to understand the slayings at a service for the slain family.
“This is an opportunity for people to turn to God,” said Debra Kenton, a member of the New Life Community Church. “Who else can explain things like this?”
An opportunity? You mean you see this kind of thing happening and you think, “Hmm — maybe this’ll bring people in the door”? Sometimes Christianity seems blissfully ghoulish.
Well, if God can explain this, I’d sure like to hear the explanation. He watched the whole grisly spectacle and didn’t do squat. Why would you turn to prayer? Why wouldn’t you instead say, “Hmm — maybe we’re on our own here”?
Another thing. I don’t think we’re getting the results we should be from an omnipotent being. Can we vote him out? Is there an ombudsman process in place or something?
I used to dismiss the ‘problem of evil’ argument by saying that protecting people directly isn’t God’s job, and he allows people the agency to do even horrible things so that they can be appropriately judged. But if he can help affluent Christians find their car keys and direct his Church on the earth, couldn’t he spare a thought for the children when they were being killed? I’d at least do that if I could, and me being evil, surely God would do more. (I borrowed that argument from Jesus. Bread and stones. Check it out.)
You know what — I think I want this God job. You can have all the power you need, let awful things happen on your watch, and no matter what, the faithful will defend you despite there being no evidence that you’re doing anything at all.
Then I realised that this is the kind of setup George W. Bush has.
Then I realised: this is why the Religious Right are Bush’s strongest supporters. It takes very little energy to flick their irrational support for God over to another authority figure.
Unless George Bush is God. Come to think of it, they’ve never been photographed together. And even though I like a lot of things about the world, there are enough piles of corpses in recent history to make me think this place is controlled by someone who could be doing a lot to help, but mysteriously doesn’t give a shit.
1 October 2006 at 10:00 pm
I think you are on the right track when you talk about the christian right finding it easy to follow Bush another strong father authority figure. And I find it strange that when comparing this leader to another strong father figure leader (Hitler) everyone gets so upset. But if you turn the sound off and just look at the images of Bush, Hitler, and Bin laden, which two give the same non verbal speech and which one looks different from the other two in body language?
By the way, I’m mad as hell too. My congress is about to make it legal, fully legal, to torture people wholesale.
2 October 2006 at 2:05 am
Well, we just need to trust in the Lord Bush’s omniscience, and realise that he has his own way of knowing what torture is. We can’t comprehend everything, but Bush has all wisdom, and knows in His heart whether someone’s guilty or not. And we need to accept that.
When people ask where I’m from, I say “The Former United States”. It’s not the country I grew up in anymore.
2 October 2006 at 3:02 pm
I wish more americans had the chance to be forced to see things from another countries perspective. When I say to myself, “self, if I were a person living in holland, how would this policy look to me?” it is so much easier to see bad policy and yet so many americans have a hard time doing this. Whats more many politicians seem to want to keep people from doing so by saying that such thinking is unamerican. Ugghhh.
2 October 2006 at 4:46 pm
There must be some Americans who voted him, though, even assuming that some votes were stolen.
3 October 2006 at 1:27 am
I have to say that even living in another country is no guarantee. How is it that LDS missionaries (for example) go to another country, learn another language, live there for 1.5-2 years, and then come home and become more provincial than ever? It’s strange. You’d think they’d have some basis for comparison, but it all seems to evaporate.
Obviously not for everyone. Maybe someone’s mission in Europe made them more liberal, but it sure didn’t show up very often among the RM’s I’ve known at BYU. Possibly the ‘wicked world’ meme inoculates people from accepting different perspectives.
3 October 2006 at 10:00 am
Well as a New Yorker who has temporarily left the country for graduate school in England, I am finding my dislike of where America is going is getting worse and worse. Seeing how other people react to the US makes me feel so ashamed of what it has become – as if I wasn’t embarrassed before I left.
The Christian Right is making all the choices and they are definitely not the right ones. To add insult to injury, it totally goes against what the forefathers believed. They were deists and believed that nature and not God controlled their actions. The Christian Right has forgotten what the phrase “separation of church and state” means in their quest to make everyone behave as they do. Thanks, but no thanks. This liberal, left winged atheist is quite happy living in her world. People are less judgmental there.
I am just praying that the midterm elections give the Dems a much needed turn around. I am keeping my fingers crossed and desperately waiting for my absentee ballot.
Then there is always hope for a good (and fair) 2008 election.
3 October 2006 at 10:13 am
http://xkcd.com/c154.html
😀
8 October 2006 at 5:55 pm
I would say it has more to do with the us Vs. them mentality. The “we are a small special group that is going out into the world to help them.” kind of attitude. Another group that seems to share this is the military. Many come back home as provincial as before if not more so.