I was approached, outside 'work-town' station last night. In fact, my 'approacher' actually ran across the road to catch up with me. A tall young man, early twenties, at a guess. But his opening words were also his immediate undoing. 'I work with a local church. Do you know God has a plan for you?' Sadly, being on my way into work as I was, I didn't have the time to engage him in any kind of discussion. I had to content myself with 'Not for me, I'm an atheist, thanks.' His smile disappeared, and he simply, rather weakly, repeated 'Yes, a plan for you.'
If God has a plan for me, all I can conclude that he/she/it has a thoroughly warped sense of humour. Amongst all the more general vicissitudes around the impoverishment, enslavement and destruction of untold millions of lives that organised religion has facilitated and still facilitates, the plan, on a more personal level, seemingly includes giving me a sexual orientation which leaves me no hope of genuine fulfillment in my life, and, when I tried to do something more 'societally acceptable', helped to destroy that aim by encouraging my ex-wife to end our marriage because of her 'beliefs'. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. I don't, of course, believe 'God' had anything to do with any of those things, because belief in God is an irrational delusion, as far as I'm concerned. The pleasure and pain, joys and horrors, good and evil in life are all unequivocally human in origin, it seems to me, with religion being nothing more than a mechanism for many people to attempt to evade responsibility for their own actions and desires - 'God did it/made me do it' is the philosophical equivalent of a five year old pretending their imaginary friend ate the chocolate bar that was supposed to be saved for later. So, Mr Local Church, by all means do good things, altruistic things in your life, help others, help protect the environment, whatever. Just do those things because they're the right thing to do, though, not because some completely imaginary (non)entity 'told you to'.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
It is unfortunate that so many so-called Christians (or whatever the faith) have warped religion to the point that it's unrecognizable from what God intended. I guess I'm a questioner in some sense of the word, and now sort of look at religion - perhaps faith - perhaps spirituality as more of a moral compass that many people have read the wrong way. I think there are many religious people out there doing good work, feeding the hungry, comforting the sick, helping the impoverished - all things of course that could be done by non-religious people who simply have good morals and high character and the money to do it. I see nothing wrong at all with you and your atheism, but not all religion is as awful as you cite. It's too bad any of that was done in the name of religion, but I guess even good things can be warped beyond all recognition when money and power are involved. As for "plans" for individuals, I have never really bought into that. If there is a Supreme Being, then I think He's more of a big picture guy, even though even that big picture isn't too pretty at times.
ReplyDeletePeace <3
Jay
Hello Jay
DeleteAs you say yourself, a person can be 'good without God' - I've probably mentioned this somewhere before, but I remember being very impressed, at around 11, at my mum's response to the vicar of our parish church, at the end of a school event there, when she replied to his suggestion that it was a pity he didn't see her there more often by saying she didn't need to go to church to be a good person. I didn't become an atheist that day, but it was certainly a 'brick in the wall'. As I've said before, recently, actually, personal beliefs aren't really what I take issue with, and I would certainly never try to 'convert' anyone to my worldview, but, equally, I'm prepared to say what I think if asked - even when I'm not asked, I suppose, with blog posts like this one! I can't prove I'm right, of course, so my position is, in some ways, as much an act of belief as that of the most dedicated of religious adherents, but, given what I know about the world, and the universe at large, I feel the evidence is on my side. If I am wrong, I, like you, can't imagine that any god would be involved in the kind of 'micromanagement' implied in 'God's plan for me'. To think otherwise is self-aggrandisement of the most egregious kind.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B