Rush has said a lot of good stuff today, which I will share once his transcripts are up, but he said something earlier today that got me thinking...
He was playing soundbytes from reporters talking to the various Occupy "city" protesters. For some reason, they were asked, "Do you believe in God," and the soundbytes he played were from 3 or 4 people who did not believe in God. And Rush characterized them as "smug and dumb." (Well, his characterization was about everything they said, not just the religious bit.)
But really, while those particular people didn't sound as articulate as they might be, I thought they had a point. There is no god.
Then I thought, well, I'd better explain my progression.
I was born in 1961, into a middle class white house hold. Maybe on the tail-end of lower middle class. My parents weren't extremely devout, but I was sent to Sunday School, I seem to recall, and I certainly believed that there was a just and loving god and if you lived a good life you'd go to heaven when you died. All this was perhaps helped by the fact that we were middle class - there were never any worries abut where our next meal was coming from, and when I wanted a book or a toy my parents didn't have to hesitate or think about money before they bought it for me (or for my brother and sister.)
Age 13, I went to a school that had bible study - whether once a day or once a week I can't recall. In any event, we started learning about Exodus. And one day we were taught the story of how all the Jews are in the Wilderness, and they're scared, and they of course have never seen God, only Moses had, and they're complaining about not havng enough to eat, etc.
Now, what would a just and loving God have done? Appeared before all these poor, scared people, as a pillar of flame or just as a gigantic man or whatever, said, "Calm yourselves, here I am, believe in me and I will keep you safe, ya da ya da." But what does he do instead? Send a flock of poisoned birds over the people. They kill the birds, they eat the birds, lots of them die.
And I, at age 13, thought, What the heck???? This is a kind and loving God and when his people are scared and need his support, he kills half of them? And he does it by sending birds so even if some of the people had not complained, they could very likely eat these poisoned birds and die regardless?
Now, I did not stop believing in God at this point. I just stopped worshiping God. That kind of God did not deserve my worship, I thought.
Then as I got older and read more on the subject (I didnt' do a study of religion, but when you read Isaac Asimov or other writers who write about this stuff, you learn these things) I finally realized that there is no God. That we've got a Bible that was put together in the year 400 AD or so by the Council of Niceae, and they put in what they wanted and left out what they wanted, and ya da ya da.
So for me, not believing in God is a no brainer. Not an issue.
But I confess I remain fascinated by other people - and why they continue to believe in God. Or perhaps the other side of the coin - believe in God and worship him. (One can believe in God but not worship him, obviously.) Simply because it's part of human nature that I don't understand.
I have tried to read the Bible on several other occasions, and each time have just had it confirmed how psychotic the God of the Bible is. Take for example the bit about God sending the 10 plagues of Egypt in order to make Pharoah "set his people free." Now apparently there's some Bible that leaves out these lines entirely [there's a different Bible translation depending on which sect one belongs to, eh?), but the Bible I read it says, over and over again, that God "hardened Pharoah's heart" after each plague. In other words, Pharoah was perfectly willing to let the Jews go after the 1st plague, after the 2nd - after every single one! - but God "hardened his heart" so that he would change his mind and not let the Jews go.
So how much suffering did the Egyptians have to put up with, through these 10 plagues, that God put them through because he hardened Pharoah's heart, so he could show off his power to the Jews?
Sorry, a God who would do that is not a God I want to worship. (If I believed in God!)
And that is what annoys me about Christians (whom it must be admitted I'd 100% rather live with than Muslims! I can be an atheist in a Christian secular country and feel perfectly safe, but a female atheist in a Muslim country? I don't think so!)
Anyway, the thing is Christians, despite all evidence to the contrary, persist in saying, God loves us. That's what really annoys me, I admit. If they want to believe in God, fine, whatever makes you happy and gives you comfort. I just don't understand how any comfort can be derived from that. How can they look around at all the misery and suffering in the world and think, God loves us? How can thinking "God loves us" give someone comfort when he demonstrably does not do so?
More than that. Think of the diseases that this God - who created everything, eh? - has subjected mankind to for a gazillion generations because Adam and Eve dared to eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. (Which has always puzzled me. If they did not know the difference between Good and Evil, how could they know the snake was lying to them? How could they know it was evil to eat of the tree, ya da ya da. But because of this one mistake, all their descendants must suffer? That's like a 4 year old kid disobeying its parents and getting its hand cut off or something, just so it would never forget that at age 4 it disobeyed its parents.)
Anyway...muscular dystrophy. Multiple sclerosis. Early onset Alzheimers. Oh, the list of horrible and cruel diseases goes on and on. What kind of loving god lets those diseases into the world?
I read the Hannity message boards, which are populated by devout Christians as well as a few atheists. And I read the Tennessee Lady Vols message boards, which seems to be populated by devout Christians as well.
It seems that not a week goes by when someone isn't on these boards asking for other folks to "send prayers" - to total strangers. Someone's mom or sister or other relative has just developed cancer. Please send prayers. Someone's son has just been involved in a car accident and is in intensive care. Please send prayers.
And invariably there are a rash of posts that say, "Prayer sent. Hope all goes well." As if they take 30 seconds out of their day to send prayers up to God that some total stranger recovers from whatever their problem is, and then they go on with their lives. And what good does prayer from total strangers do? What good has it ever done? If prayer worked, wars would have stopped long ago, sick people would have recovered long ago, and so on. We'd have peace on earth and good will toward men.
But prayer doesn't work. It's only when people get off their knees and start doing some work - such as perhaps funding doctor's research instead of churches - that good things start to happen.
Not that charitable institutions that work out of churches don't do good stuff. But they do good stuff because they get out and work at it...not because they spend all their time praying for God to do something about it.
Well, this is quite a rant. But it's a bit personal. I was visiting relatives over the weekend, one of whom, a cousin a year older than me, got MS when she was 30 or so, and has been in a wheelchair for the last ten years or more. Her family - (her mom is my mom's sister) is very devout. That didn't stop her from gettng MS of course. But one thing she said to me was that she believed God had given her MS so that she could be an example to others.
Well..that enraged me, though of course I didn't say anything.(Indeed we did not discuss religion at all.) But I didnt and don't understand how that belief could possibly give her comfort, but apparently it does. Which is just an interesting insight on human nature, I suppose.
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My Schedule of Regular Posts:
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday throughout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.
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