One of the more obnoxious reactions to the tragic school shooting in Connecticut is the meme going around on Facebook that supposedly answers the question: Where was God? Or, how could God allow this to happen?
The T shirt gives the answer: He (this version of the Creator is definitely a a He) is not allowed in schools.
Ah. Pardon me for thinking it was a good idea to separate public institutions from privately held and not universally shared beliefs.
I strongly suspect HeShe was in the same place where HeShe is when a USA drone hits a wedding party in Afghanistan. HeShe is on the sidelines, shaking cosmic head, wondering why our species doesn't make better use of its free will.
Besides, where is HeShe during epic natural disasters?
I am an agnostic, rather than an atheist. One of my favorite quotes is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I practice Reiki. It feels like it works, in a way that suggests a version of The Force is with us. The relationship of such practices to Placebo will be another blog sometime, and I must do one on the need for the Secular Sacred.
But the attitude of believers to prayers with specific requests baffles me. Don't we have enough evidence by now that it doesn't work that way?
A while back my dear Christian friends were praying for a baby who had been born with a heart defect. The baby did well after surgery. This was taken as a sign that God had heard the prayers, and wasn't He wonderful for saving the baby. But no blame was attached to the Deity for not giving the baby a perfect heart to begin with.
Any positive outcome is taken as proof of God's goodness, but we are supposed to meekly accept all the horrors of the world as His Divine will, not to be questioned. For every earthquake victim who is rescued after days of prayer there must be others praying just as hard who perished in the rubble. Thy Will be done. Fine, but in that case why bother with the petitions in the first place?
Earth is not, and never has been a 100% safe place. As naked apes on a finite and unstable planet we face enough challenges without making each other miserable and without inventing capricious deities who need to be placated.
In his epic and brilliant novel "The Years of Rice and Salt" Kim Stanley Robinson follows a group of souls through a number of incarnations, Tibetan Buddhist style. At some point the scientist in the group comes to the conclusion that "Any improvement in the tenor of existence will have to be anthropogenic". Amen. Folks, the making of a better world is up to us.
I have nothing against people who believe in old religious traditions. Religion seems to act as a magnifier, bringing out either the very best or the very worst in people. Like the girl with the curl on her forehead: when it is good, it is very very good, but when it is bad it is horrid.
I worry when tragedy is blamed on failure to placate a god. It is a small step from there to blaming the people who must have angered the gods. That leads to priests burning heretics and witches alive, or throwing Christians to the lions, or murdering infidels or having a pogrom. Take your pick.
Meanwhile, I shall continue to try live up to my own motto.
With thanks to Ram Dass, Voltaire and the Dalai Lama:
Be here now. Cultivate the garden. Just be kind.
As said before, any deity for whom that is not good enough I don't want much to do with.
The T shirt gives the answer: He (this version of the Creator is definitely a a He) is not allowed in schools.
I strongly suspect HeShe was in the same place where HeShe is when a USA drone hits a wedding party in Afghanistan. HeShe is on the sidelines, shaking cosmic head, wondering why our species doesn't make better use of its free will.
Besides, where is HeShe during epic natural disasters?
I am an agnostic, rather than an atheist. One of my favorite quotes is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I practice Reiki. It feels like it works, in a way that suggests a version of The Force is with us. The relationship of such practices to Placebo will be another blog sometime, and I must do one on the need for the Secular Sacred.
But the attitude of believers to prayers with specific requests baffles me. Don't we have enough evidence by now that it doesn't work that way?
A while back my dear Christian friends were praying for a baby who had been born with a heart defect. The baby did well after surgery. This was taken as a sign that God had heard the prayers, and wasn't He wonderful for saving the baby. But no blame was attached to the Deity for not giving the baby a perfect heart to begin with.
Any positive outcome is taken as proof of God's goodness, but we are supposed to meekly accept all the horrors of the world as His Divine will, not to be questioned. For every earthquake victim who is rescued after days of prayer there must be others praying just as hard who perished in the rubble. Thy Will be done. Fine, but in that case why bother with the petitions in the first place?
Earth is not, and never has been a 100% safe place. As naked apes on a finite and unstable planet we face enough challenges without making each other miserable and without inventing capricious deities who need to be placated.
In his epic and brilliant novel "The Years of Rice and Salt" Kim Stanley Robinson follows a group of souls through a number of incarnations, Tibetan Buddhist style. At some point the scientist in the group comes to the conclusion that "Any improvement in the tenor of existence will have to be anthropogenic". Amen. Folks, the making of a better world is up to us.
I have nothing against people who believe in old religious traditions. Religion seems to act as a magnifier, bringing out either the very best or the very worst in people. Like the girl with the curl on her forehead: when it is good, it is very very good, but when it is bad it is horrid.
I worry when tragedy is blamed on failure to placate a god. It is a small step from there to blaming the people who must have angered the gods. That leads to priests burning heretics and witches alive, or throwing Christians to the lions, or murdering infidels or having a pogrom. Take your pick.
Meanwhile, I shall continue to try live up to my own motto.
With thanks to Ram Dass, Voltaire and the Dalai Lama:
Be here now. Cultivate the garden. Just be kind.
As said before, any deity for whom that is not good enough I don't want much to do with.
