Not Another MSTie

atchka:

thisisthebesticando:

I’ve never understood the “Everything happens for a reason.” This is why.

I don’t understand why atheists seem to think that theists believe God is this cosmic chess player whose primary role is to save us from disaster or else leave us to despair. It’s a very immature view of God and one that only serves to demonstrate a one-sided view of a complicated issue.

God doesn’t stop earthquakes from killing people, nor does he stop a single person from murdering another person. God doesn’t bestow wealth upon the wealthy to make them more comfortable or poverty among the poor to make them less comfortable. God is not some cosmic genie, either granting your wishes for safety and comfort, or else saying, “Fuck you and yours” and delighting in your misery.

According to most theistic belief systems, God created the circumstances under which life could develop and thrive. Take, for example, our global climate system, which is capable of both harboring life and destroying it. Let’s say God created it, in which case you can blame God for creating the system which would make hurricanes and tornadoes possible, or you can see the overall stability of the system as the one most conducive to life with the tradeoff being occasional disasters.

Could God have made a system free from natural disasters? Absolutely. But another part of the theistic view is that God created an imperfect world because a perfect world already exists in the afterlife. According to most belief systems, there is another world where natural disasters will not take place, and your reward for faithfully loving and serving God in this more difficult plane of existence is to live in an afterlife without disaster.

The same goes for sorrow or pain or illness or loneliness. God is neither doling out misery, nor refusing to prevent misery. God gave the gift of life, which comes with a price: vulnerability. All humans, regardless of their class or status, are vulnerable to the misery of human life. That’s just the nature of living.

And every culture in the world has developed some sort of belief system to cope with that nature, and the role God plays in it. Being all-powerful doesn’t mean you always use your power. And being a loving creator does not mean preventing your creations from feeling pain or misery.

As a parent, my job is not to prevent my children from being miserable. My job is to help them learn to navigate this world with all of its misery, which you cannot do if you perpetually shield them from disappointment and pain. When my three-year-old wants to climb the rock-climbing wall on the playground, I don’t tell her no and prevent her from doing something that may lead to injury. I stand by her and watch over her and try to catch her if she falls. But by letting her try something difficult, I am still letting her risk her safety because I won’t always be able to catch her. Maybe this time I’m there, but maybe next time she climbs the wall when my back is turned, and falls. It can happen. And when it does, I will be there to comfort her in her time of misery.

Likewise, God’s job is not to insulate us from misery, but to comfort us in our times of misery. And maybe you don’t feel that, which is perfectly understandable, but for those who believe in God, that comfort is just as real as a parent comforting a child.

I am so tired of people being complete and utter douchebags about their beliefs. I’m tired of people insulting, degrading and humiliating others whose beliefs don’t align with their own. This goes for Christians, Muslims, atheists, and anyone else who claims to know with any certainty what lies beneath our existence.

I thought evangelical Christians were the worst when it comes to this kind of self-assured entitlement, but more and more I hear these evangelical atheists who speak of the absence of God with the same sort of absolute insistence that makes evangelical Christians so obnoxious.

Nobody knows the truth here. We’re all blindfolded and trying to make our way as best we can through a difficult world. Stop demanding that others accept your beliefs, stop labeling your opponents as idiots or heretics, stop acting like you have the fucking answer because you don’t. Nobody does. And neither science nor the Bible can provide you anything more than a guideline for living.

Just fucking stop being assholes about your beliefs for fuck’s sake.

(Source: andrewkletzien)