Divine madness

Friday, Jan. 06, 2006 @ 12:04 p.m.

Man, what a glorious winter break that was! Bummer that it's almost over. The daily grind of academia returns next week.

Nationally, the year got off to quite a rocky start with the unfortunate West Virginia miners incident. There was an explosion, and 12 miners were trapped. That wasn't the worst part of the story. News came on January 3rd that all 12 were found alive by rescue workers. However, a day later, it was revealed that it was WRONG INFORMATION. After all news stations had announced the 'miracle', it turned out that 11 miners were found DEAD, and 1 is currently fighting for his life in critical condition.

That was a big boo-boo on the media's part, but I found it quite amusing how religion can never have a bad side in the eyes of ~~the gullible~~ believers. When news first came of the 12 miners' survival, people congregated in churches, praised God for the miracle, and sang "How great thou art" in the middle of the street. Now that news came that the 'miracle' was actually a tragedy... what do you people think about that wonderful, miraculous God now? "Oh, I think that He must have His reasons"; "We trust that He's doing the right thing"; "He must be teaching us a valuable lesson"...

How about God pointing a finger at you and saying "NYAH-HAH!! GOTCHA!"?

Now, if you're a religious person, I am not trying to ridicule your beliefs. I do not think any less of you as a person, nor do I want to force my opinion down your throat. All I'm looking for is logical intellectual discourse. My questions about religion are personal ones.

Am I a non-believer? Perhaps. I've been searching for a reason to believe for a long time, but I haven't found any. God is a hero when something great happens; but he still is a hero when something bad happens. He can spit in a believer's face, and believer will go, Ohhh, thank you, God!!", and interpret it as having been given a spritz of holy water. There is nothing objective about it. It's like a child in the eyes of a doting parent. If he's on good behavior, he's an angel. When he does something bad, he'll still be an angel, no matter what. But the truth is, that boy may be rotten to the core, but the parent will believe whatever he/she wants to believe.

It's human psychology. If you believe in UFO's, you'll see them in the sky. You'll construe any tiny possibilities (e.g., it's actually a frisbee) as big huge evidence that there's life in outer space. Your expectations will blind you to anything outside of what you want to believe.

Whether or not it's the sole purpose, religion is used to manipulate the masses. Look at how Bonehead Bush got his second term. One speech about how he prays everyday, and "Gee, if he prays, then he mustn't be that bad". All that trouble in the middle east, with all their suicide bombers... everything is done out of religion. There's a big fat manipulate leader that says, "Go and sacrifice yourself for your God! You will be rewarded in heaven!", and the believers will blow themselves up without even thinking, "Wait a minute... if there are so many rewards in heaven, why aren't YOU doing it yourself??"

Religion is used to promote agenda of people in power, and is also used to punish the undesirable whenever it's convenient. One moment, it's "God is love, He loves all His children". When it's convenient, it becomes "God is punishing you! God hates you!!". Whoa... whatever happened to that loving and benevolent God? If people like Pat Roberston had a huge enough following, he could start a little suicide-bombing middle east right here in the USA.

The largest 'push' factor for me from religion is, of course, related to my sexuality. Did God make me? Sure, he did, if you believe that's with birth is all about. So am I one of His children? Yep, sure am. Do I choose to be gay? Absolutely not. Why would anybody get up one morning and say, "Gee, I think my life isn't hard enough... I think I'm gonna be gay!"?? Why in the world wouldn't I want a 'normal' life if I had a choice?? Life isn't exactly like a video game, where the more challenging levels gives you more points. It actually gives you more crap, really.

So... does God love me or hate me? Let's see... He loves all the children that He's created, but apparently hates gay people, whom he also created... if this were described of a human being, he'd be schizophrenic.

How else could someone in my position think about religion?

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