God will provide

many of the posts here will serve as a relief valve. there are many moments that, as a rational being, one of my theist friends or colleagues smiles and says something which apparently brings them great peace, perhaps not realizing that their casual dropping of the g word or their pat pious phrase causes me excruciating intellectual pain. Or, perhaps they are well aware of this pain but seek to torment me, or, knowing of my atheism, drop little breadcrumbs which they hope will lead me to their moldy, petrified loaf of bronze-age wisdom. "god will provide" is one such phrase I was forced to countenance recently, in response to my concern that a friend was putting themselves out with their generosity. God will provide. Indeed. If god had provided, you would not be writing a check for $100.00 to help out. God will provide. Indeed, to European Americans like you and I, your god apparently delights in providing. Take your beatific smile and fine phrase over to sub-Saharan Africa and tell it to the mother whose baby has just died of malnutrition. God will provide! Except when he doesn't, which is a lot of the time. the usual theist response is that god does provide-in fact, there is enough food to go around- but it is up to us to be godly and loving enough to share it, and we fail in that, and our human corruption is why so many suffer. There is truth in those allegations, but this does not let god off the hook. How is it that a compassionate god allows innocent children to suffer because adults are ungodly? That in his bestowing of blessings-you know, have a blessed day, I am blessed, god bless America, god is so capricious in distributing his blessings? Africa is less blessed or divinely neglected at best in comparison to the USA, despite being a very religious continent. Just like Rick perry, they love god but it apparently isn't mutual, at least not in terms of the blessings that would make most of feel lucky- er, I mean, blessed. It's really the same thing when you think about it. Hordes of mexicans pray to the virgin of Guadalupe, who is especially pure on account of not having sex, which is a sexist old testament obsession for another post. But think about it. If every Mexican who prayed to the virgin got what they prayed for, they wouldn't call them miracles anymore. It is only because lots of people pray and only a select few get what they ask for that such things are called blessings or miracles. And why are some prayers answered and others ignored? Some people born with plenty and others into disease and starvation? This is a mystery that the best theologians tell us we will only be privileged to understand, if we are lucky, after we die. I once met a woman who said that she is the sort of person who always needs to know "why" things are happening...as if every event in her life has a cosmic micromanager. How sad. The only way she found peace was through a book that reassured her she might get to know god's reasons when she died. So, in other words, god may seem so capricious that events in the world appear to be random. And, lacking any rational narrative for them, your experience of them will in fact be just that-random and lacking any reason. And the best comfort you can hope for, the thing that allows you to sleep at night, is to trust that there is a reason you might learn of later...and until then you have to accept not knowing. How those clumsy intellectual gymnastics bring anyone peace is beyond me. allow me to apply occam's razor: there is no why. Accept that and stop asking. Saves a step and eliminates the uncertainty of maybe not finding out when you die! Life is random, god does not bless people or care who will win the football game- so stop thanking him. And when you rescue some miners from miles under the rock, don't forget to give credit to the human engineers who designed the capsule that got you out- unless you prefer to sit and wait while people pray for you to miraculously emerge. All of the miracles of modern medicine, including cures to diseases supposedly created by god, were made by men. And that is the true blessing; we bless ourselves, while gods flit about in the imagination and lay entombed in stone monuments to whichever mythology is currently fashionable. Zeus bless you.