I’ve got an apology to make, I’m afraid I’ve made a big mistake, I turned my face away from you, Lord.
I was too blind to see the light, I was too meek to feel your might, I couldn’t see the truth, Lord.
But then like Saul on the Damascus road, you sent a messenger to me [Sam], and so I’ve had the truth revealed to me, please forgive me all those things I’ve said. I’ll no longer betray you Lord, I will pray to you instead.
So I will say thank you, thank you God.
Thank you God for fixing the cataracts of Sam’s mum.
I had no idea but it’s suddenly so clear, I feel such a cynic; how could I have been so dumb?
Thank you for displaying how praying works, a particular prayer in a particular church; thank you Sam for the chance to acknowledge this omnipotent opthalmologist.
Thank you Sam for showing how my point of view has been so flawed.
I assumed there was no God at all, but now I see that’s cynical, it’s simply that his interests aren’t particularly broad.
He’s largely undiverted by the starving masses, or the inequalities between the various classes, but gives out strictly limited passes redeemable for surgery or two-for-one glasses.
Fuck me Sam, what are the odds? That of history’s endless parade of gods, the one you just happened to be taught to believe in is the one true God, and he digs on healing?
But not the AIDS ridden African nations, the victims of plague or the flood-addled Asians, but well-off privately insured Australians with common and curable corneal degeneration.
No, it’s far more likely to be an all-powerful magician than the misdiagnosis of the initial condition. A product of groupthink, a mass delusion, an Emperor’s New Clothes style fear of exclusion.
No, the only explanation for Sam’s mum seeing, is that he prayed to an all-knowing superbeing, the omnipresent master of the universe, and he liked the sound of their muttered verse, and for a bit of a change from his usual stunt of being a sexist, racist, murderous cunt, he popped down to Dandenong and just like that, used his powers to heal the cataract of Sam’s mum!
It’s a miracle!
- Tim Minchin
This was from memory so if there are any inaccuracies that’s why, but the message is the same.
didn’t you hear? it was democrats controlling the weather that wrecked NC, so that republicans wouldn’t be able to vote
from the party of “god is in control”
This proves that Putin is not Republican. But, he’s not Democrat, so this is so confusing!
That’s scary to hear of such a person who can’t distinguish between acts of nature and specific intent. If all things happen for a reason, our world looks exactly the same whether God is active or asleep at the wheel.
It’s kind of like saying that no direction or leadership whatsoever, no plan, is just as valid as a person acting with intention. It’s ridiculous. It’s disturbingly regressive. It’s burying our heads in the sand.
If all things happen for a reason
…then that reason is usually “someone was being an asshole.” In the case of a hurricane flooding mountains hundreds of miles inland, said assholes have been assholing around for 150 some odd years, actively destroying our home for profit while obfuscating and denying the evidence.
Fuck those assholes. And fuck the invisible sky wizard that supposedly made it all happen.
Since antiquity, humans have anthropomorphized nature as a means of understanding the natural world. For some, life hasn’t changed much, as these people still seek to understand events though the eyes of deliberate human intention.
“Fifty thousand years ago there were these three guys spread out across the plain and they each heard something rustling in the grass. The first one thought it was a tiger, and he ran like hell, and it was a tiger but the guy got away. The second one thought the rustling was a tiger and he ran like hell, but it was only the wind and his friends all laughed at him for being such a chickenshit. But the third guy thought it was only the wind, so he shrugged it off and the tiger had him for dinner. And the same thing happened a million times across ten thousand generations - and after a while everyone was seeing tigers in the grass even when there were`t any tigers, because even chickenshits have more kids than corpses do. And from those humble beginnings we learn to see faces in the clouds and portents in the stars, to see agency in randomness, because natural selection favours the paranoid. Even here in the 21st century we can make people more honest just by scribbling a pair of eyes on the wall with a Sharpie. Even now we are wired to believe that unseen things are watching us.”
― Peter Watts, Echopraxia
On the one hand: it’s completely irrational to think like this.
On the other: fearing for your life one moment and then facing tragic outcomes the next, can really torture one’s psyche. People do irrational things when pushed past their limits/tolerances. That includes indulging in the just world fallacy in order to make sense of things.
Why indulge in irrationality at a time like this? Because the alternative is unthinkable in the moment and exposes you to survivor’s guilt, grief, despair, depression, the reality of a random & uncaring universe, and more waiting for you in the end. And it just so happens that the church is often the only psychological support structure folks have, so we get god-fearing advice like in OP’s meme.
As much of an oxymoron as it sounds, I see things like this and think that an “atheist ministry” could do people a lot of good.
Yea I could see benefits to that kind of thing. One of the greatest benefits of religion is the sense of community and belonging it can offer. It’s easy to get wrapped up in delusional thinking, existence is terrifying, especially when anything can happen at any time for no real reason or warning, thinking something will protect you or care for you sounds like a comforting escape. A community of people with the focus theme being embracing non-religion, supporting each other through fellowshipping, meaning meeting regularly and talking about our shared problems, and focusing on helping each other and the community could be a beautiful thing. Without the focus on theme I feel like a lot of these groups exist already. Lots of non-profits to get involved with that offer community and a sense of belonging.
He works in mysterious ways!
