I am not religious. I think I point it out here quite often just to make sure nobody misunderstands me – I AM NOT RELIGIOUS. Got that? Good.
So, given my said lack of interest in religion it would seem odd that I am very bothered by some things that I have recently read. There is one blog where the writer (who I really, really like by the way) was recently pregnant with twins. One of the babies died in utero, and she was faced with having to carry her now dead son while her daughter continued to grow until a point when she could deliver. She wrote something to the effect that she was glad that she didn’t believe in god, because she would have marched straight to the nearest crossroads and sold her soul after this whole thing happened. This didn’t bother me. In fact, I could feel her pain, and definitely could see her point.
What did bother me was another blog where the writer has been very sick for quite some time. She writes about prayer, and believing in God and asking for God to answer her prayers ad nauseam. I found it…tiresome? Fake? Annoying? I don’t know exactly. But when she prayed for a very expensive massage chair and someone bought her one, well, she thanked the holy spirit and God and all of his great creations for listening to her prayers and answering them. THIS…bothered me.
I am wondering why scenario one doesn’t bother me and scenario two makes me want to punch that lady? What difference does it make to me if someone believes that God gave them something that they have been wanting? What harm has that done to me? It has made them happy and supported their beliefs, and yet, it annoys me.
I wonder how someone believes that God would care about giving someone a recliner when there are people walking around with dead babies inside of them. But then, if God is all things to all people, hell…I don’t know – big loop, insert confusion.
In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity. - Ralph Waldo Emerson