Time for a religious rant
I got one in my church e-mail this morning that particularly annoyed me. It reads:
"God is going to shift things around for you today and let things work In your favor.
If you believe, send this to five. If you don't believe, delete it" (sic).
It sounds like a nice enough sentiment...but it's so wrong, in so many ways.
For one thing, if that were true for every single person who 'believed' it, I'm pretty sure that it would require some pretty big logical inconsistencies. For example, what if two people read this who are up for a very competitive promotion? Let's assume that their lives are pretty similar--neither would benefit from *not* getting the promotion, and both would benefit greatly from actually getting it. Only one of them gets it--where does that leave the other person? I'm sure there are cases like this out there.
For another thing, it's very escapist. It pretty much says that if things go right, it's God--and if things go wrong, either it's God or it's the person not having enough faith. ~_~ Now, I do think that God is active in the world, in the sense that creation is still continuing via evolution and in the sense of being with each person. But I don't know for sure that God causes or 'lets' things happen. If we have free will--which I think is a pretty precious thing--then any active action on the part of a supreme being could potentially hamper that and thus make it partial-free will, or non-existent free will. And I also think that we have to take responsibility for our own actions. We can cause good or harm, and we need to realize that. We need to own up. Maybe if we did, instead of hiding behind other people or supreme beings or whatever, we'd be able to solve more of our problems. I don't think that God is sitting up there thinking, "Gee, how can I make life easier for Jenny today, since she believes the right way?" I think God is with me--and with every other person--as a friend, a source of comfort, a voice of wisdom. I don't think God loves me anymore than the next person.
And that's another problem with this--it's very self-centered. It says, "My happiness matters most." Happiness is important, true. But sometimes we have to sacrifice comfort and happiness temporarily in order to do the most good. Emotions like anger and sadness exist; they're not bad, even though they don't make us feel good while we're experiencing them. They're not 'happy' emotions. But they're important. If we do something 'bad,' then it is wholly appropriate for us to be sad or be angry with ourselves--or even to feel guilty. And if someone wrongs us, then again, emotions like anger and sadness are wholly appropriate. Through true experience of such emotions, we grow; we learn. If person A slaps person B in cold blood, it is wholly appropriate to feel angry with person A and concern for person B. Neither emotion is really 'happy,' but both are important. Furthermore, if I am always happy--always getting what I want, never angry or sad--then I know that someone else is going, at some point, to be angry or sad as a result of that. We are not isolated beings--we're very much in connection with one another. It's like that Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game--I'm linked to Ernest who is linked to someone at work who is linked to his wife, and so on. Directly or indirectly, one of the people in one of those chains could end up hurt as a result of my happiness (which links back to the logic problem from above), and so I'm not sure that it's really even appropriate to wish for my own God-given happiness at the expense of others'.
And then there's that last bit--the bit that always seems to get tacked on to religious forwards at some point, that says that those who pass on the forward believe in God, but those who don't pass it on don't believe. Because, you know, God is sitting up there saying, "Oh, that Jenny, she's a bad egg, she didn't pass on that forward, she must not *really* believe in me." ~_~ Or because the next person to get that forward is going to be oh-so-impressed--"Oooh, that Jenny, look at her! She really *does* have a lot of faith--you can tell, because she passed on this forward!" Or because Jesus is somehow diminished if I don't pass it on--or is somehow scandalized if I don't. Or because I just have to prove it to myself--"I feel so much better about myself, because I passed this on--I'm *proving* to God that I do believe, I really really do!" Somehow, I don't think any of those situations is actually real. I'm pretty sure that, while God may know how many hairs are on my head, God also has much more important things to do and think about than whether that forward was passed on. I feel pretty secure in my faith--I don't need to prove it to myself or anyone else, because I know where I stand, and I'm pretty sure God does, too--and we're the only beings who really need to worry about that. And I don't need to impress anyone else with my show of faith.
Anyhow, that's just a 'brief' rant on what I greatly dislike about forwards like this one. There's more, but I feel better having ranted at least this much. :)
Peace and love.