Angry at God?

I've seen some comments on the web about Atheists being "angry at God." The statement makes the assumption that God exists and that Atheists are mad at him because they (Atheists) don't have a belief in him or something like that. Just writing that sentence didn't make sense to me but what do I know - I'm angry at God!

What Christians are getting at, in my view, is that Atheists are mad that they don't believe in God and God needs to somehow straighten them out if only they (Atheists) will believe in him. Here we go again with nonsensical reasoning.

Listen up Christians, first of all Atheists by definition, don't have a belief in a supernatural being so there is nothing to get angry at or about. It's like saying that I'm angry at unicorns and I know they don't exist but boy am I mad at them! Again what am I angry about?

This whole "angry at God" thing is really a ploy by Christians who are trying to support their view (in their own feeble minds) by contending that the belief benchmark is a belief in God and those who don't believe are going against a given fact (God exists). They can not comprehend that maybe this God thing isn't real. They surely can not comprehend that someone in the good ole U S of A doesn't buy the notion of a God - large G or small g.

So the next time some Christian, those loving kind souls (ha!), yell at you that you are angry at God, tell them that you want God to contact you and then you and God can have a sit down over a beer in the White House gardens. Even Biden will be invited.

My aching back!

There's an article in the Boston Globe that caught my attention. It's about a man, Jack Sullivan, from Marshfield Massachusetts who in August 2001 prayed to some dead Cardinal to cure him of the terrible back pain he was having. This piqued my interest because I too have experienced very bad back pain that over time eased up and went away. But the curious part of this story was that when he did this prayer thing to Cardinal John Newman from England, it was AFTER surgery on his back at New England Baptist Hospital in Boston. Gee makes you wonder!

The story goes that in June of 2000, Jack Sullivan had some vertebrae squeezing on his spinal cord. He apparently had some surgery then (the story isn't too clear on that) and he prayed to Cardinal Newman at that time. According to the story he was then pain free for eight months before the pain returned (prayer cure timed out?). He again had back surgery and again he prayed. Now he's been pain free since (according to him).

Now having had back issues for many, many years and knowing that if it isn't serious, most back pain eases with rest and mild exercise. Yes in some cases surgery is needed and the outcome to back surgeries is not good in many cases. But sometimes it works.

So my question is, what really caused the cessation of back pain? Prayer or surgery? How many times had Jack been praying to Cardinal Newman or to God and nothing happened? How serious was the back issue and what do doctors say about this? Given what we know about back problems and how they sometimes respond to treatment/surgery and how they sometimes get better on their own, it makes you at least question as to the efficacy of prayer in this case.

Of course the faithful will tout this as proof that God answers prayers - sometimes! It's a case of how we are quick to jump to some conclusion that supports our beliefs while ignoring the obvious. It's also interesting that Jack had opted for back surgery. He could of saved a lot of money if he had prayed first to cure his back problem before going in for surgery. I guess believers like it both ways!

And me of no faith.

I have just finished reading "Me of little faith" by Lewis Black. For those who do not know him, he is a comic that had made a movie or two, been on television notably HBO and The Daily Show on the Comedy Channel. He minces no words about various topics and speaks his mind when it comes to religion.

One thing he said in his book struck a cord with me --
"In a land that should take great joy in the differences of its people -- and in the knowledge that those differences are what make us strong -- we generally choose to fear diversity while wallowing in our own stupidity. For a country where so many believe in some sort of God, we seem, as a whole, to have more faith in our ignorance. We seem to find a shared comfort in our fear of those who don't share our beliefs."

I think that's true. I find that Christians tend to talk of love and accepting but when the rubber hits the road, if you don't believe as they do, they will come down on you like a ton of bricks. Next to being gay, if you say you are an Atheist, then you are the scum of the Earth. You are evil, immoral and not a nice person. I think it would really surprise most Christians that, according to Adherents.com in 2000, the nonreligious/secular made up more than 13.2% of the U.S. population. More than the Jews (1.3%) and Muslims (.5%). If you add the agnostics (.5%) and declared atheists (.4%), that gives you 14.1% of the U.S. population that's not religious. And even more interesting is the nonreligious group is up over 110% from the previous survey. So more and more folks aren't buying Christianity.

Anyway it would be better for all of us if the Christians would back off and let people run their life as they see fit. That doesn't mean we run naked in the streets and forget right and wrong. I think our society has figured that out already and we don't need someone shoving a 2000 year old book down our throat. But Christians backing off? Not a chance!