A Conversation Between Ben and Donald

Oh, hey, Donald. I didn't see you there. I was just...
thinking.

ABOUT WHAT??!?

About God.
How he obviously doesn't ever intervene in anyone's life directly.

WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT??!?

The other day on TV there was this football player
saying how God had helped his team win.

 It got me to thinking, why would God help his team win the game, 

and thereby punish the other team? Am I to assume that 

the entire other team had done something worthy of punishment? 

As well as all their coaching staff, 

and people who had bet on them to win, 

and their fans?

I GUESS??!?

Even their fans?

like some little 7 year old kid sitting on his dad’s lap 

watching that team 

wearing an old jersey of his dad’s, 

a kid who just wants the team to win because even though he doesn’t understand the game 

he knows that his dad really wants the team to win, 

so the boy wants the team to win too? For his dad?

God punishes that kid?

UMMMM??!?

Suppose dad gets so mad at the team losing that he beats the kid? 

Did THAT kid deserve that punishment?

just so some football player could date a third-rate pop singer?

What about the team that won?
All of their players are worthy of God’s special love?
None of them did something so bad that God felt the need to punish them?
None of their fans ever embezzled money or coveted their neighbor’s wife
or whatever?

UMMM??!?

Then I thought about that 7 year old fan of the losing team
again and you know what came to mind?

I CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE??!?

Jetpacks.

I WAS RIGHT!!?!

That 7 year old boy loves jetpacks, right? 

He does. All 7 year olds love jetpacks. 

I thought, if God cares enough to grant prayers 

for those people who deserve it, then there would be jetpacks. 

And not just jetpacks but 

real life dinosaurs, 

and space aliens flying X-wings 

over Niagara Falls 

while Spongebob shoots at them with lasers.

But none of those things exist.

So if God intervenes in our world 

on behalf of prayers, then he obviously does so in a partial, haphazard way: 

randomly choosing winners and losers, 

ignoring some prayers 

(he would have to ignore them because he is omniscient 

so he knows about them, 

he didn’t miss them like an email in the junk folder 

which let’s face it happens less often than people claim), 

granting others, just capricious as the day is long.

So I said to myself: 

Do I want to believe in a God that is like that, 

just some sort of deranged genie granting wishes like they are slots on a roulette wheel?

Or would I rather believe in an all-powerful God that chooses to ignore us entirely?

THOSE DON'T SEEM LIKE THEY
WOULD BE THE ONLY TWO CHOICES!!?!

A God who is just not paying attention, 

who is binge-watching the British version of The Office, 

letting prayers go to voicemail, 

so that people can die of thirst under rubble after an Earthquake 

while people like Tom Brady can go undefeated 

seems preferable to a 

mad God who bestows favors and punishments in an incomprehensible way, 

leaving us with no guidance as to how to act, 

wouldn’t you agree?

WHAT ABOUT THE IDEA THAT GOD HAS A PLAN AND WHAT SEEMS

ARBITRARY TO US IS PART OF A LARGER SCHEME REQUIRING

SOME SUFFERING TO SERVE THE GREATER GOOD?

GOD HAD HIS OWN SON DIE FOR US, SO SURELY YOU WOULD

ACKNOWLEDGE THAT A GOD WHO WOULD DO THAT

MIGHT ALSO ASK THAT WE GO THROUGH SOME HARD

TIMES TO GET TO THE REWARDS HE PROMISED?

So you ask me to believe in a God who loved us so much that he had his son die for us, 

but who then, in that infinite love, cannot help us find a way to cure cancer? 

Who wants seven-year-olds to die of leukemia? 

Who lets planes crash into skyscrapers thereby unleashing fifteen years of consecutive warfare?

....??!?

All in the service of a master plan? 

A plan that will someday lead us all to something 

much much better than this, 

a place of eternal happiness without pain or suffering or want?

A God who loves us so much that he says 

all you have to do is suffer eons of 

terrible things and incomprehensible behaviors, 

and then you get the good stuff?

How is that better?

....??!?

Either a God who doesn’t care, 

or who is just flinging blessings around like a crazy child, 

or a God whose plan is 

make things horrible for a lot of people for a long time and then ease up a bit. 

Those are my choices? 

Because if that’s the options, 

then I’m still going with 

God who doesn’t pay attention. 

It’s the best possible belief, isn’t it? 

I think you’re missing the point. 

We don’t really, and can’t really, 

understand how God’s mind operates, 

and trying to judge his behaviors 

based on how our own minds work 

is like an apple trying to figure out an octopus.

I think you’re missing the point: 

in any system of belief in which God cares enough to reward,

directly or indirectly,

good behavior, the world would be overrun with 

10-year-old cowboys riding rocket jets to chase the Abominable Snowman.