God Squad Review CXVIII (Dealing with Illness)
January 31, 2005 | 17 Comments
An otherwise “faith-filled and optimistic” Squad reader is mad at God because she’s the only support for her stroke-disabled dad and was recently diagnosed with lupus. Apparently, God serves pretty much the function of a wall in such situations:
It’s OK to be angry at God. God can take it, and you need to hang your pain and fear on somebody. That’s what God is there to do for you. Go ahead and scream and yell.
In fact, a wall might be better because you can’t bang your head against God. But on second thought, the advice makes even more sense if you substitute “Dr. Mengele” for “God.” I’m sure his patients screamed and yelled at him, and he could take it, too. And he offered a similar “deal”:
God gives us life for just as long as it is God’s will for us to have it, and then God takes it back. That’s the deal.
And if that’s not good enough for you, you can always try a little masochism:
One way to accept the cards God has dealt you is to view your illness not as a curse, but as an invitation by God to live through your pain into a new place of acceptance, love and serenity.
So many people we have known who struggled with illness became much better people when they were sick than when they were well. This spiritual truth is the result of the humility that illness teaches her best students.
I’m definitely going to sit in the front row of Professor Brain Cancer’s class and raise my hand all the time. At least when I’m not polishing apples for Profs. Stroke and Rabies.
January 31st, 2005 @ 12:10 pm
Or this: http://www.counterpunch.org/chazelle01292005.html
January 31st, 2005 @ 6:32 pm
“WARNING: In case of rapture, this car will be left unmanned.” This is a real-life bumpersticker. Good to know these people exist. Why don’t they just kill themselves and get there sooner? It would be helpful for everyone.
January 31st, 2005 @ 8:55 pm
Oy!
People can rationalize anything. It doesn’t make it rational.
January 31st, 2005 @ 9:26 pm
I second that emotion. I saw Gregory Peck in action in The Boys From Brazil, and he appeared to mostly keep his cool. But would a just, all-loving Dr. Mengele snuff out a young Steve Guttenberg like that?
February 1st, 2005 @ 3:43 am
This rapture business has me a little worried. Should I start a petition that all airlines have at least one pilot at all times who isn’t a Christian? If both pilots are evangelical and vanish, all of us heathen assholes in the back will be screwed. I think it’s the responsible thing for the airlines to do. Think of the advertising campaign — “United: Even if God doesn’t care about non-Christians, we do.”
February 1st, 2005 @ 9:42 am
Mengele – God
Mengele – God
Mengele – God
I just can’t decide which is worse. AhHAAA! I know!
There was only one Mengele. There’re an infinite number of Gods. More is Better so, because in this case Better is Worse, God is Worse than Mengele!
I’m a freakin’ Genius when it comes to this God stuff!
I’m thinking that I’d rather blame the Cause of my problems for the fact that I have them. Of course, the cause is Generally me. Sort of makes the Solution easier to find does that. 10 AM, Smoke break time!
February 1st, 2005 @ 10:23 am
“Mengele – God”
“I just can’t decide which is worse.”
That’s an easy one: there has never been a human being as evil as God, and never can be, if for no other reason than any God’s powers, if not unlimited, are vastly superior to the powers of a human being. Now, it might be argued that this power alone just makes God the baddest dude on the galaxy’s block, but when this power is coupled with God’s omniscience you cannot escape the fact that every act of God and all the subsequent consequences are intended, and makes Him one unique and inimitably evil motherfucker.
February 1st, 2005 @ 3:57 pm
The whole “God’s will/free will” paradox is enough to convince anybody that the whole thing is just made up. My will, god’s will, when bad things happen to good people, whatever. make up whatever rhyme or reason you want, we’re all gonna die. no rationalizing will change that.
February 1st, 2005 @ 6:01 pm
I walked a mile with Pleasure
She chattered all the way
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow
N’er a word said she
But oh the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me.
Robert Browning Hamilton
February 1st, 2005 @ 8:21 pm
Bryce, that’s a brilliant idea. If fundamentalists are going to demand accommodation for their beliefs, then we non-fundamentalists need to be protected in case they’re right.
February 1st, 2005 @ 8:47 pm
Clearly the initiative should be overseen by the Dept of Faith-promotion, but funded by additional Sin Taxes. Maybe levied from a cut of Off-Track Pascal Wagering.
February 2nd, 2005 @ 11:44 am
ORRRRR why dont we petition the Government to stop giving free weapons to Israel so that they cant defend themselves so that the Arabs take over the land over there and that way Jesus can never come back because the Jews wont control Jerusalem.
This would be no rapture is possible and therefore it would mean we dont have to worry about Xtian pilots vanishing in the middle of flying a 747!
The sickening thing is that, if such a bill were introduced to congress, they would all take it dead seriously (the rapture and prophecy I mean)
This world is so retarded! I was born 2000 years too soon! F#@&!!
February 2nd, 2005 @ 3:17 pm
I know what you mean, AK. It’s like PrayerTulip’s latest illegally copied essay, but the idiots don’t know what a self-fulfilling prophecy is. Of course the Israelites of old would want to write about how their nation would be reborn. Of course armageddon is going to happen if these idiots want it to, because they control the nuclear weapons.
Scary thought, eh? I’m just wondering how they’ll ‘rapture’ themselves.
February 3rd, 2005 @ 10:34 am
Has anyone ever read the book “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”? I’m 31 years old, and I remember when I was around 9 or 10 years old, I saw that my Mom had a copy of this book when she was divorced and was raising me as a single Mom. I thought of this book when I read this post, although I’ve never read it and have no desire to (it was written by a Reconstructionist Jewish rabbi), especially after reading the reviews and synopsis of the book on Amazon.com.
On Amazon.com, out of 78 reader reviews as of 2/3/2005 (the book was published in 1983, so while it’s a “classic”, I suppose it only has 78 reviews on Amazon because it hasn’t been a hot book since Amazon was launched), there was only 1 written my someone who made the logical point that maybe, just maybe “either (a) is no God or (b) is a God but He is so weak as to be insignificant to human life” and that the author’s solution is a “cop-out” (see the 10/25/1999 review).
I’m just curious if anyone here has read it and what their thoughts are about it. I’m just surprised that more people don’t come to the same conclusion as the reviewer I mentioned above after examining the evidence of reality with regard to the “Why do Good Things Happen to Bad People”-type of question for religious beliefs.
February 3rd, 2005 @ 10:35 am
Sorry – last line in above post should read “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People”.
February 10th, 2005 @ 1:11 pm
Re: very cool link i found
a few more, courtesy of google
surf away you heathens
Welcome to Enligh…
February 10th, 2005 @ 1:12 pm
Re: very cool link i found
here go a few more courtesy of google
surf away heathens
Welcome to Enlig…