The Don't Thank God For The Lunacy of The Runaway Ego Rant
Is it just me or do you also sometimes ponder the (il)logical implications of that seemingly innocent "Thank God", "Thanks to God", "Thank you God" statement we hear so often?
I mean, there's an earthquake and the survivors speak of how God personally saved them from death, there's an awards show and the winners thank God for their awards, there's a victory at some championship sporting event and it's God who is thanked for the win, as if God is a big football or NASCAR fan or something. Someone survives cancer or a heart attack and it was God who interceded at the last minute to save them from impending death. A politician wins a race and it was God who sided with him or her. Someone wins a beauty pageant and it was God who was not only watching, but intervened to help the winner triumph over all those other losers who God, clearly, found to be inferior.
Can you imagine the ego involved to actually think God was on YOUR side, God really wanted YOU and not the others to win that award, or that God was actually looking down and cheering for YOUR team to win the championship?
Sing it everybody: "How many roads must an ego walk down, before it's called massively oversized?"
Or, on a more serious note, how about all those who are lucky and fortunate enough to survive some big disaster or, say, cancer, and then claim that it was actually God who saved them? Well, the obvious meaning, the only one that can logically be inferred from any such claim, is that God simply let the others die. He got so involved that he personally intervened to save YOU, and, even though he - being omnipotent and all-powerful and all that - could have saved everyone, he just didn't feel like it. Well, it can only mean that he chose to save you because, well, you're just so special and important, and he decided to let all those others, including those little babies and small children, die because, well, they just didn't measure up in worthiness to you. Because YOU, you're the one, YOU are the only reason, YOU...
The fact is that if there were a God that was intervening occasionally - on some sort of whim or another - to save some people, then that logically can only mean that he was choosing to let all the others die. Now, if you're truly religious, then this would seem to be a very vicious, cruel and heartless God you'd be thanking for saving you while letting so many others perish... or helping you to victory while condemning all the others to failure.
Come on, really now, either God doesn't get involved at all and everything's equal for everyone - in which case there's simply no thanks to be given - or he picks and chooses who to save and who to let die horrendous deaths. But who would really want to believe in such a horrible God anyway? Ok, the fire-and-brimstone wackos might get off on believing in such a sadistic deity, but aside from them, who's believing in such a sick version of God? Ok, the Romans and the Greeks of yore did, of course, but aside from them and the fire-and-brimstone wackos...
Anyhow, in the case of natural disasters/horrific accidents/fires/wars/etc. is it really so hard for people to realize that they simply got lucky and that others didn't. And in all other cases can't people get it through their heads that God just doesn't give a shit about who wins the Miss USA Pageant, the Superbowl, the Grammy for Best New Artist, the INDY 500 or the race for the mayor of Wichita? He may come across as pretty darn petty at times in the Old Testament, but he's not THAT petty. Or, as God himself would probably say, if he were a Meat Loaf fan: "I'd turn people into salt pillars for looking back/But watch the Miss USA Pageant?/Come on, I'm not as petty as THAT!/No, I won't do THAT!"
However, if he does indeed exist and is, in fact, the just and caring God so many people claim he is, then there is one race that he would most certainly have cared about deeply enough to intervene in. And that's why I just want to say this:
Thank God Scorsese finally won his much-deserved Oscar on Sunday night! After years of horrendous miscarriages of justice, it's great to see that the Big Guy finally intervened to see some justice done.
Long live Marty!
Mike Cowie (Oredakedo)
Thursday, March 1st, 2007
