So I have decided to stop waiting until there is something epic on my mind to write about and just write when the desire pops up to do so. Lately I keep feeling the urge to write and get things off my chest, but then I stop and ask myself if anyone would even care about a paragraph of atheistic ramblings. At this point, I don’t care whether everything I write is something that will reach out and grab people. I just need to put pen to paper and get things out in the “open” and then let anyone who cares to read it be the judge of whether it had any impact on them. Not looking to change the world though my ramblings…. Just to understand myself a bit better.
I have to wonder if the time will ever come that I will actually open myself up to my family and friends about what I believe. Every time I get to a point where I think those who love me would understand me, something comes up and it requires me to hold my tongue for a little while longer. There always seems to be something going on in someone’s life for which they are soliciting prayers from their supporters. Whether it’s for a new job, a safe return, a good grade, or, in the most recent situation, a good bloodwork result. It tears at me whenever I see those I love asking for everyone’s prayers. I mean, I want to support them in whatever it is they are needing, but I cannot and will not pray about it. Give me something tangible to do about it. Need me to hold your hand when you get a call? Need me to help you study? Heck, need me to clean your house because it’s just impossible right now? Just ask me and I will be there. But to pray? To talk to no one and think that somehow it’s going to change the course of events or give the desired outcome? It’s preposterous. The only way to change things is through action; Doing something about it. Sitting around asking a god to make things be the way you want it to be isn’t going to work… unless that outcome is already what was going to happen anyways.
Now, asking me to pray to a non-existent god is one thing. But what drives me even crazier is how people react when their prayers are supposedly “answered” by their god. As though he/she/it moved mountains to make your wishes come true. I get so frustrated when god gets accolades for doing NOTHING! Take for example the recent situation in my family. My 2 ½ year old nephew recently went through testing to see if he had Leukemia. He showed many symptoms of the disease and that frightened most of my family. My sister went to Facebook and asked for prayers from her friends and our family so that the results would come back negative. She just couldn’t bear the thought of her son possibly having cancer. And so the comments to her prayer request went a lot like this “You and your son are in our prayers!” “God will take care of him!” “Give it to God! He works miracles!” Fortunately, his results did come back negative. When news broke of the results, the comments turned to “God is awesome!” “Praise God!” “Hallelujah!!” While everyone else is thanking god for answering their prayers, I merely said, “That’s fantastic news.” I began to wonder what would their reactions have been if the results had been different. Would they have said “Sorry, I didn’t pray hard enough” or “God must have a reason for him to have cancer”? Unlikely. That would be a pretty mean god to let that happen. But because the prayers were answered, god is wonderful and gracious.
I had this vision of god sitting there trying to decide whether to have the result be negative or positive. As though he was handed a memo and he had to stamp it with a positive or negative rubber stamp. He looked at the petition attached to the memo (the list of people who prayed for the negative result) and decided there were enough signatures to give the best result. Now, either the results were going to be positive and god changed them to be negative because there were enough prayer requests. Or they were going to be negative anyways and god was happy that he would be praised for what little he had to do. But what if the vengeful god was sitting at the desk that day? What if the god who didn’t get enough sleep the night before was sitting there all grumpy and when he was handed the memo, he decided not enough people cared about this little boy or the wrong people had prayed. He could have changed negative results to positive as a way to punish my sister and our family. How would the devout have handled that one?
The fact remains, the test results were negative because my nephew simply doesn’t have cancer. He didn’t have cancer when they drew the blood. And no amount of prayers influenced the outcome of those test results.
In times like these, I hold my tongue around those I know would be offended by my beliefs. It seems like I may be holding my tongue forever. What good would it do to bash the beliefs of those I love just because they don’t believe the same as me?? While they all hold onto a false sense of security by giving it all to a non-existent god, I am secure in the fact that I am the one who can change the things that can be changed. If something needs to be done to change an outcome to the way I would like it to be, then I am the one who has to make that happen. I control my destiny. I make my own luck. Those of you who wish to change the world, start with yourself. Start with action. Stop asking for things to be different if you are not willing to make the changes yourself and do something about it.
