Ignorance is Bliss: Misplaced Faith

Think of any glaring societal problem, then think of what can be done about it. We can think (or write) about it. We can gather and discuss it. We can appoint someone to do something about it. We can volunteer to help—or even pursue a career helping—remedy the problem. But wait a minute, there’s another option: why take action when we can just leave it to the Almighty to sort it out?

We can sit smugly in church and listen to an obtuse and wordy lecture about it. We can vote for a bible-thumping politician who parrots the same thing. Is there a problem with crime in our city? Let’s pray to God about it, then tell everyone as scornfully as possible that God says it is wrong. We wouldn’t vote for a guy who talks over his shoulder to an invisible leprechaun, but we’ll gleefully vote for a guy who claims he talks with God! Damn right! And we’ll stand by and watch the problem get worse, making up rationalizations along the way. God must be punishing us. (Or them.) We must not be praying enough. They must have done something to deserve their fate. Does anyone else detect a pattern here?

Misplaced faith is what I rail against most in life. People are so ready to turn to a non-existent deity and to the lying cheats who claim to have him on their side, when all they have to do is to look into a problem and make a few choices. Perhaps the children are not getting enough attention at home. Perhaps the teacher to student ratio needs to be higher. Perhaps there are some city planning decisions that could be made differently. Perhaps society’s division of wealth is unfair. Perhaps someone could start a neighborhood watch program. But many would rather pray to their heart’s content, dress nicely and behave quietly for church, and vote for God. (And damn those sinners!) People take this concept of the supernatural and place it ahead of their real-life problems, when Jesus and his buddies Buddha and Mohammed should be the last thing on their “to do” list. Seriously, if these supernatural beings really are so great, what do they need us for?

Praying will not make drug dealers disappear from your city. (Has it ever, really?) Try educating children--not with church, not with Nancy Reagan “Just Say No” rhetoric, but try to see through their eyes what it is they need to keep from forming destructive behaviors. And if at first you don’t succeed, try making adjustments or try something altogether different. Don’t be so quick to throw up your hands in despair and leave it for God to sort out, because if you haven’t noticed yet, either there is no God, or he doesn’t give a crap what we do to ourselves, or at the very least he’s not going to give us any easy answers, though the people who claim to know him certainly are happy to make things simple for us. They just tell us to do nothing. It’s God’s will, after all. The very same people who consider themselves so pious are the people who are willing to let the world remain on a collision course with disaster.

There are too many people, we consume too much, and there is too little education and compassion to go around. No amount of thinking to ourselves or leaving the problem to others will change this. There will be no heaven or hell, other than what we do to ourselves on this planet, and I must say, too many of the religious folk seem content to bring on hell, the sooner the better, whether they realize it or not. I do so wish they would wake up from this fever dream of theirs and enter the real world. It is not such a bad place. We just have to ask questions, and earn the answers.