The odyssey
James Wood doesn’t think much of theodicy.
But even when intentions are the opposite of Mr. Robertson’s, and in a completely secular context, theological language has a way of hanging around earthquakes. In his speech after the catastrophe, President Obama movingly invoked “our common humanity,” and said that “we stand in solidarity with our neighbors to the south, knowing that but for the grace of God, there we go.” And there was God once again. Awkwardly, the literal meaning of Mr. Obama’s phrase is not so far from Pat Robertson’s hatefulness. Who, after all, would want to worship the kind of God whose “grace” protects Americans from Haitian horrors
Which is why I wish Obama would leave the goddy stuff out. The intention was good, but really, if that’s the grace of God, what’s God thinking? That we have better building codes and more medical facilities and bigger airports so therefore God should do the earthquake in Haiti because that way it will be really worth watching on tv?
The president was merely uttering an idiomatic version of the kind of thing you hear from survivors whenever a disaster strikes: “God must have been watching out for me; it’s a miracle I survived,” whereby those who died were presumably not being “watched out for.”
Exactly. I said much the same thing in my essay for 50 Voices of Disbelief, though I said it in a slightly less respectful tone.
People seem to know that God is good, that God cares about everything and is paying close attention to everything, and that God is responsible whenever anything good happens to them or whenever anything bad almost happens to them but doesn’t. Yet they apparently don’t know that God is responsible whenever anything bad happens to them, or whenever anything good almost happens to them but doesn’t. People who survive hurricanes or earthquakes or explosions say God saved them, but they don’t say God killed or mangled all the victims. Olympic athletes say God is good when they win a gold, but they don’t say God is bad when they come in fourth or twentieth, much less when other people do.
Why don’t they? Why do people thank god for good things and look carelessly out the window when it comes to bad things? Why is it all thank you thank you thank you and never damn you damn you damn you? I suppose because once it gets to damn you damn you damn you it’s time to leave, so we don’t hear so much about it.
Well I think the problem is that there’s a constant stream of wailing at God, the damnations and so on. Rage is a part of the trap. Feelings of some sort or other are essential to the great engine that makes religion “go”. It just so happens that rage and grief are episodic events, so they don’t have staying power. So the God of Oprah sublimates them in other directions.
It’s the routine stuff always trotted out, with the inescapable logical implications and complications: “…knowing that but for the grace of God, there we go” means “there by the ungrace of God go the poor bloody Haitians.”
Very few of them can be said not to have lost family, friends or property in all this.
Off-topic: Katha Pollitt draws our attention to a female Canadian-Indian dual citizen imprisoned in Saudi Arabia by her father.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100208/pollitt
That rational and educated folk even consider explaining theodicy, (at least in terms other than that of the obvious glaring fact that there have never been any deities), is in serious need of either “growing up and getting in tune with reality” or committing themselves to a professional mental health care facility.
It is such a non-issue when it can be fully and completely answered by: “There are no gods, just grow up”.
Well, yes, of course, there are the logical problems at the individual level; but this has to be seen at the level of the collective. Religions are really all about identifying special, privileged groups: I belong to the chosen people, I am amongst the saved …, that sort of thing. If a member of the in-group suffers – and, of course, this being the world, individuals will undoubtedly suffer – there are a number of responses: the person sinned and deserved to be punished; the group sinned, and someone needed to be punished as a warning; the person suffering was not really a member of the group, after all, and so on. It works wonders.
The member says to an officer of the group something that indicates his/her anger with god. That’s okay, says P (the priest, imam, whatever), god can take your anger, so anger is not really a sign of unfaithfulness. But the reason for your/your loved one’s suffering is hidden from us. It’s really for the best, and when you have recovered from your anger, you’ll see that it all fits in with the plan, although, like Job, we can only ever touch the him of god’s garment. God picks the fairest flowers; only god knows when it is important to take someone from us; and consider what a wonderful example of faithful suffering you/your loved one displayed to us. Perhaps, you never know, your loved one may have been weakening, and god made sure that they left in a state of grace. Fall back on god, and god will comfort and strengthen you. God still loves you. Everything works out for the best for those who love god. (This one is Paul’s.) And the fellowship that you/your loved one belonged to is still there to uphold and strengthen you in this time of trial. And so on and on and on and on it goes. And so damn you damn you damn you is turned quite seamlessly into I love and adore, thank you thank you thank you. It’s an emotional trap, and it’s not easy to escape once you’re really in it.
So Jeanvir’s reference to Nasia Quazi is not quite the digression it might seem. It’s been in the news in Canada for some time. And don’t forget, Saudi Arabia is a perfect society. We should be so privileged.
Religion is a meme trap (sorry Ophelia!), and religious memes have had thousands of years to perfect themselves, and they go on creating mutations to help them survive. This is why I still believe, despite Russell’s concerns, that religion causes just as serious emotional and other harm to people as the physical harm that they cause. (I have my copy of The Church and the Gavel. Thanks Russell. (And Russell is right, everyone should read it.) Very disturbing stuff, but I think that Hamilton, who is very aware of the other harms that religious entities cause, should be much more aware of the emotional and intellectual harm that they do, which are, in many ways, as serious and as limiting as any of the physical harms that they inflict on children. But that really is a tangent at this point.)
God’s garment has a hem not a him. Sorry.
Of course, I know this, being a close confidant of the almighty.
Thanks, Eric, you said it better than I could. That’s why talk of ‘religion’ narks me, when the whole essence of religions are that they divide people. There is no faith, only competing faiths. There could never be a real ‘world religion’, unless it had heretics and infidels to persecute or at the very exclude.
And saying “damn you God” is also blasphemous. Now we know why!
Not so, Stephen. “Damn you God!” may be the expression of quite understandable anger, sorrow, frustration, uncertainty, etc. etc., and, as they say, god can take your anger. God loves you. Saying “Damn you God!” is at least speaking to god. It’s, to that extent, an act of faith. The real blasphemy turns up when you deny god utterly, turn your back on the emptiness that once was filled by faith. That’s the real “sin against the Holy Spirit.”
Athletes certainly don’t seem to blame a deity when there aren’t sufficient blessings around to power their million-dollar running spikes to a gold medal…
sorry, I know that’s quite a trivial example in comparison with earthquakes & other disasters, it’s just one that I personally find particularly grating every time a major championships comes round.
Whaddya mean trivial? I said athletes in the last sentence of the bit from the essay. I said athletes. They’re always doing that. That’s why I said athletes.
It beats thanking their parents, Ayn Rand and Jesus…
Eric: yes, I see that you mean that blasphemy is denial of God, and I’m sure that technically you’re correct. However, in Chambers Dictionary the definition of blasphemy given is:
“impious or profane speaking or behaviour; contempt or indignity offered to God”.
(It doesn’t mention denial of God at all.)
Yes, I know, Stephen. That of course was not my point. The point is that many religious people have let some blasphemy slip in as quite understandable ‘in the circumstances.’ This is a way to deal with questions about God’s love and justice in the midst of a world manifestly unjust and uncaring. If I (let’s say, as a religious official) can turn your anger into a quite innocuous rant – Of course you’re angry. I understand that, and so does God – well, I haven’t dealt with the problem of evil, but I may have dealt with your doubts, and made them (surreptitiously) a part of your faith. God can take your anger. It’s a normal part of a personal relationship. And that’s what your relation with God is, etc. etc., until the whole thing makes you sick of the lying and prevarication and simple insensitivity of it all. Because at the same time that they’re saying this to the heartbroken mother of a child who has died in agony, they’re also saying thanks for dinner and winning games. It’s all part of the same web of deceit.
apologies OB, I should have been more specific.
I meant *American* athletes. Ours are usually marginally (but only marginally) more sensible…
:-)
The real blasphemy turns up when you deny god utterly, turn your back on the emptiness that once was filled by faith. That’s the real “sin against the Holy Spirit.”
I was under the impression that “the real blasphemy” in the Bible was attributing the works of Jesus/God to the Devil (e.g. the Jews that were condemned because they accused Jesus of driving out demons because he was in league with them, as opposed to through Godly power).
I hope we get this blasphemy thing sorted out soon. I’m starting to worry I’ve been doing it wrong.
In Ireland, apparently, it is anything which elicits “outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of [a] religion”. Which seems to absent-mindedly by-pass god altogether and simply give all believers a legal right not to be offended.
I’d love to see them try that one on Dara Ó Briain.
It’s often claimed that blasphemy can only be committed by a believer (that new Irish law notwithstanding). Can anyone clarify this point?
In Ireland, apparently, it is anything which elicits “outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of [a] religion”.
I’d love to see Catholics in Ireland apply this against a birth control ad.
Hahaha Don – that made me laugh.
George Bernard Shaw said “All great truths begin as blasphemies.”
Pakistan is now taking a leaf from the Irish blasphemy book.