Hermetically Sealed Religion
August 3, 2011
Via David Hayward
Of course this is merely the Christian form of this particular individualistic delusion. There are new-age forms as well, in which ignorant practitioners pretend that the universe is somehow under their control to do magic things, and their conception of the universe is as ignorant and small as themselves.
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scotteriology.wordpress.com 
I don’t understand this kind of thinking! I used to pray to God that the one thing I feared most never happen to me: rape.
Then, when I was about 21, a stranger broke into my house at three o’clock in the morning and tried to rape me (but did not succeed at it).
Where was “God’s” loving protection?
Of course, I hadn’t let go of religion then, so I tried so hard to understand why “God” would let that happen to me. I even wondered if it was a test since I managed to fight my attacker off. I didn’t figure it out until I became a non-believer. It’s not that “God” let it happen, it’s that there never was a “God” to protect me.
While the experience didn’t completely shatter my faith, it did cause significant confusion that sent me deeper into the Bible for answers. What I found there didn’t help.
How do people remain faithful in the face of terrible suffering? I don’t understand that.
>>…A stranger broke into my house at three o’clock in the morning and tried to rape me (but did not succeed at it).
Wait, wait. Let me get this straight. The rape that you prayed that would never happen, never happened. Right? So instead of thanking God that the stranger didn’t succeed at raping you and giving you the strength to fight him off, you damn God for… being almost raped?
The man didn’t put his penis in my vagina… but he did sexually assault me. I was deliberately trying to be vague about what happened.
I still suffered the trauma of being sexually attacked– in my own bed– by a stranger– at 3 o’clock in the morning, you insensitive cretin!!!
I still felt incredible fear and had to deal for months and months with the aftermath of it!
So– you think a loving “god” would allow a person whose biggest fear is to get raped to experience a situation in which I came within inches of being raped and still had to deal with the psychological aftermath of it?
That is just f*cked up. Very very f*cked up indeed.
No– there is no god. And, btw, plenty of little girls get raped repeatedly in sex slave situations every day.
Why would god “protect” (if you can even call it that) me and not them? I’m not special. Another reason why prayers of protection are f*cked up.
PS. Rainbow Dash–
You are a f*cking assh*le for including that link in your name.
No, I am not a bored, liberal college student. An actual crime happened to me. HOW DARE YOU IMPLY OTHERWISE you f*cking miserable excuse for a human being.
You are extraordinarily pathetic and misogynistic. You can f*ck off now.
“Rainbow Dash” is also a f*cking assh*le for using that handle.
They say ignorance is bliss, after all. The vast majority of people are religious, and perhaps it’s simply a way of coping with our deplorable condition as human beings. We must deal with all the natural problems indigenous to the way we and other organisms evolved, in addition to things like greed, hatred, violence, spite, etc. from each other (which are probably also natural to some extent–to what extent I’m not sure). In addition to that, at least if the atheists are right, our whole existence amounts to the same thing as that of every other living organism on this planet: a pathetic struggle for nothing. In other words, it’s all an accidental but bitter joke without even a punch line. All the other, properly dumb life forms on this planet can’t be touched by it because they can’t know or understand it. If it’s true, do you blame people for attempting to share in this ignorance and thereby escaping additional misery?
I can understand how people remain faithful in the face of suffering. What I don’t understand is how people remain faithful to a god whose only function seems to be to impose additional suffering–who, for example, brought the vast majority of people into the world for the express purpose of torturing them forever (as far as I can see, this is essentially what Calvinism boils down to).
Yup. Exactly.
The occurrence of the elements outside of the jar can not negate the existence of the elements within it anymore than the contents of the jar can cease the occurrence of the elements outside of it. The real tragedy is that there is a jar at all.