People that believe wholeheartedly in god’s “good nature” are a mystery to me. I don’t understand, not even slightly. I can’t make myself understand. I’ve tried. I’ve really put effort into understanding how they could possibly ignore all the sick things going on in this world – and brush them off. Some even accept them. Embrace them even as some sort of important piece of god’s magnificent plan for the world and it’s people.
If you could stop your mind for one second. Clear it about all you believe in and what is responsible for it. God, satan, magic, poltergeist, your unconscious, etc. Just start from ground zero and ask yourself what kind of things are going on here that don’t make sense if one is to believe that whatever created this world – or whatever led to this world, was “good” in some way. If what created this world was something or someone deserving of respect, and even praise.
I’ll be the first to say, if I knew a god that was really good and did things for mankind that helped them… that fostered growth toward some ideal situation – enlightenment or whatever else could possibly be a good goal for a person to become like… Well, wait a sec, lets use “god-like“. If I knew a god that could help me become more god-like, assuming god was a magnificently GOOD being – then I’d be the first to praise him. I’d be down on my knees every day, and at various times during the day to thank him/her (it) for such an amazing opportunity to become better. To become great. To become perfect.
As it is I spend a fair amount of my day cussing whatever is in charge because the whole state of the world and mankind is so gut-wrenchingly disgusting to me.
Whatever led to what we have here… this earth, these countries… this environment, gravity, materials of the earth… what man creates… is here because of something. I don’t like when people go back and blame things on humans themselves for inventing something that creates widespread destruction. I’ve heard people blame other people for things such as AIDS, global warming, even accidents such as the meltdown at Chernobyl.
I could make this blog post into a book because I could bring in so much… but the challenge is to keep it short and get you to see the problem without coming up with reactions to what I’m going to say…
The definition of accident is something that happens that is unexpected. An accident can have good or bad outcomes, but usually we attribute the bad outcomes to be the result of accidents. Some people say accidents birthed many inventions we have today. Some say accidents are the cause of horrible things happening around the world. Surely you’ve had an accident in your car, on your motorcycle, in your boat, on your bicycle or skateboard.
In the case of a car accident – was it you or the other driver’s fault, or both?
Neither. It wasn’t either one of your faults – as you didn’t create the possibility for accidents to happen on earth. You didn’t create the possibility for accidents to exist in our species to begin with. Christians and other theists are oblivious to this. They go on believing it was a humans fault for the accident.
In the case of a car accident – let’s say one person forgot to signal, for the sake of simplicity. The other person, not seeing a signal decided to pass on the side the person was turning. In human terms we know who was at fault, both of them, but maybe more so the person that forgot to signal and made a turn anyway. The person behind was acting on the information he knew to be true – and so passed at the same time, all of it leading to an accident.
But, that’s only going back to the humans. For the sake of society – it’s OK, we go back to place responsibility on the humans that were involved. It’s all we can do to try to keep society functioning. I don’t disagree with what we do to cope with what we’ve been given by god or whatever events… Someone has to be at fault here – right?
How can we blame god? We can’t give god a ticket and make him pay for expenses.
In a perfect world we could.
A faulty memory is the cause that’s easily seen. But, what caused a faulty memory? Whatever created us or whatever created this mess we call life. How can it be any other way. Everything that happens on this earth, everything that happens to us, for us, in spite of us…. happens for a reason. The reason isn’t BECAUSE of us… it acts through us. Through our faulty mechanics.
The true reason is outside of us. Way outside.
Factors going into the accident are things like:
- The fallibility of the brain. It forgets occasionally. Some people forget often. Is it the person’s fault he forgot? Hell no. It’s a consequence of having a brain that was made the way it was.
- The increasing probability of memory to fail when the mind is occupied with other thoughts. The brain isn’t a computer program that follows only one program at a time. It’s parallel processing other programs at the same time, sometimes one program overlaps another, more important program. BAM! Accident. It’s the mind and the way it works.
- The increasing probability of memory to fail when the body is tired. After 10pm I don’t speak Thai, it’s an impossibility. I just can’t think to speak it when I’m tired. If this accident occurred at 3am the guy that forgot might have been physically tired.
- The increasing probability of the mind to choose incorrectly when emotionally upset. An emotional fog some call the inability to think clearly, logically, rationally and to act based on that clear thinking. Emotional blinders are what we call the inability to see all the details of something when one is emotionally involved.
- The increasing probability that an illogical choice will be made because of prior events affection emotions. For instance, before the man forgot to signal he was tailgated by the jackass behind him for the last 13 miles. He reacted with a bit of vengeance, turning without the signal. This isn’t really forgetting, but gives a taste of what we’ll go over in the next section… other reasons accidents happen.
There are so many things that go into the simple act of “forgetting”. We could list 75 things that affect it. Are those 75 things responsible? Nope. Go back one more step – to who or what is responsible for those things being able to affect our lives – forgetting to signal. THAT is what is responsible. If you can go back another step beyond that – which we can’t, logically – then we should. Go to the cause. The original cause, not a cause down the list.
Not all accidents are the cause of memory or emotions getting involved. Sometimes there’s an error or judgment.
Two lumberjacks cutting wood in Alaska cut a tree down that falls on a co-worker. It’s an accident as far as humans can see. They want to blame someone.
Who is at fault? Did someone forget to do something? Nope. Was someone pissed off at the guy that died? Nope. They were all friends, there was no emotional problem between the two guys cutting the tree and the guy the tree fell on.
So, what was involved in this accident? Could be many things…
- The wind kicked up at the wrong time, blowing it over before it was cut through at the intended angle.
- The tree didn’t grow with equal density throughout the area they were cutting. The last cut went too fast and the angle of the cut changed, cause the tree to fall at an angle that was unexpected.
- The guy that was hit by the tree found a wallet on the ground, in the path of the falling tree. In his estimation he could grab it before the tree fell on him. Reality showed him to be incorrect.
- The guy threw himself under the tree to kill himself as he was tired of all the bullshit he’d been dished out in life. He’d reached the end and suicide was the option he felt would make things a little better.
So, all these things could have been involved. How many of them are of human origin?
None of them.
Do you understand that? There is nothing a human being can do to change everything we’ve been given in terms of how the mind acts, and what it is capable of. Our thoughts, our emotions, our rationalizations, our estimations, our intelligence or lack of it, our memory and it’s fallibility… the environment we grew up in – facilitative or dysfunctional. We don’t control ANY of it.
Who did? What did?
Whatever did… I don’t have the answer. Was it god? Was it a process that led to all this?
Whatever it was – a process, or a god… it thoroughly sucks. It’s not good by any stretch of my imagination. Is there a good reason for pain caused by accidents caused by god giving us faulty brains, gravity, wind, emotions, etc…?
If there is – we’re oblivious to it.
Don’t blame each other – it’s natural. Every single thing that is happening here is natural. Natural does NOT mean good. Natural means – it’s happening, it’s happened in the past… it’s likely to continue happening in the future. Get used to it. There’s no one to blame. God or whatever it is – is hiding out. He opted out of the game after creating it. He’s sucking down Corona Light with lime in Tijuana.
Seriously, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. God is not concerned with what is going on here – out of love for us.
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