Where is Your God, Exactly?

--Mission Statement--

I am writing these articals to provide somewhat of a insight into my world. The world of an atheist born and raised in the bible belt(small world). In each, I will provide my readers with a third person view of the very obvious misconseptions religous people everywhere feed themselves just to get through the day. They are short and to the point and I encourage all, athiest and religous persons alike, to take a few minutes to read them.

--Where is Your God, Exactly?--

Now, let's get down to the business at hand.

I titled this article the way I did because I am irritated with the things religous people say and do to cover up for the "mistakes" their god makes. If your already an atheist or an agnostic read on, if not, try opening your mind for the next few minutes and thinking about what your about to read rationally(big stretch, I know).

The main focus of this article, or rant is should say, is the phrase "Thank God". Now, I know this is quite a common expression and people use it very frequently,myself included. But, this article is aimed at the people who mean it, myself exclulded.

Prime example, I have an uncle "Terry" that thanks god when he finds a good parking spot outside of a store. Now, I'm no all seeing guy who can be everywhere at once, but if I was, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be a supernatural valet in my somewhat spare time. Making sure my good followers didn't have to walk off too many calories before buying there Pringles and Bud-weiser would be pretty close to the bottom of my list. Is your god really making your trip to the grocery store more convenient when he allows hundreds of children to die every day of starvation? God, I hope not.

You may think that I'm taking my uncle's words out of context, but i'm not. I've had a personal conversation with him in which he revealed all the little things god does for him. Making sure his kids don't hurt themselves during little league practice, clearing up his soar throat, looking after his wife's mother. The last one baffled me a bit considering she's in the hospital with an uncurable form of cancer. That's when I realized there are actually people out there who believe that god controls every little thing in their life. People who are always relying on god for support. Well, I have personally experienced a sore throat and was able to get through it without devine intervention.

Which brings me to the people who thank god when they are cured of some kind of disease or cancer etc. I have no problem with you thanking god after he cures your disease. But when you go to the hospital, recieve treatment, and then get better, GOD DIDN'T CURE YOU...DOCTORS DID. Do you know what happens to people who get a disease and wait on god to cure them? They die. This is a proven statement. Short paragraph, but to the point.

The next "thank god" I want to get to is the sports star "thank god". You see this in every sporting event, in every country. Whether it's a baseball player pointing to the heavens after a homerun or a MMA fighter kneeling and making a cross on his chest after pummeling his opponent. Come on guys, even if there was a god, he(like most of the world) could care less about whose playing in the world series.

And last, and definitely most irritating of all the "thank gods" that go around these days, are the post-disaster thank gods. No matter how big the disaster or how many people lost their lives there is always some ignorant person ready to thank god for something so small it makes me sick to my stomach. Let's take the recent earthquake in haiti for example. What happened in haiti was beyond awful, and should have opened the eyes of ATLEAST fifty percent of all religous followers worldwide. But we'll save that for another article.

What I want to talk about is this short local news clip I saw In which the interviewee is a youth director or something who had come with his church to help aid in the disaster*. In the background was a church that had not been damaged during the earthquake. He said something to the extent of "Thank god the church wasn't damaged, it's almost like a sign that even in the face of disaster, god is with us". Now, this youth director isn't alone. I remember many people thanking god after 9/11 whether for their life or for saving there family member etc. Now, where exactly is your god during these events? Concerning Haiti, was he holed up in that church he didn't destroy while thousands and thousands(and thousands) lost their lives and he did nothing? and concerning 9/11, was he just seconds late and had to pick and choose who to save? Or was he just busy at your local wal-mart making sure my uncle terry got a good spot and me and my atheist pals had to walk an extra hundred feet? while were on the subject of Haiti and were asking questions, what kind of god even makes an earth that has such severe undetectable earthquakes? Not the best thinking ahead for someone so perfect. And what happened to all the miracles?

Those last two questions are for another article on another day. Right now I want to thank you for making it this far. It wasn't much and as you can see I'm not a very good writer but Hopefully you enjoyed it or it atleast made you think about things a little differently. Please comment and let me know. I enjoy hearing from all types of readers.

*Many thanks to anyone who has helped or will help in any way in relieving and rebuilding the country of Haiti. Some good does come from religion, but we shouldn't need God to make us want to help our fellow man/woman

If you enjoyed this article or would like to do more research on the subject of "God vs no God", here are some great books any intelligent person, religous or not, will enjoy. Richard Dawkins is one of the leading evolutionary biologists and really delivers some great information in his writing, "The GOD Delussion" is next to impossible to put down. Sam Harris' writings are alot easier read and are just as good. "Letter to a Christian nation" is a short book(aound a hundred pages I believe) and should be read by everyone. Also, all my athiests friends should check out "Jim Jeffries: I swear to God", great stand up comedian.