Prayers for Nepal Quake

 

On Saturday the 25th of April an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale caused widespread devastation across large parts of Nepal.  To date over 7000 people are injured and over 4000 people are dead.  To put this death toll in perspective, remember that the September 11 attacks resulted in 2996 deaths.

Whilst there is currently a huge international humanitarian response underway, there is also a widespread call to pray for Nepal.  I’ve never understood the purpose of prayer following such disasters.  I suppose, on reflection, that the purposes would range from requesting salvation of the souls of the dead to pleading that missing persons are found.

I am assuming that when prayer is offered to a deity that this is an implicit admission by the faithful that their deity has the power to control the course of future events.  If this is so, then is it not also true that this deity had the power to prevent this disaster in the first place? If the answer to this question is “Yes”, then why did he (deities are traditionally male) choose instead to kill and orphan children?

Related articles:

The Worthlessness of Prayer in Crisis

Cry our beloved country

South Africa, the land of my birth, has always been a land of contrasts. This week we both bask in the warm glory of success and stand in the cold shadow of death. We celebrate the successful hosting of the recent Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON 2013) after Nigeria beat Burkhina Faso 1-0 in the final at Soccer City in Soweto on Sunday. At the same time we mourn the gruesome rape and murder of one of our daughters, seventeen year old Anene Booysen, who was buried in a white coffin in Bredasdorp on Saturday.

It never ceases to amaze me how often sportsmen and women turn to their gods for divine intervention. AFCON 2013 was no exception. There were multiple occasions that player, coach or fan clasped hands, bowed heads or pleadingly peered heavenward begging for victory over their opponents.

My questions to these individuals are these: Can you imagine how Anene Booysen must have cried out to your god whilst she was gang raped? Can you imagine her desperate pleas to your god when this gang broke her legs? Can you imagine how when her attackers then disemboweled her, how she howled for mercy to her maker?

And, just before Anene Booysen later died in her hospital bed, can you imagine how she felt? Alone. Abandoned. Her relentless prayers met with a stony silence. Would you forgive her for thinking that your god is powerless? Would you forgive her for thinking that your god does not give a shit? Would you forgive her for thinking that, perhaps, your god does not actually exist?

Your flippant prayers for victory disgust me.

This argument, here translated in a local and recent context, is humbly borrowed from the late Christopher Hitchens.

 

Related articles

• In Bredasdorp, a community searching for its soul (dailymaverick.co.za)
• South Africa mourns gang-rape victim (aljazeera.com)
• Hundreds mourn at funeral of South Africa gang rape victim. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)
• Super Eagles Emerge AFCON 2013 Champions! (greenlightng.wordpress.com)

In the name of the Mother, the Son and the Stephen Hawking

 

Prof Stephen Hawking‘s recent speech (pre-recorded and delivered in his absence due to his poor health) to mark his 70th birthday recently caused a bit of stir in the Twitterverse.  Hawkin’s view that the Universe is not in need of a creator is seemingly at the root of this stir.  Some of the objections were typically Christian – vehement and derogatory. Some of them asked: “Well, if God didn’t create the Universe, then who did?”

This reasoning never fails to amuse me.  It also amused my six year old son when he recently asked my mother, an ardent Catholic, the following:  “Gran, who created the earth?”  “Jesus did”, she replied (let’s momenterily overlook her misinformation).  “And who created Jesus?”, he countered.  “God did”, she confidently replied, relieved at last to be contributing to her unbaptized grandson’s seemingly ignorant view on reality.  “And who created God?” the boy probed.  A brief hesitation was followed by a flustered: “Errr…God, is God.”

Why is it that Christians insist that something as vast, complex and as beautiful as the Universe requires a creator; but that God does not?  If Christians are comfortable with the concept that God has always existed, why can they not be comfortable with the idea that the Universe (or the potential for one) has always existed?

What Dave van Vuuren and Jaco van der Westhuizen have in common

Dave van Vuuren, the recently crowned South African Idol for 2011, admitted to praying to God seconds before the announcement of his victory, asking Him to let him win.

Dave seems a nice enough bloke.  He is talented and passionate about what he does.  I hold nothing against him personally.  His god delusion is the result of childhood religious indoctrination for which he is not to blame.

However, I tend to agree with Ricky Gervais who, in his recent Easter message, characterized such desperate pleas to God for victory as a breach of the third Commandment as it takes the name of the Lord your God “in vanity”.

Dave van Vuuren might believe that God favored him over Mark Haze just as Jaco van der Westhuizen believed (and probably still does believe) that God favored the Blue Bulls over the Sharks, but at least Dave didn’t bare a chest tattoo proclaiming that Jesus is King.

10 reasons why I don’t believe in God (anymore)

 

1. I have never seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted him.
2. I prayed to him every day for 23 years of my life and he never once responded nor gave me any indication of his existence.
3. If I ask him to do something ever so slightly challenging (like make my watch go backwards or make me run faster than Usain Bolt) he fails miserably.
4. The Bible is the most boring, contradictory, badly written book I have ever read.  It is quite clearly not his word as he would surely be capable of a far more impressive tome.
5. I have no evidence of an afterlife.
6. He is a man (and therefore, in all probability, a figment of man’s imagination).
7. He waited too long to announce himself.
8. Our planet Earth is both insignificantly sized and located relative to rest of the universe – clearly not the work of an omnipotent, omniscient god.
9. Many gods have been worshiped through the ages and there is nothing to suggest that he is anything but the latest of these gods.
10. For the same reason I don’t believe in all other gods.

True or False

Which of the following statements is most probable:

• All religions are true
• All religions are false except for one religion which is true (theist view)
• All religions are false (atheist view)

The fact that all religions differ make the first statement impossible.  This leaves us to consider the relevant probability of the second and third statements.  What these two statements agree on is that all religions but one are false.  Given this, is it not more probable that the final religion is also false than that it is the only true religion?

God – a wasteful creator

Our sun is very far away.  It would take us 8 minutes to reach it but we would need to fly there in a space craft capable of flying at the speed of light – that is, at a speed of 1,079,000,000 kilometers per hour (or 671,000,000 miles per hour)!

Our sun is one of between 100,000,000,000 and 400,000,000,000 stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

And the Milky Way is one of 200,000,000,000 other galaxies in the universe.

Our universe is so vast that to cross it, even with our very fast speed craft, would take 93,000,000,000 years!

If God does exist and created the universe just so that we humans here on Earth might worship him, he is an incredibly wasteful creator.

Why did God wait so long?

Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity about 50,000 years ago.

Assuming God exists, have you ever wondered why he chose to watch us struggle to survive for 48,000 years before alerting us to his existance?

Is there anybody out there?

As a child I prayed to God every night.  My standard nightly ritual went like this:

“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (making the Sign of the Cross).  Dear Jesus, Please bless Mom, Dad, Burton (my brother) and Margaret (my sister), all Mom’s side of the family and all Dad’s side of the family.  Amen.”

This was occasionally appended with a special request, relevant at the time.  During my mother’s pregnancy, for instance, my daily plea was to be granted a baby brother.  As luck would have it, I was granted a sister.

In 23 years of prayer, God never responded to me.  Yes, some of my requests (all of them very reasonable I might add) were granted – approximately half.  Approximately half were not.

Have you ever wondered why God, who has the power to hear the simultaneous prayers of over 6 billion people at any time of the day and night, does not have the power to respond to a single request or, more disappointingly, chooses not to?

Have you ever wondered why people rarely make extraordinary requests to God in prayer?  Why do we seldom pray for things like: the immediate demise of all evil political regimes; the immediate discovery of an alternative fuel source to save the world from the ravages of global warming; our favourite sports team to never again lose a single match?

Have you ever wondered why people pray, instead, for things like better weather, a new job or recovery from poor health – things that can naturally occur anyway?

Have you ever wondered if there is actually anybody out there?

Start playing with yourself

As a Catholic teenager I was befriended by a Catholic priest who encouraged me to confess to him each time I pleasured myself.  For those of you unfamiliar with Catholic doctrine, Catholic priests are believed to be God’s earthly intermediaries through which one must ask for forgiveness for one’s sins so that one’s soul in regularly cleansed in preparation for an untimely death.  Die at the wrong time and you’re off to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity.  Nice one.

This obsession with viewing masturbation as sinful is common in most religions.  How can it be morally wrong to perform an act on oneself – where, by definition, nobody else is affected?  Let’s assume for a moment that God exists.  Who does he think he is, declaring evil an act that does not negatively (or positively) affect another living creature?

Fortunately God almost certainly does not exist so relax and start playing with yourself.