Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God....
Lately, for no reason in particular, I've been thinking a lot about religious issues. And one overwhelming theme I keep coming back to - although I feel a little strange to admit it - is religion's potential to be a source/motivation of incredible evil. I don't like to think about it in that way, as the main point of pretty much every different religion out there is providing structure/morals/purpose to life, but sometimes it's hard to ignore. Anyway after I got all hyped up from reading Superbee's latest post, I felt like I needed to share something I witnessed today.
My job involves a lot of foreclosure work, which means I typically run into two types of people: the jerks who think they've found a way to "beat the system" and stop paying their mortgages (the fun foreclosures), and the good folks who just happen to have fallen on hard times and really need help (the sad foreclosures). Today I encountered one firmly in the latter category, and it was probably the most heartbreaking to me personally (Slight disclaimer: this isn't one my firm handled...I just happened to be at the courthouse on other business, and a friend of woman who was there for emotional support filled me on what was going on...he was very upset himself, and just wanted to talk to someone...I was the closest one).
Basically the this woman's husband ran off to California with his mistress, leaving her and 3 kids with nothing except for the bills. The wife busted her ass to make ends meet, and in the meantime sued her piece of crap husband for child support and a whole laundry list of other things which she rightfully deserved. Apparently the case was proceeding well for her, and things were starting to actually look up.
Then one day, the husband shows up and knocks on her door. He says that he has found Jesus, has "been saved," and is there to beg her forgiveness. Being devout Christian of the born-again variety herself, the wife follows the "WWJD" mentality and forgives him...and drops all of the pending lawsuits.
Right after the case was dismissed, the husband disappears again. Cleans out the bank accounts. Goes back to the mistress. He was faking the whole Jesus thing. He knew she would buy it, and saw it as his chance to get out of the lawsuit without a scratch.
The wife - although trying as hard as she can to support herself and the kids - can't keep up the mortgage payments, and the house falls into foreclosure. She tries to save the house, her friends try to help out, but no deal is struck. The sale was today. The woman showed up, along with her pastor and several friends, in hopes that maybe one of them could buy the house at auction. None of them had enough money. The bank now owns the house.
As soon as the sale was finalized, the group joined hands and began to openly weep and pray. Right there in the courthouse. They begged Jesus for hope and strength, and ask Him to help them understand why this was part of His plan.
My reaction to this scene was two-fold: Part of me wanted to go over and join their prayer circle, just knowing what this poor woman had been through. The other part of me though just wanted to yell "Open your eyes! Don't you see what happened? It was your blind faith that made a bad situation so much worse, and now all you're gonna do is just pray about it!?!"
It was that second part of me that had firmly gained the upperhand by the end of the episode. Standing there watching them pray and openly call out to Jesus, I started to feel like I do when I see a bunch of young talking about Santa Claus. It's like "Oh that's so sweet that they still believe...someday they'll learn how it really works, though."
And that scared the hell out of me. Have I really become that cynical? It's not like I'm anti-Jesus, but it just makes me mad to see people turn to the spiritual when they should be looking to the readily-available solutions in the physical world. I'm not saying ignore religious beliefs, but I think in a lot of cases religion should be a supplement to real-world devices instead of an alternative. How can you let this dirtbag off the hook just because he tosses around the J-word a few times? Are you really that naive? ARRRGGHHH!
OK, this is turning into a ramble, so I'll stop. Take it however you want.
My job involves a lot of foreclosure work, which means I typically run into two types of people: the jerks who think they've found a way to "beat the system" and stop paying their mortgages (the fun foreclosures), and the good folks who just happen to have fallen on hard times and really need help (the sad foreclosures). Today I encountered one firmly in the latter category, and it was probably the most heartbreaking to me personally (Slight disclaimer: this isn't one my firm handled...I just happened to be at the courthouse on other business, and a friend of woman who was there for emotional support filled me on what was going on...he was very upset himself, and just wanted to talk to someone...I was the closest one).
Basically the this woman's husband ran off to California with his mistress, leaving her and 3 kids with nothing except for the bills. The wife busted her ass to make ends meet, and in the meantime sued her piece of crap husband for child support and a whole laundry list of other things which she rightfully deserved. Apparently the case was proceeding well for her, and things were starting to actually look up.
Then one day, the husband shows up and knocks on her door. He says that he has found Jesus, has "been saved," and is there to beg her forgiveness. Being devout Christian of the born-again variety herself, the wife follows the "WWJD" mentality and forgives him...and drops all of the pending lawsuits.
Right after the case was dismissed, the husband disappears again. Cleans out the bank accounts. Goes back to the mistress. He was faking the whole Jesus thing. He knew she would buy it, and saw it as his chance to get out of the lawsuit without a scratch.
The wife - although trying as hard as she can to support herself and the kids - can't keep up the mortgage payments, and the house falls into foreclosure. She tries to save the house, her friends try to help out, but no deal is struck. The sale was today. The woman showed up, along with her pastor and several friends, in hopes that maybe one of them could buy the house at auction. None of them had enough money. The bank now owns the house.
As soon as the sale was finalized, the group joined hands and began to openly weep and pray. Right there in the courthouse. They begged Jesus for hope and strength, and ask Him to help them understand why this was part of His plan.
My reaction to this scene was two-fold: Part of me wanted to go over and join their prayer circle, just knowing what this poor woman had been through. The other part of me though just wanted to yell "Open your eyes! Don't you see what happened? It was your blind faith that made a bad situation so much worse, and now all you're gonna do is just pray about it!?!"
It was that second part of me that had firmly gained the upperhand by the end of the episode. Standing there watching them pray and openly call out to Jesus, I started to feel like I do when I see a bunch of young talking about Santa Claus. It's like "Oh that's so sweet that they still believe...someday they'll learn how it really works, though."
And that scared the hell out of me. Have I really become that cynical? It's not like I'm anti-Jesus, but it just makes me mad to see people turn to the spiritual when they should be looking to the readily-available solutions in the physical world. I'm not saying ignore religious beliefs, but I think in a lot of cases religion should be a supplement to real-world devices instead of an alternative. How can you let this dirtbag off the hook just because he tosses around the J-word a few times? Are you really that naive? ARRRGGHHH!
OK, this is turning into a ramble, so I'll stop. Take it however you want.
posted by jonphiwil @ 9:07 PM
3 Comments:
At 10:59 PM ,
SuperBee said...
It brightens my heart to read that post, JW.
Not the part about the poor woman losing her house. That breaks my heart, and I probably would have ponied up some money, had I been there, to try to help her save her place. How heartbreaking.
But yeah. The blind-faith issue. I don't think you're cynical at all. In fact, you're probably one of the nicest and least cynical people I've ever met...
In my view, just like you said, Religion is there to supplement every day life, and it aggravates me to no end when it's used as a crutch and as an excuse. While I sort of believe in things turning out the way they're supposed to, it's not due to divine intervention, but fate...some non-personifiable force in the universe that directs matters. I think we're all sort of pre-destined, and prayer is a nice method to connect one with one's innermost desires, and temporarily relieve pain and stress... but like I said in my post... I'm not going to pray for my throat to feel better...
I'm gonna get off my ass and do something about it. Prayer might be a good motivator, but I can pray for a bag of Doritos all I want... the chance of them materializing without going to Publix...pretty slim.
At 11:04 AM ,
Andy said...
I liked this post J-will. If you want to check out some interesting books I recommend Way of the Peaceful Warrior (which has recently been turned into a movie). Power vs. Force is a good one too.
I've pretty much shunned organized religion since I was 18 (when my parents finally stopped forcing me to go to church every weekend). Since then I've been on a course to try and follow simple guidelines without classifying myself as strictly Christian or Buddhist or whatever.
I don't think you're cynical either. The idea of religion is a good one, but the problem is its a bit rigid and sometimes trying to be SO good can cause intense feelings of guilt and insecrity. Instead I think people need to start realize that they simple should take some time to think about principles - which can definitely take their base from Jesus, Mohammed, Lord Krishna, and the Buddha (all recognized as living prophets by each other's "religions").
It's obvious these fellows were in fact real, and were also in fact human. It's also pretty obvious that they were good and decent and the principles by which they operated were strong ones. Imagine how good you'd feel if you could constantly do the right thing?
Anyway, I've rambled a bit but I like this post. I say J-dub, give up on religion, but not on spirituality.
At 9:52 PM ,
jonphiwil said...
I'm so glad to see other people understood what I was trying to get at here. Right after I posted this, I really started to think it made no sense at all. I love the Doritos analogy...that is a very straight-to-the-point illustration of exactly what I was trying to say here. Just like with the Christian Scientists and other sects that don't believe in going to the doctor: Yeah, just pray that compound fracture back to health...that's gonna work.
But at the same time, I do think that spirituality is a very important aspect of life, no matter who/what/where you worship/meditate/contemplate. I consider myself a spiritual person, and basically Christian (I toss in the "basically" for a few reasons; that will likely show up later as its own post). But I know there are several paths to spirituality, and I've personally never thought one is necessarily any better than another.
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