I'm not much of a religious person. My mother was, but I didn't seem to inherit that characteristic. Or if I did, it's recessive.
Two weeks ago, we learned that the fellow who's been the pastor of our church for decades was ill. They'd found indications of cancer in his lung, and it had already spread to his spinal column. But, they said, he was responding well to chemotherapy and to radiation treatments, so there was reason to hope. This week, they said that he was no longer responding, and that his immune system was now compromised. I don't know a lot of medicine, but I know that's not good. He told the fellow who is the other priest in our parish that he thought it might be time to just 'give in to God's will'.
He's a decent guy, and he's dedicated his life to helping others, in a number of venues. We were musing, a few weeks ago, that he's just a year or so from the mandatory retirement age for priests, wondering what he'd do with himself after a lifetime of such continual activity. Well...
I know that my mother would have said that this is, indeed, God's will, and in my younger days she might have added that if someone dies young, or abruptly, it was just because God wanted them to 'come home early'. As for me, I see it as an indication that either there isn't a God, or, if there is, that he's/she's/it's not all that much interested in our ideas of fairness.
I tend toward the first possibility.
6 comments:
Agreed. The universe is neither good or bad. It just is. And sometimes it sucks.
Sometimes I think that religion and philosophy are our species way of keeping our rational part content about whats out there in the darkness, beyond the light. When we really don't know at all.
I agree with that too. Most people are not OK with not knowing and the likelihood that they will never know. Certainty provides comfort. You know what you have to do. You aren't just floating on a speck of dust in the vast universe. I'm OK with not knowing and no certainty but, I can understand why people like comforting delusions.
See, I knew there was something I liked about you. Maybe I will invite you to the sock hop....
Religion is not about answers. It is about controlling behaviours. A lot of people I know can use a control on their natural impulses.
Not me though.
When I feel like a sheep, I will seek out a shepherd. Until then, pass the salad will ya!
Not sure about that. I suppose at the dogmatic end of the spectrum, it's true. I prefer the philosophical end, though.
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