Stop blaming God

I've been thinking a lot lately about the nature of God and some other religious musings. I was recently in Chapel Hill which is a nice town, but is home to a lot of 18-22 year old atheists. For the record, these are the people that annoy me the most:

1. 18-22 year old atheists who somehow think they can deny the exist of God even though they flunk two or three classes a semester, which should indicate to them that they are dumb.
2. Hippies. So how exactly does having a poetry festival help stop the war? And how is owning a crappy coffee house with crappy coffee a sign of sticking it to the Corporations rather then a sign that you are incapable of having a successful business?
3. Small business owners. Wow, minimum wage and no benefits, where do I sign up?

So at this point in my life, atheists annoy me the most. And the reason they annoy me the most is because of their reasoning. We have a couple of different reasons, and atheists fall into two main groups for me. First, there are the atheists who don't believe in God because they think its cool not to and because they think they understand science. You can't rationalize with these people. Its impossible. They may have gotten Ds in biology and failed chemistry, but some how, they know the truth. The real reason college age atheists don't want to believe in God is because they're lazy. They want to sleep in on Sunday mornings. And that's fine. I don't want everyone to be motivated, because I want to make more money then all the lazy people. But please don't tell me that you know that there is no God, that everything is just random chance.

Now the second group of atheists are the people who don't believe in God because they have crappy lives. First, they'll say that its because there's so much pain in the world. There are tsunamis and wars and famines. This line of reasoning I've never understood. God isn't to blame for wars, people are. God isn't to blame for famines, again, people are. In the United States we have a huge abundance of food, I'm pretty sure if we didn't want people to starve to death, they wouldn't. And as far as natural disasters go, the problem isn't the hurricane or the tsunami, the problem is the lack of emergency shelters and of functional emergency management. Every year, Florida and the Gulf Coast get hit by hurricanes. When people get left on rooftops in New Orleans, that's not God's wrath, that's our government's incompetence.

The second thing this group of atheists will say is less obvious and blatant. Basically, they blame God for the way their lives turned out. Members of my family do this. They don't go to church because they have failed marriages or because they were abused by children. How could God let something like that happen?, they say.

I've thought the same thing myself before. I've never blamed God, never blatantly uttered, "This is your fault". But I have wished before. I've wished I was born into a better family. I've wished I was born into more money. I've wished that my dad would have stuck around. I've wished my mom would have had a better job. I've wished that things had been easier and I wasn't forced to take the long road.

But none of these things are God's fault. It's not God's fault that my dad bailed on me. It's not God's fault we didn't have more money. It's not God's fault my mother had to deal with the things she had to deal with. There has to be personal responsibility. My dad left because he decided to leave. We didn't have money because my mother didn't work and when she finally did start to work, she didn't make much. We went to crappy schools and had crappy food because the government and charities and my parents dropped the ball. This wasn't a case of God punishing us. This wasn't a sign that God doesn't exist. This wasn't a sign that the world is unfair.

It is simply......Cause and Effect. My father was in the Navy, so we didn't have much money. My mother wanted to stay at home, so she didn't have work experience. There were opportunities for both of them. They were both white Americans, they had every opportunity to succeed. But they didn't. Because they didn't want to put in the work.

I can't blame God for my life. I am responsible for it. I cannot wail about the Struggle. I knew from a young age that if I wanted to make money, I needed to work hard. I needed to be either an elite talent, the best painter or musician or athlete, or I needed to go to college and beyond, or I needed to be lucky. I wasn't a particularly good musician and I didn't trust my luck, so I went to college. I got a degree. I went into graduate school so that I can hopefully make good money and like my job when I get out. But if I had chosen not to do that, I couldn't blame God. If I only had a high school education and I worked for little pay, I couldn't blame God. I have to take responsibility for myself.

I also can't blame God for my family life. I believe that I am God's son. I believe God is looking out for me. Should I be upset about this? Should I be angry because my earthly father couldn't cut it? No. I should be happy that my heavenly father is there for me. I should be content to be the child of the person that created me. The fact that I am God's son is a blessing, not a curse. And because I had problems in my life, because I had to struggle, that makes everything that much better. That makes my degree matter more. It makes my perseverance matter more. It makes God's love matter more. The fact that God created me and that I had to go through adversity makes me a better and a stronger man. How could I blame God for that?

The other huge problem with blaming God or denying God is that we do not address the real problems. Hurricane Katrina was the wrath of God. That's easy to say. It helps State Farm and every other insurance company get out paying what they owe. It helps the government escape responsibility. So we wash are hands and blame God instead of asking the real questions, the tough questions. Like, why weren't the levies stronger? Or, why is the population of New Orleans so poor that a huge mass of people couldn't afford cars and therefore be able to evacuate themselves? Then there's, why did the government leave these people to fend for themselves for days?

And that mentality flows right into other people. I'm poor. Its because God made me poor. Its because God made my parents poor. NO! Its because society made your parents poor or because your parents made themselves poor. If you do not have the access to the opportunities to better yourself, that is societies fault. Society is responsible. If you have access to the opportunities to better yourself and you do not, that is your fault. We can address society's problems collectively, but at the individual level, people need to do it themselves.

There were a lot of times when I would walk home late after washing dishes for 6 dollars an hour and I would ask myself, "Why aren't I selling drugs?" And then I'd remember, oh yeah, that's illegal. And I consciously chose not to take the easy way out. And the hard way out of poverty has taken me multiple years. And it has sucked. But it was what I had to do to have a sustainable, livable future.

So if you're an African American in New Orleans, blame society. If you're a poor person in Detroit or anywhere else in the rust belt, blame society. If you're a starving person in a place with high unemployment, blame society. But if you are an able bodied white person living in North Carolina and you can't make any money, blame yourself. And when you realize its on you, you can fix the situation.

I am thankful that I am God's son. I am thankful that I have had the experiences I've gone through. Because those experiences have made me what I am. And I am proud of the person that I have become. So I'm not going to blame God. I'm not going to wish that I was born into a different situation. I am who I am. I'm God's son. And I'm good with that.