Still thinking about religion...

...in the same way that my son is still thinking about getting a Matchbox "Spin City" for Christmas.
--
That is, not incessantly, but the darn thing keeps popping up at odd moments...
--
I keep returning to my irritation with the commonly-heard apology for Biblical accounts that don't square with the "God is Good" message - and latter day disasters such as tsunamis, floods or wars - that "we can't understand God, we just have to accept that it's part of His plan." Why does this tick me so much?
--
I was thinking about it last night sitting up with little Maxine, who had a very bad, restless night, waking almost every fifteen minutes between 1:30 and 3:00 a.m. And realized what irks me about this.
--
In Christian theology, God is the Father and we're the kids. Now I have kids myself, and I want my kids to be the best the can be at whatever they want to try. So when my son confesses himself stumped by something, my first response is "Here, let me help you." followed by "Now let's see if you can figure it out."
--
The thing is, I want my children to grow up, to be able to make wise choices, to be good people and think for themselves. For me to hear them say; "Oh, geez, this is just too hard, I can't understand it." would be very disappointing. I would want them to try as hard as they can to figure out whatever-it-is.
--
The physical progress of Humanity has always been characterized by people who refused to accept the notion that they "just couldn't understand" something. Did Semmelweis just give up, concluding that those little germs were just too small and too hard to see to figure out? Did Watt abandon his engine because the mechanics of steam was too confusing and hard to decypher? Did Einstein turn from the physics of relativity because non-Newtonian physics was just too big, as far above him as the stars are above the Earth?
--
Our search for emotional and spiritual meaning is surely as important as physical comfort, health and economic gain, no? So why do we accept the lame explanation that the hard questions of faith and theology - why do bad things happen to good people? Why does evil prosper and good lack? Why do people do evil in the name of their God of love and peace? Why does even God kill without apparent scruple (as in the Passover story we discussed yesterday) and how to reconcile that with a God of Love? - are just a mystery, too hard for us little beings to understand, or even to ask about? After all, if we're supposed to be God's children, His creation, didn't he create us with a brain to ponder these very difficulties? And if God is our Father, wouldn't this God want us to ask why He wantonly kills innocent kiddies in parts of what's supposed to be his very own autobiography, just as I'd expect my own children to ask hard questions of me if I did bad things like hit them or their mother, or cast them out into the wilderness to wander, lost and in privation?
--
I don't know the answer to why we hear this excuse so much. But I know I'd rather hear from a Christian who is open about admitting that the are large parts of the Christian texts that are troubling, and many that raise more questions than they answer, and that a huge part of faith is struggling with these contradictions on the way to finding something that connects their own human life to this awful - in the sense of inspiring awe - Being they feel drawn to know.
--
So ISTM that there are two ways to look at the Passover story.
--
One way is the "Johnnie Cochrane" way; starting with the conviction that God is Good and so anything that sniffs of God's wrongdoing can't possibly be really wrong, and beaver frantically to find a way to turn it all around and conclude that the evil, bad Egyptian firstborn babies, toddlers and kiddies brought it on themselves. I can understand that way of thinking, but I can also despise it and fear it. That path - the path that starts with blaming others for your cruelty or the cruelty of someone you love - is the one that ends at the gates with "Arbeit Macht Frei" written over them.
--
The other one is that way that starts with the recognition that all human life is precious, a unique gift. That every human mind holds a universe in itself, and that while that doesn't make people sacred, it requires a very, very good reason and a lot of serious thinking before you can casually toss away people like a used kleenex. Even if you are a God.
--
And that if you DO toss those innocent lives away - then that's a real problem, a pain and a heartache and a wrong, that you should look deeply into your soul to understand the reasons why. Whether you're a God...or just another human being.
--
Maybe if we all did that...there'd be a lot fewer dead babies to mourn.