As rule-abiding citizens I think people feel that God owes us something. That because we follow His guidelines, everything is supposed to work out perfectly. Never do we consider bad things happening. So when they do, people have a hard time blaming themselves, for they did everything "right." Hardly do people even consider consequences for their actions. As Sosis noted in his article, seventy-two percent of people believe in heaven, yet only fifty-two percent believe in hell. We all want to end up somewhere in the clouds listening to harps playing, yet Hell is thought of as somewhere that only murderers and rapists go, not someone who maybe had sex before marriage, even though God says that we are not supposed to. So when we are sick or injured or lose our jobs, the feeling of being in a living hell is so overwhelming, we cannot possibly blame ourselves; there must be a higher power at work.
When we say "everything happens for a reason", we are justifying the negativity. Even though the reason for one's sickness is due to eating too much junk food, "everything happens for a reason." Maybe the reason is ourselves? Many Church's love to put the fear of God into us. To mold us into the people they want us to be, they make us fearful of "what if?" If I don't give the church 10 percent of my paycheck, God will send me to hell. And yet, corruption in the church is vampant, as we have all seen with the many pious child molesters or thieves stealing from the donation bowl.
As Martin Luther King said, I believe that "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." I feel that when we place responsibility on ourselves rather than something or someone of a higher power, we are more likely to be satisfied in good times and bad, and we will be less likely to blame others when things go wrong. Of course,I will probably find myself saying "God, why me?" again throughout my lifetime, more out of habit than anything else. Yet now I am more likely to anylyze and investigate the true culprit, myself.
MLK Online. Intellectual Properties Management.25. August 2009
To quote Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, Ph. D when speaking about quantum physics and it's relation to the brain and mind, "It may very well be that what's going on inside of you, in your brain, in your nervous system, in your observations, how memory works, how your mind works, it may very well be that what is happening there is some kind of observer, matter interelationship, which is indeed making things real for you, effecting how you percieve reality. You're not changing the reality 'out there.' You're not changing big chairs and big trucks, and boulders and rockets... but you're changing how see things and how you think about things, how you feel about things, and how you sense the world."
ReplyDelete-excerpt from
"What the Bleep do We Know" (2004).
“7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
ReplyDelete- 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
Does it truly cure us of our faults? And is it really the work of God? Corinthians states that God's power work is perfect during weakness. It is the only time we remember God -- when we question.
Or is blaming God a defense mechanism? Are we psychologically preserving life?
I agree with the idea that many people tend to blame something or someone other than themselves for their misgivings, but I also believe that there are people that attempt to do everything "right", and when they fail, they can only use God as their explanation for it. From my own experience, I have noticed that those who don't admit fault, or own up to their own poor decision-making seem to use the "Why me?" question more often than the people that I have known to have a strong faith in a higher power. I think that religious people find comfort in thinking that God is behind the disaster that has fallen upon them. I have recognized it as a way for people to keep faith in the idea that there is a reason for everything; there must be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Rather than God being blamed as a defense mechanism, I think that religious people lean on God and his power as their coping mechanism. As someone who was not raised in a religious household, I can see how having faith in God and his plans for us can ease the pain of a treacherous situation.
ReplyDelete