Two things tonight hit my news feed at nearly the same time. The juxtaposition of them was clearly a sign of the Fridge. When these signs appear I know the tall cool one is whispering truths into my soul because I’m inspired to write.
The first that caught my attention was the post of a neighbor who is really a pretty kind person. He had recently taken to bearing his testimony on my apostate wall repeatedly as I metaphorically stood there like Samuel the Lamanite declaring the sins of omission and deception of my birth religion.
The fact he and I exchanged much open dialog about truth and our own measure of such is surely why this post of his popped up. He praised the Lord because there was a really late snow this year and despite that cold weather his peach trees are blossoming. To him it was a ‘miracle.‘ His prayers were answered because his peaches were saved.
The other post that I saw when I scrolled down was this news story. Here, on the same day my friend had noticed his peach blossoms a shooter went nuts near an LDS stake center resulting in the injury of a pregnant woman inside.
Now I’m 100% sure there are people that were in that stake center that feel it is a miracle they survived. When we get what we want, or we avoid suffering it is a very natural response to feel blessed and lucky. I’m not discounting that feeling at all. I think it is wonderful to be amazed at peach blossoms and happy that these trees will bear fruit after putting in all that effort bring them up.
But my new perspective in life cues onto something that seems much more obvious to me now. What about the pregnant mom that was shot? Where is her blessing? Was God too busy blossoming peaches in an answer to my friends prayer to tweak a bullet off its path or maybe just soften the heart of the shooter and stop his rampage that caused so much suffering in one of his chapels? Something you realize when you start critically evaluating your beliefs is you tend to count the ‘hits’ and ignore the ‘misses’.
It is something that a gambler does that keeps him at the table addicted to the game. He can be loosing money steady on average all night long, but all those losses are not near as big a deal as that win once in a while that makes him happy to be there. Because the ‘hit’ feels so good. The ‘misses’ become meaningless. When it comes to misses turns out God is loaded with them on his resume. For all his omnipotence and willingness to help along a peach blossom and even occasionally cure cancer. Not ever once has he grown back the limb of an amputee. Talk about a big miss. Either amputees must be beyond his power to help or they all must have done some sort of awful thing to piss off the divine being so much that he would ignore them as a whole subset of humanity.
When you think about it. It’s almost as if there really is nothing at play but random chance with our own biases chalking up everything good to the person we believe embodies the principle of goodness…. Or maybe some people like my zealous friend got such a great in with the guy upstairs that he keeps him busy finding car keys and making popcorn pop on apricot trees that he has no time left for people that could really use a little divine intervention.
Maybe we should start a movement and ask everyone to pray to the Fridge to counter the possibility God is just too busy with all the mediocre requests us humans make daily. Because according to the Book of Freon. (Book of Jeff chapter 1:2-3) this is exactly what the Fridge excels at. If the Fridge took care of all this nitty gritty untestable baloney then that would free up all these other deities men worship to go after the big stuff. You know like maybe softening the hearts of ISIL so they don’t take over the planet or toning down an earthquake here and there enough to save a few lives…
So next time your buddy talks about how his prayers were answered when he found 5$ laying in the road to buy him a soda when left his wallet loaded with 100$ bills in it at home, ask him to lay off the requests long enough others can get help finding food to ward off starvation. And if he really, really needs to pray. Suggest he try the Fridge. I promise you it’s every bit as good at getting a hit so long as you ignore the misses.
You know if you apply logic to an illogical conclusion you just give your self a headache .The real miracle is a lot of people still believe all this amazing to me
I especially like this article for your declaration of a parent’s responsibility to encourage independent thought with their children. This is a crucial problem on so many levels.
Here’s a quick example: my parents left the church back in the mid 90’s (over the churches liberalized abortion exceptions); having long before then been skeptical of ‘the prophet is always right’ malarkey. I am now in my mid twenties, and a full partner in my father’s business, and yet whenever I suggest an alternative approach to a problem, his first thought is ‘always’ that I am rebelling, and that I am ‘evil’ because I am not blindly following. It is apparently deep mental programming that in his case, originates from the LDS church, but he ‘has’ learned to get better at ignoring it, and having rational discussions at such times, whereas he ‘used’ to declare them as ‘unneeded’ due to his superior position in the family.
Oh, and by the way, if you have ever hear of pro-life individuals/families leaving the church because of their liberal abortion ‘exceptions’, please point them my way. I would be eternally grateful.
God Bless,
Ammon Emanuel Prolife
Spot on. Thanks for sharing. The God of the keys is makes me atheist. I remember reading Elizabeth Smart’s memoir where she recounts being so incredibly thristy. One night she woke to find a glass of water and she knew it was a tender mercy from God. But…why didn’t God just cause a deep sleep to settle over her captors so she could escape and avoid meaningless rape, over and over? And if you haven’t seen Tim Minchin’s “Thank You God” you must watch! so funny and true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74SQ6w6LdU0
Eric,
Remember, Smart also stated that because of her upbringing, being taught that she was “chewed gum” that nobody would want, was a big factor in her lack of a stronger desire to fight back and escape. She called the church and YW program out for that, which I was very glad to see.
Wow, it is a miracle I saw this post. I mean, just calculate the odds. The internet has like a bazillion sites, and I found this one 😉
Miracles are a hard topic to deal with because they are so emotionally connected. My father is very rational and logical, but when discussing a childhood miracle, he couldn’t help but get emotional and defensive when I simply asked, “of all the unknown variables in this story, the only one you consider feasible is god?”
Everyone was asleep, his dad felt ill and couldn’t sleep, so he decided to go outside and shovel the side walk, came back inside, and everyone was puking, so he went to dial 911 but couldn’t remember how to use the phone, so he ran outside and screamed help, and neighbors came over and made everyone come outside, saving them from Carbon Monoxide poisoning.
My dad slept through most of it, and was too young to engage, so every aspect of the story was second hand to him, yet he was unwilling to entertain the idea that anyone misremembered any aspect of the story, despite being under the influence of a brain-altering chemical. He was also unwilling to admit that going outside might be a natural response when someone feel sick, or that yelling for help was a normal thing to do when you can’t remember how to use a phone.
Even though my questions had triggered an emotional response, I continued with 2 more questions:
1) Why would god’s miracle have so nearly failed, instead of the much easier miracle of preventing the poisoning?
2) Why are there righteous families who’ve died in nearly identical circumstances?
Even if every account of the miracle was the same (which it isn’t), and even if everyone correctly remembered and recounted the details (which seems unlikely), and even if it *really* was supernatural intervention (despite seeming perfectly mundane), those 2 questions are still valid. Why are his miracles so clumsy and his favoritism so selective?