It would be more apt to state that my faith [what's left of it] is hanging by a thread. Everything has been going wrong for far too long now. I'm on an almighty [or should that be Almighty] losing streak. I actually have nothing left to live for, so it is becoming increasingly difficult to be motivated. It seems that everything that I touch turns to shit. To quote one of many examples, my Blackberry broke down in November. After a labyrinth of attempted repairs and time-wasting and money-wasting, I had little choice but to buy a replacement 'phone. I chose a Nokia Lumia 520 [reduced from £160 to £80]. Well, I can scarcely afford to be making such luxury purchases. [Some people probably consider this a cheap acquisition, but that's where they are financially that they can think along such condescending terms.] Well, this not very clever, smart 'phone was bought at the end of January and by the end of March it has broken down, a bit like its owner. I've paid eighty pounds for two months' use. This scenario, for me, is the norm rather than the exception. I had to write my last car off for scrap and am still tramping about the streets of my smalltown, hometown on both feet. Tis good for my improving fitness and athleticism, yep, but definitely not a good step [excuse the pun] to wards any remaining street credibility. To live in the smallville of Cold Rain and not possess a car is akin to pauper status. It further undermines any pretension or delusion about presenting myself as 'the catch of the century'.
Anyhow, I digress. I have had it up to here [here being the top of me bonnet] with the big Fella above. He has been a monumental disappointment to me, and God knows [He probably does] that I've been equally a monumental disappointment to Him! Well the difference is explained thus. Whereas I am led to believe that 'God smiles when He thinks of you', well I certainly don't smile when I think of Him. Actually I frown, big style. His followers amongst the doo-lally, happy clappy, middle-class churchgoers only serve to undermine my evaporating faith further. Some like to harp on [or cling to] the notion, sourced from the Book of Jeremiah, that God has big plans for us, plans to do us good, and not to do us harm. Well, this is not a blueprint for a positive outcome to everyone's existence, be they believers or non-believers. Ya see, this is an ideal, an aspiration. The notion that this is a concrete promise from an accountable God is just mischievous. What happened after all to God's great plans to the nation of Israel [i.e. the Jews] when they were carted in their millions like tins of sardines to the gas chambers and death camps in the early 1940s? Did God go on holiday for several years? Was He on a sabbatical perhaps? Did he go on a holy retreat, while the rest of humanity wholly retreated from the satanic horrors of Nazism? Where is God's great promise for my life [and for yours?]. Is it on the bottom of the pile of his 'To Do' list? Incidentally, is the return of Jesus Christ still on the 'To Do' list? Funny how we were assured in various passages of the New Testament that Christ will be "coming soon". Soon?! Well, two thousand years is not my idea of "soon". Are you coming round to my house? Yes, I'll be there "soon". When is my bus coming? Oh it will be along "soon" - like maybe in over two thousand years time - that kind of "soon". I have to concur with Stephen Patrick Morrissey when he asked 'How Soon Is Now?'
Oh no, but that would be too soon. You see, I get the impression that God likes to play with us, His cretinous creation, and that He plays us a little too well. Have you had many prayer requests accepted and granted recently? Is your prayer perhaps held in a queue? Your prayer is very important to us and one of our agents [or angels] will deal with it as soon as possible. Is a prayer to God equivalent to a call to a contact centre? It certainly feels like it. My prayer supplications have all got one terrible thing in common - they are constantly snubbed. It is very difficult to proceed when one feels under a curse and that God refuses to grant any of my requests. My requests incidentally are quite reasonable and tend to be far removed from any demands for world domination. Maybe I'm not praying in the right tone of voice, maybe I am not prostrate enough on the floor. Maybe my attitude stinks. Maybe I never donated enough money in the Sunday collection plate.
Well, I marvel at how good God is to the heathen sons of bitches and assorted low-life around me. There are copious amounts of people, past, present, and future who are richly blessed with all manner of possessions and abundant company and opportunities by Yahweh but none of these pagans give a hoot about their Creator. Why does he shower such riches on people who don't love Him? Is He trying to buy their adoration? Is there any chance that he might buy a little affection from me with several belated, long overdue opportunities and blessings in my desert of hope? No doubt the preachers will butt in and remind me that Jesus bought my love when He died on the cross because I am such a horrible person. Look, Your sacrifice on Calvary is outstanding and remarkable in the extreme, but do you really think that I am going to praise you night and day, whilst I have nothing else going on in my life of any meaningful or positive value? Shall I just lie in bed ad nauseam and fondly reminisce upon Jesus' painful death on my behalf?
Oh come on God. If You've really given me a life, then let me lead one and stop snubbing all my hopes and dreams, while allowing other bastards to flourish. The injustice of it all makes me angry and bitter in the extreme. This is not how I want to go forward as a human. Keeping me alive just so that I can continue to be an embarrassment is downright cruel. If You're not going to help improve my sad existence, then take me out of this world now, today - away from a dysfunctional family and a disapproving neighbourhood and a greedy society full of selfish swine who earn disproportionate and obscene amounts, while the rest of us paupers must feed off the remaining scraps? Thanks be to God!
The more I hear Christian bullshit from various voices, the more I wish to flee in the direction of the haven of logic from the late Christopher Hitchens.
It's all very well stating that God "can" take a broken person and restore he or she to a thing of beauty. It's all very well stating that God "can" heal. I have never doubted His abilities and never will. What I doubt is his willingness, not his potential or his capabilites. After all, not everyone gets healed. Not all prayer requests are granted. I mean, don't you think that maybe at least one or two of the poor souls being transported to the extermination camps in the early 1940s might have called out to God to intervene and rescue them? You see, God intervenes whenever He feels like it. His interventions don't appear to be consistent or constant, or fair. He does what He wants when He wants. That appears to be His will. To suggest that God perpetually heals each and every person and restores all broken lives on request is very much open to question. I am beginning to wonder if the Depeche Mode song is close to the truth: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God's got a sick sense of humour, and when I die, I expect to find Him laughing."
I have stuck up for my 'Father' in Heaven when people have scorned or questioned his existence. I've sang to Him in church. I've pleaded to Him in private. It seems to have been all in vain. It's like the other great Christian line about 'ah you might suffer in this life, but in Heaven you'll have luxury and great times every day forever and ever'. Is that another Christian untruth or exaggeration? I mean, there are so many billions of people, past, present, and future all apparently going to Heaven from Joe Stalin to Jade Goody to Frank Lampard's mum that there is not going to be much else besides massive overcrowding! Oh but God's got that all figured out, right?
I'm left to echo what Elijah remarked when he teased the prophets of Baal when they called out to their gods. Maybe God in Heaven is daydreaming? Maybe I need to pray louder? Maybe God is busy relieving Himself? Well, I don't know but I'm heartily sick to the armpits and beyond of promises, promises. Perhaps this illustrates the very essence of our lives on earth - the problem of managing expectations and how we react to unfulfilled expectations. It seems to me that I and others have expectations of God that He has no intention of realising. This only serves to reinforce the fact that God's promise as embodied in that passage in Jeremiah is not a blanket pledge to all humanity. The bottom line is that God is selective. He heals who He wants to heal. He intervenes when He wants to intervene. For any Christian daydreamer to suggest otherwise is pure mischief-making and only serves to drive the rest of us far from the kingdom of God. God help us.......though He seldom does.
Anyhow, I digress. I have had it up to here [here being the top of me bonnet] with the big Fella above. He has been a monumental disappointment to me, and God knows [He probably does] that I've been equally a monumental disappointment to Him! Well the difference is explained thus. Whereas I am led to believe that 'God smiles when He thinks of you', well I certainly don't smile when I think of Him. Actually I frown, big style. His followers amongst the doo-lally, happy clappy, middle-class churchgoers only serve to undermine my evaporating faith further. Some like to harp on [or cling to] the notion, sourced from the Book of Jeremiah, that God has big plans for us, plans to do us good, and not to do us harm. Well, this is not a blueprint for a positive outcome to everyone's existence, be they believers or non-believers. Ya see, this is an ideal, an aspiration. The notion that this is a concrete promise from an accountable God is just mischievous. What happened after all to God's great plans to the nation of Israel [i.e. the Jews] when they were carted in their millions like tins of sardines to the gas chambers and death camps in the early 1940s? Did God go on holiday for several years? Was He on a sabbatical perhaps? Did he go on a holy retreat, while the rest of humanity wholly retreated from the satanic horrors of Nazism? Where is God's great promise for my life [and for yours?]. Is it on the bottom of the pile of his 'To Do' list? Incidentally, is the return of Jesus Christ still on the 'To Do' list? Funny how we were assured in various passages of the New Testament that Christ will be "coming soon". Soon?! Well, two thousand years is not my idea of "soon". Are you coming round to my house? Yes, I'll be there "soon". When is my bus coming? Oh it will be along "soon" - like maybe in over two thousand years time - that kind of "soon". I have to concur with Stephen Patrick Morrissey when he asked 'How Soon Is Now?'
Oh no, but that would be too soon. You see, I get the impression that God likes to play with us, His cretinous creation, and that He plays us a little too well. Have you had many prayer requests accepted and granted recently? Is your prayer perhaps held in a queue? Your prayer is very important to us and one of our agents [or angels] will deal with it as soon as possible. Is a prayer to God equivalent to a call to a contact centre? It certainly feels like it. My prayer supplications have all got one terrible thing in common - they are constantly snubbed. It is very difficult to proceed when one feels under a curse and that God refuses to grant any of my requests. My requests incidentally are quite reasonable and tend to be far removed from any demands for world domination. Maybe I'm not praying in the right tone of voice, maybe I am not prostrate enough on the floor. Maybe my attitude stinks. Maybe I never donated enough money in the Sunday collection plate.
Well, I marvel at how good God is to the heathen sons of bitches and assorted low-life around me. There are copious amounts of people, past, present, and future who are richly blessed with all manner of possessions and abundant company and opportunities by Yahweh but none of these pagans give a hoot about their Creator. Why does he shower such riches on people who don't love Him? Is He trying to buy their adoration? Is there any chance that he might buy a little affection from me with several belated, long overdue opportunities and blessings in my desert of hope? No doubt the preachers will butt in and remind me that Jesus bought my love when He died on the cross because I am such a horrible person. Look, Your sacrifice on Calvary is outstanding and remarkable in the extreme, but do you really think that I am going to praise you night and day, whilst I have nothing else going on in my life of any meaningful or positive value? Shall I just lie in bed ad nauseam and fondly reminisce upon Jesus' painful death on my behalf?
Oh come on God. If You've really given me a life, then let me lead one and stop snubbing all my hopes and dreams, while allowing other bastards to flourish. The injustice of it all makes me angry and bitter in the extreme. This is not how I want to go forward as a human. Keeping me alive just so that I can continue to be an embarrassment is downright cruel. If You're not going to help improve my sad existence, then take me out of this world now, today - away from a dysfunctional family and a disapproving neighbourhood and a greedy society full of selfish swine who earn disproportionate and obscene amounts, while the rest of us paupers must feed off the remaining scraps? Thanks be to God!
The more I hear Christian bullshit from various voices, the more I wish to flee in the direction of the haven of logic from the late Christopher Hitchens.
It's all very well stating that God "can" take a broken person and restore he or she to a thing of beauty. It's all very well stating that God "can" heal. I have never doubted His abilities and never will. What I doubt is his willingness, not his potential or his capabilites. After all, not everyone gets healed. Not all prayer requests are granted. I mean, don't you think that maybe at least one or two of the poor souls being transported to the extermination camps in the early 1940s might have called out to God to intervene and rescue them? You see, God intervenes whenever He feels like it. His interventions don't appear to be consistent or constant, or fair. He does what He wants when He wants. That appears to be His will. To suggest that God perpetually heals each and every person and restores all broken lives on request is very much open to question. I am beginning to wonder if the Depeche Mode song is close to the truth: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God's got a sick sense of humour, and when I die, I expect to find Him laughing."
I have stuck up for my 'Father' in Heaven when people have scorned or questioned his existence. I've sang to Him in church. I've pleaded to Him in private. It seems to have been all in vain. It's like the other great Christian line about 'ah you might suffer in this life, but in Heaven you'll have luxury and great times every day forever and ever'. Is that another Christian untruth or exaggeration? I mean, there are so many billions of people, past, present, and future all apparently going to Heaven from Joe Stalin to Jade Goody to Frank Lampard's mum that there is not going to be much else besides massive overcrowding! Oh but God's got that all figured out, right?
I'm left to echo what Elijah remarked when he teased the prophets of Baal when they called out to their gods. Maybe God in Heaven is daydreaming? Maybe I need to pray louder? Maybe God is busy relieving Himself? Well, I don't know but I'm heartily sick to the armpits and beyond of promises, promises. Perhaps this illustrates the very essence of our lives on earth - the problem of managing expectations and how we react to unfulfilled expectations. It seems to me that I and others have expectations of God that He has no intention of realising. This only serves to reinforce the fact that God's promise as embodied in that passage in Jeremiah is not a blanket pledge to all humanity. The bottom line is that God is selective. He heals who He wants to heal. He intervenes when He wants to intervene. For any Christian daydreamer to suggest otherwise is pure mischief-making and only serves to drive the rest of us far from the kingdom of God. God help us.......though He seldom does.
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