Murray Haar On Religion: Everything Does Not Happen for a Reason

Friday, June 15, 2018

Everything Does Not Happen for a Reason

Whenever I teach my class dealing with God, suffering and Evil, I hear someone say, “A lot of terrible things happen in the world, but I believe everything happens for a reason and is part of the plan of God.”

At first, such comments sound religious and comforting. Our thoughts are not God’s thoughts. Everything is determined through the inscrutable will of God. You don’t have to think any more and it wouldn’t do you any good anyway because what God is doing is all a secret. It’s a mystery.

But if you do think about it, you will see these comments are insulting to God and our respective religions. In our scriptures, there are many events which occur that are not the will of God. In fact, God is pictured as quite surprised and upset at what people do. For example, Cain murders Abel. God does not stop the killing and in fact, is shocked by it. God does not say, “Don’t worry. It’s all part of my plan.” Throughout the scriptures, God is periodically depicted as angry and upset at what people do.

And if it is true, that everything happens for a reason and is part of God’s will, it would mean God is a cosmic monster who commits all sorts of evil for the sake of some hidden master plan. It would mean the Holocaust was the will of God; it would mean wars, earthquakes, tornadoes, cancers, heart attacks, everyday tragic accidents, suicides, senseless and undeserved suffering would all be happening for “a reason.” Such actions would not be the work of a loving God. It would be the work of a sadistic masochistic architect who kills millions of people for the sake of some grandiose mysterious plan. This God should never be worshipped.

But I ask myself, why is the notion that everything happens for a reason so popular? Because it offers up comfort and declares a rhyme or reason that explains all the absurdity and craziness happening every day. It makes us feel better if we can think all the absurdities of life as part of some cosmic quilt woven together even though we cannot understand the pattern.

I get it. The brain needs and creates patterns whether they are there or not. But we do not have to capitulate to such ideas. We know that accidents happen. We know people carry within them generations of genetically determined diseases. And we should know, if we depict everything happening as part of the Divine will, we will be teaching people to hate God.

Near as I can tell, God created a universe in which chance and laws of nature control much of what happens. We trust God is interacting with human decisions but obviously not in such a way as to stop suffering and evil, deserved or undeserved. The notion, everything happens for a reason, is wishful thinking, a delusion, causing more and more people to become atheists.

Let’s be honest. The world can be a dangerous place. God’s activity in the world is problematic, mysterious and difficult to discern. So, remember again Whitehead’s warning: “Seek simplicity but distrust it.” If you are going to have faith, let it be an intelligent, honest and humble faith. In that way we shall honor and not insult our God.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Notes from The Door

Whenever you care for the neighbor in pain, at that very moment, God is real. At that very moment, the Messiah has returned. In every situation where there is pain and injustice do what you can do to stop the pain. Murray Haar
Religion was not created by God but by people. What God thinks of our religions only God can say. If your religion teaches you to love God and to stand with your neighbor in pain, it is a good religion. If it teaches you to hate and to be indifferent, it is a bad religion. Murray Haar
Get Busy livin or get busy dyin (Shawshank Redemption)
The Holocaust teaches us that it is possible to be alive but no longer human. Murray Haar
I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know. Socrates
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead, Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun; Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood. For nothing now can ever come to any good. W. H. Auden
For the most part, Christian pastors and priests are not taught to think but to transmit. They go to a vocational school called a seminary where they are taught how to transmit and proclaim the gospel but not how to teach their people to think critically about what they believe. They do not know how to teach their parishioners that Christianity could be wrong. Pastors and Priests are not prophets; they are religious functionaries who care about people and love Jesus. They themselves are usually nice people, will visit you in the hospital and give you bread and wine but they are not, for the most part, great thinkers. So, to expect them to reform the Church is just not realistic. Occasionally though, pastors show up who can think and believe at the same time and it is in them that there is hope for a reformation. I have met them. They are real and I have hope in them. Murray Haar
We do not believe in the Bible. We believe in God. The Bible is a vector toward God and the neighbor. When the Bible points us toward God and the neighbor, it is true. Whenever it does not, it is not true. We have to learn not only to read the Bible but to argue with it. Then the text will become real. Murray Haar
“In religion, the question is more important than the answer to the question.” A Midrash
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas
“He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” The Talmud
“We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or adrift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed.” Joseph Epstein

Pages

Friday, June 15, 2018

Everything Does Not Happen for a Reason

No comments:

Post a Comment