another commentary on belief in God

When I was about 8, I was asked by the itinerant Bible studies teacher "What's one thing you would like God to do for you?" The question had been preceded by her saying that God will 'do anything you want, if you just ask'. She told us to write down our ideas, and that she would walk around the classroom and look at each child's request.

Now, this was the time when Beverly Hills 90210 was relatively new on the telly, and Kelly was my favourite character (Jennie Garth). I thought for a little while, quite hard, about the thing I wanted most at that moment. Then, naturally and entirely innocently, on my small sheet of paper I wrote, "I want blue eyes". I sat and waited, satisfied with my answer, and as the teacher came to my seat (with that overly friendly, almost permanent smile that most primary school Bible teachers seemed to have), she said "oh..." and her smile kind of disappeared. I don't remember her exact response, but it was something along the lines of "oh Dear, He can't change your eye colour! You were born with those!" What I do remember, is being completely flummoxed by her response. *But she just told me God would do anything, and I want blue eyes, so why can't he give me what I want?* I think in the end I probably scrubbed it out and wrote "a pony", at which the teacher probably rolled her eyes and gave up.

[On a side note, the teacher's husband, who would sometimes come along, had missing fingers. I wonder if he ever prayed for his fingers to be replaced. For that matter, I wonder if he had formulated a reason for why God would have taken them away in the first place.]

This memory was sparked by my renewed thinking about why and how people believe in God. "God works in mysterious ways", they say. I wonder what that means; to me it seems like a cop-out for all the s*** that's going on. What if another child had written down "cure my mother of AIDS" or "bring my dog that got run over back"? It seems to me that "God works in mysterious ways" is not a valid answer for the question: "if God loves me, like you always tell me He does, why does my Dad have cancer?" What is a child supposed to do with that? It's no divine mystery that Dad has cancer, it's a scientific fact, and God probably won't change it. Even if He does, and Dad recovers and lives a full life, what was the point of giving the man cancer in the first place?

Also, "God has a plan". Does that plan include me being incredibly unhappy for most of my life? ("Me" in a general sense here). Does that include bullying, theft, rape and murder? I don't think I like that plan.

"It was God's will". Don't even get me started on that one. So, God wants a 4-year old boy to be in Heaven with Him instead of on Earth to spend the rest of his life with his mother and father, growing up, graduating, getting married and having children of his own? That, I must say, is rather selfish, and a little creepy.

Cynicism, I suppose this is. The job of a cynic is to pick apart a theory put forward by someone else. If I was a Christian though, I wouldn't even try to convince a non-believer, since all the arguements, to me, sound like excuses and fairy stories. 

People who know me know that I don't disrespect people's different belief systems, I just wonder about them a lot. I guess I have a nosey mind.


I'm not entirely close-minded though. I'll always be waiting for a visit from my grandmother to prove that loved ones who have died go somewhere pretty to relax.