Letter of the Week: Looking for God: a one-sided tale

Dear Chaplain,
I'm not exactly a big fan of your weekly column, “Looking for God: an Ongoing Tale.” I think it's just a little one-sided. I guess that makes sense since the two people conversing are obviously both you. So I've decided to ask you some questions about god, and to give you a bit of a challenge, I'd like you'd to answer them. Except please skip the bullshit because I grew up in an Irish Catholic family and I've heard all these answers before. I think the educated students at Fanshawe however deserve something more. Let's get started, shall we?

1. How does God choose who will die? When we see people on television who have survived some major accident, they tend to say things like “it was a miracle of God” or “God spared my life” and so on. Tell me then — why would this God who is all loving, choose this one person to survive over say, one million children with AIDS in Africa? Was this person destined to be some great prophet? That makes a lot of prophets that no one cares about.

2. Speaking of the AIDS epidemic, what is it about Africans and third world countries that God hates so much? It seems that he must have something out for these people in order to kill 2.4 million adults and children with AIDS in 2005 alone. What about the millions more living with poverty in the world today? Women, children, elderly? It's all fair game for God!

3. What about children that die before they have a chance to be baptized? Purgatory? That's nice. What kind of god sends these innocents to purgatory before they have a chance to do anything wrong? Don't give me that original sin crap; should these children pay for that? Not the kind of god I would want to worship. Hang on a second! What about the billions of people in the world that aren't born Christian? Too bad for them I guess, off to purgatory with the lot of them. I mean, too bad for them that they weren't born into the “right” religion. If God is all powerful, why doesn't he understand that it's not their fault? He could make them all be born into Christian families couldn't he? After that, it's up to them.

4. Why does God hate Women? Is it because of the creation story? That doesn't seem like a good enough answer to me. Of course to anyone with even the most rudimentary education, this is a myth made up by people of a simpler time with less understanding of their biological roots. However, since the church seems intent on pushing this as fact, tell me, why did God choose to punish women more then men? How come there can't be any female Bishops? Or priests? Or Popes for that matter? It's because the rules have been made by men in the past, not God! Just like every other society in history.

5. Why does God hate gay people so much? Was it because of Sodom and Gomorrah? Let's take a look at that passage shall we? Men from the village want to rape two angels in the city (the angel is a male…gasp, that means…you know what!) So instead, the man who is protecting the angel, offers his two virgin daughters to be raped instead. Of course, these rabid gays don't want those girls, they want that tasty boy angel! God then rewards this man for his actions by destroying the city and making him and his daughters the only survivors. I'm learning some weird morals here! Let me get this straight, it's bad to have sex with men, but it's ok to have someone rape your daughter. Well after all, I guess she is a girl, and we all know the only reason we're here is because of them, right?

Maybe Christians hate gay people because of the passage in Leviticus where it is said that acts of homosexuality are an abomination? Well does it not also say in Leviticus that it is also an abomination to eat shellfish, wear sheep's wool, have sex while a woman is on her period, eat rare meat, plant two kinds of seeds in a field, or get tattoos (That's right, look it up)…shall I go on? Now where does it make any distinction between these different commandments? It doesn't say anywhere that above all, DO NOT engage in homosexual acts!!! Nope, so according to these rules, it looks like we're ALL going to hell! No thanks, I'd rather be an atheist and rot in the soil for eternity then worship that god.

Well that's all for this lunch-break, next week we'll discuss which book really deserves a disclaimer at the beginning warning potential readers of its “fictional” matter! The Da Vinci Code (as some Christian groups have suggested) or (as I suggest) the Bible? Thanks for your time father. See you next week.

Leigh Cooney

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
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