People Who Believe in God
Many , if not most, people who believe in God won’t blame their God for the mishaps, misfortunes, trials, tribulations, negativity, and adversity that befalls them.
Rarely, if ever, do they blame themselves for all that goes wrong or badly throughout the course of their lives.
No, neither their God nor themselves are at fault.
The blame for the suffering and hardship that must be endured, if not overcome, is placed squarely where they believe it belongs: other people…
They blame other people for their condition, situation, or circumstance…
Then, they go to church, synagogue, mosque, or temple, convinced and satisfied that whatever happened, or is happening, wasn’t, or isn’t, their fault…
07/03/2019 @ 1:20 pm
One of my favorite stories goes like this:
During the hurricane in New Orleans, there was this one guy who refused to leave his house. Friends told him that he was being a fool, but he answered, “God will provide.”
The water rose. A sheriff’s deputy came by in a monster truck and offered to take the man to safety. He was sitting on his porch, in a rocker. He told the deputy, “God will provide.”
The water rose. A state trooper came by in a boat. The man refused to leave.
The water rose. The man moved to the roof of his house. A National Guardsman came by in a helicopter, throwing down a rope ladder. The man refused to leave, saying, “God will provide.”
When he finally drowned and went to heaven, he confronted Saint Peter.
“I led a good and holy life. I did everything I was supposed to do. I did nothing I wasn’t supposed to do. Why wasn’t I saved?”
Saint Peter checked his database.
“Hmmm. Well, I see here that you are still a paid up member of the Klan and the NRA, but never mind that. To each his own, but I see here that we sent you a deputy, a state trooper and a National Guardsman. How many miracles do you think you deserve? Three strikes and you’re out, baby. Take a number and sit your ass down. We’ll call your when your number comes up.”
Saint Peter, of course, was black.
Okay, maybe this isn’t a tight fit, but I am also reminded of the family that got caught in an avalanche in the mountains of Colorado where they were stranded for a week. Two of their four children died. When they were finally rescued, they gave thanks to God for the miracle.
What was God doing when the avalanche hit them? Was he on a coffee break? What about the two kids who didn’t make it?
07/03/2019 @ 7:29 pm
I suppose some may blame Satan. There aren’t too many who blame God in that I suspect if they’re truly religious they’ll blame themselves for failing God or, alternatively, will theorize that in doing whatever they think was done to them He saved them from worse. Sometimes other people have very little to do with it.
Do atheists blame themselves? Again, I think it depends on the nature of what befell them.
07/03/2019 @ 7:58 pm
You can’t blame god for anything because that would mean that he is a homo.
We’ve been blamed for hurricanes, Trump winning, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, wild fires, low school grades, Hillary losing, the existence of Rachel Dolezal (my personal favorite!), the 2008 recession, mouse infestations (my second favorite!), Brexit, ISIS and the Holocaust!
07/03/2019 @ 7:58 pm
It occurs to me that I’m puzzled as to why you wrote this.
07/04/2019 @ 9:53 am
Ah yes, then there’s Satan or the Devil…
Which is another way of saying other people…
(The devil made me do it.)
Naturally occurring phenomena, earthquakes, storms, volcanos, floods, droughts, and the like are perceived as the work of ‘God’….
The evil that people do to each other is more often than not characterized as the work of the ‘devil’…
War, oppression, slavery, genocide, and so on are manifestations of Satan working through ‘other people’, who then may be demonized as the evil agents and minions of the devil…
I wrote this because I believe it to be the articulation of a valid observation…
07/04/2019 @ 2:59 pm
I don’t know where to go with this. You had enough sense to qualify it so I don’t take it personally but, well, how do you think the Rev. Dr. King would have reacted to this? Or, more recently, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, or Rev. William Barber? For a lot of us, God functions as a source of moral responsibility. There are a lot of us who view oppression as a sin. A major sin. Speaking from a personal standpoint, the biggest imperative in Judaism is responsibility. In Judaism, Satan is an angel who had an argument with God about Job and not as a sort of global vehicle for avoiding responsibility – as you put it and as I have often put it in this context, “The Devil made me buy this dress.” (For those of you unfamiliar with the reference: https://youtu.be/5kaiLcwHXB4 – Flip Wilson as Geraldine.) In the last place I lived, Greensboro, a lot of liberal politics was led by clergy.
There’s a political view here I’d be especially careful with, not morally but tactically. It is a typical liberal mistake to cede certain areas to conservatives such as God, patriotism, business, the military, because we’re afraid of looking to our peers like we don’t respect separation of Church and State, we don’t want to look jingoistic, we don’t want to look materialistic, and we don’t want to look militaristic. Not only is it a bad idea to leave the reputation for advocacy in all those areas to the opposition – given that these areas are certainly important to moderates – but conservatives don’t really do better in any of these areas than liberals do. Jesus’ priorities certainly come way closer to ours than to theirs, we worry more about what’s actually good for the whole country than they do, our policies are actually (accidentally) better for business than theirs are, and we care more about and do more for enlisted personnel in the military than they do. The last thing I want to do is give them a free ride. I think that’s irresponsible.
07/04/2019 @ 6:44 pm
“…how do you think the Rev. Dr. King would have reacted to this? Or, more recently, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, or Rev. William Barber?”
They wouldn’t take it personally….
“There’s a political view here I’d be especially careful with…”
You have a political perspective that is not articulated, nor is a political posture intended…
“I don’t know where to go with this.”
There is no place to go with this…The observation and assertion stands as stated…Either you agree with it or you don’t….
If you don’, then postulate an alternative or contrary assertion that you may articulate within the context of your observations and provide an antithesis that is as engaging or as challenging on the opposite side of the coin, or equation…
BTW
This article is not about whether or not a God exists. It is not about belief in God.
It’s about human behavior and the thought process behind it…
07/04/2019 @ 11:02 pm
I understand it’s not about whether God exists. I would never argue that with you because it doesn’t make any difference to me whether or not you have faith, nor is it ultimately any of my business. I do not believe that faith is a moral imperative. It’s about how most people who believe in God are morally irresponsible.
I want to know if you’re quantifying or stereotyping. I”m not sure that I agree that the Reverends in question wouldn’t take it personally because whether or not they think it applies to them, they would have to wonder if it applies to their congregations. The implication of this post is that faith is the wrong moral path in that it leads most of the time to evasion of personal responsibility.
I’m curious what led you to this conclusion.
07/04/2019 @ 11:18 pm
Is the FACT that the vast majority of religions are both anti-woman and homophobic a stereotype?
Is it a stereotype where virtually every religion says that their deity is omnipotent so you CAN’T blame him for anything (which is why you have to blame some minority and/or the debil!)?
Is it a stereotype where hardly ANYONE, religious or otherwise, will own their own shit (aka take responsibility for their actions?
07/04/2019 @ 11:34 pm
I’ll start with your last paragraph. If hardly anyone, religious or otherwise, will own their own shit, then it makes zero sense to hold religion responsible for not owning one’s own shit because not taking ownership is a normal human condition.
It is a fact that most religions started misogynistic and homophobic. However, a lot of religions or at least sects/movements of religions have abandoned those views as unjust and, for the remainder, it’s highly questionable whether those religions’ membership will support all of those religions’ positions whether or not those members believe in God. The Catholic Church is very big in Ireland. So is abortion. Given that Ron’s assertion has to do with the membership of religions rather than with the clergy per se, this is a critical distinction.
Whether or not people hold God responsible for bad things (and some do), a lot certainly believe in repentance, which means accepting personal responsibility.
Of course, as sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, sometimes people blame others for certain bad things because those people really are responsible for said bad things. See our President.
07/05/2019 @ 9:55 pm
” It’s about how most people who believe in God are morally irresponsible.”
BINGO!!!!
And, that includes the congregations of anybody’s denomination…
My assertion involves no stereotype at all. However, I believe it to be a valid, accurate , and fair observation…
Some of the most treacherous people on the planet are ardent adherents of some religion or another and many even use their ‘faith’ as justification for their treachery and the atrocities they commit in the name of their ‘god’and or their religion…Much of which is predicated on the blaming of other people for their social ills and shortcomings…
If the Holocaust wasn’t about blaming Jews for virtually every conceivable adversity the non-Jewish population of Germany had to face, it didn’t happen…
07/07/2019 @ 8:03 am
But the Holocaust only involved the religious as targets, not as perpetrators. The Holocaust didn’t come from a religion.
Yes, I know what it’s about. That’s obvious. I don’t know how you derived it. It looks like classic stereotyping to me, inductive logic: you’ve seen some examples and generalize based on them. Where do you get the information on which you base this conclusion?
07/09/2019 @ 12:16 pm
It’s an observation not a study…
This is about the behavior and the thought process behind it…
You’re looking for a way to criticize the observation/assertion without articulating an alternative or antithesis of equal or superior merit or import…
Not all stereotypes are negative or false…The problem with stereotypes is that they are based on limited, often erroneous, information…
Remember when I wrote this:
“Profiling is the practical application and weaponization of the stereotype.”
My assertion involves no stereotype or ‘profiling’ at all…
However, I believe it to be a valid, accurate , and fair observation…
Feel free to refute it if you wish…
However, saying that you don’t like it or simply saying that you disagree is not adequate as refutation of the assertion…
07/09/2019 @ 1:34 pm
Well, the burden of proof is with the affirmative, but I’ll go with my own observations.
On this site – well, on OurSalon, not yet on this site – there have been two people who contributed with some regularity, both of whom made no secret about having faith. Those are Anna and me. I wouldn’t say the description above fits either of us.
If I were to look at my own experience in Greensboro, most of the Leftist political activism I saw came out of religious communities. There’s a strong Quaker presence there historically, my rabbi is heavily politically involved, the same is true of both many Black and many White churches. When Amendment One was on the statewide ballot, then defining marriage as between a man and a woman, it passed statewide but failed in Greensboro, due largely from influence that came from the pulpit, particularly when the head of North Carolina’s NAACP chapter, the Rev. William Barber, came to Greensboro (at the invitation of my rabbi), sat down with a lot of Black pastors and persuaded them that the issue was best framed as a civil rights issue. I played music at a rally that took place at a White church, I forget which denomination.
If you look at the Civil Rights movement, a whole lot of its leadership came straight out of the church, starting with Rev. Martin Luther King, and a lot of its White support came out of the synagogue, including rabbis on the Edmund Pettis Bridge and a rabbi who spoke immediately before Dr. King at the Lincoln Memorial.
If you go back way further, to the Civil War, most people are aware that the Bible was used to justify slavery but tend to either be unaware of or forget that Abolitionism was strongly a religious movement. Slavery existed for economic reasons, abolitionism existed more for religious reasons. Think of John Brown. Read the words, all verses, of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, the most popular Union song.
Yes, you can look at televangelists and say they’re about responsibility avoidance. Most of them are. But don’t make the mistake of using them to represent American religion.
07/09/2019 @ 4:09 pm
Here’s the short or condensed version of the post:
Many , if not most, people who believe in God blame other people for their condition, siuation, or circumstance…
Let’s turn the assertion into a question and see if it makes any better sense:
Why do many , if not most, people who believe in God, blame other people for their condition, siuation, or circumstance?
We can change the tenor and tone of the. inquiry by changing the nature of the interrogatory:
Do many , if not most, people who believe in God, blame other people for their condition, siuation, or circumstance?
My post assumes that the answer to the last question is yes…
The question raised by the post is; Why do people choose to blame other people?
If they believe in God, why not blame God…
Or
Accept responsibility and hold themselves to account….
07/09/2019 @ 4:10 pm
That’s some circular reasoning you got there, KS.
Faith/religiosity most certainly does not beget or generate “good deeds”, “owning one own’s shit”, “faultlessness”, etc. any more than “good deeds”, “owning one own’s shit”, “faultlessness”, etc. beget or generate faith/religiosity. One might HAPPEN to follow the other upon occasion, but I’m not buying the “link” because of the MULTITUDE of times it DOESN’T happen (with much more frequency).
07/09/2019 @ 5:11 pm
Ron,
I know what your post assumes. What I don’t know is where you got that assumption.
Amy,
Don’t reverse Ron’s and my roles here. I am not looking for anyone to become religious, find God, or anything along those lines, nor am I saying that religion is the source of virtue, though I think it’s capable of galvanizing it at times, which doesn’t mean it’s the only thing capable of galvanizing it. I am defending those of us with faith against what amounts to an unsubstantiated accusation – that those of us with faith are obviously more likely to deny personal responsibility than those without.
I don’t know what in Ron’s experience leads him to this conclusion. Now, if he were to say:
“Those who expect others not of their faith to follow their religious imperatives on the basis of their being religious imperatives are less likely to accept personal responsibility than the rest of the population is”
I’d probably agree with him. For one thing, civic responsibility in the US dictates that freedom of religion (or lack of religion) must be respected. Sometimes the civic and the religious don’t line up but, when they don’t, the civic should win in the civic sphere. That’s what Separation of Church and State is.
But that’s not what he said.
07/15/2019 @ 4:35 am
Kosh/Amy, please excuse my delayed return to this thread….
“I am defending those of us with faith against what amounts to an unsubstantiated accusation – that those of us with faith are obviously more likely to deny personal responsibility than those without.”
Kosh, again, Here’s the short or condensed version of the post:
Many , if not most, people who believe in God blame other people for their condition, siuation, or circumstance…”
There is no accusation.
There is no comparison inherent in the assertion.
If anything my quandary is that those who hold with a faith should be less likely to blame others…My problem is that they a just as likely as those who profess no faith at all to blame others…
In other words people of religious faith should have a basis for not blaming other people for their woes but I don’t see it, in my view it simply isn’t there. Or, if it is there it is routinely ignored and is of no real consequence within the course and scope of living day to day….
07/15/2019 @ 8:07 am
Have you gone from saying those with faith are worse to saying that you’re confused as to why we’re no better?
If that’s your question, I’ll answer it by saying there are multiple paths to responsibility, sometimes more than one path simultaneously. Also, I’d say some religious communities are better at fostering responsibility than others. (Yes, I said “religious communities” very carefully, not “religions.”)
07/15/2019 @ 1:25 pm
“Have you gone from saying those with faith are worse to saying that you’re confused as to why we’re no better?”
I never said that those with faith are worse. That was your take or interpretation, not the gist of my assertion…
You have a tendency to articulate your take or interpretation on matters brought up in posts, and then react or respond to your own opinion or view of the post as though it were the opinion or perspective of the author.
A bad habit….
The question I raise is; ‘why aren’t people of faith any better than people of little or no faith re casting blame for their woes on others?’
07/12/2019 @ 4:06 pm
What does Trump decision on the Cencus and the raids planned for Sunday? I want to blog about this event that the Evangelcals elected Trump for and Support Israel for. Think of the Xmas story and homelessness.
07/12/2019 @ 5:30 pm
The Evangelicals are distorting their religion to do that. They distort their religion to do a lot, emphatically including supporting Trump
12/17/2019 @ 7:58 am
Evangelicals support Trump because what options do Democrats give us. Tell the truth. You have no option whatsoever.
12/17/2019 @ 12:47 pm
So you look at Trump, and then make a blanket statement about all people of faith. Using that logic, I guess all New Yorkers are hypocrites, fat, short, obnoxious and childish (Nadler). All Californians are lying conspiracy theorists who are worse than McCarthy (Schiff). That is some pretty flimsy stuff to make a statement like that and decide this guy is your poster boy for stereotyping all.
Honestly though, it is what I expect from left leaning “fair minded” people.
12/17/2019 @ 7:57 am
This is one of the most ignorant things I have ever read. The foundation of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is an acknowledgement that we are all sinners in need of the divine mercy of God. To say that people don’t accept responsibility for the things they have done wrong is just ignorant. If they never thought they were wrong they would have no reason to follow the religion in the first place.
As for God being responsible, if you spent any time reading the Bible you would see that God takes responsibility for all that we do. We are His creation and He is bound by His own law to pay for all that He creates. This is why Jesus died on the Christ. He had to do so because His Law demanded that He pay the ultimate price. It is what makes God so amazing. He made Himself responsible for all we do.
12/17/2019 @ 11:57 am
Mary, I’m not sure that I understand your question/comment re the thrust of this post.
08/15/2020 @ 1:26 pm
When I was raised as a Jew, I was never taught the concept of inherited sin. Jews believe that children enter the world sinless. Ezikial 18:20 -“The son shall not suffer the iniquities of the father.” As a Sufi, my studies of Islam never brought me into contact with the concept of inherited sin. Instead, Muslims believe that their fate is determined by their personal actions in life. As an atheist, I have no one to blame for the results of my choices in life except myself. That is in fact the only universal tenant of atheism. When you introduce causative agents, you are no longer an atheist. You are pagan, which is all right by me, too.
It sometimes happens, however, that our lives are affected by the choices of others. We get hired for a great job or we get fired as the result of a power struggle. The world breaks down into two groups: those who believe in random actions and those who believe in divine meddling.
12/23/2019 @ 8:43 am
“To say that people don’t accept responsibility for the things they have done wrong is just ignorant.”
You needn’t look any further than the Oval Office to find a Christian who refuses to accept responsibility for his faults and wrong doing…
He is the poster child for placing blame for the negative or adverse consequences of his own shortcomings on other people.
He will blame the world’s ills on those less fortunate than himself or people of color from ‘shithole’ countries etc…
He sees himself as being beyond accountability, above the law, and absolutely guiltless re the damage, harm, and pain he causes…
The very sick and sad part about this is that he causes the most damage, harm, and pain to those who put him in the position to do just that…
And, most of the idiots seem to love him for it…
01/26/2021 @ 12:12 am
I looked back at this because of the recommendation in Mrs. Raptor’s thread. What on Earth makes you think that Trump is really Christian? He has evangelical support because he opposes abortion (for them now, he never used to), he opposes gay and trans rights, he supports the right of the religious to discriminate, and he supports public funding for religious schools in the form of vouchers. His evangelical support is based on giving them what they want, certainly not personal faith. He’s about as comfortable in church as you would be at a Mary Kay home sales party. The most famous thing he ever did involving a church was use one on Lafayette Square for a photo op, which embarrassed the crap out of at least one general with him. He doesn’t display remotely as much faith as, say, Jimmy Carter did and does, and
Carter has been more of a model former President than any other in my lifetime.
05/07/2020 @ 5:51 pm
I love G. Harrison and P. Simon’s rendition : My Sweet Lord . . . et alii et aliae
Richie Havens! Have we forgotten Richie Havens?!
Better scribes than me sing, {sic} ‘…mysteries without any clues…’
Briefly: no light no time, no? What about ‘newbie’ HR-6819 ad infinitum?
?Any body here?