Some things just make me MAD!

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Reasons I find religion offensive #17 I'm often told of the benefits of prayer. I'm told I should pray to thank God for my health, good job and wonderful family. If I pray, it seems, things will only get better. Presidents, monarchs and other world leaders pray to ask God to bless a decision, or a meeting, or a party, or a boat, or their country, or a war. ( How they are able to tell whether such a thing has been blessed or not, I am unaware. ) Many people also take it upon themselves to pray for nonbelievers such as myself, asking God to spare a little time in his day to fix my brain. Some people are convinced that their God occasionally, or invariably, answers their prayers. He helps them with their career, or their drug problem, or their marriage. He finds their lost keys, reserves a parking space in town, or ensures that their team wins the game. He heals their cancer, helps their relative to survive the operation, and makes them look round just in time to avoid the truck. If these things are to be believed, and these are the sorts of uses that the all-powerful Creator of the universe puts his omnipotence to, then He is either evil or stupid, or possibly both. Every time you think your God gets you to the train on time, a child dies screaming somewhere in the world. Each time God is called upon to "bless" a new armchair factory, a dozen people have the life crushed out of them in an earthquake. God is apparently too busy watching your football game to prevent the banks of a river bursting and washing a village off the map. He would rather "inspire" televangelists to beg for dollars than to "inspire" scientists with a simple and perfect cure for any of the incapacitating diseases that afflict humans. His time is better spent helping politicians solve refuse-collection problems than doing anything to stop his children persecuting and killing each other in his most merciful and loving name. Babies born in developed nations are called "blessings" and "little miracles", and prayers of thanks are spoken, distracting God from the women and babies dying all over the world where medicine and technology are inadequate to save them. Children take their pets to church for special kiddy services, where they are assured that Bobby The Cute Hamster will indeed go to Heaven, whilst thousands of God's other creations are busily eating, poisoning, infecting and parasitizing human beings the world over. No doubt they will also get to Heaven as long as they are cuddly enough. Daily, people call out to God before they are slaughtered by genocidal dictators, or die in the torture chamber because they were overheard making a joke about the president. God's time appears to be taken up by people thanking him for helping them with an exam, or for their unexpectedly meeting an old school friend. The people suffering a slow, agonizing death will just have to wait, sorry. Why don't I pray to God, to offer thanks, or ask for help, or just to chat? Because I do not believe there is a God to hear any prayers, let alone answer them. If there is a God, and he chooses to hear the trivial prayers of the healthy and well-off above the screams of the dying, then he must be a monster worthy of neither respect nor worship, but only contempt from any civilized being. No, I will not pray to your God - I wouldn't wish to interrupt his busy schedule of key-finding and game-blessing.

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