So, this was a reflective essay I had to write for AP Language, I thought I would share it here just to try and get some thoughts going, and see if I can't get a discussion started.
Thank you for the good, forget the bad
“All I can say is it’s a good thing God was watching over me,” My dad said after a four-wheeler had just landed on top of him, pressing his body into the sand, but leaving him relatively unharmed.
It seems that in today’s world everyone has to have some belief in religion, whether it be Christianity, Islam, Scientology, anything, so long as you believe in some supreme being. Beyond that, one is encouraged to admit that this supreme being is responsible for the creation of all things, and that as such, the supreme being knows all that is happening, all that is going to happen, and can control everything that happens to us. The being is both omniscient and omnipotent. This “rule” seems especially prominent here in “Happy Valley Mormonville, Utah,” where everyone is of the same religion. Seldom can someone spend a day in Mormonville and not here something along the lines of “Thank God.” My question has always been, why? Why do we thank God for things (especially the good) and never blame God for the bad, or never think that the reason for the things happening was just because of what happened to be there, chance.
Obviously religion is a big thing, especially here in the United States of America, where one of the cardinal reasons for the founding of the nation was freedom of religion. The phrase “In God We Trust” can be found on every piece of currency belonging to the country, and can also be found on many of the national monuments. In 1994 the words to the pledge of allegiance changed to include the words “under God.” We all love God, we all believe in God, and we all want to believe that God cares for each and every one of us. We worship and dedicate numerous hours to our God or religion in general, and many of our morals and customs can be found in God and our personal religion. Because we spend so much time thinking about God, and because we incorporate him into so many aspects of our lives, it has become a common practice to thank God when something good happens. The odd thing, when something bad happens, God’s name is hardly ever mentioned… At least, not in the “I can’t believe God is doing this to me” sense.
For example, I have seen many professional athletes go down with injuries that are pretty severe. The injuries sustained force the athlete to be side lined for months, and causes them to miss many games. Never once have I heard these athletes say something such as “I can’t believe God would cripple my teams chances like this. You know, I’m pretty upset with him right now.” Instead they might come out and say, “I just have to thank God that it wasn’t a worse injury.” Here is where a problem arises, why would someone thank God for an injury, just because God didn’t make it worse than it is. The person has admitted already that God is dictating what is happening by saying they would like to thank God for making the injury less bad than it could have been. Why then is it not God’s fault for the injury in the first place. Why is everyone so afraid to admit to themselves that maybe, just maybe, God isn’t as fair as one might want to think. Maybe, God isn’t as perfect as is believed.
My sister, father and I went biking once on a trail up a canyon. We went down the trail on the route A and eventually got tired and turned back to glide our way back to our car. When we arrived at the starting point of the trail, my sister saw the route B. Now, route B was almost entirely an uphill trail, so there was no way my dad and I were going to attempt climbing it on our bikes, but my sister was only six at the time, so she didn’t see our reasoning. All she saw was the giant, steep hill that rose about 40 yards up and came down to meet a bridge. As most six year olds would do, she looked at my dad and asked, “Can we ride down that?” My dad said yes, for some demented reason, and he and my sister walked their bikes to the top. My sisters bike was one of the crappy ones parents get for kids to learn how to ride a bike. No brake handles, at least no brake handles that worked… Instead the bakes were engaged by moving the pedals on the bike in a backwards fashion. So they reached the top of the monstrous hill, and my dad told her to go first. She strapped her helmet on, hopped on the bike, and began her descent down the mountain reaching maybe 25 miles per hour in a matter of seconds. Problem, she was quite unexperienced obviously, and began to get scared so she tried to engage her brakes. Not the best of ideas when tour on a steep hill and have to push your pedals backwards, the pedals hit the pavement and caused the bike to swerve out of control only to dump her off right before she hit the bridge, and about a foot away from the giant metal pole that held the bridge up, or worse the creek below. So my dad comes running down the plateau to see if she was ok, like any good father would do and we all packed up to get out of there immediately. While in the car I remember my dad turning and saying, “We’re lucky Heavenly Father (God) was watching out for us.”
The truth is, anyone and really everyone that believes in a religion does this. It seems to go with the whole worshiping idea, we can only attribute God to good things. It helps us keep the “perfect” image we have in our heads, and in so doing helps us remain content and happy with our life. Does it make sense though? I mean, the whole belief that everything we touch, see, taste and hear was made my a singular, all powerful, perfect (by his standards) being aside… Is only talking to God about the things we are thankful for really the right thing to do? Everyone will say yes; for the same reasons that they do it though. They are afraid of God, and don’t want to do anything that might anger Him, because well… Then he will punish them, but they won’t get mad at Him then either. It seems we are suck with the belief of a God, or at least with the vision and belief we have of him at the time, until people wake up. Until people open their eyes and realize that any perfect being would want to be treated the exact same as their peers, and wouldn’t demand all the worshiping frenzy that goes on, we will be stuck with hearing the numerous “Thank God,” phrases. It is quite a pity really… But as the phrase goes, it is what it is. And unfortunately it probably will never change.
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