On Thanking God for Cruel Randomness

[Darkover]

The practice of thanking God for safety and protection, for food and drink, for health and well-being, or for any other "blessings", might appear to be a commendable habit, but it is actually deeply troubling because of what it implies.

A miraculously intervening God is an unjust capricious God, sparing some and saving others, apparently on a whim.

If God really was selecting people to protect on the basis of some bigger picture, then you would not expect the number of people who are killed in various ways to be subject to the rules of probability. However, I can predict with remarkable accuracy the road toll each year, the number of people who will be struck by lightning, the number of people who will be killed by shark attacks, and so on. Each of these causes of death has a certain rate of occurrence that is quite predictable.

It is not just the number of deaths that is predictable, it is the whole probability distribution of deaths that is predictable. If you know the average number of deaths by car accidents in a city, then it is possible to calculate all the percentiles for that city. For example, you can estimate the numbers of deaths that would be exceeded only once every ten years. When you do this for many cities, you find that the 1-in-10-year extremes are exceeded in approximately 10% of cities each year. This is exactly what you would expect if the world was random, but not what you would expect if anyone was in control.

Car accidents, diseases, and industrial accidents all follow the same probability distribution, known as the "Poisson distribution". The Poisson probability distribution is based on the assumption that accidents happen randomly. It is simply not possible for tragedies to appear to follow the Poisson probability distribution while actually being controlled by God. Any interventions of God that interfere in the random processes would be detectable. If they are not detectable, then they are random and God is not involved.

If we accept that the world is random, and that bad things happen to everyone by chance, where does that leave God? Either he does not exist, or he has no power, or he does not care. Whichever of those answers you prefer, God does not deserve our thanks.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Basically- it's worse than that when you think about it... It's more of a- 'Please don't let these awful things happen to me or my loved ones God- can't you pick on someone else?' How many people pray for EVERYONE? Most of us are more selfish than that.

But I guess it depends. If there truly is a God then- they are sadistic- surely. Probably would be a good idea to try and get on their good side. People seem to be 'punished' no matter what though! People get killed when they are at worship even.

Seems more likely it is probability. In which case- no point in whinning about our shitty lot in life. No one's listening. No one's going to take responsibility for it. No amount of praying is going to change it. It's like rolling the dice and getting snake eyes and moaning how unfair it is we didn't roll two sixes. We all DO complain though. We feel we have the right to. If we shouldn't feel the need to be thankful, we shouldn't complain either- in theory. I guess we're not REALLY complaining about Godly things though. We're complaining about human problems but because we don't want to take responsibility for them- we blame God.

 

[San_Miguel]

I think you're hitting on something very profound. Many religious traditions focus on blessings and good fortune, but as a Catholic I would say my faith is fundamentally rooted in the idea that enduring suffering is what really brings us closer to God. The book of Job in the Old Testament is about a man with awful luck and terrible diseases who still remains faithful to God. The whole message is that we should trust that if God is allowing us to suffer, there is a purpose. Our job is not to know the purpose, but to remain faithful through the suffering.

Also remember this: God came to our world to suffer himself, and to teach us how to suffer. He came as the lowly human carpenter, Jesus of Nazareth, and he died a horrible, "excruciating" (from the Latin phrase "from the cross") death so that we could learn how to endure our own suffering. When we lose a loved one or when our own lives seem to be in shambles, we should think of Christ's death on the cross and embrace our suffering with the same willingness. "Pick up your cross", they say, and carry it confidently knowing that Jesus is beside you carrying his as well. No matter how the randomness of the world affects us, Christ teaches us how to respond. After all, death and suffering are not "evil" things, so we can't be too upset with God for allowing them to happen. He sees the big picture and we do not, so all we can do is embrace our pains and suffer alongside Christ.

I know it feels unfair, but once you pick up your Cross and embrace the suffering, I promise you'll see the beauty which God has planned for your life.

Stay strong my friend, for you are dearly loved.