Christians speak of a loved one getting “called home.” That it was “their time.” Why did the person die? Because it was time. Why was it time? Only their god knows.
That god has the phone manners of a telemarketer. Some poor Joe, while making love to his wife, gets called home just prior to achieving the big O. What timing. Why not let Joe get his rocks off one last time?
Apparently, the Lord was planning this event for awhile, letting plaque build up in Joe’s coronary arteries. That way he could make it look like Joe had a heart attack. But the heart attack isn’t what really caused Joe to die. By picking up his phone and dialing, a god did.
Think of Joe’s poor wife. What a bummer of a last moment to have branded onto the folds of your memory. One moment she’s thinking, Joe’s really having at it. The next, What in sweaty hell! Then panic. Then heart-wrenching sorrow. Embarrassment when talking to the EMTs and coroner. Private shame when telling friends, “He died in his sleep.” Unspoken anger when they lamely respond, “Well, that’s the best way to go.” The burning urge to scream, There’s no best way to go. They all result in his being gone!
“God called him home” is a cognitive Band-aid placed over a whopper of a boo-boo . . . to use the technical term. It may help blunt the pain. But then again, it may not — the little, real research I’ve seen on the matter is mixed.
The sometimes helpful, sometimes harmless god-talk always perpetuates a way of thinking about the universe that humanity needs to outgrow. Just as children grow out of belief in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, we need to shed the fantasy that there is some invisible big daddy making the important calls in our lives.
Fantasy worlds are for children and playtime; reality is where adults live.
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Tags: atheism, belief, Christianity
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