Musing about religion

Pat Summitt announced today that she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. She's only 59, she's in relatively good health, physically-wise, she could live for another 40 years with no memory of who or what she is, how to go to the bathroom, how to clean up after herself.

When the announcement was posted on the Summitt message boards, a lot of Summitt fans started posting their horror and dismay. And most of 'em said, "She and her family will be in my prayers."

And I'm thinking, Jee-sus.

It's getting worse now. Now they're saying stuff like:

Don`t b angry [...]. God has plans for all of us. Pat has touched many lives and God will allow her to touch many more with this illness. He knows she can handle this and in a way that His glory will be shown.

AND

God chooses a person like Pat to carry out his work. My thoughts are he has a plan, and Pat has been called upon to lead the charge

Such homilies just want to make me vomit on the ground.

I'm an atheist, and have been since I was 13. I simply don't understand how people can believe in God. But, it's worse than that. Looking at the absolute misery that has infested 90% of this planet for thousands of years, looking at the mistery now - the starvation in Somalia, the starvation in the Sudan, etc. etc. and etc., and there's still millions of people who can say, "Oh, God loves us."

If you believe God exists, and you see what he wroughts, how in the world can you worship such a psycho? And frankly the same thing would hold true for Islam, I would think. You've got a religion that refers to Allah/God as the merciful and the compassionate...would such a God really tell his followers to go out and kill all unbeleivers? Why worship such a God?

Apparently Pat still maintains her faith that God will give her strength to "fight this battle," and I would not for the worlds tell her that there is no god, she's going to have to fight this battle with doctors and money cuz prayer won't accomplish shit - it never has - but when you're in the grip of a deadly disease of course you grasp at all straws (though why anyone would grasp at the straw of religion I simply don't understand), but for those who are admirers of this woman, to talk so blithely of "God's plan" and "God's glory" - Jeez, it's just sickening.

THere is no god, there's just us. We can't depend on prayer to get us to a point where civilization prevails against the monsters at the gate - and within the gates - we've got to do it ourselves.