While watching a documentary this week about WWII, an aging fighter pilot who had dropped massive amounts of bombs on the city of Tokyo, killing up to 200,000+ civilians, more than those killed in Hiroshima, was reflecting on the conflicting feelings he had at the time regarding his role in the taking of the lives of innocent men, women, and children. He had sought advice from his church, and with a detached resolved, he relayed how the pastor simply said that he knew God had a plan, that although we might not understand it, it was clear to him that they were doing Gods work.
My daughter was born with Nystagmus, a neurological based eye condition. She also has a spinal deviation that'll likely require surgery, as well as a few other issues she's had to or will have to face. Yet she's actually quite fortunate when compared with the severity and degree of complications that many children contend with. Through my own internet searching, as I researched and grew to understand her own conditions, I would occasionally follow a meandering chain of links and find myself reading about or seeing images of far more severe and horrible conditions that afflict newborns. Disfiguring, disabling and life altering conditions. The kind of things that break one's heart to imagine what struggles lie ahead.
One of my strongest memories of time spent with my late mother-in-law is the last Halloween we spent together. She had come down from Roseville and was staying with us during a time at which my daughter's "special needs" school had a field trip to a popular Pumpkin Patch. I joined them at the event during my lunch break, and as Nicole and I wandered about, observing many of the innocent children struggling with various, severely debilitating diseases, we talked about how horrific it was. She stated then and several times following that she could not believe there was a God, and would not believe any greater being would subject an innocent child to such extreme adversity and suffering.
I could not agree with her more. Yet from experience, I know that those unwavering in their faith or devotion might be inclined to rationalize away these occurrences as being a part of God's plan. They might suggest there's a lesson the child and the parent have the opportunity to learn, that any suffering of the child will be rewarded in Heaven or another world, or most abhorrently, that there's something related to justice or punishment associated with the situation.
To all of those ignorant assertions, as to the suggestion that God might have a plan through which 100,000+ innocent victims would be justifiably sacrificed, I say "bullshit". No, that's not strong enough... I scream, shout and cry out loud, "bullshit!"
No higher power sets forth the edict that any of these acts should happen. This is the chaos and randomness that is life. Nothing more. Shit happens, much of it by complete chance, and some of it, the most awful stuff IMHO, at the hands of man, in the name of greed, money, and religion.
Yet there are many people that need to belief there's a reasons for these things, and need to attribute them to fate, karma, God, and any other number of imaginary causes. In fact, there is a spectacular documentary from 1988 by Joseph Campbell entitled "The Power Of Myth" that covers this very human need and condition in great detail. A wonderful article about this show can be found here, and I've included the text in this post for posterity. And for local friends, I have it if you'd like to borrow it.
It's the 21st century, people. Believing in myths has no more place in an evolved society then do witch burnings, slavery, or long distance commercial featuring Carrot-Top. I can only hope that the trends to question, re-examine, challenge and ultimately discard such antiquated beliefs and practices continue. I like to think that the world my children become adults in will be a world guided not by myth, mysticism or blind faith, but one guided by knowledge, research, facts and evidence.
