This has got to be the most baffling and incredible bit of news I've read in a long while:
"Legal case against God dismissed"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7673591.stm
Basically, a guy in Nebraska (US) sues god over the recent global calamities in the world, and the case is dismissed since god doesnt have an address. I really didnt know whether to laugh, cry, roll over, or what to do when I read this. One thing seems sure (and you can call me prejudiced) - it could only have happened in the US!
Quote:
"Mr Chambers sued God last year. He said God had threatened him and the people of Nebraska and had inflicted "widespread death, destruction and terrorisation of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants"."
Yes, well maybe god indeed has threatened the population of Nebraska. Or could it be possible that god as organised religion views it, doesnt exist?! Or could it be possible that god doesnt exist at all, that any spirituality we have might be far different to the simplistic heaven/hell/judgement day view of the world?! (Im mostly talking to the Christians here)
When religious people say 'god works in mysterious ways' and 'god surely has a deeper meaning when bad things happen, that something good will come out of it', is it not more likely that there is no such omnipotent creature? Surely if there was such a creature, it would have prevented things like WWII and the holocaust, the crusades, and every other similar human calamity in the world, because there is no way you could argue that they were all for the 'greater good'.
Could it be that organised religion was created at some point as a human organisation with very human goals (e.g. keeping people under control, gaining political power, invading foreign countries, etc)? Surely every self-ascribing Christian that is devoted has researched how the whole religion came into mainstream existence through Constantine, and without him we probably wouldnt even know about it these days.
Now, dont get me wrong, I think religion has also done a lot of good in helping people out and indeed giving people meaning whereas otherwise they might find their lives quite meaningless.
So, I think religion has provided society with some useful tools to deal with our existence, but Im hoping that within my lifetime I can see a time when we move on from that into something that has more to do with the self and less to do with some god in the clouds deciding on everyones fates.
