An Excuse is Not a Plan...

"God has a plan."

I will either roll my eyes or set my jaw depending on when I hear it. 

It's one of the first things that broke the armor of religious belief for me. The fist chink in the wall. The first crack in the dam.

I was baptized at a very young age for my church. It's not a baptizing babies religion, it's a baptism when the person is old enough to understand what they are doing. The belief is that children are innocent and if they were to die they'd go right to heaven. But at 5 or 6 I was ready. I told my minister that I knew the difference between right and wrong and so if he didn't baptize me if I died I would go to hell. He couldn't argue with me on the point and I was baptized.

So then when we were in Bible study sessions and I would ask questions that he had no answers for and I would get the "God has a plan" pat response I would nod and think okay. God has a plan. Which worked until I was maybe 10 or 11. And then I started to ask more questions with much bigger consequences in my mind. What happens to people that our missionaries don't reach? Do they all go to hell? God has a plan. Why did that earthquake happen and all of those people died? God has a plan. Why? God has a plan.

And I would go back and forth on it. God has a plan, that's great. It means everything is working just fine no matter what it seems like from my view. But if God has a plan then why do we have free will? Because if He knows what's going to happen, and it's all already designed then we really don't have free will right? We are just toys He's moving around a board until we get to the end game. His plan. 

And then finally, what sort of plan has children dying from cancer? What sort of plan has entire populations starving to death? Who makes a plan where entire communities are burned to the ground by a lightning strike? Which then you get the argument for a lot of it, that God didn't do that, people did that. But God did do that if he has a plan. God did make that happen if all of the bad, shitty, horrible stuff that happens is part of his plan. 

Why, if you were an omnipotent being, why would you need to kill a child to bring their parents to believing in your comfort? Why, if you were an omnipotent being, would you need to wreck a person's life with drug and alcohol addictions just so they could see The Light and minister to other people with drug and alcohol addictions? Why don't you make a plan where everyone is fed, and healthy, and not addicted, and not killing each other and not dying from diseases that can't be treated? I mean, how about that being your plan?

And of course, that's met with, we don't know why he does these things, but he has a plan.

Why would you vote for Trump? He's amoral. He's not a decent human. 

Well god has a plan. 

Why would that plan include you voting for a person like Trump?

It has never made sense. It never will make sense. 

God has a plan is either used for comfort, which is the most benign use. Or it's used for an excuse which is lazy and despicable.

If you never have to worry about actually doing the right thing then you don't ever have to do the right thing. It's up there with people who do shitty things and then say, "Only god can judge me!" Nah, we are all judging you. Stop doing shitty things. 

I know that thinking god has a plan gave my parents comfort when three of their children died. I know it brought my mother comfort when Dad died before her, on her birthday. And I am grateful for that comfort. 

But I don't believe it. And if I did I would have to say it was a terrible plan. My parents were already devout, killing two babies and 6 year old did not make them better Christians. And that's what it would have to have been, right? If their deaths were part of god's plan, he would have killed them. That's a plan. 

Or there was no plan. It was a horrible tragedy. Sometimes children die and we just have to keep going. It's not part of a plan, but it is part of life.

So yeah, when I read that "god has a plan" I will either roll my eyes and keep my mouth shut because it is being used to give someone comfort or I will clench my jaw and walk away because someone is using it as an excuse.