Bigger picture now: The essence of religious monotheism is that everything comes from one God, which naturally leaves humans befuddled when “Bad things happen to good people.” The faithful nevertheless persevere in their faith, believing that God is unknowable to human minds. This is the essence, for example, of the Book of Job, which I felt compelled to reread this afternoon. (It is a deeply disturbing story precisely because it raises these fundamental issues about the nature of God, good and evil, etc.) Suffice it to say the last place to delve into these matters is a U.S. Senate debate two weeks before the election.No one has to believe this. Many people don’t. That is why it is better left out of political campaigns. (Repeat: [Richard] Mourdock will and should pay a price for this.) But Mourdock does believe this. No one who knows him or has interviewed him doubts that he’s a sincerely religious person. He was not expressing a lack of sympathy with rape victims (hence the term “horrible situation”).
And here is what Mourdock said in his own defense, clarifying his initial statement:
“God creates life, and that was my point. God does not want rape, and by no means was I suggesting that He does. Rape is a horrible thing, and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.”
But actually I don't want to talk about rape. I want to talk about religion.
For me, what Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock said is important not because it reveals his true beliefs about rape or abortion -- why we continue to be "shocked" or "outraged" when knuckle-dragging fundamentalist Republicans admit to believing what we already know they believe is beyond me -- but because Mourdock's moment of honesty reveals the absurdity of believing that God decides what happens in our lives, and then praising God for pulling our puppet strings.
Mourdock should be getting dinged for saying something really philosophically stupid and self-serving, which was that: God doesn't intend for rape to happen, but if a rape does happen and it results in pregnancy, God does intend that to happen, and for the rape victim to carry that rapist's fetus to term. Because life is precious, or something.
Let me make that real simple. Rape = not God's fault. Innocent life = God's plan. See how God wiggled out of that one? Pretty slick, huh?
Moreover, people like Mourdock are the first to go Tebowing the instant anything good happens in their lives. But when something bad happens? It's because somebody sinned against God. Or, as Jennifer Rubin says above about evil, God's mind is "unknowable." That's just another double standard, I'm sorry. That's not even an attempt at theodicy, it's just an intellectual shrug of the shoulders. We are letting God off way too easy here. If God made us in His image then certainly He didn't intend for us to be so dumb.
Ms. Rubin also mentions the Book of Job in defending Mourdock, and, well, God. That's a funny choice. That's the one where Satan makes a bet with God that he can make holy Job curse God's name if Satan makes Job suffer enough. God takes Satan's bet and gives him permission to put Job and his family through the wringer.
Now, if you are a fundamentalist who believes that the Bible is God's word, then there is nothing "unknowable" about God's intentions in the story of Job. It's written quite clearly and simply. God made a wager with the devil and let one of his most devout children be tortured and played with to prove a point. Job's friends, meanwhile, come to the very modern-Evangelical conclusion that Job must have sinned terribly against God to have earned so many creative torments, one after another. That was just salt in Job's God-inflicted wounds. Then toward the end of Job, God's voice rings out from the heavens and says Job isn't a sinner. And God defends himself by telling Job and his accusers how hard His job is, and how men really aren't qualified to question His decisions. Get over it, in other words.
The dramatic irony in all of it is that only the reader knows about God's bet with Satan. Job remains clueless to the end that he was celestially punked.
Overall, Job is a great story. It's one you'll want to tell your kids before bed, again and again, so the next time they say, "Why should I?" you can answer, "Because you're too stupid to understand why, so just do what I say." Which is pretty much what religious conservatives believe parents should tell their children, and what they think CEOs and Republican Presidents should tell us adults.
This is all a long way for me to say: the next time somebody says, "It was God's will," or "Thank God for your blessings," or "The Lord works in mysterious ways," you'll know that person is either dumb or full of shit.
UPDATE: The Eds. at conservative National Review thought Mourdock's absolute pro-life stance needed their special defense. But for the record, I'm not arguing the pro-life question in my post; I'm arguing about what is really God's fault, and how do believers explain evil in the world, like rape. Or how something "good" (an innocent baby) could come from something bad (rape), and at what point in that chain of events is God involved or not involved. Mourdock was just my launchpad into that discussion, which I find much more interesting and fundamental.
And that's why they must be exposed and opposed. Because their backwards thank/blame-God-for-everything attitude harms all of us.
