Last week, I went to my yearly Christmas production, and as usual, I enjoyed the music and disliked the drama part.
This year the play was particularly annoying. It was about a reporter whose three cell phones kept ringing. That was silly.
The wanna-be-hot-shot journalist gets sent to a small town on Christmas Eve, to emcee the town’s celebration. Once there, he meets two children. One of them wonders off, and people blame him for the disappearance.
It was a rainy night and the town was flooding. But the little girl ends up finding a rock on high ground where to rest, and angels come to comfort her and keep her safe. The journalist finds the lost child and then gives his life to Jesus.
What’s so annoying about that? Well, where are the angels every time thousands of children—in real life—wonder off or are stolen and subsequently sexually abused and/or murdered?
No, there aren’t any angels protecting children out there. That’s abundantly clear if we read the news.
Personally, I never saw angels when I was being trampled and abused by God-following adults as a kid. In fact, the same God fearing people are still trying to convince me that I’m ugly, worthless, and despicable. And, again, I haven’t seen angels.
My almost 5 year old asked me if there were angels. She said that she wouldn’t have nightmares if there were angels around. She wants a tall, strong, angel with pink hair and a garden dress. (Flowers, and carrots and stuff.)
It is most tempting to let her have her comfort dream.
We did have another talk about Santa Claus being parents. We were talking about how poor children may not get presents from Santa, not because they are bad, but because their parents don’t have money. The lady across the aisle of the bus from us gave me a glare. I hope she had indigestion, not disapproval of a myth that causes well-to-do kids to believe they are better than poorer ones.
Santa is a good analogy of Bible god, isn’t he?
Like Bible god, Santa only helps the privileged, doesn’t he?
And about the lady on the bus, I often wonder why people think that letting children believe lies is a good thing. What kind of world do we live in?
My babysitter goes to great lengths to have her kids believe in Santa. Santa loves her kids. Then she complains that someone imaginary gets all the credit for her work. I don’t get it.
I think the world has enough real magic without following Coca-cola marketing.
I think parents feel unable to keep their kids on the straight and narrow and mistakenly believe that if their children can fear someone bigger, they’ll turn out alright.
Santa even “sees you when you’re sleeping.” And God knows what you do in secret. Parents use that to get their kids to behave.
In sum, I don’t think parents do it out of love. There is a method to their madness.
Lorena — There’s a method to the clergy’s madness as well. I definitely think that some use God to keep people obedient, just as parents use Santa for the same ends.
Regarding your post, Sibboleth posted a hard-hitting commentary on the false belief that angels help us. I think it will ring true for you.
http://americanlibertarian.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/on-god-part-ii/
Or rather, that God helps us. Sorry about the error.
Ahab, excellent article. Thanks!
I agree, and good points here as well. Once you posit an interventionist God, the question of why He would help some people but not others rears its ugly head, and it basically has to come down to simple favouritism.
But in my less angry moments, I can see this sort of belief (at least in certain circumstances) as a kind of positive thinking, where people are constantly “counting their blessings”. It gets messier when they say “God/Jesus/Angels did X for me”, but I don’t think the belief itself is necessarily an entirely bad thing.
Mind you, I still let my kids believe in Santa.
Recovering Agnostic,
Thank you for commenting. I can totally see your point.
For instance, my cousin has cancer. And she is convinced that God has healed her. If she wants to believe that and the positive thinking helps her, hey why not?
For me, the negative side of belief comes when things don’t happen and we blame ourselves. For instance, when my cousin gets really sick again, she may start blaming herself for not having believed enough, given enough, prayed enough.
I keep hoping that it won’t come to that and that she will actually be healed.
Have to say, that drama just sounds abysmal.