I’ve seen a lot of people on social media saying that God will save us from the coronavirus if we turn to God and place our trust in God. If they believe he/she/it/they will save us from it, then shouldn’t they also believe that God allowed the virus to run rampant and kill us? Or that God even created it in the first place? Some Christians clearly do believe God created the virus because I’ve seen people say things like “this is just a test”, or “God is punishing the wicked”.
If this is a test, I’d rather not worship something that sends plagues and then lifts them once enough people grovel and beg that please, for the love of god, stop it. If God is punishing the wicked, then why do I personally know good people who are sick? If God intended only to punish the wicked, then he/she/it is doing a pretty bad job containing it. “God’s ways are not our ways”? Indeed! God is love? So much for that.
If God exists, God is a bully. Certainly the Christian flavor of God is. Imagine if you will, a being that is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Compare that to us mere mortals: flawed, biased, weak, confined to a flesh prison, subject to mental and physical illness, no supernatural abilities or powers. Now, the Christian God, call him/her/it Father in Heaven, Elohim, Jesus H. Christ, what have you. I’m going to refer to Christian God as Kenny for the sake of my argument.
Kenny can do anything and everything, he’s the architect of creation. He hides in a magical place called heaven safely out of sight of his followers. From his invisible realm he demands obedience, subservience, praise, and worship from his terrestrial subjects I’ll call “Kennians”.
Kenny holds all the cards. He can enact justice or mercy with the flick of his finger. During a slow day at the office, he sends a pandemic on a whim causing global economic chaos, killing hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. Kennians around the world hold special fasts and prayers to appease Kenny. Lots of memes get shared on social media saying stuff such as “each like is a prayer and each share is ten prayers”. After several long months of pain, suffering, and death of his creations, Kenny’s bloodlust has been satiated. The Kennians’ dedicated worship efforts convince him to pull the cord on the pandemic. Why the fuck would anyone want to worship Kenny? Out of fear? Swap out Kenny’s name now for whatever you call your god. He overpowers you, controls you, toys with you, “tests” you, demands you do whatever he wants or threatens further punishment.
That’s a bully. That’s an abusive relationship that I definitely don’t need in my life. Christians, you can have your manipulative and capricious god. As for me? I’ll be washing my hands and hoping ventilator manufacturing ramps up while scientists work on cures and vaccines.
Things are really scary right now, but we’re not actually afraid of the virus. To suffer is the human condition. What we’re really afraid of is death. Nobody exists on purpose; our existence is inherently meaningless. We’re plucked from the void and thrust into life against our will, and are all going to eventually die. That should come as a surprise to no one. The coronavirus is just forcing us to consider that our timeline may be shorter. Life is the real plague, and we’ve been infected since birth.
Now, more than ever, is the time for us to try to ease the suffering of others however we safely can while maintaining social distancing. Help others. Be the loving god for them that can actually exist. Stop hoarding shit. Tip your Grubhub driver. Smile at the pharmacist. Say thank you to your weed dealer. Spread kindness and empathy. Be the person you should have been all along who was already infected with the plague and you just didn’t know how much time you had left. Just be less of a selfish asshole than you usually are and hopefully most of us will make it through this to forget our mortality once again and we can return to lashing out irrationally on social media at others for who they voted for. Or, remember the ever-looming threat of death and continue to ease the suffering of others as long as you are physically, mentally, and emotionally able.
With love,
Your friendly neighborhood existential nihilism pastafarian
