belief

the silent prince's lead levels have increased to 44. hubby and i will take him for another set of blood tests after a lunch meeting today to make certain that the medication he took before won't have any ill affects on him so that he can be put back on it again.

his doctor says that there must have been a high concentration of lead in his bones that has now seeped back out into his blood. it's what we want to happen, if it's what has to happen. this way the lead is coming out rather than staying attached to his bones.

still, the idea that he will have to be back on the chemet (his medication) isn't exactly pleasing to us. and the idea that we would have to try a different medication instead because the chemet is having adverse affects is even a less happy thought.

not long ago i read a blog about God; or more specifically about how there is no God.

Here are excerpts from the atheist manifesto

Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the obvious is overlooked as a matter of principle. The obvious must be observed and re-observed and argued for. This is a thankless job. It carries with it an aura of petulance and insensitivity. It is, moreover, a job that the atheist does not want.

Only the atheist recognizes the boundless narcissism and self-deceit of the saved. Only the atheist realizes how morally objectionable it is for survivors of a catastrophe to believe themselves spared by a loving God, while this same God drowned infants in their cribs. Because he refuses to cloak the reality of the world’s suffering in a cloying fantasy of eternal life, the atheist feels in his bones just how precious life is -- and, indeed, how unfortunate it is that millions of human beings suffer the most harrowing abridgements of their happiness for no good reason at all.

Of course, people of faith regularly assure one another that God is not responsible for human suffering. But how else can we understand the claim that God is both omniscient and omnipotent? There is no other way, and it is time for sane human beings to own up to this. This is the age-old problem of theodicy, of course, and we should consider it solved. If God exists, either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities, or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. Pious readers will now execute the following pirouette: God cannot be judged by merely human standards of morality. But, of course, human standards of morality are precisely what the faithful use to establish God’s goodness in the first place. And any God who could concern himself with something as trivial as gay marriage, or the name by which he is addressed in prayer, is not as inscrutable as all that. If He exists, the God of Abraham is not merely unworthy of the immensity of creation; he is unworthy even of man.

wow; even the atheists are asking why bad things happen to good people.

as someone, who hopes that she could be considered "good" by most standards, who is having something bad happen, and who is a believer, i think i might be somewhat qualified to despute the above.

i don't believe that God picks and chooses who to be nice to, nor does God suffer from a lack of care, or an inability to help. i don't think God cares more about gay marriage than the atrocities going on in the world.

i do believe, as a christian, that God made a choice about how intervention would take place in our lives and that is namely to be with us when the proverbial poop hits the fan and covers us in the muck of life. that's why so many victims of natural disasters and personal tragedies can still say: "yes, i believe." because they have God to be with while the bad stuff happens.

but why does the bad stuff happen?

well, it's a little thing called free will. we all want it; the opportunity to believe that we are in charge of our lives, the chance to make decisions for ourselves. bad stuff happens because good stuff just can't happen all the time... sometimes because we make bad decisions or because nature has a way of exercizing freedom too.

i know a man who is dying. the list of things that could kill him is long and he's suffering from all of it. i can't visit with him because i have a bad cold and just getting the sniffles could put him in the grave.

the closer he gets to the end, the more certain he is that God is with him. he knows that the lung cancer came from his smoking. he doesn't blame God for it nor does he expect God to cure him of it. instead his expectation is that God is there while he suffers, while he tells his family how much he loves them, while he travels back and forth to the hospital, while he enjoys what time he has left as best as he can.

"i don't know how people who don't believe get through this." he told me once. it's because he knows that ultimately they are alone, while he is never alone.

the fact is that i don't believe in the god that sam harris argues against in his manifesto. and maybe that's the problem. atheists don't know the God that i know; they only know the god of the fundamentalists and fanatics who more often than not spout judgement and impossible paradoxes of salvation they insist people are capable of achieving if they try hard enough.

i don't believe in a god who deems to save some while letting others suffer; i believe in God who saves, period.

i know just how precious life is because i know that God is with me while i live it. that fact alone is often the only thing that keeps my sanity from imploding when i'm faced with the bad stuff. my life, the life of my prince is precious because God is with us now.

i don't have to wait for some pie in the sky when i die instead i get to thank God for all the good things i am feasting on right now knowing that when the plate is empty God will be with me in my hunger.

i'm fond of saying that there are those who are going to be mighty suprised when they get to heaven... i expect that i will also be one of them. but in the meantime i will continue to trust in God and share my belief with others.

God's peace y'all.