God Hates Electricity
There have been times when I’ve had fairly heated debates with friends of mine who also happen to be atheist/agnostic/skeptical. Given that I come from a strong Christian background, I understand religious arguments very well. My friends, however, generally don’t, and so many of them reject religion based on what they see as its “stupidity” or “backwardness”. An example might be the relatively condescending tone the bible takes towards women, or similar stances in Islam.
One of the things I’ve always tried to point out to them is that if god exists, he can pretty much do anything he wants (”If God, then anything”). If there really is an all powerful god, there’s no reason he couldn’t dislike gays or prefer that men dominate women. It seems silly to me, but it’s his prerogative.
Occassionally, despite my best efforts to resist criticizing religion based on some of its sillier rituals or beliefs, I have to laugh at some of the more inane ones out there. Take this condominium complex in Florida for example. It’s primarily populated by orthodox Jews, who are prohibited from doing any kind of work during the sabbath. Apparently, it’s also against the law to do anything that would “create energy”, including pushing an elevator button (we’ll ignore the high-school drop out that wrote those words in the article).
Now, seriously, I have to ask: in what imaginable way could the creator of the universe possibly benefit from such strict adherence to sabbath law? For that matter, what does he get out of you not working at all on the Sabbath? Is god really so petty that he actually needs you to take a day of rest to commemorate his lazy ass not working an extra day so that we would all have had rocket cars from Day 1? You think we have a cool universe now? Just imagine what we would have if not for that stupid 7th day!
Then again, what do I know? God really could be hanging out in his house outside of the universe, wringing his hands at the very possibilty (!) of Itzak Spiegalman contemplating how bad he needs to push the elevator button. “Oh noes!!!!”, god may cry, “if Itzak pushes that button I’m done for! Done for I tell you! What ever will I do if he completes an electrical circuit and takes an elevator up to his condo?”
Like I said, If God then anything. At what point, however, do you stop and ponder the stupidity of religious minutia and wonder if all of this petty nonsense points to taking a religion too far, or perhaps points to the seemingly very human origin of such insipid rigidity?
