Their Time?

I had a conversation with a dear friend on Friday that had my head spinning for the better part of the weekend. Other things contributed to my head spinning as well, and I will address those shortly. I am still unsure as to what my friend and I were talking about that led us to the topics of fate, death and some sort of cosmic plan, but we got there - and a most interesting debate ensued. You see, my friend believes that when someone dies, it is "their time" to die. That, when the last breath is drawn, it is God's will that made it happen - and God has called the dead person home, as it were. I, on the other hand, do not subscribe to this point of view. At least not in most cases.

As I have stated in previous blogs, I consider myself to be a Christian (more on this topic later). However, one of the biggest stumbling blocks for me on the way back to believerhood when I was a kid was the subject of "God's Plan". It has been my belief for a long time now that too many religious folk use their God or their religious dogma as a crutch (and as a weapon, but I digress) when life's crap hits the proverbial fan. Things that often happen in life are too scary or overwhelming to be handled with any sort of logic, so things get chalked up to God's plan or God's will. Now, I am no master theologian, however I have spent some time with the Good Book and cannot for the life of me remember any passages that spell out what God's plan might be, and how people dying fall into said plan.

What I do believe is that when God created man, he gave man consciousness - and free will. We were not created to be automatons, and we are all given a choice as to whether or not we will follow the Word of God or not. It is this that keeps God entertained (for now), and makes life worth living. It is this gift that God bestowed on mankind that powers my stance that there is no predetermination. It is a paradox of the highest order to think that God gave us free will and the ability to make choices, insofar that no matter what you choose to do with your life from one minute to the next, your destiny is already determined by some cosmic plan of the Maker. To think this way is to completely ignore the gift of free will and the harsh reality of causality. That, and the well-documented Biblical clash between Good and Evil that we are confronted with almost every day of our lives.

Perhaps it was the timing of this particular conversation with my dear friend - coinciding with the passing of my Grandfather (Vincenzo Blando) on Thursday, some religious soul-searching I have been doing of late, continued extended family headaches, a complete dearth of a good night's sleep (The Man is teething and has ear infections) over the past couple of weeks, or my worrying over the results of my echo-cardio stress test on Friday afternoon - that made it affect me so.

I do believe that some people are "called home" by God. My beliefs tell me that God can do whatever He wishes to whomever He chooses. My Grandfather passed away last Thursday after long bouts with cancer. He was 91. Is it fair to suggest that it was "his time"? Sure it is. But, is it God's will every time someone dies? Or, every time anything happens anywhere on the planet? I would argue a wholehearted NO. Is it God's will when a pedophile rapes, tortures and kills a small child? Is it God's will that people starve to death in Africa while their countries are torn apart by civil war? Is it God's will that millions of people have died from AIDS? Cancer? Is it God's plan when a family of four is wiped off the face of the earth after being hit head-on by a drunk driver? To say that all of these things are the result of God's will or God's plan is to completely let the human race (and Satan) off the hook for the choices they make. If it were God's will that the victim of a psycho pedophile die a tortuous death, then why prosecute the offender? If it were God's will for a family of four to be killed by a drunk driver, should the drunk driver not be set free - as they were merely an instrument of God's penultimate plan? People who attribute every earthly life occurrence and other sundry horrible event to God's will have completely forgotten some seriously-important parts of the Bible - you know, the ones where we are taught to resist the temptations of evil. This is the argument that has always made me scratch my head when I see how many hard-core Rightists are pro-death penalty. It makes no sense.

It is my belief that God gave the commandments to Moses and to the people of Israel as guidelines for the difference between right and wrong. In the immortal words of the Bloodhound Gang in their timeless classic Lift Your Head Up High (And Blow Your Brains Out) - "Life is short and hard like a bodybuilding elf". Life is short. Life is hard. I can totally understand people's need to make sense of it. If chalking it all up to God's plan is how you choose to cope, then that is your right. But I ask this, if I were to have a heart attack today and die - is it my time or God's will? Or, is it a result of my eating retarded amounts of fast food for every meal for the better part of a decade? Was it God's will that I ate three sandwiches and a super-sized fries washed down with a vat of cola, or was it me making really stupid dietary choices? It had NOTHING to do with God's will. It was MY will that led me to those choices. Was there some sort of cosmic battle going on between God's teachings and Satan's temptations? Sure there was. Vince's Cholesterol Scoreboard: God - 0. Satan - 0. Ronald McDonald - 208.

My friend and I have agreed to disagree on the subject, and I am okay with that. One of these days I will learn to let this type of thing go... Okay, maybe not.

[Currently Listening: Matisyahu - "King Without a Crown (Live)"]