I recently made a couple of posts on Twitter with the tag #godslove.  I’m sure that surprised anyone that knows me.  I thought I would outline the genesis of this and explain why I would be posting about gods love, given my feelings about theism.

There’s a traffic light on the corner of Old Annapolis Rd and Columbia Rd. where I sit almost every morning on the way to work.  At that particular corner is a church. This church has a sign where the pastor conveys important messages to the public, generally explaining how our lives are governed by an entity whose presence can only be known through… yes, the pastor’s teachings.

This past August I was confronted with the following message every morning for two weeks:

Every day I had to read that.  Every day thinking about all the pain, suffering and misery there is in the world.  All the times that random happenstance takes a life or, worse, leaves one in unending suffering.  Not just people, all the times animals are left by the side of the road to gasp their last.

Is this about anger with god?  Of course not. I don’t think there is such a thing.

So, why do I care?

Because this particular bit of hypocrisy smacks me in the face every time a plane crashes and some moron thanks god for their life, implicitly stating that those that perished were due their god’s wrath.

The people who did not go into the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, the ones who moved away from New Orleans before Katrina and any number of others who feel that they were owed some particular grace from the universe while others suffered or perished.

Every day for two weeks.

I hatched a plan.  I would periodically tweet how gods love actually worked.

“God so loved the people of The New Orleans area that on this day in 2005 he sent them Katrina #godslove”

“God so loved America that he sent his faithful to destroy the WTC and Pentagon on this Day in 2001 #godslove”

The second one definitely sparked a little more, ahem, interest.   Some people were very passionate about their god not having anything to do with the terrorist attacks.   I have to give my friends who had a visceral response to this quite a bit of credit, not only did they respect me enough to reply but they listened to my explanation.

As much as my explanations satisfied my friends of my position (and my compassion without the benefit of their beliefs), I think the folks at Mr. Deity are much more eloquent and funny.




Since I didn’t accumulate any new enemies and the interactions with my friends ended positively, I will continue to point out the failings of gods love and mercy.