השם האל

Every time I hear or read the words "it's God's will", I get someone annoyed.

This might raise eyebrows of people who knows me as I'm known to believe in the existence of a personal omnipresent, omnipotent God from which all of Creation began. I even spend time arguing His existence through logic - yes, it is very possible if not mandatory - with a bunch of atheists on an Internet forum. I truly believe in the existence of a Creator.

It probably sounded like blasphemy to get annoyed with "God's will" but that would be twisting the actual issues I had with that seemingly proper word of acceptance of a greater Power's control over the universe.

The main problem I had with the simple three words of submission to God's will is the abuse of it.

How many times have you heard of people who sat back and did nothing whilst watching something they could prevent from happening, muttering "it's God's will"? I shook my head whilst reading about a little girl in US who died from illness because her parents decided to rely solely on God's will, praying religiously that she will miraculously be healed because of their unshakable faith. Instead finding her medical help, they prayed and prayed. And she died.

This reminded me of the popular acronym amongst evangelists: P.U.S.H. - "pray until something happens". Until everything is out of your hands, it's bollocks. I am not preaching that the faithful should defy the will of God and abandon faith.

What I'm saying is that it becomes your will that something happens when it is still within your powers to influence it. It is only "God's will" when you have done all you can and it still failed.

That, is actual God's will.

The above turns from sad to terrifying once you mate "God's will" with self-righteousness. Religious extremists like to quote "it's God's will" at everything that they do to justify the act, be it good or absolutely ludicrous. "Doing God's work" is just as popular, especially when it comes to forcing their own interpretation of faith in God upon others.

It is God's will that almost 3000 people died on September 11th, 2001 when two planes crashed into the World Trade Centre?

The hell it is. It is the will of madmen and the hijackers who flew the plane into the towers, committing mass murder of not just people but the souls of the loved one who died that day. It was the will of God to those who fought back on the planes though as documented from phone conversations moments before the jets crashed into the symbol of world capitalism - they tried to prevent it, they failed. It is definitely not the "will of God" to those who murdered the pilots and flew them all into oblivion.

What happened to the all-important freedom of will granted to Man? God could've stopped Adam from eating the Forbidden Fruit since He knew the outcome of it being Omnipresent et al, but He allowed it to happen anyway. Adam chose to eat the forbidden fruit. He could've said "no, thanks" to the Serpent but he did anyway.

God don't make knives to stab people; people make knives stab people.