Blogger 365 Day 76 - Faithless

     This blog is going to be inspired by something that happened yesterday on Facebook.  You see, I was on said Facebook yesterday, probably playing Bingo or some other annoying app when I looked on the right hand side of the screen at a relatively new feature they have, "trending", which is basically just a name or story of some sort that is getting a lot of mentions on the web, a feature that I am sure was inspired by Twitter.  In any event, the top story in the trending section was that the son of Fred Phelps had said that his dad was near death.

     For those not in the states and for those that live under a rock in the states, Fred Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, a church (using that term very loosely here) that spends their time picketing funerals of some celebrities (in Pittsburgh they picketed the funeral of Mr. Rogers) as well as soldiers who have been killed in action, shouting chants and carrying placards, the most noticeable being signs that state "God Hates Fags", and suggesting that the funeral taking place is God's judgement on the issue.

     Far be it for me to let an opportunity like this go to waste, I posted as my status that maybe God just hates Fred Phelps.  It was snark from me to be sure, but my status did garner a response from one of my friends, Tom, who wrote "What good people need to do is not pay attention to the attention-seeking Fred Phelps. And as you know, Matt, God doesn't hate. Phelps has been listening to the wrong power all this time. His thoughts align with the ruler of the world below."  

     I would agree that Fred Phelps is just an attention seeker and people should pay him as little mind as is possible.   But I am also a non believer, my comment was more snark that religious thought.  I understand that there are many people to whom their faith plays a direct and positive role in their lives, and I would argue Phelps no more speaks on behalf of Christianity than Islamic fundamentalists are the true beacons of that religion.  I tend to think that people should be judged based on who they are and what they do moreso than what they believe, and those that would suggest that non believers have no moral compass speaks more for their need to believe than it does what actually takes place in a non believers head.  I know that I do not need to believe in a higher power to understand simple concepts like murder or stealing is wrong, and I am afraid of those people to whom without religion they would think those ideas are okay or even remotely acceptable.  

      Similarly I find that my time on this earth is  going to be defined  by the type of person I am, not by my belief in a celestial higher power.  If I am going to be eternally damned because of a lack of belief, I will take that judgement over a celestial Stalinism any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  The prisons are full of people who have repented (or claimed to), hoping to play their cosmic "Get Out of Jail Free" card and if that is what it takes in order to be accepted into the kingdom of Heaven, then that is a cult of personality that I want no part of.

      That brings us back to Fred Phelps, who seems to believe in a spiteful God, one who issues judgement in the form of death and destruction for those who stray from his path.  But if Phelps is right and there is a God and he is as spiteful as Phelps believes, then maybe my status wasn't so snarky after all, Phelps just guessed wrong on who God actually hates.