Footnote but at the beginning:
For context and understanding: I grew up indoctrinated in evangelical christianity and lived fully immersed in it for 33 years. Ministry, bible college, church four times a week, the whole shebang. My whole social circle was in church. My life was dictated by it. When I use the word ‘god’ (and when I hear others use it) I associated it with the christian god, even though I am aware that some people use it interchangeably whit universe, energy, force etc. So when I speak of god I am talking about the evangelical god I was raised with (that’s why I specifically mention universe separately, cause the same issue applies to that community too) and when I talk about blessings I mean the thing I was taught god gives you. I know others may use the word blessing in a different way. Generally speaking though, we use it to describe something given to us from the outside, not something we created. Language matters.
The night of the Grammys, the 5th of February, celebrities took turns in accepting awards and thanking god and their parents for their success.
One speech stood out, because it was shared everywhere on social media the next day. In her speech, Beyonce thanked god for protecting her. I couldn’t help but think that this was a nod to another black man killed by the police just a couple of days earlier. She closed her eyes for a moment, visibly emotional at the fact that she was up there. Alive, safe and successful.
That same night more than 50.000 (!) people died in Turkey and Syria because of a deadly earthquake. No divine protection for them I guess.
This is not about Beyonce - this is about anyone who thanks god for anything. I have a question:
Why you?
Why would god protect Beyonce and not Tyre Nichols?
Why her and not the t h o u s a n d s of dead people in Syria?
Why did you get your dream house while others are being bombed?
Why did you get the job you wanted but god couldn’t heal someones child?
A couple of days ago I saw a British influencer posting from a press trip to Turkey sponsored by Instagram and the caption read: "the universe blessed me with this trip".
While a war is raging in Gaza, in Sudan, people are being killed in Congo and so many other personal tragedies happen every day, everywhere in the world - people are still using this language to justify their achievements.
More and more, this is the reason why I simply must lean towards atheism (my friend likes to tell me I am a humanist, not an atheist) and that's the only thing that logically makes sense to me.
I'm so tired of the language that "god blessed me with this or that or the universe blessed me” or worse: “if you love god, he will xyz” “if you work on yourself, the universe will xyz”.
Let’s unpack this shit.