God: Your Personal Butler

There are idiots in this world who truly believe that god’s actively looking out for them – and I mean like on a daily basis.

Um, no. He’s not. These poor misguided cherry-picking nutbags are just suffering from the delusion that he is.

We’ve all seen these bottom-feeding “psychics” who take advantage of weak, gullible people through rather lame (and obvious) cold reading techniques. They toss out random generalities and vague, mundane references that could apply to most anyone. Human beings are natural puzzle solving creatures, so the subject finds (or rather manufactures) a personal connection to whatever vague reference the psychic offers up. In the mind of an idiot this creates the illusion of what people who are in on the scam call a hit. And then the psychic will pepper those vague generalities with specific references that are most certain to miss. But from time to time they’ll score a lucky hit with something so specific (and seemingly so impossible to guess) that the subject’s desperate need for confirmation will have them conveniently ignore all the ones that missed.

We in the Brotherhood call this, “counting the hits and ignoring the misses.”

Well, the same proclivity is seen with those who so desperately need to see god’s positive involvement in their life and the world around them.

It doesn’t matter if they’re cherry-picking hypocrites or extreme wacko fundamentalists who believe in and follow the letter of bible lunacy. What they all have in common is their delusion-reinforcing need to see what they want to see. Their confirmation bias has them giving god credit for the good in the world (counting the hits) and conveniently playing dumb when things go bad (ignoring the misses).

Nicole: A Textbook Case Study

Submitted for your approval are the following Facebook wall postings by a former coworker who can’t go 30 minutes without attributing god’s personal involvement in her life when something good or positive happens – even if it’s found in the most mundane and non-impactful aspect of daily existence. Nicole incessantly spouts this crap like it’s some sort of religious tic that she can’t control. Let’s explore just a few of the dozens of her myopic hits and how they conflict with the misses.

Burnt chicken, people. BURNT FUCKING CHICKEN. You see, god is good and he’s looking out for her…because over-cooked poultry is such an awful thing to have to endure.

DING! That’s a big hit, Nicole!

By the way, I’ve been burning shit in my oven for 25 years and the house never burned down.

And just when life couldn’t possibly turn more tragic, this poor victim of life-crushing misfortune left her cell phone at the restaurant…and went back to miraculously find it. Unfortunately, Nicole’s truck lost its ability to magically heal itself (like everyone else’s automobile can), but she’s not dying of cancer and she has a family. Like what are the odds of having your health and a family? Amazing!

DING! DING! DING! More big hits for the most mundane of situations! God is good!

FYI, I misplace my cell phone DAILY. That’s every single god damn day. And, miracle of miracles, somehow I manage to find it without divine intervention.

Nicole not only asked for people to pray for her daughter’s professor to let her into the class…

…but she actually believes that the prayers were the reason for her getting in.

DING! Another big hit for the most unlikely event ever! Imagine that. Someone on a waiting list actually getting whatever they were waiting for. God is good!

Burnt chicken, a misplaced cell phone, and a classroom filled to capacity. Mundane, unimportant trivial events in the grand scheme of things. And god had a hand in all of it, until…

Chicken is burnt to a crisp, god is good. Baby is burnt to a crisp…um, er, uh…well, let’s just sweep that one under the rug and remain conveniently silent as to causality and the involvement of the almighty. But she wants you to “pray for the babies” for no articulated reason while she runs off to search for a hit elsewhere.

BUZZ! That’s a miss, and Nicole conveniently ignored it.

Big Hairy Sweaty Balls for Jesus

I mean, seriously people. What kind of person has the temerity, the unmitigated gall…okay, perhaps it’s stupidity…to see god’s involvement in the burnt chicken incident [her exact words: "I know God is looking out for me..."] and then not acknowledge the glaring dichotomy in her burnt baby posting? You’d think that any sane and intellectually honest person would say, “You know what? Maybe I’m reading too deeply into my trivial daily occurrences and ascribing god’s good grace to random chance that yields a positive result.”

This woman is raising a child, and it scares me senseless that she’s shaping her mind with such utter nonsense, bad thinking, superstition, gullibility, weakness, and general stupidity.

Christians set up the rules so that their test for god’s watchful eye and goodness can never fail. Just count the hits and ignore the misses and you’ll never be let down.

Yes, god is good…as long as you ignore anything in his world that isn’t.