In Which I'm Still Not Smited (Smote? Smitten?)

I can only assume a few things at this point.

Someone's praying against my smiting.
I'm being set up for a last-minute, unexpected smiting.
Nobody's there to smite me.

Now, I could go through the whole mental gymnastics of "maybe it's XYZ". I'm sure I could make up speculative conclusions all day long, if I had nothing else to do on my day off. But let's just work with these for now.

Possibility #1: Someone's praying against my smiting.

I know that I have friends and family who are of various flavors of belief, from the dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist to the lax and liberal. And they're people I really care about and I like to think care about me. Therefore it's not altogether unlikely that one or more of them may be praying that their god NOT smite me. That I get delivered from smiting, I guess, would be a particularly prayer-ful way of putting it.

If such is the case I envision it going something to the tune of, "Dear Lord, please show her the error of her ways [or that you're merciful, or that you exist] and show mercy on her by not smiting her. She knows not what she says; forgive her her boastful ways and let her instead see thy love, Amen."

Here's the problem I have with that. OK, there's more than one actually. First off, if your god has a plan for each and every one of us, as many believers of various flavors are fond of saying, then really why ask the guy to change the plan at all? Isn't that suggesting that the plan, by being alterable, is somehow flawed? And that you have a better idea than the Big Guy of what the plan should be?

The other problem is this: "Prove you're up there by doing nothing" just isn't good enough for me. Doing nothing is just as sound proof that there was nobody there to answer the phone in the first place.

So, God, if you're up there, if you're checking your voice mail, whatevs, then please do what you do best and ignore their pleas for mercy. I think many readers here will agree that I got this coming to me.

Possibility #2: I'm being set up for a last-minute smiting.

Well that's just kind of cheating, isn't it? I mean, we all die. What's it prove if that smiting is years or decades in coming and doesn't happen until I'm old and withered? What's it prove if it could be interpreted as anything else, such as old age, another person's malice (we have free will, right? Believers, you agree with me on this one?), another person's bad driving, etc? If this is going to be a prove me wrong type smiting, it really needs to be an absolutely crystal clear, no-false-interpreting-about-it smiting.

Hubby proposes a deadline, though I'm not so sure I'm the one who can be making such a decision. But he suggests that since God was able to make everything in the space of seven days according to scripture, then a week seems like a reasonable amount of time to pull off a smiting. Now, if we go by that, you'll note that the counter at the bottom-left portion of this blog puts me at about 3 days and change at the time of this writing. But I'll keep it going, even after a week, just to see.

Possibility #3: Nobody's there to smite me.

I'm still leaning to this one. Occam's Razor states that all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is the likeliest one. And this one's about as simple and likely as it gets.

Think you're the only atheist in Maine? Think again! http://centralmaineatheists.blogspot.com/ or @CMEAA on Twitter. Central Maine Atheist Alliance: Wicked good without god since 2010.

Tags: atheism, faith, god, prayer, smite&malice, smitewatch2011

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Comment by Cecilia on January 4, 2011 at 12:43pm: There is another possibility: there are the anti-smiters praying their little hearts out but there is another group of pro-smiters praying their little hearts out. So, the outcome is still unclear. Will the anti-smiters surge ahead in prayer-power and smite the pro-smiters? Or will the pro-smiters gain strength and out-pray the anit-smiters? Or, perhaps, they will maintain a kind of equilibrium where the pro-smiters and the anti-smiters cancel each other out?

Comment by Laura Foster on January 4, 2011 at 1:57pm: It sounds a bit like celestial air hockey, when you put it that way!

Comment by amy on January 4, 2011 at 1:58pm: it's funny i'm reading this today. i told some jewish chick her if god was actually real then he's just a dick for everything that went down with the flood and s & G. she then, in return, asked if he was such a tyrant why was i still alive. i told her it was cos jesus gave us grace. she didn't like that. so, i said maybe he's just not real. she didn't appreciate either one of my answers. ah well, i tried.

Comment by Mausy5043 on January 4, 2011 at 2:26pm: No smiting going on here either. Is god ... chi-i-icken? ;-)

A deadline of a week sounds great. I'm getting fed up with waiting.

But , if this challenge is being countered by prayer, maybe more people are needed to join the challenge?

How about we set up a challenge for a worldwide mass-smiting?

And do I have the perfect date for it... How about starting on the 22nd of May until the 28th?

Comment by Laura Foster on January 4, 2011 at 3:24pm: Well, that sounds all right, but I do want to once again make it clear that we don't want the smiting to include any bystanders; only we who volunteer for it.

But then, according to scripture, God's got a long history of taking out piles of innocent bystanders in the smiting of sinners. S&G* and Noah's flood being a couple excellent examples.

*(not Simon & Garfunkel)

Now is the date you've chosen to coincide with the latest "world gonna end" lunacy?

Comment by Mausy5043 on January 4, 2011 at 3:34pm: How did you guess?

Comment by Mausy5043 on January 4, 2011 at 3:48pm: On the bystanders (or "collateral damage" as it is more divinely known) : You're right the conditions must be very clearly set. Not just what counts as a proper smiting and what doesn't but also who is included or excluded and of course when. This should be a SMART smiting.

I was thinking along the lines of a website or something where people could register themselves to be voluntarily smitten/smote. No idea how to set something like that up though :-( Then god could just look at the register on the server and kind of work his/her/its way down the list during that week. www.SoSmiteMe.now or something sound good.

Some media attention might be nice too.

Comment by Laura Foster on January 4, 2011 at 4:03pm: So would some money. LOL. I can't even afford a domain name.

Comment by Thew on January 4, 2011 at 8:13pm: Don't you dare tempt the "good" lord like that. Haven't you ever heard of hell? He made it out of love for all of us.

Comment by Laura Foster on January 4, 2011 at 8:29pm: Yeah, well... I've been drinking a lot of water, like that troll suggested.

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