On Republican Gaffes, God Sanctioned Rape, and the Dangers of Divine Plans

Well what do you know, another month goes by, and another Republican politician in the United States confounds the public with his views on rape. Last time it was Todd Akin who showed his ignorance of human physiology when he asserted that women physically cannot fall pregnant if it is ‘legitimate rape’, which then has people wondering what the corollary to this term could possibly be (illegitimate rape?). This time we have Richard Mourdock from Indiana, who dropped this interesting quote during a debate:

“I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realise that life is that gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something God intended to happen.”

Mourdock is an anti-abortion candidate, which is an odd enough concept that begs us to consider the converse side; a pro-abortion candidate. But in this instance he was outlining why he believes that abortions performed after rape should be outlawed, and the only time such procedures be allowed is when the mother’s life is in jeopardy.

Now I find the abortion issue to be a contentious one at the best of times, but moving past the inherent grey areas that this inevitably invokes, I can’t help but think that the backlash faced by Mourdock because of his words is a somewhat undeserved and hypocritical reaction by a lot of people who would generally consider themselves a Christian.

Don’t get me wrong here; I think that the idea of a divinely sanctioned rape reaches for the heights of absurdity. But that being said, the view he is expressing is far from inconsistent with mainstream Christians thought.

How many times, upon hearing some bad news, or even in general discussions with Christians, do you hear the plan of a god invoked as the ersatz explanation. We may find it hard to face the capricious nature of things such as cancer striking down people seemingly at random, and thus hope to find solace in some reason for this happening. But the fact of the matter is that some things in this world are not only beyond our control, but also beyond meaningful interpretation.
By this I mean that not everything has a purpose, and though it might seem easier to bear the hand that life has dealt us if we are willing to take on faith that everything has a purpose, this view not only has the bulk of history working against it (why I ask you was the holocaust necessary?), but it also has a lot of dangerous implications.

If you do take the view that a god does have a plan, and that we are all slowly meandering through life on paths set in advance by the almighty, then you have to accept the full implications of this position. If there is a plan, then things such as rape, cancer, murder, the holocaust and so on; all these things must be a part of this plan. After all, if they weren’t a part of the plan, then surely they would have had a massive butterfly effect on things by now.

Not only do I find the divine plan way of thinking unsatisfactory, and uncaring, but I also see the inherent dangers in living your life on what is essentially an amusement park ride; where you have no control, and are just along for the trip.

Something that can be used to retroactively permit and explain any action can also be used in the present to justify any future actions. This is where the danger lies. Accepting things that have happened as a part of a god’s plan strips you of any responsibility of your own; it leads to fatalism, and to an acceptance of whatever situations arise.

The idea of a divine plan is untenable at the best of times, and dangerous at the worst. It can offer consolation, but as we have seen in the case of Mr Mourdock, it can also offer a twisted sense of justification and acceptance after the fact.

Let me know what you think in the comments, especially if you are a Christian (or otherwise) who hold to the view that everything happens for a reason.

Cheers,

MM

Wednesday's Words - Week 1

Welcome to the first installment of my hopefully weekly Wednesdays Words. The basic aim here is to spur me on in my blogging with a weekly commitment, based around my thoughts of one of the weeks daily quotes supplied dutifully by my trusty desk calendar.
So then, here goes......

“When the time is right, the answers will come” – P.K. Shaw

I chose this inaugural quote out of the seven available to me this week not because I agree with it, but because of the rant which it inspired.
I am not a fan of this quote, as I don’t like mysterious agents being invoked that ensure everything will be ‘just fine’. To say that answers will come at some mystically appointed right time doesn’t gel with me as I don’t believe there is any all powerful being at work putting our lives together. To believe such a thing raises some seriously disturbing questions regarding people whose lives were lived in less than desirable circumstances.

Destiny either isn't real, or its indifferent

But I do see the benefits in getting people to be positive about the future, particularly when it comes to the uneasy fact that it is full of unknowns. However rather than invoking some predestined path set out for you in an uncertain future, I prefer to look at the possibilities inherent in this seemingly random future.
The late founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, once gave a commencement speech to a group of students beginning their tenure at university which I previously blogged on here. In it he goes over a similar concept to that which I have been discussing (unknown paths leading into the future), that I think really hits the nail on the head.
First a little background.
After officially dropping out of his university course, the young Steve Jobs decided to hang around campus for a bit and take part in things that he was previously unable to, due to course commitments. Reed College apparently had the best calligraphy instruction available in the United States at the time, and the beautifully scripted labels and posters around the college grounds piqued Jobs’ interest. He enrolled in the class and developed an appreciation for the importance of typography in graphical representation. His early exposure to things like font families, serif versus sans-serif and proportional spacing was something that Jobs would later draw upon when developing the early Apple computers, which were among the first personal computers to display text in anything other than a monospaced, generic font.

Yes that's right, its an apple.....

Jobs mentioned this in his address to those students’ years ago to help highlight the uncertainty of our future, but also the importance of what we are doing, and of not disregarding where we are just because we don’t know where it will take us. He summed up the crux of his argument in the closing statement of this portion of his speech.

“Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.”

You need to trust in something, not because there is something out there working for you (as in karma, destiny, gods, or whatever), but because in trusting that there is something out there for you, you are implicitly trusting in yourself. Jobs mentioned it himself when he says that such trust in the future gives you confidence, regardless of what you ground it in. I would go a step further and say it is better to place your trust in yourself, and your own faculties, rather than in some possibly existent third party.
Don’t just trust in the future because you believe it has been laid out before you; trust in yourself because you are the one who will actually do it!
If the future were fixed, if there was some destiny out there with Mathew James Morton written on it, I am not so sure I would want it. If there was something out there withholding the answers from me until the right time came along, I don’t think I would cheerfully take them when said time did arrive.
The enlightenment taught us that human agency was where we should place our bets, not on some higher power, whatever form it may take. Trusting in foreordained events and personal destinies was so widely believed in the past that in the event of a shipwreck, people would clamber over whomever stood between them and safety, believing that God had already decided who lived and who died.
Accepting human agency as the driving force in our lives means we don’t sit around waiting for answers; we go out and find them. We don’t wait to see where our path in life takes us; we walk boldly ahead in the unknown knowing that though our path isn’t part of some divine plan, it is nevertheless our path to make, and our privilege to forge it.
I am going to close this post with a quote which I may have already recently mentioned (though I can’t remember), but which all the same seems to fit well with the topic.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” – Soren Kierkegaard

I hope that you enjoyed this first installment of Wednesdays Words. I think it went quite well, but I have the niggling thought at the back of my mind that this is a somewhat lame attempt at regularity.
Please let me know what you think in the comments; I crave your approval!
MM