If there is a god, I don't want to spend eternity with him

My mom’s best friend had a really tough year in 2009, and it had nothing to do with the financial crisis. Her husband was dying of cancer. It was a long, slow and painful death; not something anyone should go through, but unfortunately one that many do.

Anyway, on Thursday, after a year of caring for him and watching him waste away, she was told by the doctors that he should be moved into hospice for his last days. That evening this sad, but very healthy and vital lady descended the stairs in their house — and slipped. Gravity carried her down and she landed hard on her head; and the mind that was probably on her husband at the time, was smashed and shut down.

She was rushed to hospital and operated on but the doctors didn’t know how her brain would cope with the surgery or if she would indeed even regain consciousness. She didn’t and, in the meantime, her husband passed. Her two children, after seeing their dad die, went over to the hospital praying for a miracle, but instead were faced with the decision to turn off life support for their mom.

Now does this seem fair to anyone? The religious may say that god has some kind of master plan which we lowly humans can’t understand and that ultimately some good will come from this. Really? Well I just watched the news and today criminals forced some poor 10-year-old girl to watch as they murdered her grandmother. Also today, in Hammanskraal, two girls, aged 14 and 15, were raped while they were, ironically, walking back home from church. What possible good could come from that? And what “all-good” god could possibly justify these tactics to achieve his aims? Even Machiavelli would be shamed.

So I have to conclude that if there is indeed a god then he’s not the kind of good and nice being his adoring fans make him out to be. Probably he’s more like someone who should be on trial for war crimes against humanity. Either way, I guess we’ll all find out one day. Unfortunately that day seems to have arrived rather abruptly and unfairly for my mom’s best friend and her husband. Oh yeah, and for thousands of Haitians.