I have decided I am heartily sick of one particular comment. You will all have heard it, it goes along the lines of: "why does God allow all the poverty and starvation in the world?"
You really think that is God's fault?
Really?
Apparently people do - and think that the existence of poverty and starvation is a kind of proof that God cannot exist.
So. You don't think that God has provided us with enough resources in this creation to feed, clothe and house everyone?
Because I think He has. I think the problem is distribution. I think the people on earth are really very bad at distribution.
So let us consider a case study of an acquaintance of mine - who shall remain nameless.
He loves football a lot. He subscribes to Sky Sports - and BT Sports and he has a season ticket to Chelsea. Now that's quite an investment. £900-£1250 for the season ticket. According to the Sky website the Sports package is £22 on top of the £21,50 for Sky. So that's coming up to £500 a year - without even allowing for the BT Sports bolt on. Let's say a conservative £1700 a year for the lot. That's just under $2,800.
That is close to the per capita GDP for Laos - and just behind Pakistan's $3056. According to the IMF (data found here on wikipedia). According to that data. There are 47 countries whose per capita GDP is less than the cost (pre tax) of following Premiership football to the max. Our anonymous Chelsea season ticket holder needs to earn about £3000 before tax to keep doing that. This is a reasonable number to look at - as if it went to charity - it would be deductiible! £3000 is about $4900 dollars and now exceeds the per capita GDP of 63 countries.
And where does his £3000 of pre tax cash go? Well Sky pays most of their share to the Premiership - who pay their teams - who pay their players. Last week Chelsea fielded 11 millionaires with another 5 on the bench. Any profits made by Chelsea end up with Roman Abramovich, who, according to therichest.com was worth $13.6 billion back in May 2013 (although other web sources put the poor man back at only $10.6 billion).
Phew! So at least it's all going to good homes.
Now my friend cries out (trust me he does) "I earn this money - I work very hard for it. And I have the right to spend it however I want!"
And, guess what. I agree with him!
God gave us all free will. So we all get to choose what to do with our hard earned money.
I just think that what my friend doesn't get to do is blame poverty on God.
***
There is of course an addendum to this. My friend would ask - why does God not arrange the distribution fairly in the first place?
But would you want Him to do that? Really?
My friend would. But only by creating much, much more in the way of resoruces, so the poverty stricken and starving could get taken care of without anything being taken away from him personally!
The world has enough food and enough money - it is the choices of all of us with free will (and I do include myself in that category) means that it is unfairly distributed.
It makes no sense to blame that on God.
If you think God shouldnt allow it - then be careful what you wish for - because most people read the book of Amos - which is a pretty clear vision of God's opinion of people who don't look after the poor - and think that it makes God the bad guy when he wants to punish the haves for ignoring the have nots!
So...
- If you don't want God to forcibly take what is yours - that's fine.
- If you don't want to freely give what's yours - that is fine too.
But stop blaming Him for not sorting it out.
Recent Comments