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Tuesday, January 17. 2012

For The Love Of God

What happened to the Green Bay Packers? How could they lose their first playoff game of 2012 and lose it in Lambeau Field? Now what? Like the end of every season, we wait until next season. But jeez, the first round, to the Giants?

Now I’m cheering for the San Francisco 49ers … (sigh)

Have you seen the commercial for Christian Mingle on TV? Okay, for the most part they are like all the other dating-slash-romance sites on the Internets, but this one has the most disturbing tag line of all: “Find God’s match for you!”
 That line is trademarked.

How would you know it’s “God’s match”? The ad goes on to say “God” is telling you (us) instead of waiting for God to find us a mate, “… it’s your time to act; it’s your move.”

Well, which is it? God’s match or our choice? It’s contradictory, in line with the conundrum of Christianity that’s been the mystery of all mysteries since the nuns first began their brainwashing … err … training … 50-plus years ago. God knows everything and knows before you are born your life from beginning to end — but you have free will!

So, if God knows that at the age of 18 I will reject everything I’ve been taught about God and supernatural deities, why wouldn’t he put something in my life to lead back to “The Way”? If not the proverbial burning bush, a vision at a key time, a vital moment when spirituality is playing a part in my life?

Like, on March 16, 1996 when I had the massive heart attack while waiting for a police officer to write a ticket for me in Mira Mesa. Once the ambulance arrived the paramedics loaded me in and began to do their thing to save my life. Those who have survived these types of myocardial infarctions know exactly how painful they are: the most horrific pain I’ve felt — ever.

Along with the pain came fear, the likes of which I had not experienced. Really, this was the life or death moment. That nice sports car left at the curb (a Mazda RX-7), all the money in my possession, none of that material stuff had any relevance, with the possible exception of my insurance card.

Years before I had joined a group that suggests finding a “higher power.” I never did, in a conventional sense, but had come to one important conclusion: I wasn’t an atheist. So I learned a couple prayers, mainly for meditative purposes and marched on.

Then the heart attack happened. As I lay on the gurney, scared to death (what a funny pun) listening to the paramedics doing their thing, I asked the Big Question: “Am I going to die?”

There were two paramedics in the ambulance and one never said a word to me until I asked that question. His answer: “Focus.”

All right. That succeeded in ramping up the fear. So I closed my eyes — and was promptly told not to fall asleep — and said what is affectionately known as my “morning routine:” two prayers and a little moment of introspection and gratitude. Instantaneously all the fear was replaced by total serenity. It’s not a feeling or moment easily described. There was absolute peace, a warm comfort and an assurance that whatever happened was going to be okay and that dying was as acceptable as living.

Here’s the interesting thing about that experience: there was nothing denominational about it. No vision of any deity, Christian or otherwise, no voice saying, “Tim, this is God talking and the nuns were right.”

Those three or four minutes in the ambulance confirmed what I believed: there was this greater spirit, higher power in this universe that could bring, at the very least, comfort to my life.

The point of that story being I’m not attacking people with spiritual beliefs or even the religious views I do not share. Most of us have some kind of spiritual belief, even if it is just in the connectedness we feel between each other.

So here we are in 2012, watching these ads for Christian Mingle on TV. They want us to join and find God’s match for us, but their advertising also says God is telling us it’s up to us to find that right person.

Curious, I decided to check them out and try a “free” membership. To start you have to answer a few questions, give up some contact and personal info and write a little something about yourself. Then you get some pop-up ads, one of which tells you to hurry! Pay the monthly price and upgrade your account! I didn’t.
 Here’s a tip: if you’re really interested and want to join, cancel your membership and they will offer you two months for the price of one: $29.95.

Obviously the owners of the site are doing it for profit. There is a membership fee and there are ads on the sight, aligned in much the same fashion as we find on Facebook. And that’s okay. People have been using religion to make a living for millennia. People trade on the name of God all the time, from commerce to politics and even entertainment. Tim Tebow is the latest example.
 The Denver Broncos management did the right thing when they designated Tebow their starting quarterback for the 2012 season.

But, from reading a large portion of their information it appears the owners of this site are true believers of Christianity. They have an online Bible, the verse of the day and various other features that indicate these people are either committed Christians — or some very good con artists. But I doubt that’s the case.

That’s not what makes me blanche whenever that commercial comes on TV. It’s this assertion that searching an online website for someone to be your mate will help you find “God’s match.” If it truly were God’s match, why would you have to search? Wouldn’t God put that person in your life and you’d know?

Seriously, what’s to stop a person like me from creating a profile under completely false pretenses? For a con artist, lying a little to sign up for the site and then creating a faux life for the purpose of taking advantage of people is quite easy.

If you choose a con artist, after perusing all the profiles Christian Mingle says best match you, well, whose fault is that? If God were responsible for finding your mate, then wouldn’t God be equally responsible for putting that con artist in your life?

What’s disturbing is these people make this claim, albeit in a backhanded way, that somehow God, in its Christian manifestation, is playing a direct role in putting couples together. All we have to do is create our profiles and pay the subscription fee. Then God will direct us to the right person to be our mate.

No doubt most people can figure out if someone is right for them after a couple dates. You might have some kind of physical attraction to the person but every time you think of talking to or seeing them again, you just don’t want to pick up that phone so the odds of getting too deeply involved with someone who can harm you is rather low.

But the emotionally vulnerable in society are always easy prey for the con artists of the world and religion is one of their favorite vehicles for scams. And being that this is done over the Internets, Christian Mingle could easily be used by con artists to prey on the vulnerable, even though they take precautions to protect their members from that type of person.

The question you have to ask yourself before you sign up for this or any other site that claims some sort of divine inspiration or direction: would God actually involve him (or her) self in a for profit venture? Does God want you to help make someone else rich while you’re looking for a mate? It just doesn’t square with the teachings of Christianity.

I’m not against Christian Mingle, may the site have a long existence and prosper. But what the site really does is put people in front of you who claim to share your religious beliefs. Nothing More. Claiming “God” is having a hand in who you choose for a mate seems quite cynical.

The old adage that’s been with us for centuries still applies: buyer beware.

This is what really bugs me about this site: 85% of Americans believe in a Higher Power — God — and well over half of those people believe in the Christian version. I wish I had thought of this first. It looks to be a great money-maker.

Now I’m going to go back to looking at naked women on the Internets … and crying about the Green Bay Packers losing to the New York Giants.
•••• •••• •••• ••••
Just a short post script; In case anyone was wondering, I got out of the ticket!

Posted by Tim Forkes in Religion and Society at 12:45 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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