Don't Bring God Into This

One year ago today, terrorists hijacked four airplanes and piloted them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon; the fourth plane crashed in a field. Thousands of people were killed.

One year later, a media hype of hitherto unknown proportions is "commemorating" the events. One of the few intelligent contributions comes from Dave Winer, who poses an interesting question on his weblog: "[L]ast night I saw there was a Frontline special on the spirituality of the event, and given that Frontline is so excellent, I had to give it a chance. It was very stimulating, both emotionally and intellectually. Well worth a watch. A common theme -- what kind of God lets this happen?" (Please note that Dave is quoting; the following is therefore not an answer to his opinion, but rather to the question posed in the TV documentary)

One shouldn't bring God into this. All too often, God is used merely as a cheap excuse to deny one's own responsibility. If you do something, whatever it is, you should be ready to face the consequences.

If you smoke, you should be prepared to get lung cancer; it's pointless to ask "why did God do this to me?". If you don't protect the environment, you should expect global warming, failed crops, floods and the like; it's pointless to ask "why did God do this?". If you alienate the entire Arab world with your foreign policy, you should be prepared to get some kind of hostile response; it's pointless to ask "why did God allow this to happen?"

If, however, you believe that whatever happens is not a consequence of your actions, but the result of divine intervention, then consider the following:

The Bible has several chapters where cities are attacked and/or destroyed. Think of Sodom and Gomorrah, for example. In each of these cases, the people living in these cities had violated against God's laws; when confronted by God and told to reconsider their way of life, they saw nothing wrong with what they did and just carried on with whatever they were doing. So God decided to teach them a lesson in humility.

So if you seriously ask, "why did God allow this to happen?", the answer that you'll find in the Bible is: to show you that your way is wrong; to make you reconsider what you are doing; to show you that you are not all that important and teach you a lesson in humilty; to bring you back to His path.

Seeing it like this, it is ironic that the events of 9-11 seemed to have had the exact opposite effect, and that the ones who are referring to God all the time are those who are particularly blind to this rather obvious message.

I'll turn my "religious fanatic" mode off now. As I said above, due to my upbringing as a Catholic in Europe I'm very, very reluctant to bring God into this (and I cannot understand why Americans seem to be doing it all the time). In the end, what it amounts to is that people, as individuals, and also as a collective, are responsible for what they do and have to face the consequences. Or, if you absolutely have to bring God into this, then please go all the way and try to gather from His teachings just why He was doing it. Acting one way as individuals with a free will and then making God responsible for the consequences of your actions is the easy way out, but it's just not acceptable.

Dave Winer closes his argument from the other perspective, and what he writes proves that he has understood what this is about: "9-11 was, imho, a small upheaval in getting to some kind of equilibrium in how the US participates in the world, both from the US perspective, and the world's perspective. That we got so much sympathy says how big the human heart is. That there wasn't more celebrating in the streets of world capitals says that they forgive us for our selfish attitude, which is back in force as if 9-11 never happened."

"So what were the lessons of 9-11 that the US has failed to learn? I think it's that God doesn't think we're as important as we do."