If a bridge collapses and 100 drivers and passengers in their vehicles fall to their death, that’s not god. If a school bus on the edge of the collapse doesn’t fall in, that’s god. God saved those children. Shameless peddling of this false association to anything positive in the world, but complete immunity to all the unnecessary suffering is the ultimate con job of religion. And there’s few better at fleecing sheep in the name of god than Joyce Meyer, whose true deity is her un-quenching gluttony for wealth. For someone who supposedly believes in an eternity in heaven, she’s desperately eager to have every luxury in this life.

You know when you get frustrated at a traffic light? Perhaps god did that, and being stuck at that light prevented you from getting into a car accident.

You lost your job. Perhaps that’s god helping you out because it was a job you’d never be happy with.

This is the kind of irresponsible and mindless fluff Joyce Meyer propagates on a regular basis. And it’s popular. The hordes of adults still wishing to be children can’t get enough. Don’t grow up, just completely shed any personal responsibility and be a child to some imaginary sky daddy dreamt up by ignorant bigots thousands of years ago. Let Jesus take the wheel.

But what about simply addressing these issues as a rational thinker? Real solutions to real problems, no magic necessary.

If you get frustrated at traffic lights, grow up

First off, being stuck at a traffic light has no more effect of avoiding a future accident than having one. There have always been traffic lights. When you were a kid and your parents were driving, there were traffic lights. In busses, there were traffic lights. Now that you’re driving, there are traffic lights. To get stressed out and frustrated over this fact of driving is a sign of immaturity. This is not resolved with god, it’s resolved with applying common sense.

Don’t get uptight over known reality, just relax. Give yourself ample time to get where you are going. Use technology to understand traffic conditions. Anxiety will lead to aggressive driving and speeding which will increase your chances of having an accident. Driving with calm and caution won’t guarantee that you’ll never have an accident, but it will increase the percentages that you won’t. And that’s what life is all about, percentages, not absolutes, but degrees of separation.

If you lost your job, that sucks

If you lost your job because of outsourcing, automation, corporate greed or incompetence, that sucks. You may be between jobs for a while. You may get something better. You may have to work for less money. The job market, your skills and connections play into the result.

If you lost your job because you were irresponsible, that sucks. There’s a chance you’ll get something better, but typically irresponsibility leads to negative results over positive ones. This situation isn’t god doing you a favor. This is reality telling you to get your stuff together.

Never let Jesus take the wheel

Never drive intoxicated, keep your hands on the wheel, and follow the Rules of the Road. Driving is really easy, but it only takes a split second to destroy your life and the lives of others, so always be focused. Don’t text and drive. People have died in car accidents texting mindless babble. Don’t be one of those people. “I’m driving, talk in 30,” before you turn the key, it’s that simple. And never, never, never let Jesus take the wheel.

Conclusion

We need to spend less time on someone’s personal story or likability. We need to spend more time scrutinizing what people actually say. If it’s good, accept and propagate. If it’s nonsense, call it out. Any claim that words come from god shouldn’t be taken seriously. Anyone selling divine intervention for money is a fraud.

-James Kirk Wall

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