How come my life has no meaning if there is a God?

Let me make it clear from the outset that I have nothing against religion or religious people in general but some philosophies puzzle and concern me.

If I am only supposed to do whatever God wants me to do, then why bother living? I realise that the idea is that He has a purpose for each of us. However, if I supposedly have no say in this purpose, then I am basically a puppet. Following this traditional view, God is surely an authoritarian parent - his boundaries are too tight.









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As a wise woman said, in a talk I attended the other day: Give your children elastic, not string. Meaning you should gradually give your children more and more freedom. Speaking of string, when you are an authoritarian parent, like God, your children often end up resorting to more and more inventive ways of cheating you, in order to survive, mentally. Take the ridiculous Jewish invention, the eruv. This is when string is attached to various poles outside, creating an artificial enclosure, which some Jews pretend is actually a courtyard extension of their house. That way, they are not breaking God's commandment that they stay inside on Holy days, or at least refrain from carrying certain objects around outside (e.g. keys, medicines, babies). They seem to believe that God will be fooled into thinking that they are still inside. That's alright then. However, if God really was as short-sighted as Mr. Magoo, or as stupid as George W Bush, I would not trust him to peel my carrots, let alone save my soul. 


Jews behaving like sneaky teenagers or some Catholics sinning and automatically repenting, in the way a 4-year old might ("Sorry!", then immediately doing it again), is exactly the kind of off-spring God produces as an authoritarian parent.

In the past few weeks, 2 people have told me that they obey God and listen to God, as opposed to listening to what they themselves want. The first of these people was a woman I had only just met that evening. She was terribly sweet and pretty-looking, but I found her excessively annoying, because everything she said was referring to God. (Example: She talked about having looked at a book about step-parenting at the event we had just attended. Thinking she definitely sounded like she needed some good advice, I innocently enquired: "Did you buy it?" "I was blessed with it", came the reply. Feeling puzzled, I said nothing for a second, but she added, helpfully, "Somebody gave it to me"). She also explained that God has ensured that they are successfully selling off their furniture in preparation for an overseas move (and here I was thinking it was good old-fashioned luck). On the subject of how she and her husband came to sell their house, she explained, earnestly, that at first they had considered just letting it out, because One does not sell One's house without asking God first, but that a buyer was interested as soon as they advertised it for sale. I was dumstruck but nodded politely. Her 2 new step-children are therefore being dragged across the sea to a country they have very little connection to, because God, luckily, is calling her and her new husband to preach His gospel in her small, home-town. How lucky that it is not some hunger-ridden war-zone somewhere. Also, if God is conveniently helping them with absolutely everything, does this mean that He is also busy doing everything for other people? Giving them cancer; making sure they are raped; ensuring a gang kill them etc.?

The second of these people is a friend of mine who explained that she would never encourage her children to follow their hearts - that that is the definition of sin. She would instead encourage them to follow Jesus. My problem with this statement is three-fold really: (1) It feels very sad to teach someone that their own desires are basically evil and cannot be trusted. What would that do to a person's self-esteem? (2) As I said before, what is the point of living, if your only purpose is to fulfil somebody's else's plan for you? (3) How can you possibly know the difference between what is in your heart and what Jesus is telling you to do? Unless you only ever consult the Bible, rather than assuming that God speaks to you through your mind/thoughts.In which case, why do people ever pray for clarity? Perhaps the ones who do are not opposed to following their hearts? Anyway, I am just suspicious when people believe that God is conveniently telling them to do things they wish to do anyway. 

I am not saying that people who live like this are lying deliberately. Rather that they are, probably fooling themselves.

I wanted a snazzy end for this post, but I am afraid God did not bless me with one.  Git ;)

How come I have seen you naked, Miley?

This was going to be a damning indictment of the state of the world. A world in which young women practically prostitute themselves to achieve as many column inches as possible. I was going to say that actually, Adele managed perfectly well to capture her heartbreak in the (vaguely) similar wrecking-themed video to "Rolling in the deep" without taking her clothes off. I would have added that naturally, although Miley Cyrus is a mightily talented, confident and beautiful young woman, I would not want my daughters to watch her infamous "Wrecking ball" video. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see it here:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8

Why would I condemn it? Because Miley, despite her obvious talents, deemed it necessary to appear naked in this video. She also attempts to lick a sledge hammer in a seductive manner. So no, I would really, really not want my daughters to learn that this is a healthy and respectable way to get attention. However, it then occurred to me that I would never have seen Ms Cyrus' "Wrecking ball video" had it not been for the publicity her naked stunt secured.

I like her song. A lot. On its own merit, rather than because she is naked. But her nakedness is what alerted me to its existence. So, her stunt worked. What is the good of sticking to a "no nudity" principle and never making it, never managing to share your talent with anybody other than your friends and family, and being stuck in some job you hate, while you wait for the right manager to come along and discover you? Talented or not, perhaps it is okay to use your body to promote your career? Provided you are happy with the way you do it. Also, Miley manages to conceal all the most important bits anyway, so that she entices without revealing all. As a listener to Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 programme pointed out, if Miley is enjoying her career, is in control of it, and isn't being exploited, why not have her as a role model? She needs something to stand out from all the other singers.

I think that being naked because you choose to be, is perfectly acceptable and brave. Shedding your clothes because somebody else tells you to, or because you hope to make money simply by being naked, with no other talent, is very different. The only problem is, that young consumers may not distinguish between the naked models in videos and the artists who choose to be naked. However, this is not a good enough reason to dictate what is and is not acceptable.


Another Jeremy Vine listener pointed out how important it is to have positive female role-models who are not just famous for flaunting their sexuality. As there is such a prevalence of pornography, it is important to have a role-model who is famous for something non-sexual. That it would be good to have different kinds of female role models promoted in the media. This is all true of course, but if you are trying to get people to notice your singing, it is no good forging a career in politics.

I suspect that there would have been far less of an outcry if a young male star had stripped off. I guess the argument is that men hardly ever strip off (apart from in gay and fitness magazines). But is it okay to say that women cannot choose to strip off as they add to the growing (flesh) mound of desperate hopefuls stripping off in men's magazines? 

Surely the point of equality and emancipation is that women (or men) can do what we like, as long as we don't hurt anyone. Miley Cyrus seems emancipated  not emaciated, so she will hopefully not make women feel that they have to achieve an unrealistic body size in order to feel attractive. What is the point of freedom, if we are only free to do what other people approve of? Miley stands for freedom (from judgement), strength and talent - what's not to like?


So, here's to the beautiful, talented and confident women and men, who choose to pursue their ambitions using everything available to them - good for you and good luck x 

How come I can't count?

So, there I was, getting all worked up about the injustice of it all. Put more accurately, between my house-buying induced stress, my PMT-induced homone levels, my (self-inflicted) lack of sleep and the school issue, I was just about finished.

I spent much of the past week ranting about how unjust it was that my child's reading group were getting one less book per week than some other children in the year, leaving her bored with the same old books. I even sent in my long-suffering husband who chatted to the classroom assistant. She denied that others were reading 2 books a week, which incensed and confused me: Surely she could have admitted it?!

Our daughter (aged 6) picked up on some of our frustration and decided to help (I am obviously not as discreet as I ought to be!). So, she told the teacher that we thought her books should be harder. The teacher responded by writing a moody, patronising note in the communication book, explaining why she should not be reading harder books. Great! 

We then wrote a (very) long, polite, explanatory note, saying that there had been a misunderstanding: She did once read a very easy book, but we were happy with the level of her books generally. We merely wanted everyone to be able to read the same amount of books every week. That would be fair. Also, perhaps our daughter's in the wrong group. I spent the next couple of days dreading the teacher's response - what if she dragged me into the classroom and shouted at me for questioning her methods?

Then today, looking through our child's communication book, a sinking feeling set in: I counted the books the teacher and we had commented on every week. For the past couple of weeks, our daughter had read just as many as (perhaps) everybody else: 3. Oops. Because I had not noticed that the teacher only ever comments on one book per week, I had only been counting those she did comment on.

Having admitted the mistake to my friends, what else do I plan to do? What any responsible adult would do, of course: Tear - out - our - note - in - the - book.........and if it does turn out that the teacher has already read it and just failed to comment? Well, I shall just have to tell her the truth: That, clearly, I am a twonk. Who can't count......