I was watching CNN this morning and they interviewed a Baptist preacher from New Orleans. He asserted, as one might predict, that God is in control of everything and that everything happens for the best. I find this to be a degree of optimism that is well into the degree of foolishness. Everything happens for the best... just not the best for you. A horrible plague that wiped out the human race would "be for the best," just not for your best, unless you happen to be a rat, cockroach or blowfly. Then, it would be for the best. Likewise, I find it ridiculous to argue that the destruction wrought by hurricane Katrina a year ago was for "the best" according to some mystical divine plan that ultimately results in some good for this preacher, his congregation, or for the people of New Orleans in general. On the other hand, if looked at from the point of view of a population of Norwegian rats, Katrina was a wonderful event. There are suddenly new places to live, a greater food supply, and fewer humans in your neighborhood trying to kill you. One of the great conceits of Judeo-Christian religion in general is that humans are somehow more important to God than any other animate or inanimate thing. To my way of thinking, this is a form of infantilism. Every infant wants to (must!) believe that it is the center of its universe, that universe consisting primarily of a mother and father that respond to its every need without so much as language being involved... as if by magic. Personally, I'm yet to see good evidence that humanity is of any greater importance in the overall scheme of existence than is any other living thing. I can't find anything that holds up a clear sign before my eyes of a universe that was created for our benefit or that regards us with any particular affection. I can't find anything that seems sacred in a divine sense. The word "sacred," at least here in the Western, modern world, appears to signify something that we find particularly agreeable to the extent that it inspires a sense of awe and becomes symbolic of something that we feel is greater than ourselves. "Sacred" is, effectively, that quality of a thing that most resembles a blanket or stuffed animal that brings a sense of security to a toddler. The opposite quality, "profane," are those things we find disagreeable to a similar extent — all those things which disgust or frighten us to the greatest extent to which we are capable of conceiving those emotions. When I think about what is regarded as sacred in the context of Judeo-Christian religion, I come up with a list of things that is overwhelmingly of human artifacts — buildings, sculptures, etc. Even things that are of natural origin in which the sacred is perceived are seen to have this quality precisely because they resemble the things on that list. For example, in the constant stream of natural objects perceived as bearing the image of Christ, the image itself is seen as looking like Christ because it matches up to some work of art. The fact of the matter is that nobody actually knows what Christ looked like, if indeed he looked like anything at all and existed in a biological sense. When the image of a bearded Caucasian male is seen on an oyster shell or sandwich, it is simply assumed that it looks like Christ, and not some anonymous hippie who died in a car crash in 1969. Christ himself is seen as sacred largely because stories about him contain reference to a triumph over death and decay, the ultimate profanity (i.e., the most unpleasant things we can imagine). Were it otherwise, the "miracle" of the resurrection would not be a central point of the religion itself. This is a rather egocentric view of the universe, though. Death and decay are of primary importance in the continuation of life. All those things that stink and ooze are precisely those things from which life arises. Without them, life literally could not exist in any form in which we actually find it. Still, we fear them, because they remind us that we ourselves will someday be reduced to stinking and oozing, and the idea that life other than our own will arise from our remains is horrible in the same way that we might find an intestinal parasite to be horrible. This underlies every sacred and profane thing that becomes so due to its being viewed through the lens of religion of Near Eastern origin. This is where these religions experience a profound break with reality, a paradox that cannot be resolved and so is painted over with concepts such as mystery and faith. These are essentially codewords for avoidance of truths about reality that are too scary to confront head-on, and it's why the aforementioned preacher comes out with statements such as "we must continue to walk in faith." That could just as easily be shortened to "we must continue to walk," thus stating simply that those affected must continue to take an active role in deciding their own destiny. The addition of "in faith," however, signifies that this continuation of activity must be performed in a manner which does not call into question the existence of the paradox that all these people who spent all this time praying and perhaps doing good things for others, and also in denying themselves things that are prohibited according to their religious code of conduct, still got wiped out by a massive release of energy that was either permitted or manufactured by the very God for whom they were doing it. To approach the question of "why" without the covering of faith calls into question the very existence of a division between sacred and profane which, in turn, would leave no reason to believe in a special place for humanity in the big, bad universe. It entails the terrible thought that mommy and daddy aren't actually there at all, or that if they are, they don't consider us their special little boys and girls; they love those kids down the block more than they love us, and they answer those children's cries of hunger more readily than our own, even though the kids down the block might turn out to be Norwegian rat pups! If that's the case, then even if we do assume the existence of a divine consciousness separate from natural, empirical reality, we're forced to come to the conclusion that it considers our lives no more important than those of creatures we consider insignificant or, even worse, inimical and at counter-purpose to our own. To the infant mind, this might well seem even worse than that consciousness not existing at all. If that divinity doesn't exist, we are simply on our own. If that divinity does exist, then it is sometimes trying to do great harm to us for the benefit of precisely those creatures we fear and are repulsed by. That divinity causes us to decay, for example, in order to provide meals for maggots that it just might love more than it loves us. What a terrible scenario for creatures who find their significance in self-reflection!