His Mysterious Ways

The Gallup poll I recently cited revealed the religiosity of various nations, including the fact that less affluent nations are more religious, more affluent less so. One exception to the rule is the United States; another is the Persian Gulf states. Funny thing about that.

Consider that the word Islam itself means “submission to the will of God,” and a popular adage in Christianity is “not my will but Thine be done.” Among the devout, individuality is suppressed – also a hallmark of Buddhism, a significantly less bellicose faith – and rightly so. I’d go so far as to say this is what distinguishes a religious from a secular society, except that the US fiercely defends individualism while brandishing its religiosity like the sword of an avenging angel.

So are Americans hypocrites, or is our particular brand of Calvinist Christianity to blame? Maybe it’s a matter of psychological projection whereby we assign our desires to God and take that as justification for our actions. God wanted us to wipe out the Indians and expand our borders, to destroy [godless] Communism, to take a stand against socialized medicine, to hold fast to our firearms. And now He probably wants us to bomb Iran. In the meantime, we credit Him with our affluence and assume we must be doing His will to have achieved this kind of success.

(And why should it be any surprise that atheists in America are more knowledgeable about religion? To open one’s eyes, one first needs to be able to see.)

We’re not alone, of course, as it would appear that some residents of the similarly affluent oil-rich PG states, birthplace of al Qaeda, feel they have an inside track on the will of Allah. Maybe they see His having put all that crude under their feet as their own justification for translating their will into His and back again.

So in the end, it’s not Thy will but mine be done. That ol’ God sure works in mysterious ways.