Actually, I think it irritates me almost as much when people go around saying that “life is unfair.” No, life isn’t fair OR unfair. The universe isn’t nice OR unnice, coddling and sweet OR hostile and icky and cold.
Look, I don’t know if there’s some kind of unknowable overall purpose to things any more than anyone else does. I don’t know if there’s a grand overarching reason why I’ve had so many crappy things happen to me. HOWEVER, I DO think it’s clear that all the evidence points in one direction: there isn’t a purpose that is going to be simple and easily understandable for or by anyone, and it just doesn’t make sense to try to fit things into that category. Some people who’ve had a lot of crappy things happen to them will do this, but I won’t do it.
I’ve just finished reading several of Bishop John Shelby Spong’s newest books, and that’s what a lot of his theology is (the above, I mean, and the rest of this paragraph too.) There is no heavenly “reward and punishment” system. God is not sitting around, waiting to strike down one person because they didn’t pray enough, or had a negative attitude, or didn’t burn the right kind of incense, OR waiting to heap benefits on another because they hit the correct behavior/thinking/stupid pet trick/whatever jackpot. Football teams do not win because of prayer. Great parking spaces are not found because of prayer. People don’t get cancer or kidney stones or epilepsy or horrible injuries from car accidents or… whatever… because they didn’t pray, or attracted negative energy, or whatever it was.
You conflate “unfair” with “cruel.” The universe is unfair in that fairness doesn’t influence what happens. Yes, my B-5 Marcus Cole quote used the word hostile, but I interpret that in the same way we use “hostile” to refer to an environment like Antarctica or outer space: one whose conditions are difficult and not particularly well suited to what we want.
The problem is, we as human beings have a great gift for seeing patterns and cause-and-effect. We see them so readily that we see them where they’re not.
My friend says she was so stunned, she just mumbled something about needing to lie down and the other woman left. I don’t know what I’d have replied to that either…even with time to think about it, I just haven’t come up with a proper verbal response. Maybe something along the lines of flying saliva would be sufficiently expressive.
I was about to put it the other way around: religion is still a belief in magic, even if it’s mainstream. But your explanation is probably a little less inflammatory.
I’m not really that offended by the comment. She didn’t say you caused everything. If you’ve had bad stuff happen to you, then I have no problem with one saying you’ve ‘attracted’ it, in a certain sense of the word. I’m giving Heather a pass on this one.
I think the reason you’re offended by the religious version is because you’ve automatically added in the personal-agent part of it. If I win a lot at roulette, I don’t see a difference in saying “God smiles on me”, “The Fates are kind today”, or “I’m incredibly lucky”. I see a big difference between “I wonder why you attract negative things” and “God smites you for being a bad person”. Try instead to interpret Heather’s statement as “I wonder why God lets bad things happen to you.”
A quick scan of the Wiki page on the “Law of Attraction” suggests that it does say that you are causing your own problems - though not in the same way as earning them via sin. It seems to be more like “optomists get good things - pessimists get what they expect”.
Regardless, it’s not equivalent to the phrase “Man, you’re unlucky!”, which isn’t insulting.
I don’t confuse the two personally, but what I mean is that I really think that very few people talk about"unfairness" when they’re not really talking about the idea of “cruelty.” The problem is that when people say that life, the universe, etc., is “unfair”, they virtually always actually do mean that it’s “cruel.” This obviously does not apply in every single case, as you’ve pointed out, because you DO understand the difference! But I think this is exactly why teminology like “unfair” or “hostile” gets used so commonly in the first place-- why do it if these concepts are not being put into a context where they’re somehow being measured against a “fair” and/or “welcoming” ideal? Why not say that the universe is what it is, neither fair nor unfair, or “conditions not suited to human life” rather than “hostile”? If something doesn’t have a consciousness, then it can’t very well be “hostile.” Understand, I’m not disagreeing with you; I actually think that all of this is evidence that goes towards the argument that there is very widespread human anthropomorphization of the universe. (I like that word.
Also, I don’t think I’d really care for anyone saying “Man, you’re unlucky!” either. I would definitely not say that to another person. You know, I"m almost starting to wonder if the best response to any of this would be, “Were you raised in a barn?”
Okay, I’ll bite - what, specifically, is wrong with “Man, you’re unlucky!”? Even putting aside the fact that a phrase like that could easily be meant to describe the momentary situation, not a permanent condition, what’s offensive about a person commenting that they think that events outside your control have apparently been on average less-than-helpful to date?
I"m not sure if it’s literally offensive, but I think it would depend on the context. If a good friend who really understood the situation were saying it to me, that would be one thing. In the context of a casual acquaintance or a coworker, I think, quite honestly, that it’s just plain bad manners. YMMV. But that’s why I thought of the “raised in a barn” thing. It’s about insensitively commenting on what’s happened to the other person as if it’s a reality show meant for one’s entertainment vs. expressing empathy, as in “I’m so sorry that these things have been happening to you.” I just wouldn’t do it. I"m not saying that anyone who would is a horrible person and deserves to be thrown to the wolves, but I think at best that there’s something tacky about it. Again, people are likely to have different opinions about this, but that is mine.
I originally thought it would sound worse in a religious context, but I actually think the new age one is worse. If someone said to me that bad things were happening to me because God was displeased with me, I wouldn’t care. I have sex outside marriage, am pro-choice and no doubt many other things that ‘God’ would find offensive. But I still consider myself to be a good person.
A new age person saying that to me, otoh, isn’t coming from a perspective I don’t care about or believe in. I’m not new agey, but everyone is familiar with the idea of karma, and someone who believes in it ‘wondering’ why such bad things are happening to you is being obnoxious and rude. She may as well tell you you’re a selfish asshole.
On further reflection, I have had experience of both, and yes, it was the new age one that was more offensive. A religious fundie can criticise me all they like and I’ll brush it off because I don’t share their belief system. But who doesn’t share the belief that they try to be a good person, even if they don’t believe in karma? I would have told the rude cow to fuck off, except she probably would have taken that as more evidence of how bad a person you were.
But I think this is exactly why teminology like “unfair” or “hostile” gets used so commonly in the first place-- why do it if these concepts are not being put into a context where they’re somehow being measured against a “fair” and/or “welcoming” ideal? Why not say that the universe is what it is, neither fair nor unfair, or “conditions not suited to human life” rather than “hostile”? If something doesn’t have a consciousness, then it can’t very well be “hostile.” Understand, I’m not disagreeing with you; I actually think that all of this is evidence that goes towards the argument that there is very widespread human anthropomorphization of the universe. (I like that word. 