The Color Purple

I read Alice Walker's The Color Purple when I was in high school. I had heard praises for the book from somewhere and so when I ran across it on a teacher's shelf I asked to borrow it. I was disgusted by it from the first page to the last, but I couldn't put it down.

Why was I so utterly disgusted by it? I was scandalized by the sex and horrified by the domestic violence. But most of all I was furious about how it spoke of God and religion. I found it blasphemous and I couldn't stand it.

So why was I so enthralled and read in two days? The narrative and writing style were recognizably compelling. And so were the arguments against God and male privilege.

The Color Purple made me recognize some of my doubts (which is why the Church doesn't recommend such reading) - doubts I buried as best I could, even though I knew deep down that I agreed with so much of what the author was saying.

Heavenly fatherliness #31 - Provider

According to popular wisdom, a good father provides for the whole family.

Mormons know and teach their young children that a father's role is first and foremost to provide for his family. I'm not entirely sure what "provide" is supposed to mean, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with money so the family has a roof to sleep under and food to eat (providing everything else the family needs is a mother's job).

The point is that our Heavenly Father loves us so much that he have us another father - an "earthly" one - to do all the stuff that He would do if he were here. He's basically delegated the work for the time being, but don't forget that everything we have comes as a blessing from Him. Anything your earthly father brings home came from God because God made everything (through Jesus).

The human family stands largely in need, but you can't blame God for all the negligent earthly fathers. You just can't. It's not God's fault that those who have do not share. He can't make them share. There's nothing questionable about the way Heavenly Father distributes his blessings.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #22 - Challenges

According to popular wisdom, a good father challenges his children, meaning he gives them some liberty to face setbacks, conflicts, and tasks to resolve on their own.

Chalk one up for God being a good father! Mormons totally believe God gives us our free agency so we can prove that we choose his plan and often gives us trials so we can learn about ourselves and gain wisdom through our experiences. God did it! He scored one for being a Good Father!

Actually, God's not so good at this, in my opinion. In fact, it seems he's cut us loose entirely and left everything up to his children to resolve. We have no evidence at all that God has done, is doing, or will do anything for the benefit of his children. All he ever "gives" are setbacks, conflicts, and tasks to resolve.

Worst of all, if you somehow mismanage these setbacks, conflicts, and tasks he'll blame you for it. I can hear him now, "You really should have just trusted in Me more. You didn't have enough faith. You were obviously too proud, too weak, too stupid, too mired in sin to pull yourself out of it. I'm really unimpressed. Lucky for you I'm so forgiving!"

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father. 

Heavenly fatherliness #12 - Initiative to help

According to popular wisdom, a good father takes pity on his wife and children and takes the initiative to help them.

Once again we run into the issue of a Perfect, Infinite Being having the capacity to relate to and feel anything for such lowly creatures as man, but let's just pretend he does. The issue here then becomes whether or not God takes the initiative to help out.

You've maybe heard that God works many miracles among his children everyday for which we all should be amazingly humbled and grateful. Sounds totally legit, right? One quick look around and it's totally obvious that God's being a Big Help around here, isn't it? Maybe not. It seems he basically just uses us as miracle helper pawns. So is it God or is it us? For some there might not be a difference, I suppose.

Just consider that God doesn't want to just give his goods and services away, we at least have to ask first. The initiative, it would seem, is ours.

I'm pretty sure there are people the world over praying for a hand. Nonstop prayers all asking for a little recognition from an All-powerful Being, but once again whoever considers the extent of human suffering in the world - even in a single historical moment - or takes the time to recall the endless production of carcinogenic material all over the world will probably wonder where the hell God is. 

Oh wait! God already took care of our suffering souls when he killed Jesus... or let Jesus die... or let Jesus let himself die... or kill himself... or whatever that was. Can we clean things up Heavenly Father's way and just kill our firstborn children and then resurrect them again? It seems logical enough, right?

Heavenly Father's also got the whole environmental mess taken care of too. How could I be so silly? God's totally a helper.

*These attributes represent the popularized and popularizing thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #11 - School work

According to popular wisdom, a good father helps his children with their school work.

Oh, how I wish I had done well on the the exams I said a prayer for!

As much as folks might like to say God is always inspiring the genius of men and blessing us through science, etc., the fact is that those who are born into privileged conditions enjoy privileged educations (regardless of their beliefs). God's a shitty helper if only for the fact that he favors education for the wealthy and disregards the vast majority of everyone else, but let's not forget all those tests we studied so hard for, prayed so earnestly about, and still didn't get an A.

*These attributes represent the popularized and popularizing thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #10 - Tidying up

According to popular wisdom, a good father helps with household tasks.

God, the Father of All, clearly never raises a finger to help keep our home, planet Earth, clean; it's totally and entirely our responsibility to clean up after ourselves and try to maintain things in pristine condition. Maybe we could say something like "hey, God teaches us correct principles, lets us govern ourselves, and gives us the strength to exceed our capabilities," but that's not exactly leading by example, is it?

The funny thing is that believers will often be the first to say that the state of things couldn't be worse. In fact, according to many believers, God's been telling us the world's going to burn at some point, which seems to send a message that sounds something like "kids, I'm not doing shit to make this place better because I'm just going to torch it in a few years anyway." What kind of father would do something like that? God's the worst.

*These attributes represent the popularized and popularizing thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Heavenly fatherliness #9 - Giving comfort

According to popular wisdom, a good father is the person his children turn to when things go wrong.

Mormons believe that God wants to truly and completely comfort us. Through the Holy Ghost, God's love can fill us and makes us better.

I agree that people who find themselves in horrible, terrifying, intimidating, and desperate situations tend to turn to God. "God, help me, no one else can!" I've been there, but I have serious doubts about the comfort I received. 

Plenty of people blame God for their hard times and turn away from Him. And plenty of people don't give two shits about God to begin with and learn to deal with their problems on their own or with actual living beings like their earth dad, other family, friends, pets, coworkers, therapists and therapy groups, etc.

We don't need "God" or a holy spook, we need each other.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.