There's nothing mysterious about it, He's not working at all. He's playing. Or else He's forgotten all about us. That's the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain? . Joseph Heller
About This Quote

Most people have a difficult time believing that God exists. They say that, “He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all about us.

That’s the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of Creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain? It is important to note that there are numerous verses within the Bible that talk about God creating pain. There are even verses that speak about God creating cancer or arthritis or heart attacks.

This doesn't mean that God created these things for us to suffer from them. It just means that these things are part of what it means to be human. It means that we can't expect God to be able to avoid all pain and suffering just because we're human. This quote is an excellent example of how human beings can sometimes take certain passages of scripture out of context.

The example here is taken from Don Marquis' classic poem "God's Little Acre." It should be noted though that Marquis' original work was written as an attack on fundamentalist Christianity and its tendency to use only selected passages of scripture as proof for their beliefs. The quote used here may not be entirely accurate but should certainly tell us something about why Don Marquis wrote it in this way.

Source: Catch 22

Some Similar Quotes
  1. The true value of a man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth. - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
  2. Damn it, how will I ever get out of this labyrinth? - Simon Bolivar
  3. That which is true must always remain true, though the applications may change greatly from generation to generation. It is the absence of such fundamental certainties, no doubt, that leads men into continual search for a satisfying religion, or that drives them away from their... - John A. Widtsoe
  4. The better men know the Lord, the better may the eternal truths we learn be applied in our daily lives. - John A. Widtsoe
  5. The immature think that knowledge and action are different, but the wise see them as the same. - Anonymous
More Quotes By Joseph Heller
  1. I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.
  2. Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
  3. There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to...
  4. Why are they going to disappear him?' I don't know.' It doesn't make sense. It isn't even good grammar.
  5. So many things were testing his faith. There was the Bible, of course, but the Bible was a book, and so were Bleak House, Treasure Island, Ethan Frome and The Last of the Mohicans. Did it then seem probable, as he had once overheard Dunbar...
Related Topics