I am the anti-Job

So we all know, even us who don't read the Bible, the story of Job. Satan bet God that Job would renounce his faith if he felt that God had abandoned him. After countless tragedies, Job remained faithful.

I, too, feel like Job, but more like the anti-Job. One thing after another continues to plague my happiness and health, questioning my faith. But instead of these trials pushing me to renounce God, my tribulations are due to my lack of belief. Although it may sound oxy-moronic to say that I believe that a deity I don't believe in is pushing me to believe in Him by punishing me over and over again. Just admitting that this is a possibility is tantamount to acceptance of the existence of a higher being.

Of course if I truly believed this, I would have become a born-again long ago. Too much has happened for me to allow it all to continue Yet, I refuse to believe that my suffering is due to a lack of religious belief. And so as I continue to be steadfast in my atheism, more and more gets piled on.

So would my refusal to believe give recognition that I am in a battle with a God, which in turn shows that I have to believe in something to disagree with it? Or am I simply ranting against the frustration of all that continues to befall me?

If there is a God, then he is a cruel one because only a sadist would construct a body that had to pass a kidney stone.

Really, if God loves us, then why create man (in his image, no less) that is so susceptible to illness and injury? If we are made in God's image, then God must be in constant pain and agony, victim of cancer, multiple sclerosis, blindness, deafness, congestive heart failure, leprosy, diabetes, to name a few. (And another question, if man is made in God's image, then is God black, oriental, hispanic, arabic?) This might explain why He's too distracted to step in and end our own human sufferings. Misery enjoys company.

They say that kidney stones are the closest man will ever get to experiencing the pain of childbirth. Another reason for me not to want kids. I would never wish this pain on my wife.
I spent the day doubled over in more pain than I can ever recall having. And after getting fabulous drugs at the ER, I traded my kidney pain for skin pain. Yes, I had a terrible reaction with my skin and every inch of me flared up in red painful rash and I tried my best to completely rip off my skin.

So as my doctor used his skills to ease my suffering, the deity I don't believe in stepped in and gave me another round of pain to try and force me to admit He exists.

Instead, I chalk it up to karma.

I must have been one mean terrible evil son of a bitch in my previous life. It is the only explanation as to why I have been so crapped on by life when I try so very hard to be a good and productive person. I love my wife, and I try every day to do right by her, to give her a good marriage, to show her my undying love and devotion. I love my pets, whom I consider my kids. I respect and adore my family, my friends. I don't do drugs (unless you count prescriptions, countless and unending prescriptions), I don't practice bigotry, racism, sexism. I don't steal, slack-off, cheat. I own-up to my mistakes and shortcomings. I do what I must to be a productive and positive member of society.

So why do I continue to suffer affliction after affliction, economic defeat after economic defeat? I have an incurable immune disorder that will require me to get IV treatments for the rest of my life and may prevent me from ever working a 40 hour work week. I have a painful and incurable skin disorder that causes me to always want to rip off my own skin. I have insomnia, partial deafness in my right ear, the beginnings of cataracts in my left eye due to years on steroids for my other conditions, constant digestive distress due to the immuno deficiency, and now 6 stones sitting in my kidneys just waiting to cause me unearthly pain and suffering.

I must be paying penance for a prior life of scum and villainy.

Because if God does exist, he hates me.