When I was a young man struggling with my homosexuality in the midst of a bigoted and conservative Mormon community I was constantly perturbed by stories in the scriptures of God either relieving or sending plagues upon the various characters in the stories and their communities. Mormons even told stories of God intervening and performing miracles in the Pioneer times. Yet as I prayed fervently for my homosexuality to be taken from me God proved silent. I could not understand how this God whom I was taught could wipe away pestilence and save his followers from certain doom would not answer my prayer to be relieved of something I saw equal to those calamities. Surely then I was not adhering sufficiently to the morals required of me. But what could that have been? I didn’t do anything that was prohibited by the church—I was honest, kind, caring, responsible, a good son, I didn’t steal, drink, I prayed every night and every morning, I went to seminary and church and read the scriptures, and resisted mightily the urge to masturbate. What more could I do? I joined service groups and participated in church activities, bore my testimony, and read Mormon literature and even proselytized to the few non-Mormons in my life, and yet my prayer to be relieved of the pain and anguish of suffering homosexuality went entirely unheeded.

Or so I thought. I realized later as an adult, after nearly dying of alcoholism and cancer, that God was always listening to my prayers. And of course he was. God does not require people to jump through those kinds of hoops, to exhaust themselves with dogma and fanaticism. The problem was not with God, but with mankind who creates religions which distract us from God’s will and nature, used to excuse the personal failings of men and build a facade of security and complacency, to make life easier for the selfish and self-centered who are afraid of making amends to their fellows. God does not create religion. Man creates religion in an attempt to understand the natural world, which for the majority of our history he has not known. Because of Mormons I did not understand the nature of God, and was thusly deceived as how to see his presence in my life. The absolute ridiculousness of praying to God for relief during a pandemic of which he is very well aware since, you know, he’s GOD, smacks of such hubris and arrogance and fearfulness, and I cannot understand religious people who for some reason pretend that God has not heard them or knows not our plight, even though they are supposed to the be ones most close to God.

The AIDS crisis of the eighties and nineties is an excellent example of the hypocrisy and irony of those with faith. Not once during my childhood did I hear a person pray for those who were dying of AIDS. Typically I heard them proclaim that these young, wonderful men got what they deserved, and I believed what they said and so tried to take my own life. The joke was on them, though, as the AIDS crisis was not for gay men. It was for our neighbors, our mothers and fathers, the association of man to measure their moral aptitude and capacity for compassion, to lay hatred and fear before the whole world, to show whether they would protect the meek or turn on their fellows in prejudice. They failed miserably, revealed to be the selfish, pitiable mass of squirming terror they are and set in motion the downfall of the very institutions which laid the groundwork for such a callous response to those in need. Such calamities occur karmically for the exposing of those who work in secret, in the dark, against the family of man. The child abuse scandals of the Catholic Church, or the exposure of police brutality toward those with dark skin, a final public revelation that racism is still bred in this country and fed by the religious houses of vanity and self-serving intent. Young people are increasingly disinterested in sustaining these institutions, precisely because of this kind of behavior, an offense to all that is good.

Religious leaders who demand you pray and fast and instill fear are not concerned for your wellbeing. Typically they are only interested in your money and exploiting your vulnerability for their personal gain (or did you not hear about the Mormons hoarding charitable donations in defiance of tax law? Because apparently God won’t give them money during the Second Coming). That to be content and without fear a person requires an explanation for calamities such as this pandemic is contrary to belief in a higher power (as is stockpiling toilet paper and ammunition). Men and women who exclaim for a deity do not actually believe their own proclamations—exaggerated tirades are tantrums of a tormented soul, unable to find rest, seeking courage in shouting from the battlements, throwing cover for emotions which make them feel inadequate and afraid because they do not believe in God, else they would be content with the answers he gives. Instead they seek magic to change their unhappy circumstance, and God does not do that, so they persist unceasing in fomenting struggle. It is no coincidence that most adults I’ve ever known who make obvious capitulations to ideas of religion-based God are also the very ones guilty of child abuse, spousal neglect, secret lives, and overwhelming self-pity. Because they have rejected reality they cannot form natural relationships with those around them and disconnect from life, finding no pleasure nor satisfaction in the company of love, nor the mundaneness of the everyday, and so must seek excitement and purpose elsewhere in fantasy and mythology, in conflict and extreme emotions, but which leaves them ever wanting for its superficial irrelevance, and the circle of recrimination chases itself without end. 

The secret is we are all afraid, but it is through each other that we find courage. God does not test us. The trials of life are not retribution, vengeance, or punishment, but simply experiences to taste the meaning of life, without which we would not know the full breadth of mortality. Some experiences are for growth, to teach us that our behavior goes against the grain of love and kindness, to reveal to us those actions which are in opposition to life. Others are opportunities to learn valuable compassion, such as when we are abused, to understand how pain can derail even the best intentions. Terrible things happen because without them our life experience as a mortal would be insufficient. God allows our actions to have consequence, not because we deserve them but only because it is the natural order of logic and reason from which we may better learn how to survive, if we are paying attention.

God is aware there is a pandemic, and these religious leaders and masses coming together to pray is one of the cringiest moments I’ve seen during this calamity, for a moment they will humble themselves and ask for help, and before the day is out go back to giving money to homophobic and racist institutions, turn on the angry, hate-mongering news programs, and keep to themselves when their own innocent countrymen are gunned down in cold blood. Even more ironic is that these religionists are every bit as mortal as the rest of us, and also must quarantine or risk infection and death, so where is the God of their mythology who saves the chosen from calamity? Where are the #prayforwuhan hashtags? I saw five. Only a few passed on the one I made, and my plea to show solidarity with our brothers and sisters on the other side of the world. If there is a God, and God made the earth and the creatures and people in it he also made the virus which now infects the people created. There is no way in the world God is not aware of this, and the fact that many people have and will die from it, but also the countlessly greater number of deaths which occur by firearms and other weapons, in automobile accidents, cancer, other infectious agents like the flu, addiction, homelessness, and hunger.

A prayer never goes unanswered, it only may not be the answer we want so we pretend that God has not answered us, though he certainly has. Prayers which ask for ourselves show little belief in a God, because if God exists he already knows what we want and need. If you pray to God you should only ask to know his will and have the power to carry it out. Whenever I hear religious people pray they barrel through an oration, never ceasing until they close and then immediately get on with whatever they were doing. Instead of talking at God during the entirety of your supplication, stop and listen to what God has to say to you. There is always a message, but you won’t hear it you don’t shut up for a fucking minute. For the legion of young gay men and women, and trans and others who pray fervently to be relieved of being different God has already answered those prayers, by insisting you be different. It is not the answer many want, but it is still his answer. He will not change our circumstance because everything is as it should be, even in the face of extraordinary persecution. For some reason unknown to us we are meant to experience the burden of harsh animosity, but from which we are blessed with the ability to show great love in return, for there is no greater love than to show it to those who mean us harm.

The tenor of the moment is instead a consequence of the ebb and flow of life, the consequence of heedless inaction and ignoble arrogance which presupposes ourselves free of impunity. You spend your days watching pundits scream at each other, support lying and self-serving politicians, turn a blind eye to police brutality, inequality, poverty, child hunger, greed, wash your hands of immigrants fleeing violence and families starving, give money to homophobic and prejudiced churches and institutions, and then you want to pray to God when he sends a pandemic? Fuck you.

If you want to pray at this time, you should pray for those victims of violence, and vote for governments who help protect us against it. You should pray for equality and tolerance among all men, and then vote for governments which facilitate it. You should pray for an end to hunger, and vote for a government who helps end hunger. You should pray for the ill, and then vote for a government which gives healthcare to everyone. You should pray for the downtrodden and unfortunate, and then vote for a government which opens our borders to refugees and promotes foreign policies which fight destabilization and corruption in those places from where refugees flee. You should pray for your own fearful and ignorant ass who doesn’t even believe in God, else you would know that he is the creator of the pandemic and has allowed it to happen just as he does all things which are unfortunate, not because anyone deserves it but because cause and effect are the natural law and order of the universe. Instead of praying to be spared, ask what lesson you need to learn from this moment. What meekness, wisdom, or empathy have you lacked for which this plague is purposed? Ask that your mind be opened to the reality of mortality and the countless deaths which occur every single day from things which are much worse. If your intent is to pray about the pandemic, you do not understand God, and should instead shut up and listen to what he has to say.

Which, since you are here at this moment, is probably the information in this article on how to improve your resistance to coronavirus. Or instead of making your family starve and cultivating memories of pain and terror you could make them a delicious gratin and cultivate memories of family togetherness.