What Can’t You Accomplish When You Have God on Your Side? The Perils of Claiming the Support of the Divinity

This is not a political or religious blog, but I do deal with reason and related topics. And one such topic is the logic behind a claim often made in human history: God is on our side. So let me tell you what motivated me to write about this.
 
I read what a person posted on X regarding the missile attack that Iran unleashed against Israel on October 1st 2024, which resulted in minimal casualties, because the vast majority were intercepted by Israel’s air defense system. The poster described the different air defense systems Israel employs as a technological wonder with unparalleled sophistication, but then went on to say that the chance that these systems would work in unison flawlessly are nonexistent. He also mentioned that the few missiles that were not intercepted landed in places where they caused minimal damage. This person then states that it is impossible to look at this objectively and not see the hand of God. Interestingly, the poster then acknowledges that some questions may be raised along the lines of where was God in the past when the Jewish people suffered such as during the October 7th 2023 attack by Hamas, which precipitated the current conflict, or the Holocaust. The poster agrees that these are valid questions that require a very serious nuanced conversation, but still he states that the low casualties in this attack is an obvious miracle: an an example of God in all his glory watching over his children (the people of Israel).
​

Of course, people since time immemorial have claimed that God is with them during a struggle or an enterprise (sometimes out of conviction and sometimes as a propaganda tool). The power behind this claim is that the belief that one has the support of God has a huge effect on the human mind. After all, we are talking about “the creator”, “the big guy up there”, “alpha and omega”, "the one and only", “el numero uno”. What can’t be accomplished if you have the support of God? But notice that this question does not have any moral or ethical parameters associated with it. While the claim of divine support in some cases has allowed the people who make it to be motivated and determined to fight even when there is little hope, in other cases it has allowed the justification of ghastly crimes. For example, the Doctrine of Discovery issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493 basically claimed that the new lands discovered to the west by Columbus were to be claimed and exploited by Christians and any barbarous nations were to be overthrown and brought to the faith. In the 1800s this doctrine gave rise to the concept of Manifest Destiny which was the belief that God called upon the people of the United States to expand westward, and which was used to justify the uprooting of Native Americans from their lands.
 
Some people, like the poster whom I alluded to, witness a remarkable event, such as the neutralization of the missile attack on Israel, and they jump to the conclusion that God must have been behind it. But drawing this sort of conclusions from such remarkable events is unwarranted. I have written of how, for example, Hitler survived so many assassination attempts that he considered that God was on his side. There are such things as coincidences, even very remarkable ones. If enough people flip ten coins, one of them will get ten heads in a row. One thing that we have learned from history is that it has proven fiendishly difficult to figure out in a rational way what it is exactly that God wants and who he supports. Rather, more often than not, the two sides in a conflict wrap themselves in the mantle of divine support, and the victors then proceed to write their biased version of history.
 
When I read what this poster wrote on X, the first thing that came to my mind is a passage from a book I read a long time ago. The book is entitled “Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis” written by ex-president Jimmy Carter in 2005. Part of the passage reads as follows:
 
“There is a remarkable trend towards fundamentalism in all religions – including the different denominations of Christianity as well as Hinduism, Judaism, and Islam. Increasingly, true believers are inclined to begin a process of deciding: ‘Since I am aligned with God, I am superior and my beliefs should prevail, and anyone who disagrees with me is inherently wrong,’ and the next step is ‘inherently inferior.’ The ultimate step is ‘subhuman,’ and then their lives are not significant.”
 
In this passage, Carter was talking about the danger of the rise of fundamentalism in religions, but the danger of a person, a group, or a country believing that THEY are favored by God is clearly spelled out. Claiming the support of God may make it easier for people to ignore or soften their adherence to their values resulting in the denigration of others who in their views are not supported by the divinity.
 
Without judging upon matters such as the existence of God or who is right or wrong in the current conflict, it is my opinion that claiming the favoritism of God when it comes to the affairs of humans always complicates moral and ethical evaluations of actions to be taken or of those which have been already taken. This evaluation must be performed based solely on our values. And human rights, including the right to live, should be at the center of this analysis.
 
Some people may even argue that this is what God would want us to do.
 
The photograph of the painting “Benediction of God the Father” by Luca Cambiaso (1527-1585) taken by Daderot is in the public domain.
​