When the Otherwise Sensible Go Dim

"Fate." "Meant to be."

When you hear this bizarre collection of words, run far away. They are all part of the dim legacy of our ancient ancestors, whose cognitive infancy lives on. Here's a perfect example of how the contemplative abilities of otherwise bright people turn to mush...

I once told a well-educated colleague about a particularly striking event in a football game. During one play, the tight-end caught a sideline pass, the trajectory of which forced him out of bounds. Before he could stop, he barreled into an elderly assistant coach whose head crashed to the turf. Knocked unconscious, the coach was rushed to the hospital where he received head x-rays to check the severity of the damage. Although he was only diagnosed with a concussion, one scan revealed a small spot that turned out to be a malignant brain tumor. It was removed. He's now cancer free.

As I told my colleague this bizarre story, I couldn't help but notice his slow, purposeful nodding and increasingly glazed, Magic Kingdom smile. At the story's conclusion he said, “See? It was meant to happen.”

Puzzled, I asked, "What exactly was meant to happen?”

"The play. If that didn’t happen he would have been dead. It was fate.”

To which I said, "Let me see if I'm perfectly clear. 1) God arranged for the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs to slightly overthrow his intended receiver on a tight-end crossing pattern so that he would smash into the poor gentleman; 2) God caused the force of the collision to give the man a concussion [which, by the way, forced him to retire early from the game he loved]; so that 3) the tumor -- which was presumably put there by God -- could be discovered?"

“No, no, no....God didn’t give him the tumor. He led him to recovery.”

"And 'He' couldn’t have simply whispered something subtle like 'You have a brain tumor!' or have spelled out the imminent head injury in the coach's alphabet soup?"

My colleague ignored the question and finished the dialogue with, "And his doctor was also given the gift of practice."

A perfect microcosm of idiocy in action, yes?. In this world, a fortunate coincidence is God's work. A tragedy is too, but its ultimate meaning will be "revealed" later. Faith loopholes are endless. "Meant-to-be" moments are cherry-picked like the non- stoning/slavery/murdering sections of the bible (which are few and far between). And what precise value does prayer have when things are pre-determined? Can slapping our palms together really influence events in such a place?

What's most dispiriting about all of this fate nonsense is that it nullifies our responsibilities, our individual glories, our critical faculties. What could be more "unholy" than that?