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Bad Things Happen

from The Rap Guide to Religion by Baba Brinkman

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about

The "problem of evil" – or theodicy – has been a central challenge to religion for millennia, but recent research shows that undeserved suffering actually increases religious belief.

Further reading: www.mpmlab.org/Gray%20&%20Wegner%20(2010).%20Blaming%20God%20for%20our%20Pain.%20PSPR.pdf

lyrics

Let’s take a measure of the misery and pain
Suffered every second by every sentient being
With a brain, with a sensory experience
Sufficient to feel terrified, tortured, or furious
Subtract the ones who must have done somethin’
To justify this kind of comeuppance
And what’s left is the innocent remainder
Poor little lambs and babies in a manger
Who’s responsible for this calamity?
Natural disaster, deaths in the family
Tragedy strikes, and the victims react
With religion, that’s a well-known fact
Add up the infant mortality, pathogens
Infections, violent crimes and cancer deaths
And you end up with a “suffering index”
And the bigger that is, the bigger religion gets

Bad things happen to good people
Good things happen to bad people
Bad things happen to good people
Bad things happen, bad things happen
Bad things happen to good people
Good things happen to bad people
Any god who could change that
But chose not to, is evil

Here’s a catch-22 to grapple with
Religious people tend to be higher in happiness
And when tragedy strikes by accident
Religion spikes right after it
The more dysfunctional a country is
The more people turn to faith just to function in it
Secular people are less happy than people of faith
But secular places are more safe
And safe citizens really are happier
Compared to where hardship’s nastier
So the faithful have happier faces
Than heathens in places that lack the basics
But a heathen living in a safe place can
Be better off than somebody praying in a wasteland
Which means the more miserable you are
The more religious you are overall, FUBAR

Bad things happen to good people
Good things happen to bad people
Bad things happen to good people
Bad things happen, bad things happen
Bad things happen to good people
Good things happen to bad people
Any god who could change that
But chose not to, is evil

Whenever a devastating tragedy occurs
Our instinct is to look for the perpetrator first
“Who did that? We’re gonna punish somebody
Whoever did it is about to get beaten bloody!”
But some events have no person behind them
People infer the perpetrator is divine then
A supernatural agent was testing your faith when
He sent those raging tsunami waves in
And that’s a sticky situation
How do you punish a supernatural agent?
Logistically quite difficult
It’s kinda tricky when the target is invisible
You can’t stay mad at god, that’s pointless
You’re probably better off tryin’ to get anointed
And that’s why Mr. Almighty gets to claim
All the credit, and none of the blame

Bad things happen to good people
Good things happen to bad people
Bad things happen to good people
Bad things happen, bad things happen
Bad things happen to good people
Good things happen to bad people
Any god who could change that
But chose not to, is evil

credits

from The Rap Guide to Religion, released October 23, 2015
Written by D. Brinkman and D. Moross
Produced by Soulful Spider
Mixed by Lin Gardiner
Additional Keys by Simon Kendall
Mastered by Mr. Simmonds

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Baba Brinkman New York, New York

Science rapper and inventor of several novel hip-hop variants. Canadian transplant to New York. Pathological optimist.

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