Gawd and Footbawl

I originally started to write this as a blog, then I decided it would be better as a Facebook post,  I tried to go back to bed and decided it was worthy of publishing as a blog. 

I'm up early again and while I don't think that is what is keeping me up tonight..I think I slept for a while....I have something on my mind. I started to write a blog because I thought it would be too long for a Facebook post but I changed my mind. It's something that happens during and after sporting events and has occurred several times during the end of the college football season. It's people, including Clemson coach Dabo Sweeney, thanking God for things that if there is an all powerful omnipotent being, I doubt seriously he or she or they would give a rats rectum about. 

Earlier this month during the halftimes of the college football conference championship games,  the Dr. Pepper tuition challenges took place. College students threw (in most cases chest passed) footballs into a giant replica soda can. The winner got $100K in tuition money and the runner-up got $25K. Twitter erupted with many tweets that contained pointed criticisms about the "hunger games" nature of it. Students were basically competing to not be saddled with massive debt. One winning contest implored people who don't believe in God to change their minds.

I'm a secular humanist for lack of a better term. That doesn't mean I take people's beliefs lightly. Most of my friends attend some type of religious service on Sunday. I have friends who are very open about how finding God saved them from addiction or guides their life in some way. Even though I don't believe that power comes from a magical being sitting on a cloud, I do think that prayer and faith have power in and of themselves. 

If there is a God, however, I doubt that he or she or they hands out athletic abilities like candy at Halloween. I also seriously doubt that a being with that much power and influence over life, the universe and everything (slipped in a "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference there) gives a flying fart about who wins an American college football game. Or the Dr. Pepper tuition challenge for that matter.