I was driving yesterday, and thinking. I do a lot of my thinking while I’m driving. The CD player and the talk show hosts in my car are broken, so I don’t use either of them much. And when you drive alone, in silence, the mind wanders.

I was driving yesterday and thinking about how people – in general – tend to take credit for the good and blame God for the bad. When a new treatment is developed we write articles and take pictures and thank everyone who helped raise money for research and celebrate how awesome we – in general – are. When a child dies of a disease his mother contracted, we shake our fists in the air and say wonderfully pompous things like, “See? God doesn’t exist. A loving God would never let this happen. And if He does exist, I hate Him.”

The distinction’s been made before. By myself even. But still, I was thinking about it because I had been paying attention to traffic lights and lost track of my mind.

I was thinking especially about how people – in general – use the bad things as proof that God does not exist. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Famine. Children born with AIDS. All are polished and placed on pedestals with small placards reading “Exhibit A,” “Exhibit B,” etc.

Because if God is good and God is love and God cares, then none of these things would happen. And since they clearly are happening, such a God cannot exist. If A does not equal B, then B does not equal A.

But fewer people – and never the same ones as above – use the good things as proof that God does exist. Solar systems. Tadpoles. Perennials. Children born. Why don’t we polish these and parade them before a bench of jury people?

Perhaps because there is more good evidence than bad and the prosecution knows it.

A boy dies of cancer – despite health insurance and fervent prayer – and we chose to believe it’s because there is no loving, omnipotent God who likes to be called “Father.”

Somewhere a dessert full of dry cacti puts forth it’s one annual bloom in the middle of the night just as a group of rare bats passes through the area on it’s annual migration – the only lay over they’ll get on their journey – and we chose to believe it’s because of a cosmic accident that blew up once upon a time and has mysteriously come to this.

Then I started thinking about other amazing things I’d seen on the Discovery channel and before I knew it I was home, and it was time to steam rice and broccoli.