You know what really grinds my gears? People that thank Jesus for other peoples hard work, or even their own hard work.
There is one individual in particular that continues to frustrate me every time the spotlight is on him. His name is Trey Canard. He is a professional motocross racer. He has had a fairly successful career, and according to him, when it comes to motocross "this is what the lord made me for". From my understanding, Trey chose #41 as his career racing number, because of the movie Ben-hur. In the movie, slave number 41, has to fight an up hill battle, but meets Jesus, who helps him win a race and save his family. Trey's life isn't too far off the plot in a lot of ways. He has had very, very unfortunate, and unlucky incidents happen during his career. He broke his femur twice, and was involved in the worst racing incident I have ever seen, when another rider landed off a huge jump, directly onto Trey. Trey had spinal damage and had to have three vertebra in his back fused together. Every time Trey has met major adversity, he has fought back with astonishing determination to return better and stronger than before. He believes Jesus wants him to continue racing, so he does.
I have no issue with him worshiping god. Many riders do. What irritates me, is that he puts god above everyone else, even people that have directly influenced his life. When interviewed after winning a race, he always likes to "thank the lord above first and foremost."
First off, there is an incredible group of people that help Trey win races. Without them, he doesn't win, end of story. He has personal trainers that keep him in shape, help him recover from injures, and help him eat right. He has a personal mechanic that modifies, sets up and maintains Treys bikes to be the best they can be. Also, he has an entire team behind him, providing him EVERYTHING needed to partake in racing. They supply a semi trailer and mobile home to every event. His riding gear, bikes, food, and accommodation are all waiting for him at each event. Just so you understand, they don't just get the stuff there, they provide it all to him free of charge, including his race bike, which can be worth upwards of $200,000. Also, Trey gets paid somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000,000 a year to ride his motorcycle. So out of all the sponsors, trainers, mechanics, family, and other support he receives, Trey thinks that god is most deserving of gratitude? Trey seems to be under the impression that all this good stuff happens to him is because it's gods will, when in actual fact, it's the hard work of many individuals acting under free will, including Trey himself. People like to think that the lord controls luck, or chance. Having a motorcycle provided to you is not luck, or chance, it's a teams decision. I guess the luck or chance could come on the race track itself, but in Trey's case, luck has not played in his favour often. He has been on the receiving end of bad luck more times than most riders. Even still, the luck or chance people see on the race track is nothing more than one or more persons carless mistakes. Running out of gas on the last lap of a race isn't bad luck, someone just forgot to top up the tank. Being landed on by another rider, someones bad judgement of speed. Winning the race, hard work, and great skills.
Second, god doesn't care. I am an expert on Jesus Christ. I know every fact about him, which is none. No facts have ever been verified about the existence of a god of any kind, so that makes me as knowledgeable about god as anyone else. And what I know, is god has better shit to do than follow Trey Canards life, or any one persons. So many professional athletes thank god for their success, or pray to god so that they can win the next game or race. Well if both teams are praying to the same god to win, how will he ever decide?! All you can pray for is for is god to keep you safe, and one thing I've learned about professional sports, no one is safe, especially Trey Canard. I saw the leader and head rider of "Team Faith Racing" do a prayer service one morning before the first round of a race series. At the beginning of the very first race, he was involved in a first turn pile up. He was the only person injured, with a broken neck. He did recover though. Thanks Jesus? But really, there are people dying all over the world from disease, starvation, natural disaster, and wars. Atrocities happen around the globe every minute of every day. What does gods to do list look like?
1: Prevent major earthquake in Japan
2: Cure Ebola
3: Help Trey Canard with a race
4: Try to remember why I created earthquakes and Ebola
Third, Trey's riding style is sometimes erratic, aggressive and dangerous. This is possibly why he has sustained as many injuries as he has. But more importantly, it has caused him to cause crashes and injure other riders. In the last supercross season, he landed on another rider on two separate occasions. One of the riders suffered a broken collar bone. I believe that Trey rides the way he does because he thinks god will watch over him and keep him safe, or that god wants him to win, even if it means riding dangerously. If you want to believe for yourself, that's fine, but if your belief puts others at risk, that's unacceptable.
Blind faith is exactly that. You're failing to realize the grand scale of things around you. You're giving all your praise to something that hasn't effected you in a single way, when there are people that are much more deserving of your gratitude. You're putting your trust in something that has no bearing in any situation. To be so blinded by faith is to ignore reality, which is disrespectful to the people in your life, which are the real contributing factors. Lets face it, if Treys house caught fire, I bet he wouldn't waste a second praying for the good lord to put it out, he'd phone 911 and let real people do something tangible. The sad thing is, he'd then thank the lord for the fire department, instead of thanking the firemen.
