Do you think O'Connor's story has anything to offer a reader who has no religious faith and why - Essay Example

Do you think OConnors story has anything to offer a reader who has no religious faith and why? Although the story by O’Connor has not been exclusively written to address the theme of religion or atheism, yet there are certain messages for the atheists. These messages mostly show up near the end of the story when the Misfit encounters the family and kills the members one by one, ultimately encountering the grandmother. For the most part, the messages are meant to make the atheists think on some lines rather than overtly telling them to retain or change their position with respect to faith in religion.

The points to ponder for the atheists in O’Connor’s story include the definition of good man and whether to believe or not in religion.As the title of the story implies, the story revolves around the definition of good man. In the story, the grandmother makes indiscriminate use of the label “good”. As the story goes on, the definition of a good man from her perspective becomes so subjective, that it almost entirely loses its meaning. First, the grandmother applies this label to Red Sammy upon hearing the complaint of people’s untrustworthiness from him.

The grandmother considers Red Sammy a good man because he trusted the strangers. This implies that a good man can be defined as someone who has blind faith. While this incident in the story exclusively happens in context of the worldly matters, yet it may make an atheist think whether he is not a good man because he does not have a blind faith in God because God has to be believed in without having a vision of Him. God is to be believed in without being seen. However, since the goodness or the blind faith of Red Sammy leads him to regret, an atheist might feel reassured that it is better not to believe than to believe if he considers God just another entity like the entity of a man.

To realize that blind faith in people is different from blind faith in God, and that people might not be trustworthy but God is, an atheist needs to think about the purpose of creation, and where people come from and where they go after death.The Misfit has a genuine bafflement for the religion. Many atheists also feel the same. While the grandmother has blind but weak faith in religion, her religious beliefs like Jesus raising the dead by the grace of God are challenged by the Misfit. He gives a deep consideration to how he should or should not follow such beliefs.

The Misfit has lived his life considering religion pointless. If there is any religion that he follows, it is meanness since that is the only pleasure he finds in life. Here, the atheists might identify themselves with the Misfit as far as the approach toward religion is concerned. Concluding, O’Connor’s story offers some fragile points to ponder for the atheists. The first thing an atheist might think after reading the story is whether or not he/she is right in not having a faith in religion.

Secondly, an atheist may make wrong judgment about religion if he tends to understand religion from the attitude of the grandmother.