Let's talk about being Godlike. But God is perfect and infallible; he makes no mistakes. He is all-loving and all-forgiving. He is omniscent--sees all, knows all. He can do wrong. No one is that wholly good; no one can be so pure. It's impossible. Right?
That's bullshit.
Find me this perfect, infallible, all-loving, all-forgiving, know-it-all God. He doesn't exist--even in the Bible.
If God is perfect and infallible and makes no mistakes, explain man--man who murders and rapes, lies and cheats and steals, man who turns upon brother and wages war, man who has corrupted the environment and poached species' into extinction. If he is all-loving and all-forgiving, explain the Great Flood; explain the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah. If he knows all, why didn't he know in advance that he would regret the Great Flood and vow never to do that again--and thus not have done it in the first place? If he can do no wrong, wouldn't he have nothing to regret?
God said "Bring me fifty good men," and they could not--so everyone died, including the innocent children. Yeah, they were innocent children, so they were spared from a lifetime of sin and taken into Heaven to be with God eternally. That makes it all okay. (So does that make abortion okay? Would it be okay for me to kill a few kids? I mean, after all, they'd go to Heaven. It's cool, right?) I wonder if God has just never heard of Detroit or Juarez. But maybe they're next on the list now that New Orleans has been decimated.
And Lot is spared, along with his daughters. LOT, who offered up his virgin daughters to appease the angry mob that had gathered at his door, demanding that he give up his two visitors, angels in disguise, intending as it is insinuated to rape them. "No, spare them--take my daughters instead!" When told not to look back, Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Seems a heavy price to pay for looking back, but that's your reward for disobeying God. So God saves Lot, who is willing to sacrifice his daughters to a raping mob, and Lot's disobedient wife, and he lets all those other people, including the babies, die. Then, Lot's stupid, stupid daughters, believing they are the only people left in the world, get Lot drunk on wine and have sex with him to conceive children. You know what we call that today? Rape. But God makes no mistakes?
God tells Abraham to kill his son. Then he's like, "Oh, just testing you." That wasn't wrong? So, would it be okay for me to test my kid's father that way? "Go and kill our son, to prove you love me." Really? But it's okay for God to do it. Because God's God. Different strokes for different folks, you know.
I know, I know. Blasphemy. Burn me at the stake. Stone me. Leviticus commands it. I'm serious. 24:16
God also wants us to kill rape victims who don't scream loud enough:
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city. Deuteronomy 22:23-24
And women who aren't virgins on their wedding night, and people who worship other gods, and disobedient grownup children, and alcoholics--even men who gather sticks on the Sabbath. It's all in Deuteronomy--quite a read. But per John 8, Jesus himself was opposed to all this stoning.
The point is, if this is the God we accept, then man is quite capable of being Godlike. We can be loving and forgiving; we can be blood-thirsty and wrathful. We can do harm to others; we can commit horrible acts, justifying them to ourselves with whatever reasons we'd like. After all, we were made in His image.
And the gods of the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Indian pantheons weren't perfect either. There are hundreds of stories where they commit adultry, rape, murder, lie, steal--just do as they please, and man has to deal with it and still worship them and feel like shit if he himself does any of these things. Ever has it been that what a god does is okay, but if man does it, he should be ashamed and be punished.
So yeah, I'm still waiting for you to find me this God that isn't at all like mankind. Don't say Jesus. He let Lazarus die so he could bring him back from the dead. That's in John. This is quite an interesting read, even if it is long-winded. The guy is obviously biased, but he makes a few good points. I've always had a pretty high opinion of Jesus, but as I read through the Bible lately, he does sound an awful lot like the cult leaders of today--an exaggerated ego, speaking in riddles so that none (or only the enlightened) can follow his logic, switching from a gentle manner to an agitated one (yeah, Jesus does say some pretty rude things in the Bible, calling people swine and fools and whatnot).
I gotta wonder if maybe all of Jesus' miracles were just parlor tricks, and people back then, not understanding science and being more gullible than today, just weren't intelligent enough to see through it--and so immortalized it all in writing. You know, lead poisoning used to make people seem dead--and then they'd wake up in caskets. They used to put bells on the tombstones and have someone watch over each night for a bell-ringing. That's where the term graveyard shift came from. There are ways to "die" and then wake up, without divine intervention.
Now I'm not saying that's how it is, that Jesus was nothing more than a cunning cult leader. I'm just asking, what if?
If God were a man, not God, how would we judge him?
I know, more blasphemy. You'd better get to throwing those stones. We wouldn't want to disregard Leviticus. Or is the bit about homosexuality being a sin the only bit of Leviticus that is still relevant?
If you want to follow this guy, by all means, do it. He has good reasons that we don't always understand for the things that he does. (Just like murderers on Death Row.)
That's bullshit.
Find me this perfect, infallible, all-loving, all-forgiving, know-it-all God. He doesn't exist--even in the Bible.
If God is perfect and infallible and makes no mistakes, explain man--man who murders and rapes, lies and cheats and steals, man who turns upon brother and wages war, man who has corrupted the environment and poached species' into extinction. If he is all-loving and all-forgiving, explain the Great Flood; explain the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah. If he knows all, why didn't he know in advance that he would regret the Great Flood and vow never to do that again--and thus not have done it in the first place? If he can do no wrong, wouldn't he have nothing to regret?
God said "Bring me fifty good men," and they could not--so everyone died, including the innocent children. Yeah, they were innocent children, so they were spared from a lifetime of sin and taken into Heaven to be with God eternally. That makes it all okay. (So does that make abortion okay? Would it be okay for me to kill a few kids? I mean, after all, they'd go to Heaven. It's cool, right?) I wonder if God has just never heard of Detroit or Juarez. But maybe they're next on the list now that New Orleans has been decimated.
And Lot is spared, along with his daughters. LOT, who offered up his virgin daughters to appease the angry mob that had gathered at his door, demanding that he give up his two visitors, angels in disguise, intending as it is insinuated to rape them. "No, spare them--take my daughters instead!" When told not to look back, Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Seems a heavy price to pay for looking back, but that's your reward for disobeying God. So God saves Lot, who is willing to sacrifice his daughters to a raping mob, and Lot's disobedient wife, and he lets all those other people, including the babies, die. Then, Lot's stupid, stupid daughters, believing they are the only people left in the world, get Lot drunk on wine and have sex with him to conceive children. You know what we call that today? Rape. But God makes no mistakes?
God tells Abraham to kill his son. Then he's like, "Oh, just testing you." That wasn't wrong? So, would it be okay for me to test my kid's father that way? "Go and kill our son, to prove you love me." Really? But it's okay for God to do it. Because God's God. Different strokes for different folks, you know.
I know, I know. Blasphemy. Burn me at the stake. Stone me. Leviticus commands it. I'm serious. 24:16
God also wants us to kill rape victims who don't scream loud enough:
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city. Deuteronomy 22:23-24
And women who aren't virgins on their wedding night, and people who worship other gods, and disobedient grownup children, and alcoholics--even men who gather sticks on the Sabbath. It's all in Deuteronomy--quite a read. But per John 8, Jesus himself was opposed to all this stoning.
The point is, if this is the God we accept, then man is quite capable of being Godlike. We can be loving and forgiving; we can be blood-thirsty and wrathful. We can do harm to others; we can commit horrible acts, justifying them to ourselves with whatever reasons we'd like. After all, we were made in His image.
And the gods of the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Indian pantheons weren't perfect either. There are hundreds of stories where they commit adultry, rape, murder, lie, steal--just do as they please, and man has to deal with it and still worship them and feel like shit if he himself does any of these things. Ever has it been that what a god does is okay, but if man does it, he should be ashamed and be punished.
So yeah, I'm still waiting for you to find me this God that isn't at all like mankind. Don't say Jesus. He let Lazarus die so he could bring him back from the dead. That's in John. This is quite an interesting read, even if it is long-winded. The guy is obviously biased, but he makes a few good points. I've always had a pretty high opinion of Jesus, but as I read through the Bible lately, he does sound an awful lot like the cult leaders of today--an exaggerated ego, speaking in riddles so that none (or only the enlightened) can follow his logic, switching from a gentle manner to an agitated one (yeah, Jesus does say some pretty rude things in the Bible, calling people swine and fools and whatnot).
I gotta wonder if maybe all of Jesus' miracles were just parlor tricks, and people back then, not understanding science and being more gullible than today, just weren't intelligent enough to see through it--and so immortalized it all in writing. You know, lead poisoning used to make people seem dead--and then they'd wake up in caskets. They used to put bells on the tombstones and have someone watch over each night for a bell-ringing. That's where the term graveyard shift came from. There are ways to "die" and then wake up, without divine intervention.
Now I'm not saying that's how it is, that Jesus was nothing more than a cunning cult leader. I'm just asking, what if?
If God were a man, not God, how would we judge him?
I know, more blasphemy. You'd better get to throwing those stones. We wouldn't want to disregard Leviticus. Or is the bit about homosexuality being a sin the only bit of Leviticus that is still relevant?
If you want to follow this guy, by all means, do it. He has good reasons that we don't always understand for the things that he does. (Just like murderers on Death Row.)
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