What is more important to God, as defined by the “typical” Christian: That we do good and be kind to all His creations, or that we accept Him on total faith? That’s not to say that someone can’t do both, but rather that the second can clearly conflict with the first. I.E., someone who doesn’t do what God wants, because they didn’t think they needed to; which would account for about 100% of the people who don’t do what God wants.
And that would seem to be a major flaw in the system that many Christians suggest God is using, and if there’s one thing we know about God, it’s that he doesn’t do mistakes. He’s quite adamant about that. So the mistake must be on the part of the humans. How typical.
Because there’s one HUGE thing that God could do if he really was so interested in us being on our best behavior. And that’d be for him to give up this whole “faith” thing and just let his presence and intentions be known to everyone. Sure, faith is great. But wouldn’t world peace be better? How about stopping kids from starving to death? That’d be much easier if God did a better job at teaching us what we’re supposed to be doing; or at a minimum, to provide us with reasonable evidence that he even exists. Just to let us know that someone’s watching us, or cares. Is that too much to ask?
Ending Evil
And then he could drop the whole Hell thing. I don’t care if “Hell” is the place God sends evil-doers to, or if it’s the place that evil-doers send themselves to by rejecting God. I personally can’t understand how anyone would choose to remain in Hell, once they found themselves there; but maybe I don’t want to understand. But if God finally dropped this whole mystery thing and just laid it all out for us, people could finally make the rational decision to accept God in every way. And so there’d be no need for Hell at all. Everyone would know which set of rules to follow and do what they were supposed to do to go to Heaven. Not because they were afraid of Hell or need the reward, but because God finally told them. I know I would.
And in that regard, it would cure “evil”. The typical Christian argument is that God allows evil because he wants us to have Freewill. But this wouldn’t interfere with that at all, as we would still have the choice, but we’d just be better informed as to what we were choosing. So well-informed, in fact that we’d all make the right decision.
Besides, what kind of Freewill are we having, when we don’t even have the basic knowledge of how we got here and what’s expected of us. I mean, how free is my decision-making when I have no f-ing clue what’s really going on or what I’m really deciding on? Imagine going to restaurant that might not exist and ordering a meal that might kill you, and not even being allowed to see the appetizers. That’s what we’re talking about, except a gazillion times more ridiculous. What the hell kind of Howard Johnsons is this?
Faith v. Knowledge
And sure, some people insist that God DOES tell them what to do. God DOES talk to them. He sends his messages, and you just have to be open to them, we’re told. Great. Well if he’s so big on sending messages that very few will be able to decipher, why not go a little further and give us dumb schmucks a clue too? I’m an idiot, ok. Could you speak a little louder, please? Thank you.
And really, once you’re getting the inside tip from God, or he’s making his presence totally known to you (as many Christians insist), is that really belief? Because it seems that once you cross over that line and get direct knowledge of God, then belief goes right out the window. And again, why can’t the rest of us get that treatment? If it’s ok for these guys to cross beyond belief, then what exactly is God still hiding? I mean, what’s so special about belief anyway? Particularly when our holiest of holy people already think they’ve got a straight connection from the big man anyway.
And don’t get me started on how God’s trying to get through to people, but being rejected. I call bullshit on that. We’re not talking a Billy Graham Crusade walking through the streets of Mecca. We’re talking God, people. The “Creator”. If he can’t convince every man, woman, and child that he truly is the Creator, then I’m going to have serious doubts as to what this whole “omnipotence” thing entails. I’m not suggesting he force himself on people, but an omnipotent being clearly must have the means to politely make his presence known to everyone.
I mean, really. I’d never try to reject my Creator. I’d just like to see some form of identification. You know. Is that too much to ask? Why? Why faith? Is this really more important than preventing suffering? People aren’t looking for commands. They’d just like to know what the rules are. I know I am. And for that, I’m supposedly damned for eternity. That’s all I need.
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6 comments:
Damn. When it came time to posting this, I couldn't remember what the title was, and so I quickly came up with the Faith Based Rejection thing that I really didn't like, but needed to get it posted. And just now when I was about to shutdown my computer, I see the title was supposed to be The Tell Tale God. Sure, that's really not so good either, but I kind of sorta liked it better than the one I used. So if you got this far, you know that now and can feel superior to those who don't read my comments.
And no, they can't all be good titles. Otherwise, the good ones wouldn't seem as special.
The point about faith is that it's faith. I don't doubt that God could come down and prove God's existence to all of us. That would be too easy. I think the point is that we have to work these things out for ourselves. I've had some things happen to me that leave me with no doubt at all that God is here, somewhere, and is taking a hand in my life. But the only way to come anywhere near to understanding God is for us to work it out ourselves. We have to take some things on faith, and we'll never KNOW for sure much of anything about God, if we mean by "know" that we can prove or disprove things scientifically. If you depend upon others to define God, then I think you'll always end up frustrated, especially if yoo listen to coservative Christians.
Uhm, Bibbles, if things have happened to you that leave you with no doubt God exists, then where does the faith come in? You say that faith is faith, but it sounds like you're relying on something a little more than faith.
Besides, this is exactly what I was talking about. You think you've been given something beyond faith. Well why can't God give the rest of us something like that? Why does he leave it to chance? Sounds like a sick game to me: That billions of innocent people and children are suffering without mercy and risk suffering for all of eternity, simply because God has decided to not give all of us the same examples of his existence that he has given you. Doesn't make a lot of sense, and it sounds like you can't explain it either.
Whig - If I ever smoke so much pot that I start believing in God, I'll know it's time to stop.
So what you're saying is, you want God to stop in and say hello, but not really because it would freak you out so totally you'd quit doing whatever got his attention.
That about right?
Frankly Whig, if God won't make himself known to me except in a pot haze, I think he's the one who needs to lay off the dope.
Does anyone really have any good evidence to suggest that God wants us to know of his presence? Sure, a bunch of desert-dwelling dudes who were scared of pig meat tell us so, but what does that mean? If there's a god, he seems to want to keep his presence a mystery, and I see no reason to argue with that.
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