Why?
This amusing dialogue poses an interesting question about the Christian god.God could have made humans any way he pleased and chose to make them just how they are. So he made them capable of sin.
So whose fault was it that man sinned?
I know that God gave us free will. But how can free will be free if God created that too? He knows all outcomes, all possibilities.
So what kind of favour is God doing us by "redeeming" us when he created us damaged in the first place? Did he send Jesus because he'd realised he fucked up?
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And how can a "loving" god think it is reasonable to give you a 70-year trial for an eternal reward? Eternity is very long.
Would it not be fairer to give you a chance to recant once you're better informed about the consequences? It's one thing to demand faith in God, quite another to demand faith in your eternal torture.
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One can go on for hours. It's child's play to pick holes in the Christian belief. It's such frank nonsense that it doesn't really bring much joy to do so. If you were to invent a belief from scratch, you'd take more care, but Christianity accreted and shoehorns dozens of different, incompatible traditions in with each other.
I have a question though. I've never found a compelling answer. It's why? If God loves me, why doesn't he just give me the eternal reward? Why give me a life first? Why bother? What is the purpose of the trial? What kind of love puts the beloved on trial for his or her life?
posted by Dr Zen @ 11:36 am
5 Comments:
Same question, mixed with a weak instinct for herding, is why I quit the churched life. Christianity is merely another religion, and all of them in some way or other satisfy human instincts evolved over the millennia. Evolution is not about truth; whatever works to keep people having descendants, that's all that matters. Your linked-to dialog was fun.
Perhaps Christianity (and all of the other major religions) are simply humun constructs - and therefore, subject to all of our errors in thinking (collectively - even worse). Some of us rigidly hold onto faulty rationale as to why the religion works, the rest of us rigidly hold onto argumentation as to why it doesn't work. Perhaps it is time to hink outside the box. Perhaps "God" is nothing like the constructs and subsequent arguments. Rather than being omniscient or all-powerful, perhaps "God" is an "energy" - more like gravity or magnetism - but instead the energy of love. The "power" of gravity can only really manifest itself in the material world. Perhaps God - as love - can only manifest Itself within the material word also. So much else follows - we can't "prove" the existence of love, only cite examples and have faith in it to heal us. God is only as powerful as we are to employ It. Why are there wars? Because we don't have enough faith (in love). If everyone loved (i.e. believed in love) wars would cease to exist. Perhaps, also, we aren't capable (yet) of having enough faith. Perhaps the root of the problem is that we want a fix-all - and when we don't have one, we get angry. We need rules (doctrines and dogma) to give us what we don't have - if not in this life, then the "next". Many of us become angry or bitter when others make up rules, because life *isn't* any better - and oftentimes worse. Perhaps there is no perfect Creator (maybe there was a Big Bang or some such "beginning") but there is love, which is pretty darn cool when we decide to use it...
I simply find it hard to imagine an "energy" is going to mind much if I masturbate.
Of course, I don't believe there are any mystical forces, but I do think that the more you disempower God, the less you need him.
I simply find it hard to imagine an "energy" is going to mind much if I masturbate.
So, who the hell told you that God would mind if you masturbated? She-it. They are f*cked up if they did.
Of course, I don't believe there are any mystical force...
Perhaps God isn't any more mystical (or mysterious) than the other four fundamental forces of physics/nature: strong, electromagnetic, weak, or gravity - or whatev - I'm no physicist - perhaps God is just misunderstood. Hee hee. Maybe there are more than four?
...but I do think that the more you disempower God, the less you need him.
Perhaps that is why people make God so powerful (and needlessly cruel). There is a lot of money (and power) to be had in neediness. Unfortunately, people don't seem to notice how much they really need love. Poor bastards - all of us... No money in it, I guess. We are screwed until we do notice, though. We are probably screwed anyway, but what the hey - nuthin' else worth doin' around here, n'est ce pas?
I think, to be fair, Socrates should have encountered the Jesus of the Gospels, able to perform miracles. The Jesus character in this piece was just a dogmatic Christian. That's why it was such an unequal contest--Socrates was allowed his powers, but Jesus was deprived of his. Which is not to say Socrates might not have won against Jesus Christ, but it would have been more interesting, less of a forgone conclusion.
I did like it though.
As Linda Smith said, 'If God had intended us to believe in Him, He would have Existed.
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