“God loves you, and God is good.” Was the reassuring comment from a religionist on a facebook discussion thread. She was defending her imaginary sky friend from a withering attack by a couple of atheists discussing the uselessness of religion.
My reply to that typically bland and predictable Christian throw away line was: “Good for what?” No answer was tendered by this self appointed publicist for her god.
I suppose if one never read the Old Testament, avoided biblical criticism, and simply fast forwarded through the New Testament without giving their God’s behavior much thought one could pick out a few dozen verses that were good, maybe even loving, if not unique to Christianity.
But as we all know, the god described in that hideous tome exposes itself to be overwhelmingly a vengeful, murdering, genocidal, sexually obsessed, misogynistic, homophobic, brutal, slavery endorsing, self centered, arbitrary, cruel, contradictory and confused tyrant.
Had that Christian PR woman bellied up to the bar and not just tossed a platitude and run, I’d have challenged her to a duel of verses. For every verse she provided that implies a good and loving god, I could match her with one and a half verses that demonstrate it to be evil and hateful. All she would be left with is trying to defend her position with:
· “But they had it coming they were [pick one or more] an evil culture, religion, civilization; a mean group of children; uppity women; horrid witches; unclean animals; expendable offspring.” aka excusing the inexcusable by rationalization.
My reply to that typically bland and predictable Christian throw away line was: “Good for what?” No answer was tendered by this self appointed publicist for her god.
I suppose if one never read the Old Testament, avoided biblical criticism, and simply fast forwarded through the New Testament without giving their God’s behavior much thought one could pick out a few dozen verses that were good, maybe even loving, if not unique to Christianity.
But as we all know, the god described in that hideous tome exposes itself to be overwhelmingly a vengeful, murdering, genocidal, sexually obsessed, misogynistic, homophobic, brutal, slavery endorsing, self centered, arbitrary, cruel, contradictory and confused tyrant.
Had that Christian PR woman bellied up to the bar and not just tossed a platitude and run, I’d have challenged her to a duel of verses. For every verse she provided that implies a good and loving god, I could match her with one and a half verses that demonstrate it to be evil and hateful. All she would be left with is trying to defend her position with:
· “But they had it coming they were [pick one or more] an evil culture, religion, civilization; a mean group of children; uppity women; horrid witches; unclean animals; expendable offspring.” aka excusing the inexcusable by rationalization.
· “You’re taking it out of context.” but can’t or won’t give a context which makes it good and justifiable by any ethical standard.
· “God works in strange and mysterious ways / who are we to know or understand God’s plan?” Cop out. If her god’s intent and actions confuse her, and are more than its actions at face, her how can she profess to know god’s intent is good, or that it loves anything other than itself?
I for one wouldn’t want to be loved by this hideous beast of a god. After all, it loved all its original creations, all their offspring, all those animals, everyone who doesn’t believe in it, and its very own son. Look what it did to, or threatens to do, to them. Nah, if such an evil being were real and we couldn’t kill it, I’d rather it just ignored me or didn’t know I existed.
I for one wouldn’t want to be loved by this hideous beast of a god. After all, it loved all its original creations, all their offspring, all those animals, everyone who doesn’t believe in it, and its very own son. Look what it did to, or threatens to do, to them. Nah, if such an evil being were real and we couldn’t kill it, I’d rather it just ignored me or didn’t know I existed.
11 comments:
Where did you get that actual picture of Yahweh? Or is that Allah?
Although the pronouncements of poorly informed people like that woman on Facebook are not harmless, it is people that will do anything to justify horrendous, disgusting behavior just because they think there is some inkling of justification in their fictitious bronze age or iron age book. One example is a blogger by the name of Jack Hudson. He is not a fundy, but he justifies anything if his god says so, or even if he thinks his god says so. I got him to admit to the world on his blog that he would commit multiple murder for his god. I had been arguing with him for a couple of weeks using logic and reason but after that, I told him his words are sub-human and never went to his blog again.
Bob... I googled "evil god" for that picture.
I have nteracted with many nutty Xtians like the one you describe. Wrote about a few of them in my book as you know. They disgust me not just because of their self imposed craziness, but because they represent everything that is wrong with religion and makes it dangerous to society.
As a Christian I am always disppointed when examples like this are used to accurately demonstrate that most "believers" haven't got the foggiest idea of what they are supposed to believe, what the Bible really says or doesn't say, or even who is supposed to read it or iterpret it and why...
DS Julian,
Thanks for your comment. Nice to have the input from a thinking Christian. It's welcome anytime.
We're all familiar with the rationalizations religious people use to show that God is good and that the Bible promotes morality, in spite of the plain meaning of the words right there on the page.
If such rationalizations are acceptable, one could use the same rationalizations to go through Mein Kampf and prove that its author was good and humane and promoted morality. Once you can make up whatever you want and claim that that's what the text really means, ignoring the plain sense of the words, anything goes.
We don't allow this kind of "non-literal interpretation" fudge in other realms. "Well, yes, officer, I saw the 55-miles-per-hour speed limit sign, but in context, my interpretation was that I can actually do 80." You'd still get a ticket. Why does anyone let religious apologists get away with this?
The Bible says God is a monster, and that's all there is to it.
Infidel...
excellent, perfectly said. Thank you!
"the god described in that hideous tome exposes itself to be overwhelmingly a vengeful, murdering, genocidal, sexually obsessed, misogynistic, homophobic, brutal, slavery endorsing, self centered, arbitrary, cruel, contradictory and confused tyrant." D.Hump
"In other words, human?"
Buster Frogg
Buster..precisely!
Men created God (and gods) in their own image, but with their capacity toward excess and fault magnified as befitting a diety.
thks.
Hump
Sheesh. That pic made me nearly snort Cherry Coke out my nose. I'm gonna have nightmares about God tonight. THANK YOU VERY DAMN MUCH!!
*shakes head at Julian*
Buster: in other words- needs a straitjacket? I innately understood from the time I was a teenager that Yahweh lost his freakin mind sometime during the sixth day. Seriously. He had a psychotic break. And it went downhill from there. We could never do anything to please him. Why? He needs a Valium.
Genesis 1:26 "And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion.... blah blah blah."
Our? OUR?? Who's this other person? Does God have a mouse in his pocket or something?
When you start talking about yourself like you are multiple it is a clear indication of some failing mental stability.
PS. And don't try any of that dualism crap, either. He wasn't talking to the Holy Ghost as an audience. He didn't make the Holy Ghost yet. Didn't have enough Zombies to choose from.
Angel..LOL. i see you're on a roll tonight;)
re the"our" in Genesis... Hebrew scholars will tell you that it is a mis interprtation of Hebrew grammar. Some Rabbis will say that god was talking to the angels, which existed prior to Genesis.
Naturally, Christians like to co-opt the Hebrew Bible and interpret to support the non-biblial trinity saying god was talking to himself/the holy boogie man/ and his yet to be born son... LOL.
sorry about the pic... it's a real eye catcher, eh?
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