There are few taboos
left in our western society anymore, and the ones that
are there are slowly but surely falling by the wayside
and opening themselves up to logical discourse. Of
course, there are exceptions to this, but in general
this is the way our society is heading...
There is however one
taboo that appears to still be pretty much unbreakable.
Even to those of us who have eschewed our religious
roots, it is much more acceptable to deny god than to be
angry with it. To deny god is simply to accept our fate,
to be angry with it is to tempt it.
I am here to break that
taboo. I am angry with god. Or, more accurately, if
there is a god, I feel justified and completely reasoned
in being very upset to angry with that entity. Mine is a
righteous anger, however, fueled by the tendency of this
god to hold itself aloof and refuse to talk to people
who do not bow down prostrate before it.
Why am I angry? Let me
list my reasons. All of these reasons suppose that there
is a god, an assertion that I am not comfortable making
in any but a hypothetical manner.
1.) We are
supposed to be god's creations, however, he has imbued
us with something that we like to call "free will". This
free will is something that is supposed to be very
precious to this entity. We have the free will to make
our own decisions and choices.
However, this god has
given us this ability, and then turned around and told
us that if we do not make the decisions that it has told
us are proper and correct, that it will turn away from
us and eventually torment or destroy us.
If we, as humans, were
to treat our children like this, we would at the very
least raise some very dysfunctional children, and at the
very most, have them taken away from us. Even our
"inferior" human moral sense dictates this to be the
case. Why should a god not be held to the same
standards, or even higher?
If this god accepts us
for who we are, we should not have to do anything,
including accepting the sacrifice of itself, which
should cover us whether or not we accept it. If it does
not, then the gift of free will is for naught. Either
way, this god has some serious explaining to do.
2.) Upon
creation, god was supposed to have granted us with the
choice between good and evil. Or more accurately, it was
supposed to have granted our forbearers this choice. Not
only did it subject these people to a situation that
they were not only ill-equipped to handle, it subjected
them to a situation that was probably impossible for
them to handle. It set our forbearers up for failure,
and then took this failure and put it on the heads of
every single human from then on, whether or not they had
personally made the "bad" decision.
Either the myth is
false, or god is a cruel entity who has preordained our
own destruction, necessitating it to save us from
ourselves.
3.) Upon
making this choice, god waited a while, and decided that
the whole world was evil. So then it decided to find
nine righteous people, (I think that's the number), and
save then, and kill, outright, hundreds of millions more
in one of the most horrible ways possible. It was within
the power of this god to simply strike everyone down
quickly and painlessly, but no, it had to teach us a
lesson we'd never forget. And then, to add insult to
injury, after it was done, in the nature of most
abusers, it felt regret, and put up a rainbow to promise
it wouldn't do it again. That's right, kill almost
everyone and everything on the planet, and then feel
remorse afterwards. How many abusive fathers or husbands
have you heard this pattern in? Sound familiar?
And we're supposed to
WORSHIP that?
4.) So,
moving on, this god was supposed to have chosen a small
tribe of people to be its "bride". This was a group of
people who were base and animalistic, just like every
other tribe on the planet, but somehow it chose "this"
group of people. It then went off and instructed its
"bride" to take over as much land as possible and kill
everyone and everything on it. Rape, pillage, and
plunder. Killing thousands to millions of people
brutally.
I guess the lesson here
is that if you are god's chosen people you can do
whatever you want, and if you're not it doesn't matter
what you do, you'll still get killed?
I'm sure there were
plenty of Canaanites and Hittites and *ites that were
pretty good people, as people of that day went.
Indiscriminate.
5.) And
then we go to Sodom and Gomorrah. It's pretty well known
these days that homosexuality isn't a choice, and most
people who are homosexuals would prefer not to be if
they had the choice. Whether it is a birth aberration,
is immaterial. Even "we" know enough to be tolerant and
loving towards these people. But instead, this god
decided that because of these people's "wickedness",
they were to be killed, again in a horrible manner. Even
god couldn't find one good person in those cities. Why?
Wasn't it looking hard enough? Or perhaps it didn't
*want* to? Oh, and of course Lot's wife, whom he'd
already decided was good enough to escape with lot, but
in a fit of curiosity or whatever, she decided to look
back, and got turned into a pillar of salt. How
difficult is it not to look back at something
spectacular like the fall of an entire city? Yet another
case of god asking the impossible, and again without
even giving a decent reason why, that would have at
least given her incentive. Yet another case of god
faulting someone for being human and doling out the
harshest punishment possible.
6.) And of
course Job. We all know that story, don't we? God has
something to prove to Satan, so he decides that Satan
can do anything it wants to Job, but don't kill him.
Torment him all it wants.. So finally Job breaks and god
faults him for it, but then in its infinite mercy it
forgives Job. Job didn't bring this upon himself, he
lost everything, and yet god still faults him for it?
What kind of god is this, anyway? I suppose god would
have faulted Job if he'd killed himself, too?
7.) So fast
forward a couple of thousand years. God decides it's
finally time to forgive everyone. So, in its inscrutable
wisdom, it turns part of itself into a human, sends it
to earth, doles out some admittedly insightful bits of
wisdom (possibly the only good thing god has ever done),
and then kills itself. That is supposed to be a
sacrifice for all of our sins, right? And then it
resurrects itself and flies up into the sky. And out of
that comes a church. Fine and good. A church that
preaches forgiveness for all, even if the fact that we
need forgiveness in the first place, can't be a bad
thing, right? Except that church, which is supposedly
headed up by god itself, twists and turns even that
simple thing around so that it becomes an instrument of
oppression. A state which is allowed to continue for
years upon years upon years.
8.) Now, if
someone goes around spreading lies about us behind our
backs, our first recourse is to state, as publicly as
possible, that this person doesn't speak for us and we
don't stand for that, right? Well, if all this stuff is
not true, if the bible and the ministers and the priests
and everyone who claims to speak for god while sapping
people dry of their money, or everyone who claims to
speak for god, ruining lives and families and causing
death and suffering and destruction are not speaking for
god, then why isn't god thundering from the mountaintops
that these people do not speak for it? I would think
that, at least, god would owe us that much. At least
tell us in no uncertain terms what it's nature is so we
could make an informed choice as to whether to accept or
reject it.
9.) Also,
god seems to have this really
narcissistic desire to be worshipped. It seems to be
very insecure, always needing it to be told by creatures
inferior to itself that it is so wonderful and great. In
fact, this worship seems to be a precondition of this
god accepting us. I think this is some kind of extreme
codependence. Why should we worship something that
demands our worship? I think god would be much more
worthy of our worship if it told us not to.
Right now I reject god.
I reject
god because the behaviors outlined above are patently
inexcusable.
I reject
god because god has supposedly given me the free will to
decide for myself, and I decide that eternal destruction
without this kind of god is infinitely better than
eternal life with such insanity.
I reject
god because I think any *real* god would respect my
convictions much more than it would respect blind
obedience.
I reject
god because I will not place myself under such
capriciousness.
I reject
god because the god that I have been taught and the god
that I have describe above, the god of the bible, is
capricious and by any definition of the word, mentally
ill and deranged.
Of course, if the real
god is not at all like this I would like to know. And
then the real god has quite a bit of explaining to do.
If the real god is not like this, I would like to know
why the real god has not spoken up and told us that
everything we were taught is wrong, that it isn't like
that. I would like god to explain to me, as a fellow
conscious being, why it has chosen to allow this stuff
to go on. I am willing to listen. but it had better have
a damn good reason, if it values me at all.
So, yes I am angry with
god. But god has a chance to redeem itself. All it has
to do is prove to me that it isn't so, and explain to me
why it has allowed this to go on for so long. I'm
willing to listen.
I suspect god and I will
not have this conversation any time soon.
--Russell
If you have anything
you would like to
submit to this site, or any comments,
email me at:
1.) We are supposed to be god's creations, however, he has imbued us with something that we like to call "free will". This free will is something that is supposed to be very precious to this entity. We have the free will to make our own decisions and choices.
I reject god because the behaviors outlined above are patently inexcusable.
