By Carl S ~
So you want to understand this "God" everybody is talking about. You know people who have a "personal" relationship with him, who tell you this is what he desires: a personal relationship with his creation. So on your own, you start perusing the scriptural accounts believers refer to. Scriptures of three major religions speak in storied detail, to convince us to take their words on faith, of a creator-father-god and the history of his relationship with creation related in HIS OWN words. You're skeptical. But you decide to approach these scriptures AS IF THE ARE TRUE. You become an investigator.
Have you noticed how woefully inadequate this alleged all powerful father figure has been in dealing with this creation, and his failure to understand how it naturally functions? Strange, isn't it that someone who creates something DOESN'T really understand how it WORKS? A perfect creator would get things right at the beginning, with no regrets, you'd think. Or at least he'd make some alterations, tweaking it to perfection. But within a short time-frame, he goes from pronouncing it "good," to utterly destroying it in enraged dissatisfaction, like a spoiled brat.
This scriptural god's personality reminds us of others: Those of the prototypical elite Nazi generals dedicated to genocide. He is shallow, and tearfully, effusively sentimental for those he loves. On the other hand, he is indifferent, cold-hearted, and inflicts cruelty on those he doesn't. Even as an incarnate god, Jesus, likewise maudlin in affection, is lovingly ever-forgiving of those he loves, his favorites. He will love them to death. Meanwhile he self-righteously, icily, sends his unchosen and unfavorite ones to eternal tortures. He'll weep over the destruction of Jerusalem, while not lifting a finger or saying a word to prevent the deaths of the innocents within that city.
This God's most ardent imitators share his same duality of sentimentality and cruelty. The O.T. slaughtering tells us that only Israelite lives matter. Nazi exterminations of the Jews tell us that only Aryan lives matter, and the wars between the believers of Mohammed and Jesus tell us that only Islamic/Christian lives mattered. And the End Times Christians believe, rapturously, only Christian lives matter. The consequences for End Times non-Christians are psychopathic consequences, to be carried out with no mercy, since they deserve all the suffering that can possibly be meted out to them, on Earth and in hell.
Following the "logical" God conclusion that the end justifies the means, one Christian apologist has no compassion for the slaughtered infants in scriptures, while coldly defending their slaughterers as agents who send them to heaven! Other apologists tell us that one of the JOYS of those in heaven is in observing the agonies of those in hell. Members of the Inquisition, as their Nazi counterparts, had no qualms about torturing for the faith as their duty to this god who doesn't care about what it means to be a human being.
Most of all, you'd expect any father-figure-creator to encourage CURIOSITY - the prime virtue and most progressive drive to all well-being innate in any animal, including humans - INSTEAD of punishing and suppressing it's growth.
The bodiless creator can't understand the nuances, the romance, and intimacy of human sexuality. For him, it exists solely for procreation. (Except in the Song of Songs book of the O.T. Some pagan must have slipped that one in.) That doesn't stop him from telling us how to conduct our sex lives. Meanwhile he condemns homosexuals he's created, ignoring the fact that humans, naturally descended from apes and sharing their propensity not only for violence, cooperation, caring, and intimacy, but even same sex and bisexual preferences.
And while this creator TELLS us how our natures MUST be, he isn't interested in how they really ARE. He, the alleged creator and destroyer of nature, is no naturalist. When Darwin looked at the finch, he ASKED it to explain itself, he did not TELL it what it ought to be, what it's purpose should be. (Maybe it has no "purpose" other than its own existence.) When scientists discover reality, it is by observation and working with it. The inflexible creator remains ignorant.
This creator, unlike the farmer, vet, or animal lover, is either clueless or insensitive about the natures of animals. Far from being involved, he's out of touch; otherwise he would NOT cause them so much SUFFERING. (He may have a psychopath's pleasure in watching them suffer.) Obviously, he thought one male and one female animal of a species will guarantee future progeny. This doesn't work with some animals when their numbers are diminished. They'll die out rather than procreate. He doesn't take into consideration that you can't place carnivores, especially badgers and shrews, within striking distance of prey without disastrous consequences. Wolves have digestive systems for processing meat only, for example. A shrew, constantly hungry, will devour another shrew, male or female, if that's all there is available. (You don't want to cage one with another.)
He'll weep over the destruction of Jerusalem, while not lifting a finger or saying a word to prevent the deaths of the innocents within that city.The above refers, naturally, to the Flood story. And the stated reason for initiating this flood stems from the inability or ignorance on the part of the creator to understand human nature. Thus, he decides to destroy pretty near EVERYTHING in a fit of disappointment with the "good" he himself created. Of course, the result leaves NOTHING for the remaining animals, including humans, to eat, but fish and each other, since all vegetation has been utterly destroyed after being under water for ages.
As it turned out, if you believe the story, the flood was obviously a failure. Nothing changed. The creator, blaming humans for his decision, had to admit afterwards he misjudged humans, claiming they are BY NATURE, bad. He STILL didn't "get it." What of those select few who were left? Even Noah’s son, who was exempt from drowning, laughed at his drunken father. So much for "honoring" him. They weren’t exactly the elite representatives of moral behavior. After all, they let their kin, friends, neighbors, et al, drown. (The creator didn't apologize to the remaining traumatized animals, either.)
Then there's the tower of Babel story. How stupid, punishing people for trying to build a tower to heaven! As if that would stop us from going higher. We blew off the dome-lid which covered the Earth and found there was NO creator "out there" looking down. Not only does humanity go higher than a Babel tower, with skyscrapers, but into space habitation and to the moon and Mars, Pluto, and beyond. Humans inhabit the kingdom of the gods.
When the creator told his chosen people to take pagan virgins for themselves, to impregnate, he thought he eradicated the future of their "pagan genes." He didn't know that half of a baby's chromosomes are inherited from the mother; ergo, half of the baby's inheritance was "pagan." The future "purity" of his chosen people was NOT guaranteed.
The so-called creator doesn't know how to communicate with us. Much has been written about the creator’s preferred PROPHET system as a means of communication. It's a disaster. ALL prophets claim to tell the truth. One man's true prophet is another's false prophet. One person's superstition is another’s religion, and vice versa. It's a muddled mess. If such a system was employed for worldwide information consumption, it would collapse in its own entanglement.
The most we ever hear from believing persons is that they KNOW of the existence of this creator through FEELINGS. He manifests himself in feelings. The creator ought to know that feelings are just feelings, not having any evidence for good or evil, nor truth. There is ample evidence of the most intense of these feelings being expressed as temporary or permanent delusional experiences. (And what of those who are merely suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s? My experience is that they do not “feel" a god at all.)
Throughout history, humans, with setbacks to be sure, have made better well-being conditions for one another. Always, these have brought us together, despite religions. As scriptural instruction manuals for humans, the creator has left fables, goofy parables, metaphors, apologists babbling dogmatic non-sense, etc. This created creator doesn't make sense unless our lives are just a game to him, and invisibly, he’s playing cruel and/or mischievous tricks on all of us. It's what someone would do if he DIDN'T know, or doesn’t care to know, how humans work. Or maybe he's no different from a Nazi psychopath.
Now you sit in a darkened and silent room at 2 a.m. and think about that "personal relationship with God." It sounds not so much like a loving, mutually respectful relationship, but more like rape. And you can’t seem to grasp why people think you're missing out on "God's love;" you're pathetically unromantic in saying the Universe is uncaring about its inhabitants. Imagine what you're "missing out" on.
This scriptural god's personality reminds us of others: Those of the prototypical elite Nazi generals dedicated to genocide. He is shallow, and tearfully, effusively sentimental for those he loves. On the other hand, he is indifferent, cold-hearted, and inflicts cruelty on those he doesn't. Even as an incarnate god, Jesus, likewise maudlin in affection, is lovingly ever-forgiving of those he loves, his favorites. He will love them to death. Meanwhile he self-righteously, icily, sends his unchosen and unfavorite ones to eternal tortures. He'll weep over the destruction of Jerusalem, while not lifting a finger or saying a word to prevent the deaths of the innocents within that city.
This God's most ardent imitators share his same duality of sentimentality and cruelty. The O.T. slaughtering tells us that only Israelite lives matter. Nazi exterminations of the Jews tell us that only Aryan lives matter, and the wars between the believers of Mohammed and Jesus tell us that only Islamic/Christian lives mattered. And the End Times Christians believe, rapturously, only Christian lives matter. The consequences for End Times non-Christians are psychopathic consequences, to be carried out with no mercy, since they deserve all the suffering that can possibly be meted out to them, on Earth and in hell.
Following the "logical" God conclusion that the end justifies the means, one Christian apologist has no compassion for the slaughtered infants in scriptures, while coldly defending their slaughterers as agents who send them to heaven! Other apologists tell us that one of the JOYS of those in heaven is in observing the agonies of those in hell. Members of the Inquisition, as their Nazi counterparts, had no qualms about torturing for the faith as their duty to this god who doesn't care about what it means to be a human being.
Most of all, you'd expect any father-figure-creator to encourage CURIOSITY - the prime virtue and most progressive drive to all well-being innate in any animal, including humans - INSTEAD of punishing and suppressing it's growth.
The bodiless creator can't understand the nuances, the romance, and intimacy of human sexuality. For him, it exists solely for procreation. (Except in the Song of Songs book of the O.T. Some pagan must have slipped that one in.) That doesn't stop him from telling us how to conduct our sex lives. Meanwhile he condemns homosexuals he's created, ignoring the fact that humans, naturally descended from apes and sharing their propensity not only for violence, cooperation, caring, and intimacy, but even same sex and bisexual preferences.
And while this creator TELLS us how our natures MUST be, he isn't interested in how they really ARE. He, the alleged creator and destroyer of nature, is no naturalist. When Darwin looked at the finch, he ASKED it to explain itself, he did not TELL it what it ought to be, what it's purpose should be. (Maybe it has no "purpose" other than its own existence.) When scientists discover reality, it is by observation and working with it. The inflexible creator remains ignorant.
This creator, unlike the farmer, vet, or animal lover, is either clueless or insensitive about the natures of animals. Far from being involved, he's out of touch; otherwise he would NOT cause them so much SUFFERING. (He may have a psychopath's pleasure in watching them suffer.) Obviously, he thought one male and one female animal of a species will guarantee future progeny. This doesn't work with some animals when their numbers are diminished. They'll die out rather than procreate. He doesn't take into consideration that you can't place carnivores, especially badgers and shrews, within striking distance of prey without disastrous consequences. Wolves have digestive systems for processing meat only, for example. A shrew, constantly hungry, will devour another shrew, male or female, if that's all there is available. (You don't want to cage one with another.)
He'll weep over the destruction of Jerusalem, while not lifting a finger or saying a word to prevent the deaths of the innocents within that city.The above refers, naturally, to the Flood story. And the stated reason for initiating this flood stems from the inability or ignorance on the part of the creator to understand human nature. Thus, he decides to destroy pretty near EVERYTHING in a fit of disappointment with the "good" he himself created. Of course, the result leaves NOTHING for the remaining animals, including humans, to eat, but fish and each other, since all vegetation has been utterly destroyed after being under water for ages.
As it turned out, if you believe the story, the flood was obviously a failure. Nothing changed. The creator, blaming humans for his decision, had to admit afterwards he misjudged humans, claiming they are BY NATURE, bad. He STILL didn't "get it." What of those select few who were left? Even Noah’s son, who was exempt from drowning, laughed at his drunken father. So much for "honoring" him. They weren’t exactly the elite representatives of moral behavior. After all, they let their kin, friends, neighbors, et al, drown. (The creator didn't apologize to the remaining traumatized animals, either.)
Then there's the tower of Babel story. How stupid, punishing people for trying to build a tower to heaven! As if that would stop us from going higher. We blew off the dome-lid which covered the Earth and found there was NO creator "out there" looking down. Not only does humanity go higher than a Babel tower, with skyscrapers, but into space habitation and to the moon and Mars, Pluto, and beyond. Humans inhabit the kingdom of the gods.
When the creator told his chosen people to take pagan virgins for themselves, to impregnate, he thought he eradicated the future of their "pagan genes." He didn't know that half of a baby's chromosomes are inherited from the mother; ergo, half of the baby's inheritance was "pagan." The future "purity" of his chosen people was NOT guaranteed.
The so-called creator doesn't know how to communicate with us. Much has been written about the creator’s preferred PROPHET system as a means of communication. It's a disaster. ALL prophets claim to tell the truth. One man's true prophet is another's false prophet. One person's superstition is another’s religion, and vice versa. It's a muddled mess. If such a system was employed for worldwide information consumption, it would collapse in its own entanglement.
The most we ever hear from believing persons is that they KNOW of the existence of this creator through FEELINGS. He manifests himself in feelings. The creator ought to know that feelings are just feelings, not having any evidence for good or evil, nor truth. There is ample evidence of the most intense of these feelings being expressed as temporary or permanent delusional experiences. (And what of those who are merely suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s? My experience is that they do not “feel" a god at all.)
Throughout history, humans, with setbacks to be sure, have made better well-being conditions for one another. Always, these have brought us together, despite religions. As scriptural instruction manuals for humans, the creator has left fables, goofy parables, metaphors, apologists babbling dogmatic non-sense, etc. This created creator doesn't make sense unless our lives are just a game to him, and invisibly, he’s playing cruel and/or mischievous tricks on all of us. It's what someone would do if he DIDN'T know, or doesn’t care to know, how humans work. Or maybe he's no different from a Nazi psychopath.
Now you sit in a darkened and silent room at 2 a.m. and think about that "personal relationship with God." It sounds not so much like a loving, mutually respectful relationship, but more like rape. And you can’t seem to grasp why people think you're missing out on "God's love;" you're pathetically unromantic in saying the Universe is uncaring about its inhabitants. Imagine what you're "missing out" on.
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