What I Believe, part II
By Jerry ~
I just wanted to bring a bit more clarity to my earlier post.
All my life I had been searching for God. I remember at seven years old going into a religious book store and asking the owner what the “right religion” is. He advised me to read and come to my own conclusion.
My mom had been lonely as dad was working a lot, so when the Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) knocked on the door she agreed to study their literature with them. In short order she was baptized and began taking me to JW meetings. I was about 11 years old and remember the kids I met there which soon turned into friendships. I continued to be a Witness until about 25.
Around that time I was experiencing great doubts because the JWs had prophesied that 1975 would see the return of Jesus and he would establish a kingdom on earth. By now it was 1982 and he had failed to show up. A book written by one of the top leaders in the organization blew the lid off the JW scam outlining the many times they had prophesied events and how each time they had been mistaken. They never apologized for the false prediction but instead always blamed the followers for misunderstanding their message.
I left and went wild for awhile, making up for the post teen years I missed as a witness. It involved drinking, many women and lots of other things I can’t or won’t remember.
Forward ahead many years (and divorces) later, I met a wonderful woman who is now my wife. When I met her I had a faith in God, mainly acquired from television and the Internet, but I was not an active churchgoer. She, on the other hand, was heavily involved in the Pentecostal church movement. Tongues, healing, raising the dead etc. Now this was all new to me at the time. But I love her and accepted her faith as part of who she is.
My wife had been seriously injured by an abusive ex-husband who had come home drunk and kicked her repeatedly in the lower back with his steel tipped boots until her spine snapped. This abuse, combined with rheumatoid arthritis and scoliosis, left her in total agony every day and night. She is on the strongest pain killers known to man and medicine. Doctors are unable to operate or give her any relief.
She would literally scream out in pain for hours night after night. As I went to comfort her and rub her back I looked up at God and asked him what type of Dad would do this to his child? And what type of Dad would allow Satan to attack his child day after day for fourteen years now? I remember cursing God for unheard and unanswered prayers. There were thousands of them. What type of creature was God? He is said to be “love,” but I never witnessed that. All I saw was indifference and apathy.
In any decently run universe, this guy would have been out on his all-powerful-ass a long time ago. After observing the violence done in the names of various religions — Islam being the scourge of the planet — and all those killed in disasters caused by a violent Earth that God had supposedly made as a home for his humans, I totally lost any shred of faith I once had. I look back at George Carlin’s statement of how "in any decently run universe, this guy would have been out on his all-powerful-ass a long time ago." Now multiply this experience by the millions of people whose pleas are apparently ignored by a vengeful, bloodthirsty being.
Read the Old Testament and see how awful God was to his OWN people. Read about Job. Read about Moses. God destroyed all his creatures to satisfy a deep blood lust. Look at the entire history of the Jewish people! Jesus said love your enemies, but this God shows only anger and hatred.
I would gladly be damned for all eternity rather than to spend five minutes with such a twisted being. The Bible says that God ways are not man’s ways, and that is correct. God's ways are infinitely more evil.
That and more is why I am an atheist today. I can’t hate enough to be a good Christian. I can’t hate enough to faithfully follow such a hateful God.
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