You state that “there is forgiveness for every sin … but there is a condition” for the same … Yes, Paul does indeed state this in the Bible, and this most certainly is an accurate reflection of his take on salvation therein.  Of course, what are the consequences for all of humanity if such a thing is true?

 

*First of all, God’s Love becomes no longer anywhere near the “perfect” status given to it by Jesus himself  (Matthew 5:48) … Indeed, any LOVE that is truly perfect does not require any obedience (or apply any conditions, or demand any subservience) whatsoever – especially from a Divine Being who is supposedly all-knowing an all-powerful.  I mean, I myself know that any truly loving human father would never punish his children forever for making even the most dire of mistakes (see the Parable of the Prodigal Son; an accurate reflection of what I mean – Luke 15:11-32) … And yet your version of God for some reason cannot grasp this concept.  He needs to be worshiped fully & bowed down to appropriately or damnation will ensue. So what we have here right off the bat is a God who is fundamentally petty & abjectly insecure – in a contrast most marked to the way Jesus describes the heavenly Father in the Gospels.

*And yet in response to this discrepancy, you & yours might state, “Well, God is still making it technically possible for us all to become saved, right?”

 

Well, actually, NO – He isn’t … You see, Lucy, God has pretty clearly given us not only brains that are hard-wired to reason logically and strive to comprehend the nature of their surroundings (e.g. why thunderstorms happen – or how plagues occur – or where the Sun goes at night, for example), but He has also given us no objective evidence of His true nature whatsoever.  We humans have been in existence for at least 100,000 years (many scientists double that figure, but we’ll accept the low-end estimate for this argument to be most fair to you) – and for the first 96,000 of those years humans lived horribly difficult lives and died horribly painful deaths at ridiculously young ages; all while God sat passively by and did absolutely nothing.  Then, according to you & yours, some 4000 years ago God decided to finally do something about all our pain & suffering & confusion –and yet He did so by etching a pair of stone tablets on Mt. Sinai and giving them to a relatively illiterate people being then led by an oft-delusional maniac (that would be Moses).   Then, some 2000 years after that – when that 1^st Covenant didn’t work out so well, you & yours claim that God gave his “final revelation” to all of humanity in the form of Jesus Christ.  But he didn’t do so in China where civilization was already thriving and literary.  No, for reasons beyond comprehension He sought out a most backward, superstitious, unsophisticated, pre-literary folk to whom to give His final message – a message, by the way, that carries with it the potential of eternal damnation if not somehow discovered, somehow properly deciphered, and somehow appropriately obeyed!

 

So at this point – quite obviously – your petty & insecure God has become simultaneously unjust & capricious.  He knows full well that He has made us humans to doubt and he knows full well that He has given us a final challenge that has little to no chance of being believed by a significant portion of the global population … Essentially, he has knowingly set up BILLIONS of his own children to fail – and not only to fail, but to be punished for that failure for all of eternity.  As such, if this version – your verison – of God is indeed the correct one, then He is a God who is patently immoral, fully incompetent or diabolically Machiavellian (i.e. essentially Satan posing as God) … Take your pick.  And this is the God you have chosen to fight for in the Bible — a rabid villain; a Being who has Jeffrey Dahmer & Adolf Hitler living it up in Heaven while Mahatma Gandhi & Peace Pilgrim burn forever in Hell …

 

 

AND YET there is a completely different God within the pages of your Bible, Lucy — a God who not only inspired Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, but a God who actually adheres to its brilliance Himself … This is a God of perfect Love, insurmountable Grace & never-ending Forgiveness.

P.S.  Lucy, I fully admit that you can back up your theology with verses of Scripture that “prove” that your far lesser God of a far lesser love is indeed the “real God” – but my Goodness: WHY in the world are you doing so? … Is it because this is the God of your childhood – the God with whom you are most comfortable? … Is it because you like feeling as though you are on the “winning team”; because you like feeling superior to people from other nations & races & classes & sects who quite reasonably have chosen to believe in the “false gods” of their own diverse upbringings? … Or is it because you simply want to get to Heaven – because you want to be saved and live forever, and don’t really give a damn who you have to worship to do so?

 

*I mean, have you thought about how you are going to deal with your tyrant-God for eternity while you are up there in Heaven with Him?

 

*Have you thought about how you are going to shut out the screams of the damned as they constantly float up to your subconscious from Hell down below?

 

*Have you thought about having to look over your own shoulder while you are up there – wondering whether Jesus is going to radically change his mind again  (like he clearly did at some point between his all-Loving & fully forgiving Gospel-ministry and his wrath-filled return described in the book of Revelation)?

 

*Have you thought about having to constantly worry about your fickle God tossing you & yours out of Heaven to bring in a different, newly favored group of worshipers?

 

Have you thought about any of these things, Lucy? Or are you simply shrugging your shoulders and giving it all a feeble-hearted “That’s just the way things are”?

 

Hmmm … I wonder.

Filed under: Burnishing Bigotry by Scaughdt