Judgement Day

I have nothing against churches today, two of my kids are church goers; before my daughter started driving, i was the one that got out of bed sunday mornings in January to drive her there. But looking at religion as an institution, what it has become: i look back on the Spanish Inquisition, for example, which began in 1478 and was not completely abolished until the early 1800's, and i ask myself: what was that about? certainly not about God. And back in 2002 i wonder why Religion as an entity concerned with human life and morality, did not go to then pres. Bush and say: there must be a better way. Sacrificing young lives, except under the most dire conditions, is wrong. This is not 1941, we were not dealing with Hitler. Recently, i heard W. in an interview, asked what he regreted, said he regreted not finding weapons of mass destruction......Really, that's what comes to mind?

From my church going experience, i almost want to say that for most church goers, fellowship is put before worship, but i don't know that, it just looks that way to me, and i don't see anything wrong with that. It would, though, indicate something about the theological aspect of worship: you'd think God's presence would create an unmistakeable force, the holy spirit, that would bring one to our knees every time we opened ourselves to it. I just think people would be in awe every time they walked into church and be overwhelmed. 

I think churches do a lot of good, of course, but as for the future of religion.....
Young people are getting away from it because they see that homosexuality and gay marrige is not as horrible as Religion makes it out to be, as is abortion and evolution. Intolerance is not cool.

Youngsters are getting smarter, wiser, thinkier, and worst of all for Religion, they
are making up their own minds about these issues. These kids, more and more know someone, maybe even have family that are atheist, gay, single parents, Jewish, Muslim, whatever, and they can see that these are normal people, no better, no worse, just people like them.

Eventually, people will see that we will always need some form of religion, but that the negative side of religion is people judging people, and themselves; and i'm talking about just people, wonderful, ignorant, smart, selfish, good, evil, people.

Burning Question

If taking a close look at the bible convinced me that it was anything but inspired by a deity, the one belief of Christianity that put the final nail in the coffin for me was this whole idea of Hell.

Let's talk about Hell; let's take a look at this idea from God's point of view: so, God is working things out, He created mankind, He loves mankind, mankind good.
A&E made one little mistake, they were tricked actually, but no one said life was fair, so now all mankind has to suffer. "Yes, I like that; I don't care that they were the only two involved--besides Satan who will be dealt with--everyone suffers for their trespass from now on.

Let's see, no more everlasting life, that's out; they can just grow old, diseased, and die; I know.... pain during childbirth, a little something for the ladies, teach them to listen to Satan!

But, I don't want people saying that i'm a Schmoe; ok, ok, ok, ok, there will be salvation for those who follow my commandments, but those who don't will burn in Hell for all eternity. So it be written, so it be done."

Wow, eternal damnation, suffering, and torture in a pit of fire.  Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is tough love.

What did i do to deserve that? Oh, humanity inherited this punishment from A&E.
I cannot refuse my inheritance, i have no choice?

So much for free will.

Well, making Satan mayor of Hellsville, now that was a stroke of genius. Speaking of the devil, it can't be easy being him; he must know that he will not win in the end. It's written in the bible:  God will destroy Satan.

Who goes up against God, for heaven's sake?

Author! Author!

People have been using spoken language for 50, maybe even 100, thousand years, believe it or not. And these days, with more people learning science and history,
few people would doubt archaelogical findings unless one imagines that these
scientists are under Satan's control, or that God made the earth appear older to weed out the fair weather faithful.

The bible puts creation at about 4000 years before Christ. That's interesting because evidence of written language goes back about 6000 years. That would make A&E the first writers, actually just Adam, it looks like women were not allowed to write books of the bible.

The need for record keeping and accounting propelled the advancement in written language. It looks like God waited for people to invent written language to inspire the books of the bible. To me, one of the most interesting unanswered God questions is about why God chose to inspire the bible when he did?

I think the first spoken word was "huh"; it just seems that in any language it is understood as an expression of amazement, or with a different inflection, the sound that a ? would make.

It looks to me like the more advanced writing became, the more people played around with it, and eventually scholars began to make stuff up to write.  The flood, the tower of Babel, and the two versions of the story of creation are prime examples. I just love the story of the tower of Babel; that term, by the way, is not used in the bible. The people were not just building a tower, they were building a city that was to be named Babel, hence the reference to the tower of Babel by readers.

So, God saw what the people were trying to do: build a tower to reach the heights of heaven. God said: if i don't do something, there's no stopping them, so he made up different languages, downloaded them into their brains, the people became dumbfounded, and just gave up and left. Yeah, but if i'm a Babelite, these are people i know and work with, if they, all the sudden, started speaking a strange language, i don't think i would give up that easy; i think i would try to learn their new language, teach them mine. This ploy that God used to stop the people from building didn't work anyway, didn't people go to the moon, and why didn't God stop that?

God the Almighty created the universe from nothing, what more do we need as proof of his power and perfection. God does not fail. This God of the bible does fail, and as evidenced by the story of Abraham and Lot, God plays cruel games with people. The God of the bible seems more human than anything else.

If a deity does exist, there is absolutely no connection to the God of the bible, a God that so obviously came from the imaginations of mankind.

Oh, and let's not forget the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the message is clear: God hates gay people-- pure evidence that the writers of the bible were homophobes.

Far be it from me to imagine what a true deity would be like, but i will not believe in a human-like god. And i will not accept the claim that God-of-the-bible is given human qualities for me to relate to, i don't think i need to relate to a deity, or understand it, or even know it's name; a deity would be all powerful and divine, i would trust it, and if asked, worship it, no questions asked.

The Argument

Religion and God: never had a good discussion with a Christian on that subject. The few i've had have left me so dazed that i seldon will let myself be drawn into them; God forbid it turn into an argument.

I cannot argue with a Christian because they always have that wild card that trumps everything else: God can do anything, anything at all, think of anything--think the impossible--God can do it. Yes, with God everything is possible, and it is not for us to even question why God did the things he did that is written about in the bible.

What i find ironic is that it is precicely that arguement--the Almighty's power--that is the source of my strongest conviction against believing in His existance.
God the Almighty, according to the bible, created perfection in Adam and Eve; then they did the worst thing they could possibly do: sin. It is the fault of an angel
--another of God's creations--gone bad. Satan the angel, goes for the weakest link, the woman, Eve, knowing she would be the easy target and that she would bring Adam down with her. This story is so obviously written by a guy, a married guy.

Wild card number two: free will. The power to make our decisions independent of our maker and defy, if  need be. You'd think God would have been one step ahead of Satan, and made people that were perfect without that innocence that Satan took advantage of. How could a perfect being go bad? Satan knew A&E had free will and tricked Eve, knowing that women will always want more and can never pass up an opportunity to exercise their free will.

Free will is God's kryptonite because it takes away God's power to control us.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of the comic book superhero,
Superman, had to deal with the same problem; they created a nearly indestructable hero, how do you create suspense there? They had to give the bad guy a weapon, kryptonite. The writers of the bible cleverly gave Satan free will to work with.

It seems that the writers of the bible had their own ideas as to the powers of a
deity. One could argue deism, but to have created a universe, nay, multiple universi, only to abandon them and their living inhabitants, a bit whimsical for
a God, it seems to me.

Galileo Galilei went against church teaching and supported heliocentrisim, which was proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543, which states that earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around. The church placed Galileo under house arrest for herecy; Copernicus died before the church could get a hold of him. But it is nice to think that earth and mankind is the center of the universe.

I don't know about today, but back then the church punished you for thinking outside the box; unfourtunately, they had that power then. I know that in my father's religion we were strongly discouraged from reading anything but their own publishings, and they published tons of books, magazines, and tracts.

According to my logic, if i am confident in my convictions, in my religion, then i want you to read, investigate, and question all you want. Think outside the box, and try to prove me wrong. Go ahead, do my job; you will come back more convinced that i am right than if i had been quoting chapter and verse to you.

In my father's religion, the arguement against exploring is that anything that they do not publish is heavily tainted by....you guessed it, Satan.