FAITH

On The Plan Of God

So let me understand and summarize this belief system I am the most familiar with since I was 12 years old: 

God created all matter and time. On this planet Earth He/She/It created life with man being the last of creation (depends on whether you go with Genesis Chapter 1 vs Genesis Chapter 2). He created a female from the rib of Adam (why do men have nipples and are not short one rib?) They were naked and happy and then the woman beguiled the man to taste from the forbidden tree (the ability to know right from wrong, isn’t this a good thing?) Then God said they will die instead of living forever. Most Christians believe that all humanity is born with a sinful nature received upon conception and passed down from generation to generation because of this act. So humans sin. It is in their nature. We inherit it without any choice (I thought we had free will??). The majority sexual orientation is heterosexual but there is a 3-10+% minority that are not. In the animal kingdom, in some species, homosexuality is even more prevalent than in Homo sapiens. God then supposedly condemns the human sexual orientation they were born with and wants them to be heterosexual. God sends to humans (but only the Hebrew race as He/She/It has decided this particular small middle eastern ethnic tribe are His/Her/Its special chosen people). He/She/It provides the 10 commandments that should be followed (but slavery and prejudice and starting offensive wars unfortunately didn’t make this list!) Then more rules are added and explained as emanating from the original 10. But even the Hebrews don’t follow all of these rules (Jews are after all, just humans!) Humanity is doomed because sin is rampant all over the earth (not sure what happens to the races that are not the special chosen race as they have no idea which rules they are supposed to follow and which God to worship). God regrets having made humans (wait, does this mean God does NOT know the future? He seems surprised on what He created and that it was surely doomed to failure. He didn’t see this coming at all??) He/She/It uses a flood to kill most everyone and everything including children and pregnant women and their pets(I so wish the flies and mosquitoes would have been TOTALLY wiped out!) For some reason, God in the Old Testament apparently established that something must die as a blood sacrifice (i.e. a sacrificial lamb) so that sins can be atoned for. Many ancient cultures had blood sacrifices). Then God realizes that now animal sacrifices just don’t cut it anymore so God now realizes He/She/It must leave eternity and come into the human realm of time and space and cause a virgin to be pregnant (without getting her permission first-but she is told afterwards-and agrees. Is this a good example of consent? No male human sperm is involved (so then original sin is not inherited?) and then be born in the natural way from that virgin (who somehow is also free from original sin due to her Immaculate Conception which was not clearly articulated until the 12th century? and according to the largest group of Christians remains a virgin even after giving birth) This person is raised by two parents but the earthly father dies first. This human manifestation of God named Jesus is smart, and clever, knows how humans are, practices Judaism, is a carpenter like his deceased earthly father and grows up like anyone else except this individual is both man and God at the same time. His mission is to be killed (but only for ~3 days) and thus God uses himself to be an atonement for all mankind. At 30 years of age he quits being a carpenter and goes on a full time teaching and preaching gig and collecting his special all male group that are called Apostles with women followers providing the finances for Jesus and these Apostles. Before Jesus is crucified, he changes some of the preexisting Hebrew religious rules and laws. Many of these rules have been passed down in both oral and written traditions. These rules were interpreted by the religious leaders of that time and the ones before. Most of the religious leaders see this happening and the followers of Jesus increasing. A very few relate to Jesus and agree with some of his teachings, some are just plain jealous of his first century social media followers, but most are indignant and angered by the teachings of this relatively young dude named Jesus. Not only is Jesus relatively young but he has not been educated in a formal religious institution (i.e equivalent to modern day Bible college or theological seminary.) He has become a first century itinerant street preacher with a large social following!

The followers of Jesus record in their writings that Jesus then claimed to be equal to the Hebrew God YHWH by supposedly making a statement “Before Abraham was, I AM.” This is the last straw for many of the religious leaders of the time and they appeal to the Roman political authorities, the true masters of the Hebrews at this time, to get rid of Jesus as he is blaspheming and turning people against them.

The political leader in charge, Pontius Pilate, sees that they are jealous of Jesus and he does not understand or believe in their Hebrew religion. He is stuck with governing these complaining and superstitious people and tries to not give into their request, but eventually does so because he does not want to make things worse for himself in his ongoing difficulty of ruling this land with Roman laws while placating these people by allowing them to practice their religion. He wants his job to be as smooth as possible. Why can’t they just chill?

Back to Christian beliefs, only those that receive this message, believe and are baptized AND repent and then follow the recorded teachings of Jesus in the New Testament and the original 10 commandments, plus a bunch more rules as developed by oral and written Christian leaders of the last 2,000 years, will be allowed to live for eternity with He/She/It. The ones that don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews AND as God himself AND follow The Way AND follow all the various rules, will be sentenced to spend eternity in a burning lake of fire apart from God (with constant eternal pain-yes, all this supposedly from a God of love). Now, if these followers break some rules they can be forgiven by a priest or by asking God to forgive them. This is called Grace, and shows God’s Mercy. But they still must do certain things and live in certain ways and follow certain teachings developed over the last 2,000 years which is dependent upon which church/sect/denomination they have been convinced is the purest and the one that God prefers or else they obviously have not been saved or redeemed and thus the loving God that created the wonders of the entire universe, who set time and space into motion, will send them to a lake of burning fire where they will suffer for all eternity (this is *infinity* longer than a Sagan unit, billions and billions of years!)

It is uncertain if the ones in heaven will be bummed out that many of their friends and family did not make it to heaven. Will they have empathy? Will they be allowed to watch their loved ones cry out in pain? (It is not even clear if there will be free will in heaven.) And what will they do forever besides give praise to God? (Does this God sound egotistical and narcissistic? Hmmm.) Will these redeemed of the Lord get to talk to each other about the poor decisions of those suffering somewhere below? Will they thank God for being so loving and merciful? If there are aliens in other galaxies, will they also be in this New Jerusalem? Did Jesus know their race would sin too? Did He/She/It also flood their world with water (or methane) and kill most all of their life forms?

If an eternal, omnipotent entity that started at life on this planet and in this universe and after the Big Bang wishes to communicate with Homo sapiens, think about HOW He-She-It, would accomplish this? One does not even need to hire Spielberg or J.J. Abrams to orchestrate this. But I believe it would have to be something pretty spectacular that would grab all of the planet’s inhabitants’ attention. This would need to leave NO DOUBT OR UNCERTAINTY in anyone’s mind of this unbelievable ‘CONTACT. ‘ It would need to be miraculous and above earthly scientific capability. Perhaps a universal dream or vision that contained a message from God that EVERYONE (but what about babies?) in the world had within 24 hours? Or perhaps an image in space next to earth where it could be seen by all that contained greetings and instructions in every human language and dialect? Remember it would have to be so miraculous as to convince the most devout and religious humans to leave their present religion to now truly follow the REAL SUPREME BEING! And there would not be questions about doctrine or manuscripts or which teachings were accurate and true; which humans were real prophets or false. It would all be very, very, clear with no more confusion! Can I hear an amen?!

Think about it how it is now. An important and wealthy neighbor with a special reward to give away (eternal!) wouldn’t just go to their neighbor’s house and leave contradictory Post-It notes scattered around the yard in numerous places with your important (life saving) offer. Imagine the inhabitant coming home and finding these notes. All of the ones that are found say that THEY are correct and the other Post-It notes are not to be believed with different warnings of when and how you will visit the house. Some of the notes want you to do certain things while others have you doing other things. Not very efficient! Damn confusing! Which Post-It note would the inhabitant believe? What if you were the inhabitant? It would depend on which direction you entered your yard (i.e. which geographical area/religion you were born in). If you entered from one side of the lawn and only looked at the first note you found and accepted it, well, that would be the one you believe. Likewise, most people are raised in a certain religious faith that is most predominant for their culture and geographical location, never bothering to look for other Post-It notes (religions). I believe this number in actuality is around 80%. You might be happy with your Post-It note revelation and trust it and put your faith in that God (or Gods as the case may be) and not wish to rock the proverbial ‘boat’ that you and your family are in. Some people are in societies where if they change religions (i.e. look for another Post-it note from God) they are then subject to death or expulsion or the loss of their family relationships (more human actions inspired by a love of their particular God or Gods?)

If you are God and you wished to make contact with your creation, I think you probably would just simply go up to the door and knock or ring the doorbell of humanity, wouldn’t you? I would say that this spectacular event for all humanity to see that I proposed above has certainly not yet occurred (besides engineering, I do have a work background in Sales and Marketing but I would think God, if He/She/It exists, would not need my help or any help from their creation). Even the three great Abrahamic traditions, which account for the majority of the world’s religious by number count, and of which each claim to be *THE* truth, have splintered into so many factions, denominations, churches, and schools of thought. Why is this, and why hasn’t God come forward to clarify things so that people do not believe in untruths, falsehoods, wrong dogma, wrong traditions, wrong interpretations, wrong leaders and false messiahs? These circumstances show me that either God does not exist and mankind has created He/She/It or that if God exists then He/She/It has no contact with the inhabitants of this planet.

So is the concept of God flawed in the Old Testament? Was this story of God written by human men? Christians have inherited this same God and must somehow reconcile this OT God with Jesus since it is a cornerstone belief in Christianity that Jesus is God, regardless of whether one is Trinitarian, Unitarian, ‘Oneness’ (a form of Modalistic Monarchianism) or Modalistic as there are scriptures than can be used to support all of these foundational beliefs (yup). Is God really cruel and unmerciful? Or are these attributes ones the human writers of ancient scriptures have given to God? When I look at the words of Jesus I don’t see this kind of a mean OT God. I see Jesus going into the temple and overturning the tables of the people selling animals and making money, thus turning religion into a type of an eBay or Amazon. I see Jesus saying that we must forgive people that hurt us how many times? (7×70 which means infinite times!) This certainly doesn’t seem like the same God that I learned about in the Old Testament. Even when I was a devout Christian, I always had this problem reconciling how Jesus could be so different than the God of the Old Testament. Jesus is such a nice, likable guy. He doesn’t seem like He is angry, except at the religious hypocritical leaders of his time, and he deals fairly with people that are in his earthly realm of existence. Does He hang around with the most religious people of his time and only talk with them like God did in the OT with Abraham, Noah, Moses, etc. No. Who does he end up hanging out with? He ends up hanging out with tax collectors, fisherman, common people and even…wait for it…prostitutes! That’s the kind of Guy I could relate to. Jesus had a following of not just men, but lots of women too. He was pretty cool. He was pretty forgiving. People came to him all the time wanting him to heal them of their illnesses, because let’s face it, medicine and science weren’t very advanced 2000 years ago. Does Jesus start his own political group and try to overturn the Roman government that’s in control of Palestine? Nope. That seems a bit odd. The God of the Old Testament would probably say these heathens should be killed and order His people to fight against them and kill them all, just like he did in the OT. But what does Jesus say? He says give unto Caesar what is Caesars and unto God what is God’s. Then we are instructed if a Roman soldier forces us to carry his heavy equipment for a mile that we are supposed to then offer to carry his load for yet another mile! We are not to say to the Roman soldier ‘No, I am a Jew. I am one of God’s chosen people, but you are a heathen and will not be saved! God does not like you, I do not like you, and actually I hate you and no way am I going to carry your stuff!’ Of course if this was said to the Roman soldier, he would probably kill the Jew on the spot. So this Jesus seems to almost be ‘in’ with the Roman occupation, doesn’t he? He doesn’t seem to be an anarchist at all. He does not sound like the God of the Old Testament. I know Christians will remind me of their belief it was not yet His time that in this manifestation of Jesus, his role and mission was only to come to his people and supposedly fulfill prophecies and to die (although this may be questionable statement since 3 days later he is back in heaven with His Dad) for all of mankind’s sin-BUT only each individual person that accepts the Christian religion and worships Jesus as God will be forgiven. If not, then the OT style judgement will be upon them and they will be thrown into the lake of fire and burn and suffer for all eternity. I’m not sure how that works for all the people that are raised Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or in animistic traditions like the Native Americans etc.