I think you're right!

um, why? Could you explain this a little further? I just went over to the site, and skimmed the post and comments (I'd already heard of the fact that many "Christians" have highly unorthodox views from you I think who also pointed out the amusing thing that some athiests believed in life after death which just proves the obvious point that humans aren't very consistent.)

You don't have to believe in God to accept that there is much more to the universe than what we limited humans can perceive with our five senses.

I've never been a fundamentalist, so nothing to defend here.

I went the other way. I moved from atheism [beliefs very similar to those you hold right now, if I understand you correctly] to belief.

It was a long journey, and I think I'm on the right path. Maybe I'll share the story with you some time. Too long and involved to put in a comments column.

Dean:

Interesting. (Sez the theologically quite traditional Liberal Protestant who has never felt any temptation to become an evangelical or a fundamentalist...)

As usual, when you open a can of worms on the topic of religion, I enjoy the provocative way you frame the matter.

Interesting.

You're a little ambiguous here, Dean. Let me see if I have this straight: Are you saying that the reason you don't believe there is a God, most especially the God discussed in the New Testament - or, perhaps, that there is a God but he's evil - is because the NT says that not everyone is going to heaven? And that would make God inherently evil beyond imagining?

Is that a correct assessment of what you're saying?

Well, to be blunt Susanna: My assessment would be that if God intends to punish for all eternity everyone who fails to accept that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of all mankind, then God is fundamentally evil.

That would be it in a nutshell, yes.

Mind you, I accept that it might well be true that Jesus was the one and only Son of God and that God has determined that all who do not affirm this belief are doomed to eternal torture. I merely assert that if that's how God really works, then God is evil and unworthy of my worship.

Yeah, I just said it: if that's how it works, then God is unworthy of me.

I fully accept whatever punishment God wishes to visit upon my head for saying so. Because this is how I feel, and I can take no other stand. Eternal torture? Okay. I await the crackling fires of Hell licking against my skin forever. Rather that than watch so many people I love in such torment while I enjoy eternal bliss. Thanks but no thanks.

Amen, Dean.

. . . or you could simply believe that humans are evil, and in need of redemption. I'm pretty comfortable with that theory, personally.

I think that most religions are blank canvases to a certain extent: people can paint all kinds of things onto them, both beautiful and ugly.

For myself, I think the world is a beautiful place, and that life is precious and wonderful. I have "wow is this great/pretty/humbling" moments every day.

Yet I don't believe in God.

How is this possible?

I guess I don't get it. I went to the linked site. Michael Williams doesn't "explain" anything, so far as I can see. He leaves us two sentences, each of which is a lead-in to a blockquote. The blockquotes are a set of poll results about American metaphysical beliefs, and a set of quotes from the Bible (which, like any Biblical quotes, are mostly gibberish and can be interpreted about eleventy-seven different ways). So what? Michael presents no argument, and I can't see that the chosen quotes have much to do with most of the poll results. So what is that Michael has explained? It's certainly succinct (to my mind, nonexistent, the ultimate in succinctness), but I can't see that it's clear.

Moving beyond that, as to the Bible espousing a Maltheistic God, yeah, that I agree with wholeheartedly. And indeed, for that reason, I conclude that much/all of the Bible must be untrue (because I refuse to believe in a God that is maltheistic - there is too much beauty in the world to make that plausible imo). But it isn't necessary to involve polls, or a Michael Williams post, to reach this conclusion about the Bible. All you have to do is have a moral upbringing, bring some skills in logical thought, and read it. The conclusion is inescapable, imo.

“ . . . or you could simply believe that humans are evil, and in need of redemption."

And that whatever their evil, it would necessarily be reflected in "scriptures" of their making. It doesn't mean that there's no God worthy of our prayer, even worship, only that we are bound to anthropomorphize Her (or make God in our image). See Agnosticism above.

And that ain't the half of it, Dean. The reason I'm an anti-theist is that the very idea of an invisible, omnipotent tyrant being in charge of the universe is a repugnant concept. If there's this guy to whom we should be thankful for our health and the fact we have food to fill our bellies, then this guy also has to shoulder the responsibility for most of the bad in the world. If he's provided me so much food that I have to read labels to count carbs, then why is he screwing over those poor kids in Africa? And that's just famine--floods, pestilence, and other bad stuff left aside.

. . . or you could simply believe that humans are evil, and in need of redemption.

False dichotomy, Jonathan. In fact, I do accept that all humans have deep wells of evil within them, and I do believe that all humans are in need of some level of forgiveness and redemption. There's not a human being alive who isn't in need of some level of forgiveness.

Now tell me that people belong in jail for lack of redemption, or, far worse, are deserving of eternal torture because they failed to accept certain ideas that you accept. There's where my bone of contention begins. And, while when I was younger I was afraid to say so out loud, I'm no longer afraid to say so.

I'll accept the flames of hell licking against my flesh for eternity before I'll stop confronting this question. If the evangelical fundamentalists are correct, then God is evil, and fuck God.

Yep. The ol' nicotine fit is really kicking in... :)

Casey,

Could be.

Dean,

Absent eternal punishment for pre-meditated, unabsolved sin, then you'd be in a universe in which, eventually, Hitler would be in heaven with his victims. I much prefer the universe where those who specifically and egregiously reject God don't get to be in the place where those who try to be decent get to go.

Other theological ways of looking at it are equally bad - if you reincarnate, then Hitler could, once again, get out from under 12 million murders. The reason I am a Catholic is because it answers the fundamental need for eventual absolute justice.

Dean:

Now tell me that people belong in jail for lack of redemption, or, far worse, are deserving of eternal torture because they failed to accept certain ideas that you accept.

Ever read C. S. Lewis? I'm especially thinking The Problem of Pain and The Great Divorce. Lewis certainly isn't the end of the debate, but he's a good start.

If you've read Lewis, then perhaps we could take the debate to a higher level, and you could give us a synopsis of what you think is wrong with his views.

If not, and if such a starting place is unworthy of this forum, then allow me to dignify it with more fitting rhetoric: If God is really God, then the last thing I'd expect him to do is to let some snarky creation of his dictate the terms of his own preservation.

Oh, Mark. Come on. Is that all you have to say?

Let's just be blunt: Let's give Hitler 100 years in torment for every one of his victims. After 2,000,000,000 years, mightn't he finally be freed from his torment? If I were to take the fundamenetalist Christian perspective seriously, he'd have only just begun his years of unending agony. Forgiveness would be forever denied him, even five million, or 20 billion, years hence.

Indeed, if we take the Christian concept of forgiveness seriously, shouldn't we let ol' Adolph off the hook after, say, five or six hundred thousand years of roasting over the barbecue pit? After he'd been made to understand the suffering of his victims, I mean?

To be blunt, the fundamentalist presents me with a ridiculous set of choices: "suffer for billions of years because you took the cookie without asking Jesus' forgiveness," but Pol Pot lives in eternal bliss because five seconds before his end he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal saviour.

This is not a concept of justice I can deal with.

There is something fundamentally perverse and evil about what evangelicals believe, Mark.

Jeff: I've read The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters, and I respect those. In fact, I generally respect C.S. Lewis a great deal. I have not read the other two books you mention.

I might be willing to read those books. Although, at a fundamental level I will still challenge Lewis and other Christians: are you really suggesting that if he does not accept Jesus Christ as his personal saviour, my 6 year-old son Jacob is deserving of being held over the rack and burnt upon the spit for the next 60 billion years if he should happen to be run over a car today?

I'm just being honest: If that is the definition of an "infinitely loving" God, then God can suck my dick.

Dean:

Any person who believes the words and teachings of the New Testament would have to answer your rhetorical question in the affirmative.

[ shudder ]

Since you asked:

No, that's not what I'm suggesting.

God showed us a way to understand the world he created. That way was Jesus Christ, who loved the poor, healed the sick, and drove out demons.

Through Jesus, I, a lowly sinner, have learned of God's vision for the world and of a way to help bring it about. To fail to work toward this is to condemn myself to Hell, right here, right now. Because when I die, I, like every other soul that dies, will come face-to-face with God and understand completely the folly of every earthly longing that took me away from him and prevented me from bringing about his kingdom.

So, to recap: Eternity in Hell? Not likely. Prolonged agony on Earth as we continuously fail as a species to work toward God's kingdom? You're soaking in it!

I find great beauty and comfort, as well as endless challenge and frustration - with myself and others - in this view. I think (I hope) that's a sign of a healthy relationship with God; if you ever see me resting on my laurels then you'll know I've given up this view.

Great book: "Good Goats: Healing Our Image Of God" by the Linns. Normally a book like this would give me hives - drawn-out, largely insipid personal stories filled with '70's-era spirit-speak and relentless navel-gazing, not to mention the vapid illustrations. But I stuck with it because I was reading it for a class, and it totally helped me understand the damage that destructive views of God does to people. Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0809134632/102-1039468-3376167?v=glance

Dean,

Oh, come now - you can do better than that; you know full well that stealing a cookie is not a mortal sin. Murdering 12 million people, thats just a tad worse.

In Catholic theology, its the conscious rejection of God which leads to damnation - of course, by rejecting God, you're not rejecting going to Church on Sunday, but rejecting Love, Justice, Hope; get the picture? You're rejecting ever good and decent thing in the world - to be damned, your rejection has to be conscious, persistent and with the specific rejection of any attempt to reconcile yourself with God (with Justice, Love, etc). This is a pretty high bar; and, yes, if you are genuinely contrite even on your deathbed, you can escape - only God can judge if someone does this for sure, thus we don't know who is in hell.

There is, of course, a bit of a difference between my Catholicism and the Protestant fundamentalism you seem to have a larger problem with; they do seem to be more stern in their definition of what constitutes mortal sin, and less willing to entertain the prospect that a sinner can achieve salvation even without participating in Sunday services.

I still fail to see how you come up with the conclusion that God is inherently evil, Dean. If you were God, would you create automatons of yourself who do nothing but bow down and kiss your feet every day for eternity... or would you endow your creatures with a choice to follow or reject you? To put it in more earthly terms, which do you think are more apt to succeed without 'use of force' - a marriage of consent, or an arranged marriage?
If you choose to reject Jesus, God, and the Bible, that's ultimately your choice. But given the wealth of information at your fingerprints... a literal roadmap of the choices, their origins, and their consequences, I would dare to say that those who reject God will continue their rejection beyond death, since that's what they were looking for in the first place. And while many people comically picture hell as a place of fire and burning and all that, it's probably more accurate to say that it will be a place absent of God's presence... which means all of God's attributes will simply not exist. That means darkness, a complete absence of order, utter loneliness, all the evils known and unknown free to wreak havoc. And most likely, those who are there would rather endure such suffering than accept God's choice.
Does this choice paint God as a malevolent, hurtful, evil deity? I think not. Considering the rejection, torment, and death Jesus suffered as a man on our behalf.. and we're not talking about merely dying for one man who deserved it.... he died for everyone who would spit at the sound of His name or curse him.. it doesn't matter. Jesus made it possible to forego the 'do works or go to hell' concept by taking our place and being a mediator on our behalf.
Dean, we're all on trial for our sin, every one of us. Instead of being my own lawyer and trying to justify what I've done on earth in front of a holy God, I've got God's own Son himself acting on my behalf, who was willing to die in my place to set me free. The effect? A total attitude change.
It's not for me to change people, but I'm hopeful that as you have made your choice, you've made sure you understand fully what you're rejecting.

Dean,

And your 6 year old is incapable of mortal sin - he's not mature enough to make a conscious rejection of God. So, even if he stole a cookie yesterday, he's going to be ok...though he might deserve a spanking.

My, Dean, such anger.

You say you do not believe in a God who sends people to Hell? Neither do I.

The gates of Hell are locked only on the inside.

I wrote at length about the theological problem of Hell on my now-defunct blog, The Religious News.

So I Invite you to read, "Can we really believe in Hell? If God's will is to save, how can there be a destiny of eternal torment?"

There is an earlier, and coincidentally companion piece, "Is heaven a private Club," which asks whether there is salvation outside the church.

Thanks for telling me what I have to answer, Ara.

And people say *Christians* are arrogant!

Mark, I'll go you one better: how can you believe that God would put us on this earth and never speak to us, and then punish us for not believing in Him? Some loving parent. Are you saying that when Hitler looked on the face of God and saw the horrible result of his separation from Him, that any more punishment was necessary, or possible?

Some of us on earth know every moment the pain of our separation from God; others don't learn it until after death. So what? So spread the good news of God in Christ and hope that the seed will grow. And if somebody needs to be told fairy stories about the afterlife in order to be convinced, I'd say they need more convincing than I'm able to give them.

Oh, come now - you can do better than that; you know full well that stealing a cookie is not a mortal sin. Murdering 12 million people, thats just a tad worse.

Not if the fundamentalist, literalist Christians are to be believed, no.

Pol Pot is forgiven if five minutes before his death he accepts Christ as his personal saviour. My nephew Justin, aged 15, masturbates once and then gets run over by a car, and is crackling forever over God's spit of firety torment if he didn't accept Christ as his personal savior.

Think that's simplistic? Talk to your fundamentalist, evangelical friends, because that's what they taught me Bubba.

Oh, and Mark? Catholic theology? Tens of millions of Christians consider that satanic by nature. So what are you talking about?

Well, I'm not a fundamentalist, don't know if I would be considered "evangelical" or not. I'm a conservative Lutheran, but I think I could best describe my self as a believer in orthodox (small-o) Christianity. But apparently, you are using a definition of "fundamentalist" that is so broad that all orthodox Christians can be considered "fundamentalists" or "evangelicals", I guess. Whatever...

You know, in my darker, pride-filled moments, sometimes I don't understand God either. I have thought that if things don't go my way, if people don't act the way I want them to act, if the world doesn't work the way I want it to, then God must be evil. Then I get over it.

Yeah, I just said it: if that's how it works, then God is unworthy of me.

That, in a nutshell, is pride. The aforementioned C.S. Lewis has said that Pride is the complete anti-God state of mind. Pride is the sin that is most effective in separating us from God.

Sorry, Pietro, I don't buy it. Your "wealth of information" is in the form of dusty books and (sometimes) dustier preachers. To blame somebody for failing to recognize a God who refuses to speak to us in any way that we can recognize is a human temptation and one that I think God is above.

As to the problem of people in Africa starving...

Freedom is the highest value in the Universe. Freedom requires choices, and it requires a sense of what the end result of those choices is.

In roleplaying games (yes, I am a gamemaster), gm's all too frequently say "You see two hallways, just alike. Which do you choose?"

That's not a choice.

Also, if every time in a game, you did something stupid, or malicious, the gm made you take the move back, then your choices are being severely limited as well.

The people in Africa are starving because of choices people made. Not just the Africans who are presently living, but their ancestors, and the Soviet Union's leadership, and certain people in the US, and so on and so forth.

A choice you make today could ripple onwards a thousand years.

Every time God performs a miracle, it exacts a variable cost in the coin of human freedom.

You have freedom, but it is expensive.

Dean, you have said several times you reject the fundamentalist evangelical Protestant interpretation of the Bible. Do you see Catholicism (Roman, Anglican, Greek Orthodox etc - any) as different? And why? Further on, why would you reject those means of Christian worship?

Faith and Love take WORK - it is not just something you FEEL. Feelings change constantly and swing wildly on a pendulum that should never be a barometer of our state in this world. I see faith as that middle ground for the argument between the head and the heart. But it takes focus and WORK. So to state your belief or anti-belief is never to be scorned. I like what Rush Limbaugh has to say about the matter : faith is not something that one can debate. And its true.

But I wonder why you have not explored the more orthodox, non-literalist interpretations of the Bible. There is 5000 years of thought and faith to review through the Jews, and 2000 years through the Catholic church. Why only dispense your faith through a mere 200 of American Christianity? For that is what is really going on : we are only able to take a stand on faith through what we have been immediately taught...and some denominations go out of their way of ridding themselves of tradition and reason.

Just my humble opinion. I believe God is Omnipotent, and as a human being only capable of seeing Him in the fragments He reveals in my life. Until I reach the next life, I will never be able to see Him in His totality. Go read the Kabbalah to know what I mean by this.

Best regards,
Sharon Ferguson
Brazos de Dios Cantina

Dean:

In fact, I generally respect C.S. Lewis a great deal. I have not read the other two books you mention.

If you can find copies of those two books, I'm sure it would at least give you quite a bit to think about. If you're still interested, that is.

I had not read Rev. Sensing's essays until now. They are also marvelous, and they bring up many of the same questions Lewis does. Maybe you could give us your take on those essays?

Although, at a fundamental level I will still challenge Lewis and other Christians: are you really suggesting that if he does not accept Jesus Christ as his personal saviour, my 6 year-old son Jacob is deserving of being held over the rack and burnt upon the spit for the next 60 billion years if he should happen to be run over a car today?

In a word: no.

It's been my experience that most Christians who hold to such a faith haven't been forced to confront the problem. You have, and have rejected one form of faith as a result. Thus is your right, but I would ask you if you really know what you've rejected.

susan b. is a prophetess. Listen to her.

Dean,

Listen to yourself. If God will not forgive transgressions, he is unworthy of you. Yet you are unable to forgive Pol Pot, if he were to recognize the evil of his ways and seek redemption. You do not make a good god. You are "maltheistic". I think I will stick with my God. I do not claim to understand him, but then I had a hard time understanding quaternions, which is probaby a lot simpler than running a universe.

Dean, man, you are on a tirade today!

Casey is right. This is nicotine withdrawal talking, isn't it? Eat something. Get the patch. Start an argument with all the Christians who read your blog. Oh wait.

Once, when I quit smoking without the patch, I almost killed a smart-mouthed teen in the parking lot. Seriously. Good thing I resisted the urge. Had I a blog at the time, I may have posted something similar to yours today.

There more gravy than grave in this ghost ...

Hope you feel better :) Pax.

Oh, come now - you can do better than that; you know full well that stealing a cookie is not a mortal sin. Murdering 12 million people, thats just a tad worse.

Not if the fundamentalist, literalist Christians are to be believed, no.

Pol Pot is forgiven if five minutes before his death he accepts Christ as his personal saviour. My nephew Justin, aged 15, masturbates once and then gets run over by a car, and is crackling forever over God's spit of firety torment if he didn't accept Christ as his personal savior.

Think that's simplistic? Talk to your fundamentalist, evangelical friends, because that's what they taught me Bubba.

As an evangelical who's familiar with fundamentalism, I think you are conflating several concepts that don't necessarily fall together. And I would also say that your teachers are not the greatest in the world.

1. no one is condemned for a single sin. Your 15-year-old nephew's eternal destination is not based on whether he masturbated or not. Likewise, Pol Pot's eternal destiny is not determined by the millions he killed (as much as we'd like for it to be). Under evangelical theology, their eternal destiny is based upon their acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ.

2. Your comment about your nephew and your son seem to indicate that you are confusing all evangelical or fundamental (the two are not necessarily equivalent terms) theology with the concept that it is possible to lose one's salvation. The more conservative Church of Christ holds to this belief. On the other hand, baptists (some of whom are fundamentalist and some of whom are evangelicals) believe in the concept of "once saved-always saved," which means that a person cannot lose that which they accepted at salvation. Therefore, a single sin would not negate their choice to follow God.

3. Equivalence: 12 million dead is a lot worse than stealing a cookie on a human scale. In God's eyes, I would say that it is probably worse as well (although the Sermon on the Mount would indicate that Jesus views lustful thoughts as just as bad as full-blown adultery). But again, it relies on the faulty premise that one sin is what determines your eternal destiny.

I think you need to do a lot more work on this topic, Dean.

"Catholic theology? Tens of millions of Christians consider that satanic by nature."

Yee-ep. Which has always baffled me, but then, I'm one of the ones being picked on.

(A nice side-effect of Catholic education is that Catholics do not accept "sola scriptura" and look at the Bible as the word of God-- _through the hand of man._ So we can have classes where we do textual studies of the Old Testament and try to determine why the various authors wrote the way they did... and not get into debates about Moses writing the entirety of the Pentateuch (and being repetetive in the process.) )

That's an interesting take on it, Dean. I tend to view it a bit differently. The way I see it, it's free will taken to its logical conclusion.

Basically, the set-up is this: God says that if you believe this, that and the other thing, you get to hang with him. If not, then you don't. Each choice has a consequence, you've been informed of the consequences for each choice and then it's up to you to make a choice and accept the consequences of your decision. I don't see how that translates into being "punished" for basically making a choice and exercising your own free will.

If you don't believe in God, then there won't be a God on the other side. When you die, that's it. You're done. That doesn't conflict with the atheist viewpoint.

Just a few things:

1) For those embroiled in the pithy 'Catholic'/'Protestant' debate.. I think it's made clear enough in the New Testament how to obtain Christ's gift, that we shouldn't have to worry about whether "Roman Catholic" or "Protestant" are mentioned in the Bible. They're not. What doesn't matter is what Constantine or Martin Luther did to their respective doctrines. What matters in the end is what Jesus taught.

2. CS Lewis, if you are unaware, was an atheist before JRR Tolkein (yes the same Tolkein) led him to an understanding of God. He was a very, very gifted intellectual and reading his books will make you rethink your attitude toward God and Christianity. "The Chronicles of Narnia" was an excellent Biblical allegory, but if you want real meat, read the books suggested earlier.

3. Rev. Sensing has made several good points about hell. First, it's of one's own choosing that one goes there, and I predict it'll be of one's own choosing that one stays there. Like Donald said, the door to hell is locked from the inside. Second, Hell isn't a place where God tortures souls eternally. Rather, it's a place where God has turned his back at humans' bequest. God's essentially made a promise for those who choose to accept it... and he doesn't go back on his word.

3. For a 'dusty book', the Bible has done quite well. It's been around in one form or another for centuries, many parts of it for thousands of years. It's been translated painstakingly into thousands of languages, survived numerous attempts to burn it into oblivion, and maintains a consistent theme - the theme of mankind's redemption through Jesus Christ - through its entirety despite being authored by many different writes of different generations and from different vocations. Its closest literary equivalent, Homer's the Iliad, comes nowhere close to its circulation and completeness. The dusty old books and old withering preachers? They simply make the guidebook more understandable.. their words won't get you closer to Heaven than you already are.
And I'm afraid that God speaks to me all the time, as much as I'm willing to listen. See previous paragraph for details.

Bryan - good points, but:

1. no one is condemned for a single sin. Your 15-year-old nephew's eternal destination is not based on whether he masturbated or not.

The answer is as simple as Romans 3:23 - all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Meaning, ZERO sin is acceptable on earth to get to heaven - here's the catch - on your own merit. Fortunately, as you mentioned, it all comes down to rejecting or accepting Christ's gift.

I'm of the belief that Dante may have been more accurate than he intended - there may indeed be levels of hell, just as there are many levels of reward in Heaven. So you can expect your Pol Pot, if he hadn't truly turned from his atrocities and sought forgiveness, would be getting quite what he should have expected.

Wow. Great comments. Any other site would have devolved into name-calling by this point.

Interesting -- you just do this for the sake of getting Chris to make another cartoon about you, don't you? Don't you? Heh.

I am not so sure it's "one or the other" as you have pointed out earlier. Like I have said publicly before, I don't believe life is a "pass/fail" course. I should tell you I am not atheist, I'm agnostic. For now.

I have been reading a book called "Jesus The Man" by Barbara Thiering. Kinda blows the lid off the immutable "Jesus was born and you are saved" that has been shoved down my throat all my life.

The concept of hell being a place where one burns for all eternity is a decidedly Western concept, that was started by the Greeks as I understand it, and made it into the translation of our modern day Bible.

Fire in Greek is the word gehena I think, and it is used metaphorically to describe punishment. It is after all kind of hard to imagine a worse punsihment than being burned alive. People jump from buildings, rather than burn to death after all.

My understanding is that the punishment of hell is more like a state of utter and unending hopelessness, since you can never attain the glory of Heaven, and God has turned his back on you.

Hope this helps. This is only how I understand, and I'm far from a scholar on the subject.

I have always considered my beliefs and faith simply to be a foundation for my conduct in the world w.r.t. how I live day to day, as well as how I treat other people I come in contact with. They sometimes are a great comfort to me too, when life is not being so kind.

Dean, you're largely just setting up straw men and torching them. All of your condemnations are predicated on some variant of what you suppose someone else believes. Whether they believe it or not is really irrelevant. Believe, or don't believe -- your choice. Really. But is it necessary to use language and insults that will prevent me from recommending your blog to some people?

Your arguments here are similar to those that condemn people who like vanilla ice cream because David Duke likes it too. I'm not a believer, but I've never understood why some people find it necessary to viciously castigate those who are. I can assure you that you won't be changing their minds with this approach. And that's what it's really all about, isn't it?

Charles:

Dean is still having nicotine withdrawls...

Well, that had better be the reason for this tripe, anyway.

Just to add to the list of recommended books:

Your God is Too Small, by J.B. Phillips, and
Disappointment with God, by Philip Yancey.

Keep up the spiritual struggle, Dean. I believe you'll find the answers you seek, probably at the moment you least expect to find them.

Thank you again, Dean. That's why I read you, posts like this one (and such interesting threads). I, too, would spit at such a Cosmic Hitler, would rather burn in Hell than worship such a being. If that's the sin of pride, then so be it. I'm proud of my pride.

Dean,

I'm with you, even though I quit smoking 30 years ago. Heh.

Of course all the anatomical references, and the accompanying graphic descriptions of what God can do with them, that I can do without. But I guess that's just a matter of personal style.

Brian Jones:

Thanks for telling me what I have to answer, Ara. And people say *Christians* are arrogant!

Yeah, I know. I used to be one. A preacher's kid, to boot; and not the kind that rebels and raises hell to punish the old man. I was pretty cooperative. Grew up going to Sunday School every week. A real scholar. I know my way around the New Testament, thankyouverymuch.

And I concur with Dean's view that any God -- Paul's New Testament God specifically -- any God that would sentence someone to Hell for not accepting Jesus as their saviour, any religion that is based on the worship of that God, well, that's not a religion I want to adhere to.

I'm just saying.

The premise of Christianity is that no man is capable of fulfilling God's law in order to gain entrance into glory. Because of that, God himself took the form of man, and allowed himself to be murdered at the hands of men, so that the penalty God would otherwise exact on mankind, fell on Himself instead, even though He had no obligation to do so. It is amazing to think such a God would be considered fundamentally evil. Ideally we'd think, "Wow, you know, I appreciate that Lord, now because of your death I'm no longer hopelessly lost. Thanks!"

Instead, we spit in his face. Such a fine lot we humans are. :-D

Without having read any of the comments above let me suggest the following: Many Christians have made an idol of the Bible. They are just like the scribes and the Pharisees denounced by Christ, idolators. Fundamentalists are trying to codify their biblical interpretation into law. This is in conflict with the spirituality of Christianity and it is why there are so many non-denominational 'denominations'.

I must agree with a few here...is this what you call withdrawal? Dah...what's up Doc?

Losing It? Taking it out on us? You wrote something not to long ago bout people bashing different things...turn about now?

I am a fan of the old Star Track or is it Star Trek? Captain Kirk and Tonto, no that was The Lone Ranger. Cap't. Kirk and Spock, no I don't mean Benjamin Spock the baby Doctor guru of the 60's. Now Dean, that! Yes that! That is a real good one to go on and on about. It is a real movement in the way we looked at the world things were free and what did I just say?

What are you fussing at all of us for? Your use of "colorful metaphores", as Used above, were not appreciated in the land of OZ!

P.S.
Your wife and Jacob love you too.

Ara:

Yeah, I know. I used to be one. A preacher's kid, to boot; and not the kind that rebels and raises hell to punish the old man. I was pretty cooperative. Grew up going to Sunday School every week. A real scholar. I know my way around the New Testament thankyouverymuch.

At the risk of sounding really obtuse, I'm going to assume this is your dry sense of humor. Either that, or (P.K. that I am myself) I'm going to have to start sharing reminiscences of my Bar Mitzvah. :)

Dean:

Stick with it, you'll beat them cigs yet!

Paul: Ara is now a Jew. In case that clears things up for you.

Charles: I'm not insulting anybody. I understand the message of evangelical Christianity perfectly: If you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you're doomed to eternity in Hell. That's what Michael Williams is saying, and, from a theological perspective he's perfectly correct. "Everyone who doesn't accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior is going to hell." That's not a disdtortion of the fundamentalist evangelical view at all. It's what tens of millions of them believe, and it's exactly what Michael was (quite unapologetically) saying.

I don't hate people like Michael for that view. Far from it. I count many people just like him among my friends. I simply say that if that's who God is, then I reject God. I would prefer to spend eternity in hell's fires than to worship such a God. Period.

I'm not angry with fundamentalist Christians for thinking I'm going to hell. I used to be angry with them for that, but I've gotten over it. I do think the God they worship is fundamentally evil, but it's their right to believe whatever they believe. If it leads them to positive values, then that's fine by me. I know most of them are fundamentally good people, and I share many of their values, and I count many of them among my friends.

I simply reject their view of God--and affirm that, if God is as they say He is, then I hate God.

Not them. I don't hate them. Just the God they worship. If they're right about God, I mean.

If that is the definition of an "infinitely loving" God, then God can suck my dick.

I like this side of you, Dean! Now that Rosemary's given you up for damned, head for St Louis! ;)

I know where you're coming from. Fuck xtians and xtianity. Not following any one church's rules doesn't make you any less kind and good, and it doesn't leave you hellbound. (And anyone who says differently is selling something.)

Shoot. I edited that down too much. It was supposed to say: "Fuck xtians and xtianity, just don't let it interfere with your spirituality."

Dean:

Thanks for the clarification. I will now sit back and watch the conversation with the air of a moderate but devoted Muslim observing a pro-and-con debate on Wahabbism.

Ara:

Sorry for my obtusity! (Is that a real word??!)

BTW, true fact, I did know the entire Hebrew alphabet at age six. Sorry, that's the closest I can come to my threatened Bar Mitzvah reminiscences! :)

"The premise of Christianity is that no man is capable of fulfilling God's law in order to gain entrance into glory."

So God has written a law that is impossible for human beings to observe, and decreed that humans are therefore deserving of eternal torture.

"Because of that, God himself took the form of man, and allowed himself to be murdered at the hands of men, so that the penalty God would otherwise exact on mankind, fell on Himself instead, even though He had no obligation to do so. It is amazing to think such a God would be considered fundamentally evil."

So writing a body of law for human beings that humans cannot possibly observe and setting eternal torture as the penalty for breaking the law that human beings are incapable of observing is not fundamentally evil?

Let's say that an Earthly authority decrees that anyone who refuses to flap his arms and fly shall be burned at the stake, but people who worship him will be exempted from this rightful punishment. Do you praise such a ruler for his mercy?

Umm. where to start? I surely am inadequate to tackle so robust a topic -- do read Rev. Donald Sensing essays -- but here's my stab at it. I think step one of our awakening is when we realize there is a God, and I'm (you're) not him. It naturally follows (for me) that He may do / say / think things that I "don't get." And, I guess this my be key: I'm willing to accept that. Why? Back to step one: He's God and I'm not. Okay, that out of the way, I think God loves for us to deepen our understanding (of what?) of everything! His nature...His creation... our fellow humans... ALL He has created. He wouldn't (I don't think) delight in His children staying put with, "Well d-uh.... I don't know ...but praise the Lord!" sort of blind faith. He wants us to ponder. He wants us to have a bigger piece of Him as our hearts and minds are able to understand it. However, until we are face to face with God (heaven) there will always be some aspect of His nature that we simply have to say "I don't know. It doesn't make sense to ME." That's why it is lovely to contemplate and discourse on God -- we each understand different pieces of Him a little better and can better flesh out our picture as we connect with other lovers of God. There IS a God, Dean. And my prayer for you and all those agreeing with you would be that you could get to the point where you can say, "God, you sure do seem like an evil, vindictive sob, but maybe there's something I'm not getting." Can't you accept just a tiny tiny slight possibility that the error is in your understanding of God rather than in God's nature?
{ps to Rosemary: BBQ at my place, first Saturday after we get to heaven. How's your potato salad?}

My potato salad is good but my cheesecake is better!

Pietro:
"If you were God, would you create automatons of yourself who do nothing but bow down and kiss your feet every day for eternity... or would you endow your creatures with a choice to follow or reject you?"

I don't know what I'd do if I were God. However, I do know what I would do if I were a smart, thinking people struggling against the elements in the eons before central heat and the sublime beauty of Madonna videos. I'd project my anxieties about my origins, the random way in which good things befall bad people and vice versa, and the vastness of the universe onto a being that (I could comfort myself) must have had some unknowable reason for making things that way. He couldn't be too like us--maybe transcendent and immanent, but somehow having created us in His image? And there would have to be room for folk wisdom about human relationships and sanitation, to the extent that we were aware of them. Of course, the danger is that after a few thousand years of this routine, you might end up with a religion in which salvation is "not earned through works" and the new covenant is of the heart, but it's still possible to sin through action and stuff.

Personally, I prefer traditional Japanese religion, which largely consists of being vaguely afraid of your ancestors' ghosts and of dumping water over things to purify them. But that may just be because I don't like dirt.

Ken,

Your argument is a strawman. "God's law" is the same law that many people recognize as the basis of morality, i.e. "Love the Lord with all you heart, mind and strength" and "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." Look it up. Matthew chapter 22 is one place it appears. Jesus said that all other of God's law depends on those two. It isn't some arbitrary set of made-up rules, as some here have said.

I think the previous post is slightly in error (there is disagreement about this among Christians); it is possible for human beings to observe the whole Law, but only one has actually done so: Jesus Himself.

So many people here (like Dean) are claiming that God, as worshipped by Christians, is evil. Yet they post such angry and hateful screeds against Christians. The hypocrisy is astounding, yet they call *Christians* hypocrites.

Dean, despite what you say, I really don't think you "understand the message of evangelical Christianity perfectly." That is, the message of Christianity is primarily one of forgiveness and love, not of judgment. As 2 Peter 3:9 says, "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." God wants everyone in heaven, because (as it says numerous places in the Bible) He loves each of us. He doesn't arbitrarily, thoughtlessly, or maliciously send anyone to hell. You have to choose to go there.

A warped bit of logic, that, Pete.

Just like you I am a sinner, and therefore I deserve eternal torture--for any sin, no matter how small, I deserve to be tortured endlessly. Only belief in Christ can save me, so if I don't believe, I get what I deserve: torture. For any sin, no matter how small.

I understand the logic perfectly, Pete. But your god is evil, and unworthy of any decent person's respect, let alone reverence.

Dean,

You are certainly setting up a strawman by stating that you cannot accept a belief in God (or Christianity) because you cannot accept the tenants of such a faith as espoused by "extremist" adherents.

In what other facets of your life do you denounce your opinion simply because extremists twist that belief?

Are all democrats evil, because of the DU? Are NO Democrat opinions valid, because of the DU? Can you not adhere to Republican principles because some who "call themselves" Republicans hold opinions you find distasteful?

It looks to be another set up to generate traffic flow. (Which is all well and good -- we can individually choose to go elsewhere, if that is one's opinion. Just want you to know that, in my opinion, this is repeatedly looking like the M.O. of this blog.)

CJ: I am setting up no straw men. I'm telling you what the tenets of Christianity are according to many of its adherants, and I am saying that if you accept those tenets, then so far as I'm concerned God is evil and unworthy of any human being's reverence.

I gave you a link to a weblogger who I respect who espouses this view, so there's no straw man here. If you want to argue, go argue with Michael Williams, or any of a bunch of other Christians I can point out to you--many quite mainstream, and moderate people, many of them people I've known and even attended Bible study with.

As for the "m.o" of this blog being a "set up" to "generate traffic flow"--I am very tired of people characterizing what I say here as some sort of cheap attempt to get attention. I give my honest opinions, always, and say exactly what I think, always, unless I'm joking, and I try to be very honest when I'm joking.

Have you even noticed that as many as half the people in this comment thread agree with what I'm saying? Does it occur to you that maybe, just maybe, it's because I'm voicing an opinion a lot of people agree with? Just because it's difficult and not commonly something you hear, does that make it wrong?

If you really think that when I say something this serious--something that involved a deep crisis of faith for me, and one that it took me more than many years to resolve--is nothing but a cheap attempt to generate traffic, then I have only two things to say to you:

1) Please never come back to this weblog again, and
2) Please don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.

Sorry, Dean, my logic is not warped. I spend all day, every day, doing logic, but I won't dwell on the slur.

Yes, strictly speaking, the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation. Your mistake is that you think the standard is other people, so that a "small" sin should somehow count less than some kind of "big" one. No, the standard is the perfect holiness of God. Would heaven be heaven if any sin was allowed? No. It would be...our current situation.

Where's the line, Dean? What sin is "small" enough that it doesn't matter? You are looking at the situation as if human notions of justice should prevail. In matters of human law, they do. But in matters of eternity, they don't.

You seem to have a problem with the idea of "eternal" torture. It appears that you're thinking that "the punishment should fit the crime." You said earlier that not even Hitler deserved eternal punishment. That's thinking about it in human terms. The punishment is "eternal" in the sense that it is a timeless (no time) separation from God. And that is what hell is, as someone else noted. Human concepts of justice really don't apply.

Since God knows all of this, and desires that no one be eternally separated from Him, He in His love, provided a way for us to escape the fate we chose.

Remember, Dean, if you say that you reject Christ, you are rejecting God. If you are as familiar with evangelical Christianity as you say, you know this. You are arguing as if God is capriciously judging us, that we are really innocent. If we're punished for just some amount of time, we will have learned our lessons, be "good" and should, therefore, not be judged forever.

If someone does the right thing only to avoid punishment, is that person, really, truly good?

No.

God looks in our hearts. He knows when we really are good; when our motives and desires are for the best.

All you are saying is that you think sin shouldn't matter to God, and even when we reject all of His efforts (even to the point of sacrificing Himself in a horrible death) to reconcile our problem, He is unjustified in refusing us entrance into heaven.

As I said before, you have to choose hell (eternal separation from God) yourself. God doesn't want you there. Yup, you have to accept God's gift to you to avoid it (because we all do indeed deserve it), but that's your choice to make. God isn't forcing you to choose one way or the other. And He certainly isn't evil for giving us that choice.

Dean, truly believing in Christ, which you correctly say is the necessary precondition for God's forgiveness of sin, is not a shallow thing. It's a deep change of heart, of recognizing that, indeed, I do deserve eternal separation from God. I'm not good enough. I don't have to worry about "any sin, no matter how small" because I've committed some real big ones - ones that no one would argue deserve punishment and that God cannot and should not tolerate. It's likely you haven't been in my situation, but I'm so glad that God gave me a choice. If He hadn't, I'd be toast (a particlarly apt description, in this case).

Dean,

Salus extra ecclesiam non est; There is no salvation outside the church.

So, what is the church? Its The Church - the one founded by God that all belong to unless they consciously reject it. Who is in it? Everyone who is in it. Who's out of it? Everyone who has excluded themselves from it. Has Dean Esmay removed himself from God's church? God only knows.

As a Catholic I hold that the Church organization headed by the Pope in Rome is the most correct of all religions - that of the universal truth of God, this Church most closely approximates it. Does this mean that if you're not a Catholic you cannot gain salvation? Not at all - the Roman Catholic Church is just an expression of the universal Church of God (the best, in my view) but someone who has never heard of the Pope, or who has never been instructed in the Catholic faith, can still attain salvation - and only those who consciously decide to reject the Church of God (whether or not they specifically reject the Catholic Church) cannot gain salvation while they are outside of the church.

What constitutes such separation from God's Church? Only conscious rejection of same - particular sins don't do it, it has to be in toto.

The lesson of all this? Dean, become a Catholic - its much easier and it allows you to poke even theological fun at the fundamentalists.

Pete,

It just occured to me, reading your bit - sin allowed in heaven? Wouldn't it be that sin is just freely not chosen? Or do we lose our free will in heaven? Bit of a theological skull-scratcher, that.

There's no slur in saying your logic is warped, Pete--but thank you for verifying for folks like CJ that what you believe is exactly what I said: any sin is deserving of eternal torture. Steal a cookie, murder 20 million people, it just doesn't matter, same punishment for all. All deserving of eternal hellfire, and the only salvation is believing in Christ as the Son of God. All the world's Jews, Hindus, Muslims, atheists, agnostic, and so on are all going to burn, and a lot of baptized Christians too.

By the way, I don't just "seem to be" judging God by human standards. I most definitely am judging God by human standards--by every standard of decency and justice that any rational human being is capable of understanding.

I'm not angry, by the way. At all. I'm just saying flat-out that this is why I renounced my faith. If that's how God works, then I'll choose hell over God. With no regrets, thank you.

I also hope more Christians wrestle with their faith and come to the same conclusion I did: that this bit of doctrine paints God as infinitely arbitrary and infinitely evil. Because it does, you know.

For the record, Christian concepts of earthly justice and morality I'm fine with. I get along just great with Christians, and have no problem acknowledging that this country was founded on Christian values, most of which are very positive and healthy values.

Most of them.

Mark: Catholic doctrine is far more sane and less horribly warped in this area, I'll grant you. But there's no justification for doctrines such as the pope's power to speak ex cathedra, for priestly chastity, or a host of other items of set dogma within the church that are, well, not exactly evil, but make no sense to my poor brain.

Besides, my faith just isn't there. Fundamentalist "there is no salvation from eternal hellfire except by accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior" folks drove me to question my beliefs, and I concluded many years ago that if they were correct, then God is evil and unworthy of anyone's worship, let alone love or adoration.

I was afraid to say that for a long time. I'm not now, because I'm quite at peace with it. I don't really believe God is evil, however, because I don't believe the Christian God exists. I'm no longer convinced any god exists at all, and if one does it's probably well beyond the conception of any earthly religion.

Agnostic, humanist, bright, whatever you want to call it, I'm no longer a member of the fold.

1. Dean is not saying this because of nicotine withdrawal. No, let me rephrase that, he IS saying it because of nicotine withdrawal, but he has been THINKING it for a long time.

2. If he had been thinking about it longer, he could express it better.

3. The God described in the Bible is not worthy of worship. Aside from the fact that he/she/it has great power, he/she/it is also irrational, childish, spiteful, sadistic, contradictory, unfair and, as Dean says, just plain evil. But that doesn't make him/her/it a bad God. What it makes him/her/it is a fantasy created by a bunch of nomadic tribesman with an extremely limited understanding of the universe, and a set of prejudices and biases that would make a Wahhabi look liberal.

4. There are other Gods in this world, and thier claim to reality is at least as strong as the God of the Christians. If one follows the Christian teachings, then ALL of those who worship these other Gods, who have been raised in the faith and know no other, will burn in Hell. Even those who have lived a life of religious devotion, commited no sin, spent thier lives teaching and helping, even these, the holy men, will burn in Hell forever, because they did not know Jesus.

I don't think so.

And if it's true. If every word of the Christian Bible is literal truth, and God will condemn all of them to Hell, then I will stand with Dean, throwing God the finger as I slide down the razor blade of damnation. Our defiance will be our comfort as we writhe in the flames.

Pfaugh!

5. That doesn't mean that I don't believe in God, but the God I believe in is not the one described in any religion I have been able to find. And I don't care.

My God is not exclusive. He's perfectly willing to accept people who worship other Gods, whether those Gods are real or not. What matters to MY God is that you and I live a good life.

A good Christian prospers because he is good, not because he is Christian. A good Muslim likewise. Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, Rastafarians, Hare Krishnas, Moonies, Scientologists, what matters is not the religion you practice, but that they are good people, religious or not,

Am I saying it badly? I thought I was pretty straightforward.

And if it's true. If every word of the Christian Bible is literal truth, and God will condemn all of them to Hell, then I will stand with Dean, throwing God the finger as I slide down the razor blade of damnation. Our defiance will be our comfort as we writhe in the flames.

Amen, brother. :-)

All right, these calumnies against the God of Abraham have provoked me to respond one more time.

The Christian God is not evil. By your own admission, you don't know Him. I, and others on this thread, do. We can testify that He's good and holy and righteous, and I'm not ashamed of His Gospel. "I don't know what others shall choose, but as for me and my household ..."

Pax, folks. Have a good day.

Pete said it well. God doesn't want anyone to be separated from him for eternity. However, people choose to go there, for whatever reason or excuse. I know it's hard to understand why a perfect and loving God could send people to an eternal void, but let me give a few illustrations:
First, understand that good and evil are mutually exclusive. That said, perfect good cannot be assessed as such without a similar measure of evil. God is perfect good; he cannot tolerate evil in his immediate presence. While God is infinitely loving and desires love from his creation (the insertion of free will comes into place here), those who reject Him choose separation from his goodness... and the only alternative to perfect goodness is, of course, evil. Unless we make the choice and say, "You know what? I'm not good enough. I need Jesus to mediate on my behalf before God," our evil is exposed in God's eyes. So while God loves his creation, he cannot tolerate sin.... without our friend, our Advocate, our Savior.
Imagine if we used our standards, not God's, to determine who went to Heaven and who didn't. Assume, for instance, that salvation was based on your merit alone. You hold to a certain set of standards. How many times in your life have you broken even your standards but once? If we so many times fail to live to our expectations, how can we expect to live up to God's on our own strength?
Finally, I read through these comments calling God 'spiteful' and 'childish'... and I think, imagine a human, known since before time, every hair on his head counted, every cell accounted for, one breath away from death... puny before God, waving his little fist at someone who cared enough to give him a choice, an easy choice, rather than pitch everyone into Hell for being less than perfect. And I wonder... in light of eternal grace and power, who is the one being childish and spiteful? We are put on a planet 93 million miles from our Sun, with the perfect atmospheric, elemental, and physical conditions for maintaining life. We can reason, imagine, create, decide, feel, emote. We are capable of tremendous sacrifice and honor, and unimaginable evil and outrage. And we, like a spoiled child, defy authority and fail to realize all we have been given on earth. Yet, like the parent of the wayward son in one of Christ's parables, he's waiting for us to return so he can embrace us and give us a feast richer than anything we've ever imagined. No father wants to force his child to love him... Love is truly fulfilled when one has a choice, and the choice is positively realized.

I've come to believe that belief in God as defined by Christianity is an exercise in creative thinking and imagination. And this thread is a perfect demonstration of that.

If people can't get through the day doing their best to be good and need something like "God" to give them inspiration and tell them exactly how to do it, then ... do what you have to do, I guess.

Actually, I really just can't figure out why people care so much. I'll stick with my apatheism, thanks.

The Jews don't view God the way you do, Bill or Pete. Neither do many others who say they worship the God of Abraham. Also, I'm an apostate, so I believe I "know" quite a bit of you guys' view. I've juste rejected it utterly, as horrifying and ugly.

You still have my respect, BTW. Peace.

Truly an amazing thread. I agree somehow with all of the viewpoints, if that's possible.

I've always found it sad of us as a species that we would require the ultimate sacrifice of another man to make up for our shortcomings.

That's comforting, because it says I can reason my way out of my faith.

Dostoevsky understood this in the Brothers Karamazov. His chapter on the Grand Inquisitor was a great cosmic joke and a powerful lesson.

The Christ figure is silent, never speaking a word. And in the end, he does nothing to punish or support. He simply kisses the old man as a father would a child and leaves.

We can rail all we want Dean. If there is a God, he understands what is in our hearts. If there isn't, then why do we have such anger?

Dostoevsky has a lot to say about the subject. If we ever sit down for a drink together, I'll tell you the joke about the atheist and the Christian.

Found this site through Interrobang. (davetepper.net).

Dean, the idea that God is not worthy of you if he's an evil bastard is one I subscribe to fully. Another apatheist here--I thought I was the only one who called it that, but I guess there's even another *Erica*.

I'm not going to worship a God that will eternally punish someone for being a lesbian; even absent eternal damnation, I'm not going to worship a God that demands or forbids behaviors that have no bearing on actual moral right or wrong, as judged by harm done and actual, real-world consequences.

Lookie there. I just defined moral behavior in the absence of a God.

Anyway, I also have a deep conviction that the presence or absense of the existence of a God is largely irrelevant to everyday behavior, if you're acting in accordance with natural, this-world consequence; if God exists and wants you to act in accordance with those consequences, then you shouldn't have to modify your behavior; if God exists and wants you to act out of accordance with them, then s/he is quite simply irrational, either for making such demands or neglecting to shape reality in such a way that supports his/her idea of moral behavior. That includes, for me, the desire to be worshipped.

So there you have it. I don't think God matters.

Dean:

Congratulations on rejecting the fundamentalists' misapprehended God.

Say...what's that in the bath water you just threw out!?

;)

B

...Love' s truly fulfiled when one has a choice, and the choice is positively realized...

How my heart sang when that choice was realized in my life Pietro. My children, my grandchildren are the melody and the rhythm of my song, and GOD IS MY SOUL.

Dean, your choice sure stirred up a mighty force of controversy and that is what I believe you and many bloggers got into this buisness for.

I sure miss Arnold! He reads you every day and eats a bear claw...aah...Dean...aah...I have an itch

I will check in again, your bloggie fan.

As a Deist I find this discussion interesting and amusing at the same time. Being a Deist is not totally rational, but it certainly is more than believing that a book written by many hands and is at times contradictory, is the literal word of God. I can see using the Old & New Testament as allegory but as the literal word of God? You must be kidding. Alas, a lot of people aren't kidding and millions have died over that point of theology from the inception of Christianity.

I don't think it might be a good idea that Dean become a Catholic. After all, was it not the Pope who said the worst thing to happen in the last 2000 years was the Age of Reason? Inotherwords he would have prefered the populace to stay in stagnant ignorance, subserviant to whims of a Church, while being denied access to science, medicine, democracy, reading (to name a few) and subject to paranoid superstition.

As a Christian, I would NEVER claim to know God...not completely or totally. Because of this lack of knowledge, my judgement of Him is imperfect, incomplete, and only through the sphere of my experience, which is extremely limited and hampered by my own ego and self-absorption.

However, as a Christian, I believe that God knows me, because He made me, and gave me the Freedom to choose to return to Him. And that path is NARROW and HARD.

Having said that, I enjoy hearing what atheists and agnostics have to say, because to me it is better to be having a conversation with/about God, even if it is an angry one, than dismissing Him altogether.

Human institutions will always end in destruction and will always be fraught with pitfalls and discrepancies.

Andrew, the Pope did indeed, which is one reason (of MANY) why I am no longer a part of the Roman Catholic church. But I have heard people from other denominations denounce the Age of Reason as well. It may well be because the Age of Reason asserted the role of the individual in the world, and the individual's relationship with God, and this goes against humanity's inclination to follow group-think. Because of this, I question whether or not it was truly a good idea to throw out some of the traditions.

Be that as it may, Dean, since you have decided to denounce a faith in an Omnipotent God, I can only guess that you mean to say that you are your own captain and authority. All well and good...but what do you do when someone comes along and says "I rebel against you."

Are you as forgiving as you would LIKE God to be? And are you willing to lay down your life to prove it?

The part that bugs me is I agree with you Dean, but something fundamentally is "right" with Christianity.

Even if good portions of what is assumed or asserted by different sects of Christians are demonstrably false.

Dean,

People sometimes get confused - they forget that Jesus instructed the sinner to go forth and sin no more; he didn't sit there listing the sins and consigning the sinner to damnation. There is a strong "busybodyism" strain in human nature - and, as you well know, its not just religious types who fall into this sort of error...lawsuits against smoking, demands that bikers wear helmets...that sort of thing. This strain makes some people feel compelled to stick their nose into the business of others.

People who fall into this are never at a loss for finding a justification for their actions - some people call God to witness (surely a manifestation of taking God's name in vain), others use other concepts; "the children", "the people", "social justice"....

Needs and wants, thats always the crux of the argument. Humanity has various needs, but the problem comes in when some people rationalise their wants into needs. People need to be instructed in right conduct - some people want to force others to engage in right conduct (as they define it, it goes without saying) and they then rationalise this imposition by saying the objects of the compulsion actually need compelling (for their own good, it also goes without saying).

You are justly angry over those who have twisted the meaning of God and, specifically, the teachings of Jesus; but your anger over them should not make you reject God - even the Christian understanding of God.

Andrew,

I don't think any Pope ever said that - though there was, back in the 19th century, a bit of huffiness about what we call today classical liberalism. Lets just say that the Church is not liberal, and can't be liberal.

The Church has never had any argument with human reason - the argument comes about when some try to take the absurd position that human reason is supreme. The problem, especially with the 18th century "englightenment", is that a few half-educated fools decided that they had the ability to sit in judgement upon humanity and decide what should be destroyed and what preserved (and they weren't in favor of preserving much). Napoleon, musing before Rousseau's tomb, was heard to mutter "perhaps it would have been better if neither of us had been born". Napoleon was right, on both counts.

There is a vital importance in remembering that there are things over, superior to and unknowable in full to human reason. Forget this unalterable fact of life, and you go down a horrid path, lined (in the post-20th century world especially) with corpses.

Accepting Jesus Christ and becoming a Chrisitian is not an intellectual endeavor. It's a matter of the heart, and one of eternal consequences. It's also really easy. Knowing Jesus Christ has changed my life for the better. It can do this for anyone who seeks it.

Sadly, we've built manmade obstacles in front of knowing what life is about and why we're here. The mistakes of men have turned others off even seeking the truth.

Well, Dean, it's sadly clear that nothing at this point will change your mind.

For the sake of others, then, I'll propose one last bit of argument, perhaps a little more rigorous.

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that you are right: God is evil.

What characteristics would such a God have?

When I think of those people pretty universally recognized as evil, e.g. Hitler, Saddam Hussein, they exhibit a callous disregard for human life. They arbitrarily and/or systematically torture, maim, and kill for purposes of self-aggrandizement or power.

Does the God we see described in the New Testament Bible have those characteristics? If you are honest, you have to say "no."

God is indeed just, but He is much moreso loving. As the verse from 2 Peter says, God is "patient with us, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." Is that what we'd expect from an evil God?

No, Dean, God is not infinitely arbitrary and infinitely evil.

God's desire for us all is salvation. That is clear. That He loves us is also clear. Anyone reading the New Testament honestly can come to no other conclusion. God's plan for achieving salvation is clear, and it has nothing to do with "being a good person," since none of us is truly good. Rather, it is an act of faith.

Dean, you are also wrong that Christianity says that all Hindus, Buddhists, etc. are automatically destined for hell. We are responsible only for what we know. God is the judge - not you or I.

You say God is arbitrary. He is anything but. As I said, His plan is clear.

You just don't want to accept it. You think sin and evil shouldn't matter - that God should take everyone, no matter what they do or whether they accept Him or not. You are arguing that present-day evil should have no eternal consequences. You know, even our human justice system rejects that argument. What is the death penalty, then? It is imposing, to the best of our ability, an eternal sentence on those who commit particularly heinous crimes.

You also confuse the action of sin with having a sinful heart. God judges us based on the latter, not only the former. God bases His assessment of us on our heart and mind, as well as on our actions. Stealing a cookie is not the same as killing 20 million people, and God is not so stupid as to confuse the two. He will, however, look at the motives behind them, the heart attitudes. Sadly, the concept most people have of God is much too small and is warped by popular culture. They think God has some sort of scale in which He weighs all of our actions, piling the good on one side and the bad on the other, and if good outweighs bad, we're in. That's not how it works!

If God is evil, Dean, why would He have sent His Son to take our place? If God were evil, He wouldn't have bothered. Everyone would end up in hell, no matter how good they were. Not only that, our present life would be hell. Nothing good would ever happen.

My belief is such that I trust God. Why wouldn't I? He has demonstrated His love for me in numerous ways, and the Bible says, over and over again, that God loves each and every one of us. Therefore, I believe that God will do the right thing, the most loving and fair thing possible, for each and every person when the time comes for that person to face Him. That's what the Bible says is God's nature, and that is not how an evil God would behave.

That's the last I have to say about this.

Peace also to you, Dean. I hope someday you will change your mind and see God for who He truly is.

Just wandered on to this site and was fascinated at the comments on this thread.

What is it about Christians being so obsessed about everyone thinking like them? You're entitled to your own opinion, and I think it's pretty spot on - my best friend is gay, and one of the most genuinely good people I know. I'm not interested in a God who wants to torment him for eternity for a personal choice.

I have no problem with personal faith as a concept - people can believe whatever they like. But I do get creeped out by the intensity some people have for what are essentially stories. How can people be so certain how God works from a book - written by people. How do we know the whole thing wasn't written by some loon in a cave?

I'm one of those evangelical friends that Dean doesn't hate. My lunch break is almost up, so I can't post much now, except to ask Dean about something I've posted before without getting a response:

Dean, the idea of "torture" seems to come up a lot when you discuss the topic of the afterlife, but do you think that if you were flipping off God on the way to hell as Gary wrote, that you would want to be in God's presence? If you hate God as much as you insist, what worse torture could there be than spending every moment in His presence? Hell would be your first choice, just as you assert now. I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said, "There are two kinds of people--those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'Thy will be done.'"

And I have philosophical problems with all this ranting about evil if we live in a "bright" and naturalistic universe where nothing is anything more than atoms rearranging, but that's a whole other thread.

Rachel:

What is it about Christians being so obsessed about everyone thinking like them?

Example, please?

B

(From the thread, I mean. Since that's what I thought you were talking about. Or, alternatively, ignore me. I know those Christians are out there who want you to think a certain way.)

Dean become a Catholic? Bah. Eastern Orthodox is the way to go if you're going that way.

Dean,

I've been following this discussion closely and witholding my comments. You've displayed obvious disgust and anger with fundamentalist. What confuses me is how you cannot find the landover baptist site funny as hell. Shit man, you actually said "Fuck God" in this thread and yet chastise those of us that find this site hilarious. I get a kick out of people who believe that the earth is 8-10 thousand years old...it cracks me up. Just a thought.

Pietro says that hell exists because God can only have perfect goodness in his presence. That explains exclusion from heaven, but it doesn't account for hell. Why couldn't god just let us "not good enough" people hang out here on earth? I'd rather be here anyway.

Definitional problem, shell. "Hell" is separation from God. Whether it's here on Earth, or in some realm beyond death, doesn't matter. The body's not setup to live forever, so if you look on the face of God after death and still say, "No thanks," that's your option.

I remain amused at the consistent tone of outrage toward God for not adequately arranging for the comfort of those who reject Him, however. Only upside I can see is, (I hope) that after death the choice will be much easier to make - we'll have more direct evidence.

Dunno if Dean is still paying attention, but perhaps this is the problem:

Only belief in Christ can save me, so if I don't believe, I get what I deserve: torture. For any sin, no matter how small.

Well, no; at least, I don't think so.

If any of us could walk to the throne of God and claim that all we ever did wrong was steal a cookie, I think we wouldn't have a problem making it into heaven. Which is why I think most young children will make it.

But really: how many people here think they could make such a claim without lying?

Sin corrupts, and corruption feeds on itself. Would heaven really be heaven for long if all that corruption were allowed in to fester for eternity? That's arguably one of the purposes of the Christian life: to clear out the corruption.

Pol Pot's hypothetical deathbed confession gives me pause, I'll admit. But that's one of the things I punt on, trusting that it'll all make sense in the end.

It does bring up the question: if Pol Pot was beyond saving, and your nephew isn't, where do you draw the line? I certainly don't know, which is why I'd err on the side of caution were I in Pol Pot's hospital room. Think of it as the reverse of the quote: "Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out."

Hear, hear, Jeff.

This insight came to me when folks were condemning Mohamad Atta and his virgin-lovin' buddies to Hell. It occurred to me - how easy this is, for me to say, "He's burning." No, I've never done anything that comes close to the evil of his acts. But - where is the line? If I believe in my soul that God has turned his back on Mohamad, then how can I be certain he won't turn his back on me?

That scared the crap out of me and I decided to let go of that particular morbid line of thought.

Resolved: morbid thoughts about God can lead to fear and anger.

I would say "discuss," but I think we already have.

You know what makes me mad about some people in this thread? If you've been reading this blog at all, you know well that Dean continually goes out of his way to be more than fair to Christians and Christianity, to give you Christians credit for what he believes to be your honest beliefs. He's even defended Jerry Falwell, for God's sake! And yet, when he dares to express _his own_ honest doubts on his own blog, some of you dismiss that as a nicotine fit or a ploy to get attention. That really pisses me off. That's a hell of a way to treat a blogger. _I_, for one, respect the man more than ever.

As for this issue of judging God, that's an ancient theological question going back to Plato: Do the Gods what is holy because it is holy, or is it holy because the Gods love it? I submit the former, and that God or the Gods gave us a conscience, a sense of right and wrong, good and bad, with which to judge ourselves and all things, even the Gods Themselves. Dean is using his admirably.

"I remain amused at the consistent tone of outrage toward God for not adequately arranging for the comfort of those who reject Him, however. Only upside I can see is, (I hope) that after death the choice will be much easier to make - we'll have more direct evidence."

I remain amused at people who think that atheism, "Without Theism," means "I know for a fact that god exists, but I am rejecting him because I don't like what he wrote in his book."

Please stop.

We just don't believe. I realize that, despite not being murderers, rapists, thieves, we get to burn in hell because we don't believe in a book, or accept Jesus. Hey, you guys don't accept Mohammed, maybe you are going to hell. You don't accept Zeus, Thor, Freya, Apollo, Kali, etc. Aren't you afraid of, um, whatever their version of Hell is called? No? You have faith? But why? Why this faith over some other?

Dean,

Don't condemn Christianity and all Christians because of the intolerance of certain Christians. Any Christian worth his faith will readily admit that we humans do not and cannot know the true nature of God. The Bible gives us a glimpse, but only a glimpse.

God is so much greater than we are that we do not have the capacity to fully understand him. If you are familar with the story of the five blind men discovering an elephant, think of us as the blind men and God as the elephant.

So when the evangelicals, the fundamentalists, the liberals or any other school of Christianity says that it knows what God is like, be skeptical. It's their opinion of the nature of God, but that is it.

The Bible may be divinely inspired, but never underestimate people's ability to screw up the interpretation of it!

"Question with boldness all things, even the existence of a God, for if there be one, He must approve more the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
- Thomas Jefferson

Um, J?

If the shoe doesn't fit, then cast it aside, I say.

B

Dean: Right on, brother. I agree with everything that you have said on this thread.

Best wishes/Dave

How do you prescribe to the idea that God is evil...did he not give man free will? I am surprised to read this when I know that you come from a gene pool that is truly on a spiritual thirst and your grandparents exemplified a trust in a God and a higher being...am I ignorant here? I think you are misguided by Christianity however I do believe inherently you retain a belief in God!!!!

I post as an agnostic.

Dean, you make no sense. You are in the water headed for the falls. I throw you a rope and say, "grab the rope or you're going over". Does this make me evil?

In the particular Christian eschatology which cocerns you, it is Satan who does the punishing, not God.

If you are an atheist, then since the innocent are condemned to death every day (drownings, burns, car accidents, sudden stops after following the law of gravity, etc) by your reasoning, nature itself must be evil.

You can be a skeptic if you like, but don't be juvenile about it.

Sin is not stealing a cookie or the act of genocide. Sin is hubris, pride, arogance and
willfulness and an ultimately a refusal to submit to a spiritual power higher than oneself. Small children are sinless and go straight to heaven. Only God knows at what instant in a life one becomes accountable. Is it age 5, 7 , 9 or 12? That is God's question, not mine.

I came to Christianity late in life although I had attended church regularly in my early years and even converted to Catholocism in late teens drawn by the mystical secrets I felt were hidden in it's rituals and dogma. It was not a true conversion and I soon lapsed. Later in my life, Christianity inexplicably became real to me the instant I chose to trust and submit to this compelling but emotional sense that submission was the only requirement needed to know who God is. That one leap of faith, where I threw all doubt aside and overcame my spiritual rebellion
was a life changing event. I have since realized that God is not best experienced through the intellect but better through the emotional life of the believer. I don't really believe that we burn in Hell though I do believe in Hell. As others have described Hell, it is an absence of God's presence coupled with the knowledge of what that loss truly means. Hell to me is the despair of a very deep depression, a black hopelessness stretching on forever.

I believe that God places a yearning for Him in each heart. All humans experience the need to be connected to something or someone greater than their selves. We are the only creatures on earth that consciously know that death is our destiny. For some this yearing (or seed) is not nurtured and will eventually die. Others go searching for spiritual water and faith soon springs from that small seed. For others like myself, it is a laborious process to come to faith.

Pax.

Most possible angles on this thread seem to have been exhausted. One thing this atheist would like to say, though: I think God's an illusion, but I think the kind of illusion He is says something great about our civilization. Most world cultures invented a pantheon of kind and cruel deities to suit the mystery and tumult of life as they observed it. Every Asian religious tradition I've encountered is about succumbing to reality. Judeo-Christianity doesn't. It wants the ultimate force in the universe to be all good, to believe that the dark will drive out the light forever. I think that's incorrect--and the number of mental somersaults that otherwise reasonable people can make in the process of trying to reconcile it with life as we know it is unsettling--but as an impulse, it's movingly progressive and humane. I made a crack about Japanese numinism a few dozen posts back, and I began to regret it last night. I take it back: I still think God's a delusion, but He's the best delusion any civilization has come up with. Even atheists should be proud of Him, not as the source but as the product of what makes the West great.

Heres a certain line of thought a professor once gave me although its only an approximate quote since its been a few years now for me: "If we assume that God is omnipotent, what need does he have for us or anyone else liking or worshipping him? Its not as if he will stop existing if we ignore him. By the same token that means God does not need OUR faith for him to be powerful. In turn does this not imply that God's compassion is just as omnipotent? If so then it by logic it must mean that only WE need God, not the other way around, God then does not condemn, but rather WE choose our own fates and forgiveness is always possible."

Its a bit hard for me to get my mind around the possibilities that there are heinous things that are forgivable, like hitler, pol pot, or worse, but logic is a bit hard to assail in my opinion I don't fathom the depths of God's power, his compassion or justice nor can I ever but I suppose that is where faith comes in.

Am I saying it badly? I thought I was pretty straightforward.

TOO straightforward, that's the problem. You could have made the same point in a less confrontational manner. And if you were smoking, you would have.:)

That said, perfect good cannot be assessed as such without a similar measure of evil.

Nonsense.

those who reject Him choose separation from his goodness.

Even those who have had no opportunity to even know he exists? They get the same treatment as those who knowingly deny him.

I don't think God matters.

God doesn't matter, religion matters, God is just the excuse for it.

something fundamentally is "right" with Christianity.

Of course it is. The basics of Christianity are quite sound. No matter what flavor of Christianity you follow. The same is true of all the major religions. It's when you start dipping into doctrine that things get foolish.

Knowing Jesus Christ has changed my life for the better.

Of course it has. Religion has long been a positive force, both for individuals and cultures. But taken literally, it is poison.

I remain amused at the consistent tone of outrage toward God for not adequately arranging for the comfort of those who reject Him...

I don't know about "consistent", I'm not outraged at God (the God of the Christians) because I don't think he is real. If I thought he was real, I'd be a Christian, and very damned devout, too.

"Only belief in Christ can save me, so if I don't believe, I get what I deserve: torture. For any sin, no matter how small."

Ooooo, I missed that. That is flat wrong, Dean. If you don't believe, you get torture, but no other sin matters, great or small, because you have committed the basic and unpardonable sin of unbelief.

...ultimately a refusal to submit to a spiritual power higher than oneself.

I do not submit to anyone or anything, much less an invisible, intangible boogeyman.

I do not submit to anyone or anything, much less an invisible, intangible boogeyman.

Do you submit to the laws of our country?

Most of you are arguing an entirely different set of beliefs than the article that set off this thread in the first place. Nobody here said that all versions of the Christian God are evil. Just that the fundamentalist God that has one and only one requirement for entrance into heaven: that you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and accept Him as your personal Saviour; is demonstrably maltheist.

Under this God, the man who lives a life of good works but never even heard of Christ is sentenced to eternal torment, but the serial rapist who believes receives his eternal reward. There may be a temporary stint in purgatory for the believer, but the good man is given no second chance.

Infinitely capricious because of the huge number of souls created by Him in His own image, only a tiny percentage live in a circumstance where it is even possible to fulfill this requirement.

Infinitely evil because this single requirement is almost completely divorced from the encouragement of constructive behavior and discouragement of destructive behavior on the earthly plane.

If you believe that each soul will be given another chance to choose after seeing the face of God, then you are not talking about the same set of beliefs. If you believe that small children are sinless and go straight to heaven, then you are not talking about the same God. The God you believe in is not evil, and nobody here said He was.

I don't entirely follow Dean's logic that since the fundamentalist Christianity that he was raised to believe in is evil, that he therefore rejects all forms of Christianity. On the other hand the supermajority of Christians in the US that visualise a more comfortable, forgiving God need to understand that fundamentalists see this "cafeteria Christianity" as evidence that the Rapture is imminent.

Mark he said that in his last major release before the Millenium. Alas, I don't have time to track it down, but it was there and some bloggers (including me) reported on it. Alas, my blogsplat archives are not up on my blog, yet so I can't send you to it.

Dean:

Oh, fuck! Is this thread still running strong?!

Owen:

Well said. I agree with much of what you say.