Started March 17, 2010...
Please check out the following clip from Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" before reading this post...it will give you a reference to what I am speaking to...
Max Von Sydow - The Seventh Seal
In my drifting from Lutheranism to Agnosticism, I find myself having the same conversation with myself that Max Von Sydow has with Death in this clip...Ingmar Bergman was also a Lutheran PK, and I feel his work is infused with his doubts regarding God, or rather, faith in what we discern "God" to be...
I doubt I'll move fully into Atheism (not that necessarily need to define myself), but the more the "church" perverts Christianity, the more and more I move away from organized religion. If there was a Jesus, and if there is a God, I have serious doubts regarding the legitimacy of this "loving and caring" divine being that the organized and structured Christianity that we have today wants us to accept. Any rules that govern how this God views, or rather judges, us based on some very "human" issues such as race, religion, gender, sexual orientation shows me that the God we are told to accept is truly a creation of humanity; a creation that helps us feel better about our place in the world. I have a serious issue with a "God" that looks down on his creation and hands down one decision on one person and a different decision on another person based on these human rules. It is a very human condition to want to have the right kind of faith, or right kind of knowledge in order to exist in this world, because it gives us power, in our own minds, that we are right and those "other people" are wrong.
It's late, and I'm going to make less and less sense as I ramble on...with this blog, I will tackle many issues...I plan on continuing this subject...
Installment from March 18, 2010...
After sleeping on actually trying to put my questions/doubts down...please bear with me as you read this...it may jump from one subject to another, but it's because I am trying to get these thoughts down on "paper" before I lose them to my ever-present ADD :(
One thing that truly bothers me about this "God" that we hold so dear to our hearts, is that when you look at all the possibilities that we have given this divine being, a disturbing truth is revealed...this truth makes me sad, angry and hopeful at the same time. The hopeful part comes from the fact that the rules we have placed on God have translated into actuality in our view, and the fact that just because we as humans can't conceptualize a being that only shows love doesn't mean that God is not capable of universal love.
Here is that disturbing truth:
Given all the possibilities of our "human" rules placed on God, we have limited this divine being to a singular role, and the ramifications of the possible roles depress me as a "Christian". Here we go with the possibilities of what our God is:
#1 - God is caring and loving, but only to a select few...those select few are graced by God in the fact that their "prayers" are answered in the ways that they desire. To the mass majority of us that do not get our prayers answered in the way we see fit on in any way means that God has prejudices and holds back "love" from the majority of his creation. Simply put, if you look at the possibility that God exists in this way, you can only come to the realization that God is, in fact, either cruel and heartless...or simply doesn't care. We're supposed to be content in the phrase "sometimes the answer to a prayer is no".
Why would a limitless divine being subject his creation to this? If you pray and God answers your prayer with survival, we're supposed to be happy and/or content with that? In that way, God seems very petty...petty in that he may save some people, may help some people, but those that lose everything, or those that are subjected to cruelty are left with the advice that you need to "stay faithful" to God and that "faith isn't easy." We're left with the advice "just read the story of Job." Please...if Job existed, he was a damn fool. A God that takes and takes and takes and demands unquestioned loyalty is the product of our human condition. Only humans could come up with an all-powerful being that is essentially a sociopath. With THAT conceptualization of God, you're equating this divine being to nothing more than what Hitler was...a power hungry sociopath that demanded loyalty and destroyed you and those you loved if you disobeyed.
Why would any divine being let almost all the members of a family get killed in a tornado, but then spare the family two doors down? We're supposed to believe one of two things: that God doesn't control the weather and allows things to happen -OR- that the family that survived was somehow more faithful or the family that was killed was disappointing in God's view. We're left with three possible explanations: God controls the weather and subjects humanity to destruction and death - OR - God decides to not control the weather and allows these things to happen without purpose, effectively limiting our existence to his own personal science experiment - OR - that there is no God or, if there is, this "God" does not have the power to control the weather, or much of anything else.
What this possibility #1 has me thinking is this: God has an abusive relationship with is creation. If you had a relationship with someone that you love and that was supposed to love you back, if that person continually made you feel bad about yourself because you would talk and ask questions and ask for help but that person would ignore you; they made you wonder what you needed to do to make them protect you or love you more; that this person expected you to be just as faithful and loyal to him/her despite showing none of that faith or loyalty towards you; everyone else in your life would be telling you that you needed to leave that relationship. Are we supposed to treat our relationship with God like we are battered women? The days that he hits us, the days that make us doubt, the days we are sick, the days that we don't know how we'll make it to the next day...we're supposed to tell everyone that asks that we fell down the stairs or that if we just behaved better, that days like this wouldn't occur. If we prayed more, etc. Then, on the days that he doesn't hit us, we rejoice and talk about how incredibly wonderful he is...it sounds like a fucking horrible relationship, if you ask me. It sounds like a control created by men for men to keep women down...a relationship where you are supposed to respect the man, obey the man, cook, clean, perform sexually at his whim, do things without question because she loves him, no matter than he is never to show the same respect for that woman...but forgive me...that's an entirely different thread for another time.
The fact that, with this conceptualization of God, we are faced with the reality that God IS in fact petty and cruel...this God picks and chooses between which people to protect, which people to condemn, which people get their prayers answered, and which people are left sitting in the darkness while he ignores us.
Possibility #2: There is no God...at least, not in the way that we, as flawed human beings can recognize. This would mean that the life we lead and the things/events/heartbreak that occurs in this lifetime are by happenstance and chance. To some, that may seem lonely and scary...but in opposition you are faced with the reality that if, in fact, there is a God, that this God either doesn't care or doesn't have the power to prevent pain and loss from our human condition. At this point, it seems chance and coincidence seem much more plausible than does divine intervention...or lack thereof.
I will continue...
