I saw the above meme on my Facebook wall yesterday (without the red X) and had to respond. Of course this is the classic Pascal's Wager which assumes if there is a God, he is a really stupid one that can be fooled by people hedging their bets, but my initial response was this:
“If there is a god who is just and loving it won't matter, if a god would send someone to eternal torture simply for not "loving" him, there is nothing in me that could cause me to love such a god or want to spend eternity with such a vile being.” Then I was called lost and blind, etc. Blind? Really? I'm the one who is blind? I had to get a bit more serious and responded with this: “For most of my life I believed as Steven, Allen and millions of others do, breaking free of that was the hardest thing I ever did, but I am so glad that I did. I have no intention of arguing or getting in a debate, but perhaps I can ask a few questions to remove the blinders of faith from your mind. If you are a loving and just being who created a life that is self aware would you not even more than a mother giving birth do everything to care for, nurture, and protect that life? Would you not be more real to them than the earth beneath their feet, the sun in their face, or the wind in their hair? Or would you remove yourself from them, except for communicating in ancient writings (and “feelings”) that you love them but they will tortured by fire forever if they don't love you back? And that brings the question of what is loving or just punishment? Certainly that is different for different crimes, but I know of NO crime where a just, let alone loving punishment would be the eternal torture of hell fire, let alone for someone simply not believing something such as they by birth are deserving of such a punishment if they don't believe. Such a belief is to me now deeply offensive and vile, I am ashamed that I ever believed it. Sadly I did. Do you really have a grasp of what that belief means? If not, I recommend a video called Burn Victims it should be very hard to watch, it should make you sick, it should, I hope it does. A couple years before this video was even made I had asked myself the question it asks and I knew that even if real, and even if it meant I myself would go to Hell, there was nothing in me that could love or serve a god who would send ANYONE to eternal, never ending torture for ANY reason. I hope you are moral, decent, just, loving, and compassionate enough to reach the same conclusion.” Please, my friends if you believe there is a “loving” god who would send anyone to eternal Hell for ANY reason, please wake up and realize how blind you are, and how far from anything remotely “loving” or “just” such a belief is. It is sick, deluded, cruel, and very blind for any compassionate, just, or loving being.
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I posted this video by Tim Minchin called Thank You God to my FaceBook wall because I love it and he really nails it. It starts out with Tim saying that people come to his shows expecting him to mock God, but he isn't going to do that anymore because someone came to him with proof of a miracle from god and then he sings this song about the miracle called Thank You God, which is of course a total mockery where he completely nails it.
Someone that I believe is a believer in god "liked" the post. I had to respond, which I am reposting here (with a bit of editing . Minus the persons name as it could have been a great many people and the reply applies to a great many people. Really?, I am very surprised that you liked this post. I thought you where a believer. Am I wrong about that or did you actually listen to it? OR did you just see that it was titled “Thank You God” and like that? No offense but the first thing I thought of when I saw that is of good, kind, decent people who say they like/believe the Bible. They like the highlights, the nice words, sure. I did too. For most of my life. I think most decent Christians read the Bible like most people read terms of agreements online, they scan them, or don't read it at all. Or they read it with blinders on, only seeing the good stuff about love, they have to. But if good people would take their rose colored religious glasses off and really read the Bible, the whole thing. Really deeply think about what it says, that there is a god who created us, knowing full well that any, some, many, or most would not believe in him and that because of that not just one, but some, no many, well actually most of his children that he “loves” so much would be tortured in Hell for all eternity, I believe EVERY good, kind, decent person would reject it. We "lowly, horrible, fallen, sinful" humans let the worst criminals off FAR easier than that for the worst possible crimes, things that are certainly FAR FAR WORSE than not believing someone who says "I love you so much that you better believe in me or I'll burn and torture you forever". When the reality of that core message finally sunk in after most of my life as a Christian I knew I could not possibly love such a God EVEN IF he was real. EVEN if it meant I myself would GO TO HELL, I knew I could not LOVE such a god. You seem like a really nice person to me, please let the reality of the bible message sink in. One new tool I recommend that should challenge believers to the core is a video called Burn Victims. It is very hard to watch, stomach churning, IT SHOULD BE, people who believe in god need to ask what kind of God am I serving? Thankfully as our understanding of life and the universe grow it really makes much more sense without any god. I don't mean to offend and I am working on how to best process things myself but it hurts to see people I like, good decent people, some of whom I have known personally for many years, not just through Facebook like I do you, believe and justify loving the Biblical concept of god, which to me is utterly vile. I am very still much processing how to deal with friends who believe in this god as this reply states. I understand many reasons why people believe, I did myself for most of my life. I also understand first hand how difficult it is to face the fact that something I had been taught from childhood was about love, is actually about fear, control, power, and hate. It was hard to face that the only reason I had still been believing for years was not because God's love is so compelling, but because I feared burning in Hell if I didn't believe and love this god. That's a TOUGH road to travel. Although the result is that I am much, MUCH happier and at peace with, accepting of myself and the world than I was as a Christian. Generally if people are content in their personal beliefs I don't want to just come out and offend or confront them. If they are not telling others how they MUST believe or live their lives, I am basically just letting it go. Even though I believe the world would be much better off with more thinking and less believing. And even though it really does hurt to see good, caring, decent, people that I care about believe something that is now so clearly VILE and hateful to me. This morning as I was having breakfast with several friends in the Suncoast Skeptics group I had a moment that I wanted to share. It was a moment of feeling very privileged, not so much being with this group, although that's part of it, and they are great people. But we where talking about life, origins, the universe, etc. And I became aware of other life around me like trees, birds etc. and how privileged I am to be experiencing life and the universe the way that I do rather than the way that most, if not all, non-human life that we know of does. Having more consciousness of life, (I know some rationalists might argue the point on consciousness, I don't care, don't steal my moment!) Now I really don't want to offend any of my friends who believe in any Gods with what I will say next, but I also feel privileged to have been exposed to the right circumstances, information, whatever to have moved out of such a belief myself. To have been exposed to enough evidence to see that this life/universe is not only possible but more likely to have evolved over billions of years without an intelligence behind it is incredible! To be blunt, and again no offense intended, but it makes believing that a God did it, seem to me like a total cop out! Reality is so much cooler than the myths! Here's a short video that taps into my moment... I was thinking about my family today and wanted to share this. My parents loved me and I loved them very much, I miss them greatly. But as I grew I embraced many different ideas and values from them and it was clear that they had trouble accepting that. Today as I am a non-believer and they where both strong Christians until they passed, I am sure that they could not have accepted that at all. In fact I had become a non-believer before mom passed, and I decided not to burden her with that as she had been hurt enough by other things, so I accepted and loved her as she was. But it would have been wonderful if I knew that could have gone both ways. As children grow they become their own people, and that often doesn't fit with the expectations and dreams of the parents. Often as kids come out as gay, they get thrown out of their homes, in fact that accounts for more homeless youth than any other thing. When children develop different political views it can split families. If children in religious homes change religions or reject religion altogether it it can and does often tear families apart. The same happens if a child falls in love with the wrong kind of person, due to race, religion, social status, etc. Often in these situations it is said that we “love” you but until you change to fit our views of what is right, you can't be part of our family. That is not love. I am not saying that if a child is doing something demonstratively harmful to themselves or others that that is to be accepted, but that is different. I am saying that no matter how different the values, beliefs, or dreams, and ideas of your child are from what you where expecting, accepting them as they are is the greatest gift you can give them. It is the power of love. Peace, David Blood The evening of November 17th 2012 I started feeling like I was catching the flue or something, so Sunday I just took it easy and stayed home and rested, I was feeling worse by Monday but had to work. Short week I figured I could make it three days then have four days off for good bed rest and kick this thing.
After work on Wednesday I started with the vomiting, Thanksgiving Thursday was in bed all day with very little to eat, certainly NO turkey!, Friday morning I had problems with my eyes so I went to the Dr. and got something for that. Came back home. Then on Saturday morning I had a rash on the palms of my hands, I called the VA, informed them of my concern and also that I already had an appointment for Monday morning at the hospital. They said as long as I could hold down liquids that I should be fine until then. Sunday morning the rash had spread, I was not holding down liquids, and got a friend to take me to the VA hospital's ER. Eight days later I finally got released from the Hospital, still not feeling great, but certainly better. The discomforting thing is that the Dr. is still not certain about what put me in the hospital in the first place! This leaves me with a couple reflections that I want to share. The first is the need for comprehensive and universal health care for ALL. This came totally out of the blue, the Dr.s don't understand it. Fortunately, thanks to my service to the country I am covered by the VA. But what if I wasn't? Eight days in the hospital would financially destroy millions of un-and under-insured in this country. Obama Care is an important first step, but I hope it is only a first step toward real single payer universal health care in this country, so that if people are facing a health disaster they are not also faced with a financial one at the same time. Secondly, while I sincerely thank all those who have been praying for me and I know you are sincere in your good intentions, one of my reflections is that I felt no divine healing or hand of God. Again this came totally out of the blue, the Dr.s don't understand it. What I felt is that if there is no God that makes some sense, it fits, it's just one of those things in life that happens and that you (hopefully) get past. (personally though, I'd rather win the lottery!) BUT if there is a loving, caring, compassionate god, something like this makes no sense at all. It's an experience that re-enforces for me the reasons I stopped believing, things like this and the doctrine of Hell simply do not fit or make any sense with the concept of a loving, compassionate God. Things like this just make more sense without the supernatural. In real life stuff just happens sometimes, and sometimes there is just no explaining WHY. The important thing is what we do with the stuff that happens. Hopefully we use it to help make life better. What I did very clearly sense though and am very thankful for was the hard work and dedication of Doctors, Nurses, and other support staff at the Bay Pines VA hospital working to restore me back to health. I'm not there yet, but certainly much better. I am very thankful to ALL of them. |
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