Well? It's an honest question. A believer is convinced that there is a supernatural creator who watches your every deed and is aware of your every thought. Is that creepy or what? But what is even creepier is that this peeping Tom is judging youand will decide to reward or punish you upon your expiration. If you fail to obey the laws of this vicious dictator you will be punished with an eternity of torment in a lake of fire, and that has got to suck balls.
These are high stakes and make no mistake about it. Your finite existence will be punished by infinite torture if you make just one decision that your creator does not like. If you are male and you suck just one penis, you are going to go to Hell. Just one, and even if you were drunk at the time! Eternal damnation for having the temerity to enjoy a penis, that sounds a bit harsh to me.
There is no escape from this problem. Your God knows what you have done, and also knows what you will do, so your fate is sealed even before birth. You must act and think in a specified manner else you will suffer when you finally check out. This must fill you with terror, creating a hell-on-earth for all true believers. Even if you are "currently" saved, you don't know what the future holds and you still may end up in the underworld.
A person who genuinely believes that he or she is being constantly watched and judged would never digress. It is basic economics, the price is too high. Failure to observe instructions to the letter will result in a punishment that never, never ends. Unless of course you don't really believe this shit. For example, if I knew that my mother was watching me, I would not masturbate. Nothing on earth could convince me to play "Mr. Wobbly Hides His Helmet" if I knew my mother was watching. I reiterate, nothing!!!
But believers digress all the time. Here is just a shortlist of high profile disgraced preachers;
Todd Bentley
Jimmy Swaggart
Tammy Bakker
Lonnie Frisbee
James Hargis
Marjoe Gortner
Peter Popoff
Morris Cerello
Mike Warnke
Robert Tilton
W.V. Grant
Roy Clements
John Paulk
Paul Crouch
Douglas Goodman
Paul Barnes
Lonnie Latham
Gilbert Deya
Richard Roberts
Earl Paulk
Coy Privette
Thomas Wesley Weeks III
Michael Reid
Tony Alamo
Homosexual sex, infidelity, bearing false witness, theft, so many commandments broken by these believers. Why would these people break God's laws if they thought that in doing so they would suffer in Hell for all eternity without respite or the hope of redemption? I can hear you shouting, "but they were not true Christians", but please spare me the fallacy. If you consider that the above were not really believers but were conmen, than how do you separate the conmen, sinners and criminals that preach to you BEFORE they are exposed? Perhaps you are being conned in the first instance about the existence of a peeping Tom who will punish your indiscretions.
Live your life, be a human, fuck up from time-to-time, and don't worry about it because there probably isn't a god.
15 comments:
That is something I noticed as a child: that the believers were no better behaved.
I do suspect, as a mother, that there's not much chance your mother would WANT to watch you masturbate. Hate to disappoint you :(
The God is watching you thing is a nasty game, however, and on a par with the poor folk that end up in nice white padded cells (dressed in nice white coats that securely tie their hands around their waists) screaming that they are actually Napoleon, or Elvis, or Jeebus himself. Those inflicted with the urge to proclaim that someone we can't see is listening to our every thought, and rating our impulses and actions on a divine scale of one to ten, are freely walking the streets and have their own nice special buildings to meet in with pretty candles and nice pretty cushions to kneel on AND have the audacity to become quite affronted when we point out that they're one sandwich short of a picnic. Interesting. Very interesting.
Oh please! Do the work. Admittedly some Christians on the extreme wings think as you suggest, but many of us possess a brain cell.
My God is nothing like the caricature you're trying to pass off as every believer's belief. In my view God is much more to do with inner being than with some supernatural figure up in the sky. And why would you think any God wants to watch you all the time? A bit arrogant, isn't it? As well as being misguided.
God is love. Who taught you all that crap you've written as so-called Christian 'truth'? A highly religious childhood where it was shoved down your throat?
Do the work. Find out what Christianity is really about and then attack it.
A dissenting voice, excellent and thanks for your comment rockingrector. Unfortunately I don't think you've read your Bible. Sure, you can cherry pick and believe what you want, but that doesn't make you a Christan, you're simply choosing the pretty parts and rejecting the ugly bits.
"Here is my final conclusion fear God and obey His commandments, for this is the entire duty of man. For God will judge us for everything we do, including every hidden thing, good or bad," Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, TLB.
"It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgement", Hebrews 9:27 NKJ.
- Paul
I think that people that have suffered the abuse of a strictly enforced religious upbringing, with, for me anyway, the psychological 'bad programming' it entails, have every right to express their disdain without being referred to as 'arrogant', 'misguided' and their opinions to be labelled as 'crap'.
Maybe you need to rethink your last statement. If non believers accuse those with faith of being arrogant, misguided and their beliefs to be 'crap', we would be accused of being intolerant, insensitive, ignorant and prejudiced. We may even suffer legal proceedings for being abusive towards your faith.
Why is this never a two way street? Please, do unto others as you would have us do to you.
Well, here we must really differ, for I don't believe the Bible was ever intended to be taken literally. It's a product of its time (over hundreds of years) and must be read against the background of its time. As I'm sure you know, it contains many different types of literature, including a novel (Jonah).
Sure, you can pick out texts, but you can probably find an opposing text for every one you pick out. The message has to be taken as a whole - and the basic message is that God is on our side, rooting for us.
Forget the old bloke in the sky. Most Christians haven't believed in that sort of God for over a century, and scholars for considerably longer.
If you're really interested in seriously slamming Christianity - as opposed to easy and uninformed pokes like Richard Dawkins - you should read some contemporary Christian scholars and delve into form criticism and historical criticism of the Bible (where it is treated as ordinary literature and criticised accordingly). Then slam it.
Thanks for the feedback, however I wonder why athiests have to study and research before we 'slam it'.
If a person claiming to be a Christian approached you and told you they had studied the scriptures a little and it had given them a great faith in god, would you encourage them to go away and study further before they really came to that conclusion? Would you imply that their belief needed more research before it had any real credibility?
No, because you would consider them blessed with faith and would perhaps not be so slightly patronising? Why do athiests need to study more before we reach our godless conclusion?
You may think me obtuse, but it's a genuinely searching point.
It's because you seem to reach your conclusions based on erroneous data, and assume that covers all Christianity. There's no baseline for discussion if you base your arguments on the old guy in the sky who fails to put things right on the earth. I don't believe in that kind of God either.
I just thought there might be room for interesting discussion within this blog.
I guess my problem is not with you slamming your conservative-evangelical background (it deserves to be slammed) but with the assumption which comes across that that is all there is to Christianity. It isn't, it's but a tiny part.
(BTW, did I really offend you with intemperate language? If so, I apologise unreservedly.(
How about basing the argument on the Jewish illusionist who said you have to give everything away and disown your family? Have you done that?
I'm alarmed at the prospect of god being a being not up in the sky, or even all around us, but inside me.
I had nightmares about ''Alien'' last night.
(Apologies for flippancy)
@ rockingrector "I don't believe the Bible was ever intended to be taken literally"
Okay, so on what do you base your beliefs if not the Bible? Where do you get the word of your god from and know his intentions? Are there parts that are literal (e.g. the resurrection of Christ)? and parts that are metaphorical? How do you decide which is which?
Please begin with a definition of your god and how you know that this definition is correct.
Thanks
- Paul
I've done the best I can to tell you about the God I believe in under your "Virginal Post" blog, so forgive me if I don't repeat it all here.
As to what is metaphorical and what isn't - I would suggest that leaving your family and giving up all you possess might have been regarded even by Jesus as metaphorical. Evidence? He called the four fishermen - Andrew, Peter, James, John to be part of the inner circle, but even they didn't give up the fishing business. There are several stories later in the gospels of Jesus going out with them on fishing expeditions.
This is where studying what scholars have written is actually quite important. They may not all be right, but if a consensus amongst them is reached, then perhaps there's a chance they are right.
I really believe the Bible has to be read against its primitive, first century background, which was alive with miracles and magic, middle eastern customs, and utterly ignorant of science. How can you take literally anything written then? It has to be interpreted in the light of the 21st century, with a very different background in every respect.
This is why I think the overall message of the Bible is far more important than texts taken from here or there - so-called "proof" texts.
BTW, this is your blog and I don't want to hijack it. Just let me know if you want me to withdraw.
Of course we don't want you to go away. Without feedback and contribution we would be a group of bored athiests all sitting around saying, 'Hey I don't believe there is a god, do you?'...'Nope, there surely isn't one and that's the truth'. How much would THAT suck?
You have emphasised the historical nature of the bible as a document to be taken in context of what knowledge was available when it was written, an idea that is not unfamiliar to me having read and studied the bible to quite some extent as a sensitive youth. I agree with you. The bible is a subjective account and to me, an interesting collection of stories depicting how people attempted to share their belief in a deity, prophet, god, religious leader. I don't think any of us would expect an Christian interpretation of Darwinism to have appeared around 200 A.D.
You say, however, that 'This is why I think the overall message of the Bible is far more important than texts taken from here or there - so-called "proof" texts.' and there's the thing - the overall message of the bible is that there is a god that created us, or at least had a hand in evolution creating us, watches us, judges us, and exists as a force that we can't see, but you have a conviction that we need to believe in.
I assume you believe in a god, if not the god of fundementalism, a god that exists as a 'force' or a 'power for good' having at least some divine influence over what goes on in the world.
I would be interested, if you are not comfortable with being asked to define what god actually is, to know the level of influence or control or indeed interest, your god has over and in, our lives.
Indeed, what is your 'overall message of the bible'? If it's a moral or ethical code, then I can identify with that, as I have one, and I have it without needing to pray to, or consult, a divinity. Yes the bible is not to be read literally, but I would like to know how literally you take the description of the existence of god, and to what extent do you think he influences us in our lives. Thanks
@ rockingrector. Please do not withdraw, your commentary is absolutely welcome. While we may disagree on many points, your voice is welcome and for myself and very happy that you found us. Robust discussion is to be encouraged. Welcome to The Big E :-)
- Paul
Thank you for your generous welcome - much appreciated.
It would seem that the influence God has over the world is through human beings. It's only too evident to anyone who cares to look, that God does not reach down from the sky and put things right for us. God does not prevent natural disasters or man-made ones. Did God ever do so? I suspect not, but that events were interpreted in the framework of the beliefs of the day, i.e. that good things were down to God and bad things were God's punishment for wrongdoing.
So if God is God - i.e. greater than sliced bread - why not put things right? I think perhaps one reason is that we have been given free will and that we're grown up people now, to use it or abuse it as we wish. Free will necessitates us being left to get on with it - unless we request help. In that case, for me the answer comes from within - I am given the tools to handle whatever has to be handled.
Obviously I don't exclude atheists or anyone else from being able to handle whatever has to be handled or from finding the resources within themselves, it just so happens that "God" is my terminology.
So for me, God influences the world by influencing human beings, nothing more supernatural than that.
I think the overall message of the Bible is one of love and forgiveness for human beings and creation (i.e. the universe.) Also the offer of guidance, inner strength, help support etc.
I don't think God is an insurance policy. Good things happen to bad people and vice versa, and we shouldn't expect it to be otherwise. I don't think God removes difficulties from us, but enables us to handle them.
As you say, there is an ethical code, but like you, I don't think you have to be a Christian (or Muslim, Jew, Hindu etc) to be moral.
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