This quote hit me hard

[InJesusItrust]

Like all literary works, what the stories in the Bible express are human desires, human beliefs, and what we humans believe to be right at any given time. Sometimes certain human societies found it favourable to slaughter their neighbours down to the last infant, and also found it favourable to claim sanction from their god to justify their actions; at other times, when they felt powerless to overthrow the ruling authorities, it was much more believable to pin their hopes upon a more subtle subversion of power, upon the idea that a ‘meek and mild’ individual could stand in the face of oppression and overcome it, at least by dying and thus escaping. Cue the expansion of this ideal into the notion that we are all destined for an afterlife of peace and justice…so that we don’t need to worry too much about what happens here and now.

Yes, of course there is value in the ideas expressed through these stories - but that value is not in any literal truth, but rather in challenging our ways of thinking. The idea of a martyr messiah challenged the notion of a warrior messiah, but that doesn’t change the fact that determination and - at times - aggression is just as necessary as passivity if one seeks to effect change in the world.

There was a time when Christianity provided a challenge to the ruling set of beliefs, but there’s little doubt that force and coercion played a role in the conversion of many peoples, just as much - if not more - than any intellectual persuasion or emotional appeal. Nowadays, nonbelief is finally providing a vocal challenge to the norm of religious faith (Christian and otherwise).

The response of the various faiths has been to clamp down and to protest, on the one hand, against ‘unjust persecution’ (as if they did not mete out enough of that in the heyday of religious power) at the hands of ‘rampant secularism’; and on the other, to assume the intellectual and moral high ground - neither of which they have any right to claim, if the facts of history and science, and the core ideas of religions, are brought to light in plain speech.

Do you agree if the God of the Bible as I presented is true He is infintively good, infinitively just and infinitively wise, to make is so in a sense that the proud condemn themselves but the humble find Him?

 

[meltzerboy]

“Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites a poor, abused slave to worship him!”

It sounds like an atheist’s or agnostic’s mantra. Others have mentioned Mark Twain or Nietzsche as the writer. It also sounds a little like Voltaire to me. Whoever penned this, I think it provides some food for thought for believers and should not simply be dismissed as doggerel.

 

[meltzerboy]

Like all literary works, what the stories in the Bible express are human desires, human beliefs, and what we humans believe to be right at any given time. Sometimes certain human societies found it favourable to slaughter their neighbours down to the last infant, and also found it favourable to claim sanction from their god to justify their actions; at other times, when they felt powerless to overthrow the ruling authorities, it was much more believable to pin their hopes upon a more subtle subversion of power, upon the idea that a ‘meek and mild’ individual could stand in the face of oppression and overcome it, at least by dying and thus escaping. Cue the expansion of this ideal into the notion that we are all destined for an afterlife of peace and justice…so that we don’t need to worry too much about what happens here and now.

Yes, of course there is value in the ideas expressed through these stories - but that value is not in any literal truth, but rather in challenging our ways of thinking. The idea of a martyr messiah challenged the notion of a warrior messiah, but that doesn’t change the fact that determination and - at times - aggression is just as necessary as passivity if one seeks to effect change in the world.

There was a time when Christianity provided a challenge to the ruling set of beliefs, but there’s little doubt that force and coercion played a role in the conversion of many peoples, just as much - if not more - than any intellectual persuasion or emotional appeal. Nowadays, nonbelief is finally providing a vocal challenge to the norm of religious faith (Christian and otherwise).

The response of the various faiths has been to clamp down and to protest, on the one hand, against ‘unjust persecution’ (as if they did not mete out enough of that in the heyday of religious power) at the hands of ‘rampant secularism’; and on the other, to assume the intellectual and moral high ground - neither of which they have any right to claim, if the facts of history and science, and the core ideas of religions, are brought to light in plain speech.

A little off topic, but what do you as a pantheist believe? Is pantheism exactly the same as atheism?

 

[prodigalson2011]

But why couldn’t he just have made us good to begin with? If he is all powerful why did he even let evil exist in the first place? Does he not have power over all?

To have done so would have been to make us, essentially, robots. There can be no love without free will.

Why did he make life so beautiful, yet thousands of hearts are broken daily by death? A death which has no promise of an afterlife, no sign from God that there is a heaven, no visible evidence as comfort.

The Shroud of Turin, especially coupled with the Veil of Manoppello, is visible evidence; as are the many public miracles that have been worked throughout the centuries: Fatima, Lourdes, Lanciano and other Eucharistic miracles.

We definitely did not “invent hell.” What gave you that idea? I would never invent such a place. Even the worst sinner would never want to invent somewhere in which there is eternal torture and torment.

Technically, Satan would have been the first to create it, but in a sense anyone who goes there “creates” it by cutting themselves of from love. We don’t invent it in the sense that we sit down and plan it out, but just like someone who drives drunk “creates” disaster, so we through our irresponsible choices “create” hell.

He HAS committed lies. Jesus promises God will give us what we ask in his name. When my friend’s wife gets struck by a car and he screams out to Jesus begging for his wife to live and she ends up dying the next day, God did not fulfill his promise.

This is a partial understanding of what Jesus taught. He also taught us to learn to discern God’s will and align ours to it. What he is teaching us is to pray for “our daily bread,” that which we need to grow in faith and holiness. Imagine a world where every material request was granted to every believer. It would be utter chaos, especially when people prayed for contradictory things. Remember one of Jesus’ other teachings, that in this world we WILL have tribulations. But take heart! He has overcome the world.

He invites us to worship him despite a world of hurt, tragedy, death, despair, and confusion. A planet amongst thousands of stars and other planets with no explanation why. Cancer, heart attacks, strokes, sudden deaths, etc. Heartaches and losing loved ones. It is an imperfect world. That’s what he is saying.

And do you want to know something? Worshipping and thanking Him is the ONLY remedy for all of that misery. The alternative is to become bitter, cynical, nihilistic, snide, or worse. Coming from a former atheist whose life has not gotten any easier since becoming a Christian, I can tell you that the experience has been transformative in terms of making sense out of suffering and finding joy amidst this fallen world.

If God really had that much power, and TRULY wanted us to be happy, he should’ve made it that way.

Remember what your parents most likely taught you: “What you want isn’t always what you need.” A toddler getting antibiotic shots probably thinks her onlooking parents is letting the doctor torture her; but the fact is there’s a reason that they’re allowing her to undergo the pain: because it’s the only way to heal her. We can not have a perfect world and have free will. We cannot have love and true relationships without free will. And, just like a toddler, we do not have the capacity to fully understand why we have to go through this. But we do have a mountain of history, philosophy, saints, martyrs and miracles that testify to the reward that awaits us when it’s all over–if we don’t run away from the One who wants to bestow it upon us.

 

[Sair]

A little off topic, but what do you as a pantheist believe? Is pantheism exactly the same as atheism?

Pantheism is the belief that the universe, essentially the whole edifice of nature, is in itself divine, in the sense of being worthy of reverence and inspiring feelings of awe and wonder. Furthermore, it embraces the emotional response induced by the acceptance of the fact that we are all part of a whole that is greater than ourselves, by a vast measure. In this latter sense, it taps in to what might be called the religious aspect of our human psyche, but it certainly does not comprehend the idea of a personal god, a god that is somehow separate from (and elevated above, as most theistic religions insist) the cosmos. In this latter respect, it is atheistic.

 

[Nimzovik]

Really? I think every atheist drop-out working in fast food can write it. Especially if they have read Mark Twain. It reeks of theological ignorance and the thread, on Christmas Eve, is more than a little trollish. Twain always fancied himself an intellectual, when he was mostly an overated blowhard.

Oh … I dunno… His work on Joan of Arc was his favorite … if I recall correctly…

See here: saints.sqpn.com/stj05003.htm

 

[Polycarp1]

But why couldn’t he just have made us good to begin with? If he is all powerful why did he even let evil exist in the first place? Does he not have power over all?.

If God really had that much power, and TRULY wanted us to be happy, he should’ve made it that way.

Because love can only be given freely. To love we have to have the option not too. If God created people to have to love him that would be false love and God can’t be false.

 

[fhansen]

“Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites a poor, abused slave to worship him!”

So you either become a Calvinist and accept the god who creates evil , or you recognize that God values human freedom, and the time we spend in a world where good and evil are experienced- literally known- combined with an awareness of our potentially temporary status vis a vis existence, for what this situation can potentially produce in us when revelation and grace are added in: beings who’ve learned the hard way of our need for God, of the perfection of His will over our own, who’ve come to know and appreciate-to “value”-God and His love, so to speak, after experiencing the natural result of rebellion against Him. The “Blessed Fault” gives us this opportunity, to become higher than the angels in Gods viewpoint.

I like the simple but profound truth Julian of Norwich, quoted in the Catechism, was “shown” by God after praying about her burden for the eternal fate of so many dying during the Black Plague in 13th century England: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”. We know that God is infintely good and just (and definitively proved it by humbly lowering Himself to live amongst and even be put to death at the hands of the creation He loves in an excruciatingly humilating and painful manner); we can trust that all manner of things shall be well.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

“Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites a poor, abused slave to worship him!”

LilyM has some good comments. Obviously this individual was having a hard time. Was it Mark Twain? If so you know that he greaved a great deal over his daughter’s illness and death. He really went into what we would call a severe depression and perhaps he never really came out of it.

Whatever the case. God created us with a free will and intelligence by which he intended for us to serve him faithfully in this life and spend eternity in the splendor of his Divinity and to rejoice in the full unfolding of our humanity among the mysteries he has prepared for us. By freely choosing to cooperate with him in this life, we would give him the Honor, Praise, and Worship due him as our creator. Of course free will implied the real possibility that some, many, would choose badly and wreck havoc with his creation. But he provided for that too through the Mission of his Son, through whom evil is defeated and the balance restored. Yet not without suffering for man but even that has been given a Divine purpose.

It is up to us to bear up and not let the difficulties, which cannot be denied, of the present time cause us undue alarm and distress. It is all part of the Divine Plan and will work out well for us - if we keep our heads.

 

[Khalid]

A little off topic, but what do you as a pantheist believe? Is pantheism exactly the same as atheism?

Pretty much, except the universe is God instead of self-existing as an accident of quantum fluctuation. But it doesn’t actually do anything that an atheist’s materialist universe wouldn’t.

In all appreciable ways it is atheism, and there is a great interplay between the two: if you ever heard the pantheist Teilhard de Chardin wax poetic on science, or have seen the atheist Neil Degrasse Tyson speaking in glowingly spiritual terms of “going on pilgrimage to the observatory, where night becomes day and day becomes night”, it seems pretty clear that the scientistic atheism (with the concomitant faith in science) that prevails today is in its essence pantheism, and that pantheism is in its essence atheism. It’s the spiritual response of an atheist to the immensity of the universe, in contrast to Romans 1:19f.

It seems that in any system whatever is viewed as self-existing becomes endowed with divinity. If the prime mover is seen as self-existing, it becomes endowed with divinity and becomes the Deist god. If the “I am who exists” (LXX) or “I am who I am” (MT) of the Bible is viewed as self-existing, it is seen as already divine - the only being that is above all being that actually is, and not endowed with divinity in the system of man - it becomes the LORD God of Judaism and Christianity. If the universe is seen as self-existing, it is the only place left for God, and God must be coterminous with it.

Eh, small caps don’t work here, so I just made the “L” big.

 

[Ion]

“Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites a poor, abused slave to worship him!”

If you take it logically, this kind of “i wana do whatever crosses my mind and everything should feel good, and me be happy” it is possible but only in a universe where you are alone…

 

[fatimaoligist]

“Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell—mouths mercy and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites a poor, abused slave to worship him!”

None of us can truly understand the mind of god. Why bad things happen…I believe in god because of Jesus, their was nothing that Jesus said that he was not prepared to do himself, including to die for those he loved, (a man can show no greatet love than to lay down his life for his friends) he done it, fogive those who do you wrong, he done it, pray for those who trespass against you, he done it.

Look to the heart of jesus, then we will understand god more clearly.