Food for Thought: Can an All Powerful God Really Be Cruel?
We have always wondered about our existence. We have asked ourselves the most difficult questions there are. How did the universe come into existence? What was there before it? Is god behind all of this? Who created life itself?
These are the most haunting questions for humanity right now and we are doing everything we can to find the answers. Science has given us a good enough picture till now and the future will only provide more answers. But I doubt that we will ever be able to answer all the questions.
Of course, religion has this all figured out. God is credited with creating the universe and all life forms; an all powerful, almighty being who has the power to create and destroy whole universes.
A Vast Universe
The universe we have been able to observe till now is so huge that we can’t even fathom it’s size. Just imagine how huge the whole universe is. It’s simply unimaginable. Our brains just give up at that point. But a being that can literally create a universe, would have power so great, so unbelievably magnificent that I wonder if we even have words in our dictionary to describe it.
But this also begs the question of our significance in god’s “eyes”. Just how relevant are we to him and how much does our lives mean to him. Just look at it from his perspective.
He created the universe so he must be outside of it. So, from his point of view, there is this universe, which is made up of billions upon billions of galaxies, which all have billions upon billions of stars which in turn have innumerable planets orbiting them and on a tiny little planet called Earth, we are even tinier creatures roaming around like ants! We are literally like microorganisms on a speck of dust from his point of view.
So, with that information, we can ask yet another question. If we are too small to be of any significance, why would a god interfere in our lives? I hear people around me telling me that everything is god’s will. That, god dictates whatever happens to us and everybody else on the planet.
But doesn’t this belief have a basic flaw? If everything is god’s will, where does free will come in? And what’s even the point of existence if we are merely actors in a movie whose script has already been prepared. Doesn’t it seem illogical?
And this is not the only thing that doesn’t make sense. Let’s consider for a moment that everything is, in fact, god’s will. But then why would an all powerful god create evil in the world? Why would an all knowing programmer create bugs in his software? Why is there so much suffering in this world? People dying like insects every second. Why is it that the forces of evil have taken over our planet and are exploiting things and people alike for their own meaningless sake leading to suffering and torture for mankind in general.
Why would an all powerful God be cruel?
If everything is his wish then all the evil must be his wish too. And if someone says, that it is not god but humans who have done this to themselves, then that would mean that we have free will and then that would negate the earlier belief that everything is god’s will. It doesn’t seem to make any sense.
God is always shown to be a benevolent being who doesn’t have a shred of ill will towards anyone, let alone cruelty.
But when you take a look at all the religions of the world, you see that people are god-fearing and not god-loving. This is a huge generalisation but only to make a point.
If god is so benevolent why is everybody afraid of him. This is especially the case in my own religion, Hinduism. Since childhood I was told if I don’t behave a particular way, god would punish me, if I didn’t believe in god, he would punish me.
This fear of god just doesn’t justify the image of god, leading one to believe that somewhere down the line, we screwed up with our interpretation of what god actually is.
The Real God
In my opinion, god is not this all powerful being who created the universe and everything in it. He is the universe itself. A universal energy that hold everything in place and dictates the laws that everything follows. We would then be a part of god and not just insignificant microorganisms.
That would explain why we have free will in conjunction with the laws of the universe. (I always wondered if laws of the universe were the actual god’s will and that religions just misinterpreted it and applied it to human lives.)
This would basically mean that god is the very fabric of space-time and everything is simply floating inside it. It is all just nomenclature at this point. And it would mean that the evil present in the hearts of many in this world, is not the result of god.
Many of the beliefs we have today, based on religion, are a result of centuries of misinterpretation, doctoring of facts for bigger agendas and the philosophy of divide and rule to keep humanity fighting each other forever. And God has nothing to do with it.
Wow, what a lot of questions in one post! Are you actually looking for answers? If so I'll give it a shot. (I only know this because it's what God says in the Bible.)
Christianity doesn't claim to have it all figured out. We are just reporting what God has revealed about Himself.
So you were right in the first three paragraphs. You agree that the Universe can be that big but somehow there can't be a God even bigger. Then you doubted he had that much power (even though you see it on display everywhere) and all the problems you listed started piling up to the point where you wound up making up a completely different scenario than the one that God already revealed. In your version there is still a God as big as the universe but only because He is part of it. And you choose to believe that instead? Why?
Hopefully this helps. Everything I said is exactly what God says in the Bible. Ask me if you want me to "show you where it says that."
You say it's all in the bible. But the bible is a book that has been incorrectly translated for thousands of years just for the profit and advance of the christian church.
Except that is not true. We have over 5600 manuscripts, some dating as far back as the first generation after the authors. And we have enough of the writings of the early church leaders quoting those scriptures to nearly reconstruct the whole New Testament. And we have the Dead Sea Scrolls covering all but one of the books of the Old Testament - proving that the text has not changed since 200 BC when the scrolls were placed in the Dead Sea caves and forgotten for 2200 years.
So by comparing this massively redundant set of sources we can eliminate all typos and know with a high degree of confidence what the original Greek and Hebrew texts said.
Then we have over 25 groups of independent experts from many generations doing their translations from those original texts (not from each other) so we have lots of independent checks on translation accuracy. Check them out here: http://biblehub.com/john/3-16.htm
The Bible has by far the strongest pedigree of any historical document pre-dating the printing press.
An ancient book of prophecies and magical events?
Surely you're larping.
Yes. Prophecies that have come true. Imagine that.
that is exactly what I was saying, many different interpretations from the same books.....who is to say the actual knowledge (if any) wasn't lost to time!
An Almighty God can be as cruel as he wants to be, or as merciful as he wants to be. The name of Gods Game is Obedience to him and his prophets has long spoken about the ultimate destruction of the disobedient.
The Jews, Muslims & Christians have the same God in common, their level of obedience to him varies.
Well, I look at god as the whole universe itself and think that his will = laws of universe. As for cruelty, that's something we do to ourselves! But I respect your opinion :)
Thanks for the read! :D
Yes they definitely believe in the almighty being. Different interpretations apply.
I am on the same page with you. Things (for me) make a lot more sense when defining God = Universe = Whole energy system.
I prefer to think of 'Gods/Universal' will as a much more passive interaction, like weather patterns. We are effected by them, and have a very slight effect on weather itself (as an individual,) but we don't say 'the weather is looking out for me.' It's just something that we are a part of.
I also agree that the concept of an omnipotent God being cruel. Do we consider ourselves to be cruel when accidentally stepping on a bug? (let alone millions of bacteria, lol)
Great post
Exactly! We are part of the whole thing. And this whole thing IS actually god.
Thanks for the read! :)
https://steemit.com/hidden-gems/@dragonslayer109/daily-pick-of-hidden-gems-33 here is where I will be featuring your post today
That's what I call a great post, a great post isn't just determined by the post itself, but also by the discussion it creates, a great post will yield a great discussion. Thanks for the read! :)
Thank you for your kind words! :)
Glad you enjoyed it!
I tend to believe that God was the ancient way of visualizing powers that influence our lives but we have no control over. The Bible is a book of wisdom and teaching passed down from one generation to another and subject to interpretation by each successive generation.
The concept of a "God" being exclusively male comes more from the writers of the Bible and the culture they lived in. I always preferred my young niece's view on that subject. After we had a discussion about the gender of God she advised me after some thought that "when I need God to be male, he will be and when I need God to be female, she'll be that too". Her concept is somewhat supported by the several feminine references to God that Christ was reported to have made.
Assuming Christ was a real character in history and his words were actually recalled and reported and not just attributed to him.
For me, the God of any other religion is no different than the Christian God, only in the minds of their followers.
I believe the bible teaches us a good moral code when viewed as lessons of wisdom.
You should actually read the Bible before forming such important opinions.
I've read it .. and often. The difference is I actually use my mind when reading it. I'm also entitled to my opinions and you have zero input on when I can form them.
"The God of any other religion is no different than the Christian God."
Q.E.D.
I'm sorry. I was running out the door and tried to reply too quickly. I agree it came off as arrogant.
But anyone who reads the Bible at even a cursory level understands that God's Number One Beef is his children going after other gods. ("I am the Lord and my glory I will share with no one.") He calls it adultery. It's what got Israel in trouble in almost every single chapter of the Old Testament. "Thou shalt have no other Gods."
So, if we are going to faithfully communicate what we believe to be God's Word, then we can't go around being politically correct all the time. God wants faithful witnesses that will tell it like it is. It doesn't help anybody to let them think they can make up their own beliefs and the go back to sleep and it will be ok in the end. No it won't.
Look around this and other threads. Every fourth comment is by someone trying to be popular by saying "I'm OK, your OK, why can't we all just get along?" While that may work for politics or philosophy, it won't work for talking about the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Jesus.
The Bible says what you believe, nothing else, determines whether you go to Heaven or not. So I would be doing a disservice to everyone to go around nodding my head (or ignoring) posts that try to say all religions and all gods are the same.
They are most certainly not.
nothing like the arrogance of the so called true believer.. funny how they are no different in any religion.. sort of like their so called exclusive 'God"
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I wonder if everything's in the god then what's outside the god? Really good read, took me quite a while to finish hahahaha the comments here are pretty interesting too, to me, god is a form of energy, something responsible for the existence of this world and the concept of us being parts of the god is something I'd like to believe in.
very interesting question...what is outside god.....for now...we don't even understand god..understanding what's outside of him beyond our capabilities hehe
thanks for the read :)