Dissing God
We all see God through the distorted lens of what we have heard about Him. Most of the time, it is not an accurate image at all. On the other side of that lens, He is reaching out to save us. Sadly, most of us just flip the bird at our false image of Him.
You see it every where. Angry posts, usually just a sentence or two long. "I totally reject God because of [insert flimsy objection here]" What are some of these objections? Here's a few I've seen on Steemit in the past month:
- How arrogant for Him to expect the Great Me to worship and obey Him!
- The Great Me knows better and does not approve of His morality or authority!
- There are too many false decoys so there can't be a Real Thing.
- Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence - He's the Beggar and I'm the chooser!
- He treats rebels like weeds and says He reserves the right to wipe out entire weed populations.
- He hasn't given the Great Me a personal demonstration of His supernatural power.
- I don't like what other people as uninformed as the Great Me have opined about Him.
- I grew up in a religion that taught me a bunch of (false) stuff I didn't like.
- Believers are free to be no better than the Great Me, so God can't be all that powerful.
- I want God to grant Me free will while simultaneously preventing the bad acts of others.
- I want to design my own gods.
considering Who is behind that lens.
And yes most hecklers do believe there is Someone behind that lens! Why else would they waste their time trolling posts with religious themes just so they can flip their angry rhetorical finger at nothing? Why not just ignore such threads, if such posts are merely crazy dreamers talking about an imaginary pink unicorn?
No, they know there's Somebody behind there alright, whether they admit it to themselves or not. And they are too foolish or lazy to find out Who He really is before they go flipping Him off. Perhaps they are hoping to get enough confirmation from other rebels to help get rid of that nagging feeling that they are shooting themselves in the foot. Perhaps it's really a cry for help. All they get from flipping the bird is up-votes from other lost souls egging them on - but it makes them feel better.
You need to realize that He loves you and is willing to overlook everything evil you have ever done and even suffer your well-deserved punishment for you if you will just acknowledge that you need Him to do so.
The Bible is the unique lens through which we can get a much better image of the Glory of God. It produces a multi-faceted image and you need to gaze into it intently until you begin see more clearly. It takes work. You need to earnestly want to see, and hear, and understand.
Every other lens will leave you like an angry snake -- striking at your own image in a dark, foggy mirror.
God has said that He will not keep reaching out to us forever.
Seek Him while He may be found.
Straw men, appeal to authority, ambiguous definition of God, subjective interpretation of scripture... Until you get past your own cognitive dissonance your arguments will fall on deaf ears.
"He who has ears to hear, let him hear." I just want to make people consider why they are rebels. In this post, I have referenced no authorities, provided no definitions, done no interpretation. I'm criticizing the process most people go through in determining whether to flip the bird at Someone rather than seeking to learn more about Him.
(Not that there is anything wrong with appealing to authorities, providing definitions, and interpreting Scripture. I do it all the time.)
Otherwise, I'm confined to the limits of my own weak and easily deceived intellect.
@stan I don't know you and I don't mean to pose any judgement as Jake Kotze said: "I can't know what anything means in its totality as it has infinite depth. Sometimes we speak as if we can as it is a matter of convenience or habit."
But I feel like putting this below as some comment.
I would never advocate not using your brain. Just the opposite.
This post is advocating not flipping off God because of superficial objections you have not done due diligence to get answered.
If you have done your homework, learned all about Him, and still wish to reject His outstretched hand then you are not the kind of person I am poking fun at in this post.
I will then have a different category for you. :o)
We agree on using our brain. Our oneness can be more than physical. The only fact we exist is beyond explanation.
I really love to learn about religions. I'm not a religious person but I see the universe as really Divine or beyond what words can describe.
I "have" a God. Some call it the universe, some consider it the Godless universe and some other consider it the Divine universe. These are words trying to describe something that can't really be easily pinpoint.
Let's enjoy!
But I will add these buzzwords to my bulleted list in the OP.
@dantheman and @stan, are you guys really related? I am curious to know how @dantheman got away from his family Doctrine. It would be an interesting read.
@bangking
Not sure about @dantheman but I can understand the difference in family doctrine. For me it read something like this...
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+15%3A11-32
Yeah. That verse pretty much answers the above question.
But this post is not directed at dantheman.
He has not made his decision "flippantly".
He falls into a much more serious category.
Translation: Dan was never a Christian and has not been chosen.
Paul sure did a great job building a semantic minefield that complicates Christ's simple message of faith... and results in endless divisions within the Body.
Here ya go! https://steemit.com/philosophy/@dan/why-i-gave-up-christianity
https://steemit.com/philosophy/@stan/why-i-will-never-give-up-christianity
And yes, Stan is Dan's father.
Thank you @stan! Steemit isn't exactly an ideologically welcome field for anyone who professes a belief in God.
Thanks! It's a lot better than most places. I suspect there are a lot of closet believers who get their first chance to tip their witnessing toe in the water with a simple up-vote.
Thanks @stan, amazingly written. People! God is constantly calling you, why do you think this article was even written? He is also calling each of you internally. Stop ignoring Him, time is short.
Agreed!
To invent God is not, and has not been, a fruitful exercise. Just look at history and every culture you can think of. Intellectualism hasn't helped either. If we can invent a god then we surely do not need one do we? And yet, when I look at nature itself, it speaks of design. There must be a being out there who did all this. I fail to understand how all this can just "happen".
The issue becomes how does God reveal himself in ways that we cannot doubt? In my search, I have found the God of the Bible to be true.
I guess, being African, I live with the undeniable reality that spirituality is and, when we go into that realm, clearly, there are two different sides.
And they don't play by our rules.
I was an atheist / agnostic for most of my life until I gave a serious hearing to christian philosophers and scientists such as Dr. Lennox and William Lane Craig. Then I read the bible from cover to cover. At age 30, I've made a great 180 degree and gave my life to Jesus Christ because of the cosmological, historical, moral, existential and scientific base on which it stands.
Today, I do not see what atheism has to offer. If it is true, there is no purpose, no meaning or value to life. Existence become a big joke, ethics is destroyed, morality becomes relative and civilization stands at a great precipice where our fellow humans are nothing more than cattle.
Exactly. And we all see what the world is becoming as more and more people turn away from Jesus. I'm afraid the warp core is about to blow...
Ev'ry sinner looks for something
That will put his heart at ease
There is only one true answer
He must get down on his knees
("Crying In The Chapel")
Nice!
Beautiful @omfedor ... Thanks to you and @stan for all the comments on my article on Sunday.. I see the comments is still following every 15 minutes or so. Thanks guys.
Many people do not realize the difference between questioning and doubting.
It is good to question anything. Jesus said, "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find." I believe God wants us informed and enlightened about anything we'd like to know. As long as we are seekers of truth, He will inspire us.
Some useful questions : "What is my purpose?"
"Where can I find truth? "
"What am I to learn from this experience?"
"How are science and religion harmonious?"
Some people have the attitude of doubt when they are faced with a challenge. They might ask, "How could a loving God allow children to suffer?" Their solution to this is, Well, therefore there is no God. Rather than asking, "What can I do to ease suffering?" or "How much does God value free will?"
If we doubt the existence of God, or if we think we already know the answer to a question, what value is there in asking? Doubting is not seeking truth. And then those people feel resentment to God and any professed followers because God chooses to not solve all their problems for them.
Good points. Nothing unusual with doubting. Jesus went out of His way to help His disciples stop doubting. Remember what He said to Thomas?
But even after that, at the last possible moment after they had spent weeks with Him in resurrected form and just before He ascended to heaven, they still doubted:
Let doubt guide your quest for understanding. But is not a wise reason for dissing God.
Yes, the point is to seek truth, not just assume God is a lie because things aren't going the way we think they should be, or because some religions in the past used their authority to murder people.
I recommend to such people to seek a God (or even a church) which doesn't have a history of hurting people. Just because some people representing churches in the past did bad things does not mean that all churches andall members of churches are heartless, blind, or ignorant.
Such attitudes tend to ignore the good that many churches do. Some spend millions of dollars a year on emergency relief after disasters, or to feed hungry families.
I am an active member of a church, yet I think for myself, have never murdered or tried to control anyone. I do my best to show love just as Jesus taught.
It is small thinking to flip a finger at God just because some of His proclaimed followers are jerks.
@stan
Which God Should I reach out? There are so many! Should I reach for a western God? How about an African one? I heard that Indian gods are cool too.
Please help me. I want to believe in a God!
There is no substitute for doing your homework.
It's your job to find Him. (He's made it pretty obvious.)
Which one though? The God of the bible sounds a little pissy killing women and children, stoning. too much violence. is there any other God outhere?
Oh, He hasn't hesitated to wipe out entire cities, civilizations and most of the life on the planet. He says He will do it again. Soon. If you want to understand that, you need to get to know Him. He's not "pissy", he's very patient and protective of his children and the overall objectives of this particular creation.
A lot of people have the opposite complaint. "Why does God tolerate all the evil in the world."
The answer is patience and the need to let certain things run their course to achieve His ultimate objectives.
Those who take the time to understand what has been revealed on this topic, can begin to grasp that there are far bigger reasons for everything that has happened (and is about to happen).
However, those who don't seek that understanding and instead grab a fact they don't like as a reason not to look further are the subject of this post.
In this case, you merely restate bullet number five - and therefore make my case. :o)
Big difference between old testament and new testament. You won't find Jesus advocating for violence... " Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. " He said that about an adulterer IIRC.
There's only one religion currently killing in large numbers for their religion, and it isn't the Christians.
@kyriacos, well, I think it comes down to looking at the foundations of each religion. And there is only one religion out there,who the founder claimed to be God, and backed up his claims.
Only Jesus was bold enough to say that he is equal with God.
And when it comes down to whether or not to believe him, for me:
everything hinges on the resurrection
The main thing that really convinced me to finally put my faith in Jesus was the substantial evidence around his resurrection.
And if Jesus really did rise from the dead, then all these debates around the existence of God is not necessary.
I believe there is no other question in our entire life that deserves our honest and humble research into, then the topic of whether God exists? And if so, who is the true God?
Thanks. That really does cut through a lot of clutter and red-herring arguments.
Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona debated the issue of whether the resurrection could be proved historically.
Both are excellent debaters and made their opposite cases flawlessly.
Ehrman staked his case that it could not be proved (not that it did or didn't happen) because it is a historian's job to figure out what "probably" happened and since miracles are inherently improbable no historian will ever say that any amount of eyewitness testimony about a statistically improbable event is historical proof.
Fair point, if those are indeed the "rules".
Licona takes a more pragmatic approach. Nearly every respected historian, including Ehrman agrees on three facts:
This is prima face historical evidence that he was dead and then alive.
(Subject to the credibility of the witnesses which are recorded for all to assess.)
From that theologians, not historians, can derive their own conclusions about how that came about. Perhaps aliens quickly cloned him from one of his DNA samples. Perhaps God resurrected him as he had predicted on many prior occasions.
But all the witnesses testified to Jesus' own explanation about what happened. So, in the absence of any historical evidence of any kind to the contrary, we are left with an historically documented supernatural event, coherently explained by the primary participants in the event.
Make of it what you will.
Good points @stan. The thing that really hit me was the transformation that occurred with the disciples after the alleged resurrection. Most of the remaining eleven disciples who were closest to Jesus fled when he was captured by the roman guards, but after the alleged resurrection, their attitudes were completely changed, to the extent that all of them were all willing to be martyred for their faith. And indeed, that's what happened to all of the remaining eleven except John. To me, this was the most convincing evidence, because something must have happened to them for such a dramatic change to have occurred.
The empty tomb and remaining burial clothe are some other evidence that convinced me about the resurrection. William Lane Craig has a few very good talks and debates about this. He presents the evidence in a very logical manner.
For the same reason a father or mother reach out to their children, even if they're murders, liars, thieves.
Having kids helped me understand that far more than I could have without.
I'm sure that's why he refers to Himself as our Father. :)
(And why we are given kids to help us see it from His point of view.)
Thank you for your wonderful post @stan. I don't mean to be intrusive, but I'm just curious, does @dantheman have children himself? If one day his children rejected him as their dad, he might be able to experience the heart of God. It was only after having my son, that I had a deeper appreciation for the love of God, our Father in heaven.
One never knows what God will use to reach each of us.
For some, our strength is our weakness.
There is really only one remedy for that.
Yes he has kids.
God is a lie. It is the same as hitler or slavery to me. God has been designed to enslave and abuse people. It is one of the earlist and most effective tech invented by humans.
I am glad people are finally starting to wake up.
Another bird flip category to add to my list. Thanks.
This is not about bird flipping but about manipulating people. The amount of pain and suffering that has been created by religion is insurmountable and pushing this agenda to me is the greatest crime of all. I am not kidding. I would love to have a true dialog with you and understand why you believe in god if you do. However reading your lines it seems like you are trying to sell an agenda, which I find plain evil.
I do have an agenda. I want to help God save as many of His children as possible.
I don't want people to miss out by reacting to false images of God instead of the Real Thing.
The point of this article is to point out the many excuses people use to reject God.
Blaming Him for the bad behavior of people who want to make up false religions (about Him or false gods) is one of the classic non sequitor excuses.
You act like all the false religions are God's fault as opposed to the plots of HIs enemies. If the leader of a hate group endorses your favorite candidate, do you stop supporting that candidate? Of course not. Unless that candidate embraces that endorsement. God does not endorse false teaching in His name.
What is evil about making sure people hear the truth in the midst of all the false information being spread by God's enemies?
When people tell lies about your father, don't you want to correct them?
www.proofthatgodexists.org
Also see proof aliens exist. Nice convincing think pieces. Im leaning towards aliens our parallel universes myself because we don't actually know how big the universe is and the chance of other life is present. The chance of jesus returning to save us??????? not a chance