Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Serotonin Wraith on July 8, 2009 at 6:50pm

The god of the Bible has many qualities I find to be puzzling. My first impression is that he is a procrastinator. After creating the universe, he waited several billion years before creating planet Earth. I know he created (and destroyed) many, many other planets without life along the way, but going by the book he wrote, our planet is supposed to be the most important. After creating Earth, he guided evolution (I'm not sure of the exact details - but presumably he must have carefully selected each sexual encounter for every creature from the very beginning of life to now) so that a few billion more years later, his favourite species would come to be.

Why would I find procrastination from a god puzzling? It just doesn't seem like a very god-like thing to me; putting things off, dragging things out. But I've never met any other gods so perhaps procrastination is the norm. Being efficient probably seems as silly to him as his ways seem to us. But I'm sure events would have gone better had he not taken so long to do things.

For example, it was several thousand years after creating his favourite species, these humans, that he decided to speak to them and tell them all about himself. He asked that they worship him. Unfortunately, he'd left it too long. Humans had already made up things called gods. They were obviously just fairy tales, because according to the Biblical god he is the only god, and he hadn't told them anything. He hadn't even met them. Now, from the very beginning, he had all this competition.

Well of course, all he had to do was show the entire world that he was the one true god, and everything would have been fixed. However, this may have been too big a task. I don't mean he couldn't have done it - he can do anything! I mean that he may not have felt like doing it that way, even though he could have, if he'd wanted to. Procrastination again.

So, how was he to spread the message of his existence and develop a true relationship with all the people of Earth? He had some ingenious ideas. First, he spoke to a small group of people living in the Middle East and made them his special people. As long as they burned animals for him so he could enjoy the smell, he helped them win battles and spread the knowledge of his existence. He also came up with something called 'childhood indoctrination', his best idea so far in this grand plan. He had guided evolution in such a way so that young humans would believe anything their parents told them, and he made sure the parents told them all about him! While it's true this method would allow people of different religions to do the same thing with their children, in this case it was justified, because they were being forced to believe what was true anyway. As the population grew, the message of his existence got to more people.

We should not be surprised at this long and seemingly pointless way of spreading his religion. The history of the universe shows that this is exactly the way in which the Biblical god works. Slowly and surely.

Looking back on all the events on Earth, God could see that there had been a lot of suffering. The comet which wiped out the dinosaurs - had that been part of his guided evolution or had he just been too slow to react when he saw it heading to Earth? He wasn't sure. An unstable planet, with creatures dying all the time in agony. The constant battle for survival. He knew the humans would lose respect for him if they thought he'd not been motivated enough to make sure that didn't happen. He needed a plan.

He decided to put all the blame for suffering on humanity itself. Quite a twist! It took a couple of thousand years of dictating to a few people writing his book to lay out all the details, but eventually it was complete. A fanciful tale of two humans in a secluded garden with a talking snake and some forbidden fruit, the inheritance of something called 'sin', and just to stop people doubting, he added an invisible evil dragon called Satan to the tale, who wanders the planet making people doubt the whole thing even happened. This was a masterstroke. Nobody wants to think an evil dragon is controlling them. They'd rather ignore fossils and common sense and everything else which disproves the creation story than think that!

He did add some truth to the creation story though. He did like to rest, so he wrote about a day of rest after all he had done. Too much work is not what God enjoys or values in others. Anyone who thinks about these things too much, asks questions, does the research, is doing the opposite to what he wants to see. He is going to reward the humans who don't think for themselves by allowing them to live forever with him in heaven! In conclusion, I find this god's biggest personality trait to be laziness. It's the underlying theme to all he has done, and the best way to be if we are to please him.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Monica Anne on July 10, 2009 at 12:32pm

Wow. Did you find this somewhere?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Serotonin Wraith on July 10, 2009 at 2:30pm

In my brain.

I'm surprised no one else has given this a go yet. I'd have loved to have had this question on a real test.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Sam King on July 17, 2009 at 7:46pm

I wrote it in my story of coming out as an atheist, but to me, there was two Gods that I got to "know" when I believed in one.

The first was the moderate God of my church, very much the kind, gentle, caring parental figure, who created you to let you live your own life, appreciated when you talked to him and thanked him for what he'd done for you, forgave you for your mistakes if you admitted to them and only really got upset if you did something REALLY bad.

The second was the Biblical God, who was like my dad, only an all-powerful angry drunk version. In other words, a man (deity, in God's case) with serious self-esteem issues expressed through pomposity and ego stroking, a horrid temper, a problem with blaming his choices or mistakes on the people who end up suffering from them and a propensity for punishing you if you even so much as polished a spoon counter-clockwise instead of clockwise!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Alan on August 2, 2009 at 7:55pm

god is a rather self-centered egomaniac. He creates people for the sole purpose of worshiping him... it all seems very vain. The argument is usually that since he is the one that gave us life and everything else that we should be ever grateful. It would be like if I had a kid so they would look up to me and think I'm the greatest person ever, after all, would I not have had a hand in giving them life as well? And if the child refused to believe it was so, I would then beat them until they decided to sing my praises. Its pretty messed up when you think about it.

god is also rather apathetic. All loving, all powerful, all seeing, all everything... Is the devil, or evil in general, still around because he doesn't want to snap his fingers and end it, or does it just keep it interesting for him like the crazy people on reality tv. In the bible there are plenty of stories of god intervening to fix things, but where has any of that been in modern history? The history of the world according to the bible is very short, it seems like he lost interest in things rather quickly.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by noisician on August 4, 2009 at 11:05pm

he's one petty, jealous bastard

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.”
(Exodus 20:4-5)

well shit, we can't even draw any pictures or make sculptures of anything?

"...you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cut down their Asherim—for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God”
(Exodus 34:12-14)

yeah, I figured you were jealous once I found out you'd named yourself "Jealous". clever, that.

• ▶ Reply