Good points. My purpose in addressing you is not to debate my religion or my worship of God. If you correctly identify my God and state emphatically that you have a problem with worshipping such an...entity, then I am fine to leave it at that.
"Not if the "garden" was my sons and daughters; no, I wouldn't pull them up and start from scratch." Of course I don't ascribe to the sons and daughters thing but that doesn't change the value of this analogy. We are part of creation...creatures "Of God." To improve the soundness of your philosophy you should even object to the use of the term "creatures." In the practical reality of human beings many a parent has plucked an intolerable offspring from the family circle. Be happy that things aren't that bad in your home. It is more likely to occur in non-religious homes BTW.
"But then if I were God, I would know how to grow a decent garden..." Well, by definition a perfect one. The example is only an analogy. I don't claim to know all of God's purpose. Is it to grow a perfect garden? d'no. I do know that the exercise of free will is required in the fray. I know that the highest level of Mercy is in the formula and that God is the Most Compassionate in respect to his creatures. This does not define a God that Hates Human beings. That's all. I wont argue that the god you describe is hideous. The God I know is worthy of my worship.
Now this next paragraph has great potential.
"...selective in what they present about this God or That, such that people do not know whom it is they are worshipping..." There are billions of religious people. High, low? no difference to me. I grant you that lots of people like to tell me when or how to bow and scrape and where to hold my hands while praying. Many become tongue tied when asked about what or who they worship and why. Tradition and habit are powerful directives.
"I don't make scripture up." It does appear that you have a good grasp of King James' scripture and that you are conscientious about good spelling. It also appears that you choose to put scriptures in a context that doesn't align with the religious community's context. This is not my book, as you know.
"The fact that most people are unaware of what it is they are confirming in their faith, does not change the fact that they are indeed worshipping evil."
I know some religious people that I could say this about. But, I would not say it as a matter of fact about the religious community.
"If their solution (on finally becoming aware of scripture) is simply to dismiss the scriptures, and state that rape, incest, racism, muder, genocide, etc. are not evil when God commands it,"
I don't see scholarly people simply dismissing anything. There are seen and unseen forces in the world. It is generally understood that there are are good purposes behind God's acts that are not all or always percievable to humans. There are many illustrations of this in scripture but it is generally believed that we will not know the underlying purpose of most things in this life time. It is also quite obvious to the religious community as well as you that people can claim anything they want and attribute anything they want to the will of God. Doesn't make it so. We are individuals with the personal responsibility to act on our good conscience regarding the dos and don'ts.
"So if I tell you that God has commanded me to blow up (say) a daycare center, well--you can always say: "CRAP. There is no God." No. I'd likely say you are full of crap and try to get you arrested. If there is some strange reason why God commanded you to do that and I can not be aware of it, I figure I am still following his commandments and hold open the possibility that both of our souls would receive Mercy.
"Sorry the bible says that God HATES all sinners. It also says that all people are BORN sinners--ERGO..." Not my book and not what I worship. People committing evil acts (sin) do, however, usually tick me off especially if it is an action toward or against me but I'm not God. |
