One of my favorite subjects to talk/think about is religion in general, specifically Christianity and the God of the Bible. I grew up super religious. Being in the flock was the only thing that mattered. It didn’t matter how much money you made or how many cool things you acquired, what mattered was that you believed everything that was in the Bible. Once I got older I started having questions about how it all worked. Some of the answers made sense, some of them I’ve drawn cartoons about. Enjoy.
Oh also, if this feels sacrilegious, well, maybe that’s the problem. We’re just supposed to believe these things without questioning them, but we have no problem questioning other people’s religions. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. I mean, we SAY it’s okay to ask questions and ‘wrestle’ with God, but we all know the score. Once the wrestling match is over you’d better have let religion win. But the thing is, some of the things I was taught as a kid are asinine. Why is God sending anyone to hell? Well, he has to, because people are choosing not to be with him. It’s a choice we can all freely make. What? Nobody’s choosing that. That’s crazy talk. Nobody is actively choosing to go to hell, they just don’t think God’s real.
Anyway.
I have a lot of questions for God. I hope God is real, but I hope the Bible isn’t a good representation of him. It would be nice if someone was in charge of it all who can tell us what it all means and can zoom us back and forth throughout history once it’s all said and done. Mostly I just want to see what it was like in ancient Egypt. I feel like God could hook that up.
But, I don’t want everyone who isn’t a born-again Christian to end up in hell, i.e. most of the people who have ever lived. That just seems like too many people burning for all of eternity.
Is this just the color tournament all over again?
I realize a bunch of people subscribe to this blog because it’s (theoretically) a blog about financial independence. You might be wondering if I’m really going to do an entire series detailing my thoughts about God. Yes. Yes, I am. But, it will be spread out a little bit and the articles won’t be super long.
After the second round of the incredibly long and pointless color tournament, almost nobody wanted me to keep the series going.
So I continued the tournament for several additional weeks after this Tweet where a large percentage of my audience made it clear they were in fact not even remotely interested in it continuing. My perseverance was rewarded with a very exciting finale where Indigo came out the champion and nobody was really sure if Indigo is more purple with hints of blue or blue with hints of purple.
To find out what people thought about a potential series on God I once again summoned Twitter.
About 60% of the people polled said I should do the series. That’s way more than the number of people who wanted me to continue the color series.
But also, this series is a lot different from the color series. The color series was pointless, with no stakes attached. God and religion are a major part of the American culture. You can trace the origin of many of our laws directly to the Bible. How we vote is in large part in lock-step to what we think about the Bible. Unlike the color tournament, this series actually matters.
Why even write about this topic?
Writing about religion, especially when you don’t have to, is like volunteering to walk through a mine field. People are very defensive about their beliefs in general, but especially about their religious beliefs. I’m not trying to be a dick, so it’s a constant battle of risk/reward when it comes to exploring controversial topics.
There are many reasons I want to write about God, despite the obvious downsides.
1) I really enjoy thinking about the possibility of God. Its one of my favorite topics to dwell on.
2) If God is real, and the Bible really is His word, then it seems pretty important that we all know a little bit about it and spend some time wrestling with the more questionable decisions He’s made.
3) If God isn’t real, and the Bible has no basis in reality, then wtf?! Ya know? There are a bunch of people who currently don’t believe in climate change. One of the main reasons for this is they don’t believe God would allow us to burn our own house down. He’s going to end the world when he sees fit, so we don’t need to worry too much about climate change. It’s problematic.
I won’t even begin to get into all the problems it creates when people control other people based on how their view of the world lines up with scripture.
Anyway.
Part I- God Decides to Make Man
So, yeah. The whole thing feels weird to me, but especially the part where God is sending lots of us humans to an eternal hell. That feels excessive. When you’re in the whole Christianity bubble it’s normal to say things like, “It’s not a punishment. You’re CHOOSING separation from God.” But, ugh, that’s not what’s happening. Nobody is actively choosing hell.
It’s complicated. Either God is real or he’s made up. If he’s real, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Bible is his true word. It might have started out that way, but through the years we messed it all up. OR the two might be totally unrelated. The only reason people think the Bible is God’s true word is because the Bible says it’s God’s true word. God himself hasn’t come down recently to let us know one way or the other, so maybe the Bible is lying about how tight it is with the man upstairs.
I mean, it might be God’s true word. Lots of people are incredibly sure that God is very real, and so is hell, and the Bible is the only way to avoid this eternal punishment. It’s possible those people are right. It’s a lot to handle.
But also, what the hell, God? I mean, right? None of us know whether or not God is real and we’re supposed to bet our everlasting souls on it? Talk about conversion at the point of a sword. We can’t physically see God, and if we use all the power of reasoning God gave us and come to the conclusion that there probably isn’t a God, well then we’re going to hell because we didn’t choose God. It’s clearly not even a fair choice.
“Step right up! Pick door one or door two, but you can’t know if either door is actually real because I want you to exercise faith. I’m putting this sheet over them both and I’m telling you up front that behind door two is eternal fire and damnation, and behind door one is heaven and it’s fabulous. But don’t worry about that part. Please pick door one because you love me, not because you feel forced.”
If God really wanted people to love him for who he is, he wouldn’t attach hell to the whole thing. He’d just let us pick to either love him or not. Can you imagine a boyfriend doing something similar?
So, yeah. That would be a really unjustifiable thing for a boyfriend to do. Borderline psychotic. It’s weird to me that more people don’t draw the connection between God doing it and a human. If God does something it’s okay, because he’s God. Full stop. No questions asked. If God does something then it’s okay, even if that thing God is doing would be considered horrible and awful if we did it.
So that’s something to think about. Why do we judge God’s actions differently than we’d judge those same actions being done by a person? Is there anything that God can do that isn’t immediately justified with the answer because he’s God? In Part II we’ll talk about one of my favorite Bible stories, that one time God flooded the world.
Thanks for reading part I of On God. Hopefully you enjoyed the article and it proves to be thought-provoking, not infuriating. You can share it if you want.
Find out what happens next! On God Part II.
Here are a few more articles you might like.
On Swearing (Warning Explicit Content)
Did you know? Sharing this will make you happy!
Premise 1: God is Love. He loves us. He wants us to love one another.
If one ever accepted Premise 1 as true, he/she will likely run across an idea or a teaching (call it Premise 2) that cannot be reconciled with Premise 1. Perhaps oversimiplifying, I see at least three responses to dealing with a contradiction:
a) we assume Premise 1 must be false (what this is really saying is that we put more belief in Premise 2).
b) we disbelieve in both Premise 1 and 2, and both go out the window (like the proverbial baby with with bathwater).
c) we assume Premise 1 is still true but our belief in Premise 2 is now in question. We now have two choices; one, ignore the issue or two, start searching for a better understanding of Premise 2, which may actually mean jettisoning the old Premise 2 and accepting a new one in its place that is not in contradiction.
I have chosen to accept Premise 1. For me that results in my searching for the most logically consistent set of religious beliefs with Premise 1. Finding contradictions is easy, Searching for answers is harder. I wish you well on your search.
I’m prefacing this thought with the disclaimer I’m a religion-loving humanist/atheist (don’t believe in an anthropomorphic God, but really dig the idea of divine truths that exist outside of human experience) who currently participates in a faith community for the first time ever (Unitarian Universalist, if you’re curious): I think you don’t resolve the paradox of God/God’s love/salvation, etc. through reason, but through faith. Putting it to the test of logic is bound to fail.
That said, I like your questions, sir. I find it inspiring that someone from your religious background who also believes 9or wants to believe?) would be asking them. Please continue this series.
Thank you Diana! I will do my best to not disappoint. The series will continue!
Good article my burrito bowl friend. This is the the exact question I struggle with more than anything with my faith. It doesn’t seem fair that billions of people will go to hell because they don’t believe. Wish I had a good response but that’s all I got right now.
Yeah I wish I had a good response as well. I think it’s important to not pretend to have a good response. It’s a hard issue to get your head around.
It’s surprising to me how many Americans are so religious.
Yeah it is interesting. I get why people are very religious, but it is surprising the numbers, especially worldwide.