Topic locked.

If God is not insecure, he is not threatened by whether I worship him or not. To need my worship means that he needs me and why would he need me and my praise of him? An insecure man would. And so I say that God has been portrayed (in the Old Testament) as a resentful, hateful, bigoted, killing, raping, and needy man. I do not accept that about him.

You say that Jesus will get vengence. If that’s what he’s really about, I can’t really learn from him.

But, luckily for me, I don’t think God or Jesus are as described. I cannot and will not see God as someone who will send me to the fiery pit. That is a fear based lie to me. Can you live with that about me? It really is about a difference of belief and you’re not going to change me and I’m not going to change you.

You’ve been trying to make me say I’m on one side of the line or the other, either I accept religion your way or not. Maybe you’d like me to be less religious than I am in fact so that you can put me on that other side. But our belief differs so much that you may as well because I do not believe that a Supreme Being would be tied into destructive emotions. Now the Gods of the Romans and Greece were very emotional. Fun reading.

I am. Can you let me be? I think you can’t because you don’t believe in it. You have to punish me because your God is about punishment. I don’t accept it and that’s going to make you angry, even if you’re not allowed.

You say you know God isn’t insecure and he is punishing. The word of God says unrepentant sinners will be sent to the fiery pit yet you say God is not mean or hate filled. Jesus will have vengence. I have to be forgiving or God will not forgive me. Your idea of God is full of contradictions.

Let me repeat myself again: “I hope that we don’t forget spirituality just to spite the religious fanaticism that resides in our country. Education is desperately needed to bring us out of these Dark Ages.”

I would be extremely uncomfortable if science ruled the world, but as of this date, religion has the high statistic on the most killing. It is a horribly discusting statistic that we can face up to, stop denying, and learn from. It will make us all better Christians.

Jesus, whether you believe he is the son of God or just a phenomenal man and teacher who changed the world in many ways with his beliefs and actions, would shudder at so many of the things being done by so many in his name and the name of God these days. As my grandchildren would say, Jesus “walked the walk.” He taught by example.

There are many good, kind, loving, tolerant Christians out there. They do what they do in their lives, and for others, unheralded, not seeking recognition, only offering multiple levels of service to their God and to humanity.

The noisemakers of Christianity are usually big on talk and fanfare, but don’t live the good life as espoused by Jesus. Instead, they criticize, condemn, shun, and wage war on anyone whose opinion and belief system is different than their own. That’s distinctly un-Christian. Somehow, I don’t think Jesus would approve.

I remember reading once that “you know you’ve created God in your own image if he happens to hate the same things you hate.” Consider this… most Christians do not consider themselves religious. After all, “it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship,” right?

Perhaps you’re seeing it as hate-filled because it’s cutting a little too close to home? Surely you’re not suggesting that it’s actually GODLY to rejoice at the deaths of thousands of people just because they aren’t Christian?

The reality is that there are those who have distorted Christianity by their own greed and arrogance. There are indeed those who “step on others to reach their goals.”

I will not state names because of site rules (no personal attacks) but we’ve all encountered these kinds of people, haven’t we? Jesus spoke of such people as well… called them “brood of vipers” and “whitewashed tombs.”

These are people who “search high and low for a convert” to “turn them into twice the son of hell” that they are. If Jesus was so incensed by such religious impersonators, is it any surprise that someone outside of Christianity would be repulsed by them as well?

I think not.

The first place we need to check for hate… is always in the mirror. And yes, I’m including myself in that.

As I said on the LC forum:

I’m amazed that there are still people who think like this. I’ll never understand this zealous giddiness over the multiple thousands of deaths from these calamities.

I suppose it was “God’s will” that a tornado wiped out the entire town of Greensburg, Kansas back in May? Or was it His will that only 9 people were killed?

Just like the low F4 twister that hit our city back in January of 1999. It caused millions of dollars in damage, yet no one was even seriously injured. I remember the Gateway Medical Center ad shortly afterwards: “On January 22, 1999, our ER was slow. Thank God.”

Yes, it rains on the just and the unjust. Life happens. Maybe that “S… Happens” bumper sticker is better theology than we’d like to admit!

It’s easy for us to roll our eyes at silly rants like today’s letter. It’s a little more productive for us, I think, if we actually spend time thanking God that we’ve moved beyond such absurd “my god is bigger than your god” nonsense, and into a time when we can worship our Lord freely without the need for our human grade-school ego.

It’s so wonderful that we’ve moved beyond the idea of a god that is trying to beat us into submission, who gets angry if we don’t worship him at every moment, and who’ll wipe out whole cities just because of a single transgression. Thankfully, we no longer worship a deity that commands us to wipe out whole nations of people just so we can move in.

Or do we?

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Anyway, I think it’s important to point out that there are those of us who ARE Christian and who ARE ashamed at the hateful things that are done in the name of a loving God. It’s so easy to be repulsed by the kind of venomous bile that’s seen in the original letter, so it’s important that we recognize that such views… while vocal… are clearly diminishing.

Thank God.