fairytale
noun
1. an interesting but highly implausible story; often told as an excuse.
In class this week, we have been discussing religion, god and free-will. Despite the fact that mother culture has pounded the story of "humanity being created by an all-loving and all-powerful god" into my head from the time of my birth, I have no factual evidence to support or to make any arguments based upon the existence of god. However, in this blog I will proceed by granting that god does exist for the sake of argument.
Myth #1: Free-will
According to the Christian's story of creation, logically we cannot have free-will, even though god says that we can. The story claims that god created everything. If god created everything, then god created all of the choices that we have. Therefore, any action that we could possibly make would be an action that god gave us the option to make. There is no path we could take by our own free-will, without god's control, because god MADE every path that we could possibly take. Our sphere of choices is purely dictated by what god decided to create. There is no rebellion against god or action that would be completely devoid of his influence because he made everything. Thus, we have no free-will. We have the choice to decide between a few options that god decided to give us. Luckily, god is not too controlling and gave us a nice variety of options, at least. You could compare this to a prisoner, in jail for life, who can choose between fish sticks and a hamburger for dinner, as mandated by the prison kitchen staff. Yes, he has the choice between eating fish sticks and a hamburger, but he can't leave the prison and get something that is not made for him by the prison, like carl's junior. All of his choices are controlled by the prison, therefore he has no free will.
Myth #2: God is all-powerful
Apparently, God is all powerful. This means that he has complete power...ruler of the universe, king of everything. However, Christianity teaches that there is a fight between good and evil in the world, namely between god and the devil. The devil is said to influence people if they open the door to him. The devil even has his own corner of heaven all to himself, called hell. This would make the devil "somewhat" powerful. The logical error here is that god cannot be all powerful and the devil be "somewhat" powerful. If god is all powerful, then the devil must have no power, and the fight between good and evil must be nonexistent. This would mean that sin would be nonexistent because the devil would have no power to create evil. You could also argue that if god is all powerful and all good, then all of his creations are without sin because sin is evil, and god is all good and all powerful. Thus, if god is all powerful, then there is no such thing as sin. If there truly is a fight between good and evil, then the devil is "somewhat powerful" and god is "somewhat powerful".
Myth #3: God is all-good, and free of human imperfections.
The bible states that Jesus, God's son, came down from heavan and gave his life for all of our sins. This selfless act was supposed to cover all of mankinds sins for the rest of eternity, or at least the men that decided to give their lives to Jesus. In class, one of the students referred to this as "Jesus paying a debt"...Our sins being the debt, and Jesus' crusifixion being the payment. Jesus was a blood sacrifice to "satisfy" god by covering all of the sins of humanity. The problem here is that god is supposed to be all-good and free of human imperfection. Why would god feel the need for a blood sacrifice to "satisfy" his problem with the sins of humanity? This implies that God is personally offended by human sin. It also implies that God is insecure and feels like he needs to be re-paid for our sins. It implies that by sinning, we are taking something away from god, and causing in him the human emotion of offense, requiring retribution. Offense and satisfaction are human emotions, and not characteristic of an all-good and perfect being. By saying that god needed to be satisfied, you are implying that god was previously dissatisfied and threatened by something. Any being that was all-good, free of human imperfection, and master creator of the universe would never feel personally offended, threatened, or feel the need to be satisfied by spilling blood. (the crucifixion) In fact, blood shed seems to be a rather primitive and unevolved solution to sin. You would think that god could've been more creative and come up with a solution other than killing his son. We are giving ourselves a lot of credit by thinking that our "sins" cause the master creator of the universe to feel so offended that he has to give his only son to "repay the debt" that was afflicted upon him by us. Is god really this petty, and is man so arrogant to think that the emotional state of the master of all creation relies upon man's individual sins?? If god feels hurt, or is distraught, then this implies that he is a finite being and capable of being damaged. Isn't god supposed to be infinite? Isn't God supposed to be above all of these human emotions anyway?
Actually, an all- powerful, all-good creator lacking in all human imperfection would never create such an imperfect world. He would be perfect and incapable of creating anything but perfection, because creating something that is less than perfect would make him less than perfect. Maybe God is imperfect and corrupt and revels in the emotional drama that is life on earth. This would make him just like us...wait, Jesus said that we are just like him... "...you will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will you do. (John 14:12)
2 comments:
Those are some strong statements you have there. I think your first argument is fairly strong, but I'm not so sure about your second and third arguments.
Myth #2: God is all powerful- You argue here that if God is all powerful, then Satan must have no power. While it's true that in Christian beliefs, God has already won the fight, it's still not accurate to say Satan has no power. Your argument is that if God has all the power, there can be none left for Satan to wield. Yet I interpret God's omnipotence to be potential. For example, given God could do anything, then God could sin. But to do so would be to negate His divinity, so it will never happen. Though as a human, Jesus, an incarnation of God, is said to have the capacity to sin (though of course He didn't).
Myth #3: God is devoid of human imperfection- Here I bring up the same argument. Because of the concept of the Trinity, God and Jesus are separate entities yet are the same entity. As such, Jesus was human and imperfect while God remains perfect.
You also said "is man so arrogant to think that the emotional state of the master of all creation relies upon his individual sins??" If you are going to reference Christian beliefs as I usually do, then you have to remember the concept of GRACE: no, God didn't have to execute the plan of salvation for us, but He did it because He wants everyone willing to accept Him to live. And no, that's not insecure, that's merciful. Because according to Christian beliefs, there is no life without God, therefore to accept God is to choose life, and He gave us that chance.
if god's power is potential power then that still means he is all powerful. to say that he is all powerful is to say that he has "all" power, whether he is using it at the time or not. he is "all" powerful even having potential power because this means that if he decided to do something, the power would be there for him to use, all for him and with no other being. if god is all powerful, then this means that satan has no potential power, and satan must have potential power because christianity teaches that we are vulnerable to satans power. the error here is an error in language.
perhaps god did sin because he created sin. we would not be able to sin if god did not create the concept of sin in the first place.
why do we need mercy? what happens without god's mercy? what does it mean to be saved? saved from what exactly and how do you know, aside from the fact that the bible told you so?
I am not saying that I am anti-Christianity, merely trying to argue Christianity without the belief in god or the bible being concrete truth as a starting point. i am asking if Christianity makes sense without having to blindly accept it, or base your arguments for acceptance upon the bible or what you've been told.
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