One thing most theist religions have in common: That God is powerful and therefore obedience to him is thereby good, and disobeying him bad, and he has a right to judge us. I find this authoritarianism to be the root evil of these religions. Might makes right? No. No to onwards nazi soldier. No to marching off for God. Question authority. Hold the powerful responsible. With greater power, greater responsibility. Why do Gods not earn the respect and admiration of their followers? Why do their followers refuse to question and judge them? How is it that in government we have come to discover democracy, humanitarianism, empathy etc, but in religion it is so often still rigidly authoritarian? Imagine how much better the Bible would be if God told Abraham to kill Isac, and Abraham stood up to God and said no, that would be wrong. And then God smiled on Abraham and that was the test, to see if he would blindly obey an immoral command, or stand up to an all powerful tyrant. And imagine how much more moral these religious followers may be if their holy books pushed personal responsibility, kindness, and freedom instead of vicarious redemption, tribalism and obedience to power.
I have yet to read in the bible anything about democracy, freedom of speech or individual responsibility. Indeed the whole idea of Christianity appears to be someone else suffering for my alleged sin. A more repulsive idea I find hard to think of, someone suffering for something I am alleged to have done.
Quite right. I remember sitting in class (many years ago) while the teacher went into excrutiating detail about this guy getting tortured to death for my sins, when I was too young to have done anything very much. That was one of things that put me off the whole idea.
Yes. And if you do the right thing and step forward to take personal responsibility for your own wrongdoing here, you are punished for it? And add on top of that the concept of inherited blame (original sin). Your ancestor did something, so you deserve to suffer eternally, but you can escape that by praising the suffering of somebody else.... Take this out of the context of religion and I think even these religious followers will recognize the ethical problems in that. Why can we see these ideas as flawed when put in a secular light, but people fail to see it when dressed in religion?
I often ask this question myself, I know good people who find the idea of me paying for their crimes to be utterly abhorrent, but they go to church every Sunday and praise Jesus for doing just that, when asked to explain themselves the only coherent answer I get is " you have to see the bigger picture" but then they cannot explain what this "bigger picture" is.
Playing "Angel's Advocate" to my own OP: I did a search and found the following bible verses urging personal responsibility: Galatians 6:5 For each one will bear his own load. Ezekiel 18:20 The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself. I have not explored the full context of these quotes, and the directly oppose the central teaching of the religion, but here they are. I could find nothing in the Bible for holding God responsible for his own actions or for judging God on merit instead of obedience to power. I could find nothing for Democracy.
And we also have, Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; Which would appear to indicate God contradicts himself!
They judge their Gods whether they admit it or not. To obey and worship and call God good is a judgment.
In the end, God will judge you and your fate will be final. What you think about God doesn't matter. You didn't create or organize the universe and the earth. God did. There is the reason for your respect towards God. You wouldn't exist without God. Also, God is no respecter of mankind. If he were, he could be manipulated by those he respects. Like politicians manipulate and get manipulated. You are attempting to be logical in your reasoning. However, your logic and reasoning cannot be taken seriously when you spend your time denouncing the attributes you claim God has while saying there is no God. Then, with a concerted effort from atheists all over, attempt to disrespect, denounce, destroy and silence those who believe in God. Behaving exactly like the God you hate and say doesn't exist. Can we say circular reasoning and just plain stupidity! Let me shed just a little light into your obvious confusion. When you read in the Bible about the times God interjected himself into the actions and behavior of sinful mankind, you see quickly God interjecting himself very, very little over a period of 6,000 years. He's pretty much left mankind up to their own free will. God occasionally either stopped anger against Israel or gave the right of Israel to defend themselves. He called Prophets when needed to send messages to us like knock off our evil ways or to give us more commandments or even change them and give new covenants as well. When people followed the commandments as a whole, there was peace in the lands. When the people didn't follow the Lord's commandments, there was war and rioting with sin running wild. Like we see in many of our cities today run by godless and evil men and women. With respect to the story of Abraham and Issac, that was a similitude of the only begotten of the Father in the flesh. Abraham was going to be the Father of many great nations of the earth. Our God wanted Abraham to understand the pain our Father in Heaven was going to go through when it was time for Jesus, His Son, to atone and be sacrificed and killed. However, a man and man only cannot atone for another man's sin. Only a sinless sacrifice in which Isaac was not, can atone for our sins. That is the purpose for Jehovah to come down off his throne as the Son of God to become the Son of Man and atone for our sins. Abraham fully understood what his position in the history of mankind was going to be because of that event with his only Son by Sarah as he had already sent his other son, Ishmael, off into the wilderness.
Could you explain to me why you think someone else should pay for the sins/crimes that you have committed?
Because religion requires self inflicted Confirmation Bias in order to avoid what would otherwise cause Cognitive Dissonance. Employing Confirmation Bias as a means to override and distort evidence based reasoning is an essential aspect of embracing a belief in an imaginary deity. That said it is possible for those who perceive religious dogma as METAPHORICAL to have BOTH religious beliefs AND embrace evidence based reasoning. The problem arises with the theist ZEALOTS who INSIST upon taking their religious dogma LITERALLY. It is worth noting that the MAJORITY of the religious based CONFLICTS that occur in our SECULAR nation stem from fanatical zealotry.
I would first like to thank you for engaging the topic in good faith and from the totally opposite point of view that I hold. Then I would like to confirm that even if God created all life, including myself, I do not see that as good reason to worship or obey or respect him/her/it. No more than a child should worship or obey or respect an abusive and/or neglectful parent. Why should I respect anyone who doesn't respect me? I take your point here. And I clarify that I do not claim God has any attributes. I am merely taking what Christians and Muslims say and what their books describe. Some of them describe God as I did above. Others describe him/her totally differently and in a much more positive light and I take no issue with that depiction of God. It isn't the God himself that I am concerned with, but what obeying/respecting/following that God tells me about the person. I absolutely do not want to silence anyone. I am happy that you responded to my OP. I encourage you to challenge me, disagree with me, or agree with me as the case may be. I encourage everyone to speak freely and examine the topic. I can say that sure. But that's not the case here. That's true, especially in post-biblical times. He appears to have gone away. Why did he interject in human affairs so frequently in biblical times but not since? Good question. Was there? I'm not seeing much of that depicted in the Bible. God commanded Abraham to kill Isaac because God was going to have Jesus die? In some sort of God-Human son-killing bonding experience? That's the first I have heard of this explanation. When God told Abraham not to go through it and provided the animal sacrifice in Abraham's son's stead, what did that mean in this context? That God didn't want Abraham to actually experience the sacrifice of his son as God would the sacrifice of Jesus? What was the whole point of this then? Seems to undo your explanation, no? Why should ANYONE be allowed to atone for somebody else's sin? Why shouldn't you have to take personal responsibility for your own sin? And what do you mean by sin? Do you mean wrongdoing? Or does sin mean something else to you? I ask this in earnest, as I have seen this definition change between different Christians.
