I can kill my children if God tells me to

I wrote a post, yesterday, titled, I Am More Powerful Than God. The point of the post was to say that, since God is supposedly all powerful, all knowing, and present everywhere, being accused of "turning others away from Jesus" with my words was a false accusation. If I am able to best the god with all the myriad omni-characteristics, then I must be more powerful than him.

I'm actually okay with that. The logic of the Bible god is completely ridiculous and I am left incredulously shocked that intelligent people still believe in a glorified Santa Clause or Tooth Fairy.

Enter a young gentleman who I grew up with. We'll call him Tom B. He's half my age and brainwashed into fundamentalist Christianity by his parents and the decades of a carefully constructed apparatus for true believers to be well-versed in apologetics and the "us vs. them" false dichotomy.

Only he doesn't know this. And that's by design. Fundamentalists are taught to view themselves as using superior logic to anyone that may be their detractors. Hell, the Apostle Paul set this up by saying, "The truth of Christ is foolishness to the wise." That's a paraphrase, of course, but you get the point. Anytime you are faced with doubts or a redress of your belief system, you are well within your spirituality gold star chart to reject all arguments as foolishness and Satanic.

Tom's response:

If what you're saying is true, it's a really good thing that the reality of God is not who humans make Him out to be. Because, if that's really who God is than even I would't believe in Him. The thing is, humans can say anything they want about Him. They can attempt to find His flaws and make Him look bad. But in the end we're judging Him by our standards of who we think He is. If you really want to know who He really is read the book He gave us.

My response was two-fold:

First, no. You don't get it both ways. You can't tell me that it is not possible for the human mind to fathom the realities of God, and then in the next breath, tell me that my human mind has the capacity to fathom the realities of God if I only read his book. You get one. Not both.

Then I mentioned Ole' Abe. I told him that I'm morally superior to God, including Abraham, being that I wouldn't kill my kids if some jerk-off told me to, no matter how powerful he thinks he is. I've written about Abraham here, here, and here,

To that, Tom B. responded:

In Abraham's defense. If you made a beautiful wooden chair and placed it in the dinning room nobody in the world can rightly take that chair out and burn it unless you gave them permission, because it's your chair. In the same way God (who made man) gave Abraham the permission to "burn the chair". Of course he wouldn't let it happen because He loves us too much. But since God is the author of all life he has the right to do what He needs to with it.

I especially love the part where he conjectures, "Of course, [God] wouldn't let it happen because He loves us too much." Really? And in the next breath, people like Tom B. will tell you that you're going to burn in hell for eternity - just like the millions, nay billions upon billions of souls before you.

But damn....God loves you.

I fear for his kids. And, being a quiverfull fundie, he'll have a whole gaggle of them.

Note: Oh...and Tom B....I blocked you because I can. Your arguments were stupid and nonsensical. And you attacked me for blocking you by impersonating your brother's account. One day, you'll grow up and realize I'm right. In the meantime, don't have kids.

Hello, Mama. Welcome to my Blog

Sure, I'm fairly certain you've been reading it for many moons. After all, it's the easy way out. The privacy of your curtained living room, able to react to your non-existent sky fairy, hoping beyond hope, your empty words' vibrations you spew into the room's abyss will get past the single-paned glass windows, floating up into the atmosphere, breaking through the (impervious to me) barrier of the supernatural, and into the ears of God.

Just think, this God has been getting your prayers for god damned near five years now. Or maybe well before that.

He's probably tried a few things, in his utter impotency. He got me sick one day for months. I beat that back with my sheer will - and water and apple cider vinegar as placebos. He sent me marital fire, but I learned that I needed to become a better me and our marriage is intact. I still love my bride very much, if not differently than before. He even crashed four of our cars. No injuries or death. I didn't even kill the little girl in the back seat of that Honda CRV, totaling that car with my E-350 Ford van.

Hell, he tried to break me with debt. I refinanced. Job. I got one where I make more money. Health care costs. Remember new job? Rebellious kids. Or so I thought...then I learned that they were kids.

Oh...kids!

Mama, THAT is a constant battle in my mind, since you fucked me up so much. You taught me about a god who desired, nay, DEMANDED perfection. You taught me about a god that required us to "redeem the time for the days are evil." That means that I have no capacity to sit down and relax. It is ingrained in me to make sure that I am always busy and productive. And that means that nobody else can be anything but, as well. That premise of life is the single largest issue my kids have with their daddy.

I'm just not that much fun. Work is king. A clean house is my chiefest of concerns. Fuck my children. They'll come around and see it my way. All I need to do is yell louder, humiliate them more, but god dammit, I don't beat them like you did me and my siblings! So it's all good, right?! Right, Mama?!

Yeah...ask my kids. No don't. Stay the fuck away from them. I want nothing of your poisonous religion in their lives. I've already fucked them up enough.

And yet they still hug me. Why? Because, when I affect them in a bad way, it fucking hurts me. And I know I'm not right all the time. I'm just as pliable and potentially wrong as they are. My experiences in life mean nothing if I cause those I love to weep, despise me, or chew me out in anger.

And so I work my ass off to become a better me. Sure, I fail often, but I'm honest about it and blame it on ME, and not some fucked up God that fucks us up, just so he can love us down the road. And I don't blame it on a devil, who, in the Bible, was so much more gracious and loving than the asshole god within those pages.

So yeah..welcome. Enjoy the ride. I'm glad to have you here.

I Am More Powerful Than God

Yes. Satan said that and was banished from God's presence. I'm okay with that.

The Christian god of the Bible is defined in many ways, and has been so, throughout history. Popular ideas of who God is have come and gone. But once the masses, however fractured, accept a version of God, he changes again. It has to be this way as the potential realm of the supernatural shrinks smaller and smaller with each scientific discovery and Google search.

Think back to the era around Jonathan Edwards (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God), Issac Watts, John Newton, etc. At that time, God was quite the angry and jealous being, ready to strike you dead at a moment's notice, yet somehow loving and wanting of your worship, at the same time. Edwards' famous sermon graphically depicts how God would hang a man by his toes over the lake of fire, terrifying him into obedience, the gentleman knowing full well that God held all the cards, and could drop him whenever he so chose. And yet in the same sermon, Edwards unabashedly and passionately spoke of how much God loved the human race.

The cognitive dissonance is amazing. People bought it like crazy. Revival happened. Tent meetings and services lasted for weeks, people lying in the aisles, frothing at the mouth and repenting of their "sins."

Then God softened. The Billy Sunday types slunk away from society and built their walled compounds - Christian universities. Bob Jones, Pensacola, Liberty, Hyles Anderson, Wheaton, etc. These universities trained their men to be apologists - assholes, really. They then sent them off to run IFB and other fundamentalist churches, preaching their hatred for "them" and their love for "us," unless, of course, you were a woman.

Then God softened even more. The shrill Bryan Fischer, David Barton, Raphael Cruz, and Franklin Graham types grew even more afraid. The proof of their god, in the rest of society, was slipping away.

And who was to blame?

Me.

Yes. Me. My words. The words I put out online, in my own little corner of the e-niverse. I am turning people away from worshiping an asshole and singing about a dead guy being inside of them.

The problem is, if God is really as powerful as these people claim, able to turn the weather and kings' hearts wherever he wills them, then why do I matter? I simply don't.

But if I do, I'm more powerful than God.

And I'm okay with that. Truly. I'm not the most loving person in the universe (or e-niverse), but I'm thousands of times more loving than the god of the Bible.

Letters from Mama: Son, You're Going to Go Blind

Mama says I'm going to go blind. But why I'm going to go blind is the most fascinating reason I've ever heard. I'll explain below.

You are very strong son.

Yay! She says I'm strong! Oh shit. Wait...a compliment from Mama precedes a slam.

In presentation. 

And there it is. I only APPEAR strong, due to how I present myself, positing my arguments and personality with great gusto. But really, I'm still her little son. A pipsqueak of a boy, needing to hang from her teat and learn at her dry and cracked feet.

 Mama then embarks on an highly patronizing few sentences, "teaching" me two things that I already know very well (which she knows, but pretends not to) - who the Apostle Paul was and what he did, and the same about John Newton, padded with a few folksy facts that are based in speculation and hyperbole.

I want to give you a heads up.

Oh goodie! She cares for me so much....

You are following the same path both Paul, and John Newton, did. (Jesus, Mama! The commas!!!!) The Paul who was Saul, and who wrote much of the New Testament of the Bible. The John Newton who hauled slaves on a ship, and wrote the song Amazing Grace.

Yes. I knew that about these two blokes. Carry on.

Both men persecuted those who took to themselves the love of Jesus the Christ.  

Ah. So, Mama, I'm persecuting you. Funny. I don't even speak to you and you to me. You send me a letter every few months (thank you, by the way...my readers LOVE them!) and that is it for contact. My militantly passive atheism sure has quite the effect on you - and, as we shall soon see, others, down the road. I feel so powerful! And what's up with the weird English? Just stop. Jesus.

And, after God took them off that path and set them on His own, both men suffered great loss of sight. Paul unto being unable to write except in very large letters, therefore needing helpers to write his epistles for him. And John  Newton ultimately unto going totally blind. Just thought you might care to know that. 

OMG! Thank you so much! I am so grateful for the warning! I shall cometh backeth to God-eth post haste!

Oh wait...something is wrong here.

First, Mama calls me strong...in presentation. Then she tells me I'm persecuting her and other Christians, just like Paul (who was Saul...remember???) and the John Newton, as if there were others. That "strong" comment is very purposeful here, because it sets up the last half of the paragraph. According to Mama, I will have no choice in the matter. God will simply choose to bring me back on HIS path, despite my best efforts to stay off of it. 

Oh...and he'll make me go blind. Gee. I can't wait. Please God. Take me back! Quickly! Seriously, though. What the fuck!? Why do people believe in this shit? Mama, as well as many Christians, actually think that that is love. Hurting someone in order to make them love you. But, in this case, making them love you - and STILL hurting them. Whatever, Mama.

Remember Paul threw into prison, and had executed, as many as he could corral who were following Christ? 

Um...sure? Mama? Will I throw people in prison for following Christ (whatever that means)?

And John  Newton took pleasure in spewing out of his mouth the filthiest words he could think of, about God, and in turning his shipmates away from belief in Christ?

Folktale, sure. But let me see if I can try this exciting thing. And if it works, taking people away from religion, I shall be happy-eth:

God is a dish. But not a dish like you would find in the cupboard, clean, spotless, nary a hardened drop of water gracing its lovely surface. Nay, God is a broken dish. One where the dish washer decided that the hardened filth of the meal from the night prior was too much, tossed it upon the ground, shattering it into a thousand pieces. Then, his followers pick up those pieces and glue them together with their words. Some pieces are missing, others haphazardly placed, some tossed into the garbage. And yet the dish is beautiful to some. Yet others bash it over the head of others, shattering it anew.

I think I failed, but whatever. Mama, you flatter me. I hold no influence. But I love people. And loving people is precisely the reason why I despise your god. He is an hateful asshole of the first degree. An asshole that will blind someone after he brings them back under his wing - just because. Anyway...let's continue.

You recognize that as the path you are on?

What? Killing people and throwing them in prison? Amazing others with my filthiest of words against a sky fairy? Sure, Mama. This murderous lout you call your son. I'll get right on that.

God has shown Himself as loving to capture those kind of men to accomplish His greatest works. Thought you might need to be reminded of that, too. : )

Right. And he blinded them.

love you, son, intensely, as a mother does, Mama

Mama. Go fuck yourself. You have no idea what love is.

I got another letter from Mama!

Here...

Love,

I. C.