More on God

I’ve been thinking about God theory. I’ve been told that the Christian God is all powerful and all knowing. I’ve been told that he (even she) had created a perfect world but the devil tempted Adam and Eve and they were no longer perfect.

I am told that God knew this would happen and so I don’t understand why he would allow it to go so wrong unless he made some mistakes or intended it to go wrong. If he made even one mistake then he is not perfect and that seems to get people mad when I pose that thought.

If he intended it to go the way it has, then he is extremely sadistic to create a world that has so much suffering in it.

There are a number of things that don’t make sense to me and I’ve found no person who can satisfy my understanding.

For instance, why was the world set up so that every living animal must kill or feed off the death of another to survive? We humans are at the top of the food chain but to survive we must kill to live.

As omnivores we must kill God’s creatures or we will starve. Even vegans must kill plants in order to survive.

Some vegans feel superior because they don’t harm animals but there was a study that showed a plant, once burned exhibits a different color aura. That aura has been recorded on specialized film.

Accidentally, it was discovered that when the scientist intended to burn the leaf of a plant but stopped due to an interruption, the plant exhibited the same aura. It was discovered that the intention was enough for a plant to be harmed as if it feared being burned.

I pose the question to vegans everywhere that if plants have no ability to let you know they feel fear or pain, can they still feel it? I don’t think a person is superior for eating plants rather than animals. If plants feel, imagine what it would be like to be eaten alive as plants often are.

So what is more barbaric? Most animals are slaughtered as quickly and humanely as is practical then eaten. Isn’t eating plants alive worse if they feel? To my mind, a vegan is not superior just because he can’t hear the plants screaming.

So my question is, why? Why would an all powerful being create a universe that requires one living thing to eat another living thing to survive? If an all powerful being truly exists and the laws of nature are under his control, why would he set up his universe to require the death of another to survive?

Ultimately, we are told that God moves in mysterious ways beyond our comprehension. This is the final answer lazy minds give when no true answer or reasonable explanation can be found.

Another troubling thing is why God would want or need people to sacrifice anything to him. All over the world from primitive to mainstream religions, sacrificing to God is a common thing. We sacrifice our best effort to honor "Him" somehow.

In the Judeo-Christian religion for example, the story goes that, to get into God’s good graces, we used to have to offer our finest lamb to God and sacrifice it on some flat rock. In reality, it wasn’t God that got the lamb nor did he need it. The buzzards and other animals benefited.

Some say making the sacrifices was proof of love to God but God, if he knows all, knows whether it is love or fear of punishment that brings people to give him homage. So what proof could he possible need since he already knows our hearts?

Another story says that He even sacrificed His only begotten son and made him die a horrible death -– deliberately. A mortal father would be ridiculed and punished by all humane societies for purposely sending his son to be tortured and murdered. Yet we honor God for that. It doesn’t make sense to me.

Similarly, God drowned nearly every man, woman and child on the planet in the Great Flood in an effort to wipe the planet clean of the scourge that his creation -- mankind -- had become.

This was the greatest mass-murder in the history of the world by what people call a 'loving God'. He could have just changed the nature of Man if he wanted things to be better.

He could have done it the easy way, too. Starting over with just Noah’s family, he could have given us the missing qualities he so requires of us rather than giving us free will and the nature to be drawn to that thing religions claim he hates called Sin.

He didn't. We are still all sinners created by God.

Wouldn’t it have been a better plan to kill Satan or at least strip him of his power? Better yet, how about putting in our human natures that we could never do harm to another.

Imagine a world like that!

That it is only possible to help one another build a world that continually improves would make greater sense. Free will is the mistake we all suffer from in the global evil that confronts us all.

Free will doesn’t have to be taken away entirely, just limited by the laws of nature so we can’t fail. We cannot walk through boulders even though we have free will. Why not also limit us in how we affect one another? In my admittedly limited viewpoint as a mortal, I don’t understand why God would make what looks like such an obvious mistake.

Imagine a world where people could only help each other. What would the advancements and creations look like in a world where we all are designed to lift each other up and build on the dreams and inventions of others? A world where we didn't kill to live. A world free of disease. A world where death was an easy painless transition and celebrated because we had accomplished our part and now it was time to be with God.

Pain and unimaginable agony wouldn't be necessary. There would only be degrees of pleasure. The truth of God and His plan would be known and the concept of belief without evidence better known as faith would not be a requirement.

Our ever improving world would be one of God's great achievements rather than His dismal failure.

We are told these stories from history and religion but most of us fail to ask the truly fundamental question, "Why?" We take for granted that things are the way they are by divine edict without asking how divinity could permit the many wholesale slaughters and genocides throughout the ages.

If an all-powerful being doesn’t end such suffering and waste since it is within his power to do so by the definition of “All-Powerful”, then we must conclude that he not only condones it but plans and executes it. If he is not all powerful then he is imperfect.

Many say God is all-knowing and yet God “tests” us. Why? He knows what the answer is and how we will answer it before we are tested or he can’t be said to be also “All-knowing”. Why is this stuff so clear to me yet 95% of the global population is still mired in the mysticisms of their regional religions blindly accepting their religion as true?

Then there is the heaven objective. What is there? Some say we sing eternal praises to God. Loving praise forever and I ask why and I am told, “for the glory of God”. What does God need of glory? As a perfect being, He is complete and therefore should have no needs.

If God has needs then he is incomplete and therefore imperfect.

So what is the point of eternity where we are bound servants without any purpose but to praise a God who should not need it? These are questions we mortals cannot answer truthfully.

Mormons once told me that we are selected by God to run our own worlds if we please him in our lives on Earth. That makes more sense but not really.

If I create a world where I know the whole story from beginning to end then where is the purpose? Will I get praise and be loved or feared? I don’t want or need that now as a mortal and I expect I would want it even less as a God.

I only hope that God truly understands my heart and is at least as forgiving as I am when I am held accountable for my life. If He is, I will be ok. If He is not then he is not worthy of my love.

I would not throw my children into an everlasting fire no matter what they did and I would forgive them. Parents share the responsibility for the failure of their children. I think God certainly would not be less merciful than a mere mortal.

As for me, if God exists I expect to be judged for my effort to do the right things based on what I believed to be right and forgiven for my mistakes. An all-powerful and loving God will do that. I would love to have the answers to questions I have that God only knows. If God does not exist then I will never know and pass into oblivion as all have done before me.

Either way, I’m fine with it.

Finally, why do we expect God to be fair?

It is a Human construct to try to be fair and seek justice in a world that isn't fair or just. In a world where tsunami's can wipe out entire islands of men, women and children and forest fires begun by a lightning strike can burn all the trees and animals who did God no harm can happen, we expect God to be fair and just. We even call Him loving. God has no need to be fair or just and He certainly hasn't exemplified the word loving.

I heard my thoughts eloquently stated in a Batman movie where the villain postulated:

"If God is all good, he isn't all-powerful and if he is all-powerful, then he isn't all good."