Questions for God...

Most of the world's Christians belong to denominations that believe it is heretical to interpret the Bible as a literal and innerrant document. It was not written that way and it should not be read that way. It is also not a history book, nor is it a science textbook.

Insisting that Genesis is about talking snakes, for example, is like insisting that Of Mice and Men is about rabbits.


Here is St. Augustine scolding as far back as 400 AD for forgetting this from time to time:

It not infrequently happens that something about the earth, about the sky, about other elements of this world, about the motion and rotation or even the magnitude and distances of the stars, about definite eclipses of the sun and moon, about the passage of years and seasons, about the nature of animals, of fruits, of stones, and of other such things, may be known with the greatest certainty by reasoning or by experience, even by one who is not a Christian. It is too disgraceful and ruinous, though, and greatly to be avoided, that he [the non-Christian] should hear a Christian speaking so idiotically on these matters, and as if in accord with Christian writings, that he might say that he could scarcely keep from laughing when he saw how totally in error they are. In view of this and in keeping it in mind constantly while dealing with the book of Genesis, I have, insofar as I was able, explained in detail and set forth for consideration the meanings of obscure passages, taking care not to affirm rashly some one meaning to the prejudice of another and perhaps better explanation.

– The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408]

God would answer, "Jason, you didn't read the sequel to the Old Testament, where I chose to become mortal, enter history and die miserably for every last rat bastard on earth, no matter how moral or immoral they might be, because I love them so much. In fact, all you needed to do was to read John 3:16, and you could have figured it out from there."

Its not the questions i have for him. Its the questions he has for me.

Well, the God I believe in would have no questions... just open arms and lots of love.

Yes well said.

I don't think it could be said more simply and elegantly, Meg. This is the God I believe in.

To which I answer:

Feed John 3:16 to an infant in the hands of Mengele and see how it comforts him.

Oh now i see what you meant by God holding us to a higher standard of morality than himself. Its a theodicy question you are getting at. Yes that is the hardest question of all. It might be the one I would ask God if I only had one question I could ask.

Job, in the Book of Job asks the same question as his fortune is gone, his family is dead and he is lying in the mud with his skin falling off. Job is demanding an explanation from God as to why such misery and suffering could exist in a world made by a loving and all powerful God (the basic question of theodicy). God finally shows up and gives a rather pyrotechnic answer that can be summed up simply by "Shit Happens".

By that answer, God is saying that the universe (and especially man) is capable of cooking up plenty of conditions for misery and suffering without God's help.

Interesting! I grew up going to churches that believed that the Bible IS a literal and inerrant document. I thought most Christians did take the Bible literally, although I know of some who take it as parables.

I grew up becoming increasingly angry with the religion I grew up in, because of the sexism and repression, and the idea of eternal hell. I am now not angry with Christians per se, but am angry with the fundamentalists (of ANY religion).

Most of the questions I would have for God would have to do with these issues.

Yes, I can understand your feelings both on the literalists and the fundamenatlists. Most Christians are not literalists, at least according to the denominations they belong to. Part of the misunderstanding is our relatively new and Western cultural notion that the only important truths are verifiable facts. It is even implied by the two choices you mentioned: literally true vs parables.

The irony is that even in our Enlightenment culture, we still learn the most profound truths from non-factual sources. We just don't recognize it. It takes great works of art to convey real cosmic truth to us, not science or history books.

For example, suppose you wanted to truly understand all aspects of human love, such as love of child, love of country, love of God, love of lover, unrequited love, dying for the love of one's country, selfless love, etc. And suppose you had a choice of two doors to go through to find that truth. One door leads to a room full of scientists, sociologists, mathematicians, etc. The other door leads to the world's greatest novelists, poets, and artists. Which door would you go through to find out about all aspects of human love.

The roomful of scientists would tell you all kinds of useful verifiable facts about love and its affect on the human body, etc.

The artists, on the other hand, would not tell you any verifiable facts, but instead would tell you profound stories about relationships, play heartbreaking music, speak achingly beautiful poetry, paint beautiful pictures, all illuminating the depth, breadth, and experience of human love from all kinds of angles and aspects. From them you would experience everything from the heights of euphoria of love to the depths of pain and suffering love can bring in times of tragedy, etc. And they would do all this without uttering a word that is literally true. You would come out profoundly moved and transformed in such a way that knowledge and truth about love would be a part of your very being. You certainly would not stop and challenge the novelists, for example, to produce evidence regarding the actual events in their stories.

I choose the topic of love because the Bible is a book about relationships between man and man, and man and God, where God's faitthful love for his unfaithful creation is the most important part of the message. Its about how our acknowledgment of that love is profoundly transforming but also a terrifyingly burdensome when we look at the misery and suffering in the world.

In modern western culture, we seem to only trust the person wearing a white lab coat and clipboard to tell us truth. But in the times the Bible was written, when the wise man said, "Let me tell you a story", everyone knew that they were about to hear something very important and very profound. The literary forms used in the Bible are known to us through other non-biblical literature as wisdom writing, prophesy, oral tradition, etc. Other cultures have this, too. Native Americans would start their stories of truths by saying "I don't know if this happened or not, but I do know it is true."

Most of the mainstream denominations believe the Bible to be inspired by God, and to be authoritative as God's Word in matters of salvation and God's Grace. Those denominations would consider it heresy to reduce it to a factual history book about talking snakes and men swallowed by whales. In fact, most of the highest forms of wisdom in the Bible is contained in its contradictions. All through the Bible is great dynamic tension between warring notions of such things as justice vs forgiveness, religious law vs human compassion, God's judgement vs God's Grace, etc. To ask if any part of those elements in tension are true facts is an almost meaningless question.

Jesus himself sometimes strongly echoes the Old Testament in his teachings, sometimes he reinterprets it, and sometimes he downright repudiates things from the Old Testament (his repudiation for retributive justice (eye for an eye) in Mathew, for example). Even the four Gospels and Acts, which are meant to be true accounts, are more like docudramas than they are pieces of journalism.

This, after all, is a book that contradicts itself almost immediately in the first two chapters of Genesis, where there are two different accounts of creation, one following the other, with the order of the creation of things are different from one account to the other. On the other hand, Genesis, manages to convey some of the most profound notions of God's relationship with his creation, and the uniqueness of man as a rational, creative, thinking being and the implications of that in terms of man being aware of the notions of good and evil.

As for your anger towards fundamentalism, I have to agree. The God revealed to us through Jesus is not all about sexual repression, excessive moralizing, and burning babies for eternity in hell. That's not the Good News of the Gospel. That is just downright nastiness and cruelty to teach that to people.

With those beefy pipes, meathook... some here surely must think you as god-like...

My question is harsher.

We demand that we act where unwarranted suffering takes place. A moral person fights tooth and nail against the suffering of innocents yet we imagine God to be omnipotent. With a whim, God could save the innocent from suffering yet God does nothing.

I've seen some reports from the deathcamps, I've seen reports on the Japanese "experiments" on allied soldiers in Manchuria.

Either God is omnipotent and indifferent or God is loving but impotent.

Neither is an acceptable excuse to worship the motherfucker for no truly loving person of conscience, let along a deity so floridly loving as the Judeo-Christain god could excuse inaction in the face of what is the most evil actions of man against man ever perpetrated. To suffer such torture and have the power to stop it, all the while alleging the greatest of love, without doing so is beneath contempt.

"Shit happens," is a pathetic excuse in traffic court, beyond (dare I say) inhuman in the court of all but the basest of morality.

I have seen no Jew or Christian answer this to my satisfaction and I am sure that I never shall.

No, I don't think you will ever find a truly satisfying answer to that most profound of questions? But let me ask you what the world would be like if anytime a tree fell on you, it would magically vaporize before it hit you. Or if we were all lobotomized to the point where we were incapable of harming each other? How could we operate in the medium of the world where objects changed form and nature frequently and vigorously so as to avoid causing anyone any kind of harm or suffering? This is the world as Disney cartoon.

If you were a God of a world such as this, would you shut it down because of the potential for suffering? Would you turn it into a cartoon world where anvils fall on people's heads and don't really hurt them? Would you give the inhabitants unlimited resources so they wouldn't have to compete with each other for them?

What you might do instead is to run a 4000 year viral marketing campaign to influence the belief system in the world's inhabitants so as to change their behavior without coercion. In that way they would be your hands and feet in trying to mitigate injustice, misery, and suffering in the world.

I believe when I meet Him face to face I won't have a need for questions because they will already be answered by just looking at Him...I just want to hear him say "Well done, my good and faithful servant".

Oh great and powerful gods of the LPSG forum, why the hell are there so many fakes on this site??? Smite them all!!!