Good God

We are told that we are made in Gods image.  He is described as being male, all powerful, perfect and, dependant on which bible verses are being quoted, He is attributed qualities as diverse as love and jealousy.  It is claimed that His justice is perfect and that He cannot lie.

All Christian religions accept the bibles portrayal of the Almighty Creator without any question, in fact without any logical analysis of the claims.  So who is God and what is he really like?

Firstly the Bible clearly indicates that He is the ultimate being and He requires all creation to acknowledge that fact.  Here is the first contradiction.  If God is all powerful why would He care about recognition of that position?  He is all powerful, He is the ultimate, recognition or the lack of it has no bearing whatsoever on the fact.  A billion people insisting that red is in fact green doesn't alter the fact that red is red.  So why do the bible writers insist that we all acknowledge God as the Grand Creator and give him daily acts of worship?

One reason is that they are attributing human emotions to a creature that simply wouldn't have them. They are imagining God as a creature with desires, someone who craves attention and recognition rather that a Being who operates on logic.  This is clearly demonstrated in the 'love me or die' approach to worship that Jehovah's Witnesses teach.

They claim that this is a choice and one we are all free to make.  In any other context this 'choice' would be described as an ultimatum. Why would God consider this to be a rational and acceptable imposition on his creation?

Witnesses argue that it is necessary to return the earth to a paradise and return mankind to perfection. However this argument is flawed because God doesn't need to kill most of the worlds population to reverse pollution and end wars.  He is God, he has the power to do anything.  Contrary to the portrayal of the world that Witnesses perpetuate most people are not violent, dishonest, greedy, uncaring, immoral or disgusting.  Most people would welcome an answer to pollution, disease, war, poverty and death.  In fact most people would be very grateful to a God who could deliver an answer to these problems.

JW's teach that God wants man to return to 'perfection' and only those who follow his rules can attain it.  Only when we reach this 'perfect' state will we be able to deal with God directly and not through an intermediary (Christ).

This again ignores logic.  God, it is claimed, has set up a complex system of rules that have to be followed before He can do something - in this case deal directly with humans.  Why does God need a rulebook?  He is described elsewhere in the bible as having human friends - how can you be a friend to someone without direct involvement with them?  His 'friend' Abraham was an imperfect human, a descendant of Adam and Eve.  The supposed rulebook didn't apply to Abraham which means it either doesn't exist or it is a rulebook that can be ignored. 

Now consider his justice.  Over the centuries there have been leaders who have carried out the mass murder of thousands and sometimes millions of their subjects.  History reviles them and often the world eventually brings them to justice.  Each of those rulers believed what they were doing was right, they had a purpose, no matter how deranged and sick that purpose was.

Are we to believe that Gods stated objective, to murder billions because they don't fit into his plan, is in anyway different to the holocausts perpetrated by Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao Zedong and others?

As I said at the beginning of this blog we are supposed to have been created in Gods image meaning that we mirror his traits.  All of us have a deep rooted sense of right and wrong, a sense of what is justice and what is injustice. We all recognise the evil of state sponsored mass murder so what makes it right if God inflicts it rather than men?  And if imperfect humans recognise that evil how much more so would the God who's sense of justice we reflect?

So does God love us?  Of course not, nor does he hate us.  Does nature love or hate us?  No, it's ambivalent to our successes and failures.  It does not have the capacity to care.  This is just another example of assigning a human emotion to a perfect being.  It is designed to make us feel protected and special but of course we're not.  If you died in an hours time your friends and families would mourn your passing but God wouldn't care - how could He?  He watches people die every moment of every day.

The bible and religion use an 'emotional' God figure to engender a sense of connection to Him, a feeling that he is interested in us personally and that he will come to our aid if we really need him. They often use the analogy of a loving father looking after his children.  What loving father sits by and allows his children to suffer needlessly?  But that doesn't make him a 'bad' father either - again, like nature, He doesn't care about us individually. 

In some ways God is like Spock from the Star Trek series.  I don't mean he's a Vulcan with pointed ears and an odd hair cut.  However Spock viewed human emotion as illogical and believed it hindered them when it came to decision making and of course he was right.  

For example, imagine that a bomb has been placed in a bus with five strangers in it.  The bomb maker has your baby daughter in his lap and has told you that if you alert anyone to the bomb he would cut off your daughters head.  Without the emotional response to 1. your child, 2. a baby and 3. the graphic depiction of her death, the logical conclusion would be that the life of one to save five must be the decision.  Of course we are human and we cannot devolve emotion and therefore our decisions are often flawed.

Therefore God, if He is perfect, cannot have emotions.  He does things because they are logical.  The only trait that the bible assigns to God that is logical is justice.  Justice is not an emotion it is simply a measurement against law or the principle of a law.  Emotion is not needed to determine if a law has been broken. Deliberately taking another humans life is murder - it is a crime in law and it is a crime against our own sense of what is right and what is wrong.  In this one area we could be said to reflect God.  In all other areas we are thankfully different.

Why would we ever want to aspire to the 'perfection' that JW's believe we as a species are destined for?  It is our imperfections that make us unique, that give us character and ensure our decisions are not solely based on logic but also feelings.

'Without perfection man cannot live forever! ' The Watchtower reports.  Why not?  If God made that rule he can also break it, he's demonstrated his willingness to break them in the past.

I've made it clear in previous blogs that I don't believe God exists, however like everyone else I don't really know.  What I do know is the God perpetuated by JW's and other Christian religions is an illogical, emotional Being who demonstrates a distinct lack of Godlike qualities.

If He is out there and He is all powerful, all knowing and everlasting He would display a great deal more logic than they all give him credit for.

A logical God would make himself and his requirements known clearly and unequivocally.  Using ambiguous ancient texts to display his future plans and then choosing one small American sect to warn the world of its impending demise is far from logical.