Is God Really Good?
In this article I am not attempting to discriminate, taunt or make fun of anyone who believes in the god of the bible. This article is my reaction to the popular meme that god is good all of the time. I am an introvert and that means, blunt, to the point and calling a spade a spade. If in reading this you feel like I am being mean , know that I am not. It is just the way my INTJ mind operates.
I not only challenge the meme ' god is good all of the time' I challenge the very notion that the god of the bible is good at all. I think that if looked at rationally and through the eyes of the true reality of the wold that we cannot arrive at any other conclusion than in fact god is not good. If we really look at it rationally and not through god goggles, god is the opposite of good.
The bible tells us that god so loved the world and even that god IS love. If the bible is our moral guide and teaches us about love then our understanding of love should be the very same as gods' understanding of love. If our definition of love and gods definition of love are different then the bible is not clear on what love is. This means that it would be deceptive.I believe that it is deceptive, and I believe that our understanding and gods understanding of love are in fact different.
The bible teaches us that we are gods children and that he loves us. God is good and loves us like we are his children. If we have the same understanding of good and love as god then we should find that god treats his children like we would treat ours,, even better though since god is supposed to be the very definition of love. But what I find is that god does not act like a rational, good and loving parent. In looking at the world outside of our church bubble we find that god absolutely does the opposite of what a loving parent would do.
If your child does something that has been established as bad we punish him or her. For some that may be grounding or taking away privileges. And some of the more extreme parents will spank their child. If our child breaks our rules do we punish that child for the rest of their lives? I say that no matter what my children do, even if they deny me as their father, I would not punish them too harshly or for very long. Why? Because I love my children. I care about them and for them. Would you burn your child for one second as a punishment? Any good reasonable parent would not, no matter what their child did wrong. Would you let your child starve if you had the means to feed him or her? Would you let your child get molested or hurt in any way if you had the power to stop it? As loving, caring parents we do everything in our power to keep our children from harm. We do this because we love them and want to be good to them.
God, your loving, caring deity created hell to punish his children. Not for a day or a week but for eternity.Is this something that a loving parent would do to a rebellious child? I say it is not. If the only way that god could come up with to keep his children in line is to scare them with hell then god does not act like a loving parent would. God has the power to simply forgive. Why would he punish souls for eternity? Is this a fitting punishment for someone just not acknowledging god as god?
Let us go further. If you had ultimate magical powers and were a kind, caring and loving person and had the power to stop atrocities from happening, would you? Would you let children be harmed or starved? Would you prevent senseless killings, devastating earthquakes or tsunamis? Would you help all of the world to live in harmony? If you loved the whole world as you love your children how would you act?
When we look outside our church bubble we find that the god of the bible does none of these things. We see wars and famines. We see tornadoes devastating towns. We see earthquakes and tsunamis. We see a world of chaos. God has the power to stop all of these things but does not. He watches children being hurt, molested, starved or killed daily. Countless multiple time a day these things happen and god does nothing.
The worn out lines like' god works in mysterious ways' and' we cannot know the mind of god' are completely invalid. For if we understand love like god understands love these things would not happen. If god loves all of us like we love our own children then those old statements mean nothing. They are things people say in order to feel better about gods absence.
There are 3 possibilities that can explain these things. 1. There is no god(I prefer this one. 2. Gods definition of love and ours are completely opposite. 3. God does not interact with humans.
My wife, who keeps me in check(mostly) would say that some people need to believe because it brings them comfort and hope. She tells me to look in the grey areas. That people are just doing the best they can. I do try. But it is impossible for my mind to overlook the obvious fallacies because I want to be comfortable.
I say god is not, cannot be, good. In my mind god is closer to evil than good.A lot closer. I say god does the exact opposite of what a loving father would do. Not that I for second even believe in the god of the bible. But if it turns out that god is real I could not and would not worship it based on moral grounds. I would deem it unworthy of worship and devotion.
So there you have it. God cannot possibly be good. I could go on writing about why god cannot be good, but for today I have had enough.
