Sedona, AZ — A bit of a long, playfully snarky satirical piece. I had no idea where this one was going until I was done. If you are easily offended, happy with your Bible stories, and your version of forgiveness, you might want to skip this one.
What must it be like to believe in a vengeful God? Can you imagine how much fear that must create? Talk about walking on eggshells, holding your breath with every choice, consciously or unconsciously weighing your heart’s desire with the price of hell. To see life as a system of punishments and rewards, punishment for displeasing the vengeful deity, the one in charge of everything, and reward for conforming to His wishes, wishes that most of the time are just a tiny bit ambiguous.
If life came with an instruction book, it would be easier, right? Oh hell, it does. Too bad there’s so much disagreement about what it says. Talk to 10 bible scholars and you’ll get 10 different interpretations. Not helpful.
Does it make sense to you, to give you black, white and red instructions and forget to give you the key code to decipher it?
If God is in control, knows what’s going to happen, why would he present the opportunity for you to disappoint him again and again? Is that what you’d do to your kids? Maybe you don’t get off on revenge like so many these days, or maybe you do. Wouldn’t that be like leaving the car unlocked and the windows down in a sketchy neighborhood … with a hair-trigger bomb set to blow. Really, whose fault is it if your stereo goes missing or your car is vaporized?
It’s a test, you say. A freaking test? A test that most likely most of us will flunk time and again. After all you gave us free will, right … that’s the story we’ve all been sold… free will that if we use it other than as the Big Guy intends, if we’re too curious, or don’t fit the profile, if we’re gay or trans, hell, sexual at all, sends us straight to hell. Come on, seriously? You made us, or was that a lie? Tests are for ABCs and 123s, not traumatizing, blame pointing, games with a know-it-all deity. Any way you look at it, that game is rigged.
Free will, you say … again. Okay, I’ll bite. If the man upstairs (why is it always a man, and why up not down) knows the skinny about everything that’s happening, how can we have actual free will, and if we don’t, if we misunderstood the directive, how can we be blamed for something totally out of our control? There is so much wrong with this story. I can’t even begin to list the ways.
All those people who were born in Islamic countries, who were raised Hindu, who weren’t raised with a Bible and church on Sundays, or those raised in the backwaters, the bush, the religious deserts of the world, were they just disposable? When you made them, what were you thinking? Is the fiery pit too damn empty? Did you need some fresh souls for cord wood? Or is this whole hell story just one big control-freak of a lie?
Maybe I don’t understand the concept because it doesn’t appear to make sense. God gives me free will and if I use it in a way that displeases him, if I don’t conform, he writes off this beloved child and sends her into the fiery pit. Yes? Or if not the fiery pit, something equally unpleasant? Doesn’t sound like free will to me. You’re free to fuck up but if you do, I’ll fuck you up.
Oh, yeah. Maybe this makes it alright. God set it up so that his son would provide the ultimate sacrifice, his life, and thereby offer a narrow pathway (depending one’s preferred interpretation of the sacrifice) of forgiveness to anyone who believes. At that point all bets are off on obeying and being a good little conformist. Go do what you want. That’s quite a little carrot to go with God’s big stick. That big boy sure likes his sacrifices: lambs, goats, Abraham’s son, Isaac (well he did stop Abraham at the last moment, but what trauma did that cause the boy and his father). Not to mention the big one, his own son, Jesus.
Can you imagine that conversation.
The Big guy: “I love you son, so much that I’m going to have you crucified to save the world.”
Jesus: “Ok, dad. When you put it that way, what choice do I have? Let’s do it … Dad … isn’t there another way? You are God after all. You made them. Can’t you just forgive them? It would be kind of like forgiving yourself.”
Evidently not. Being a good son evinced similar treatment as all the people who pissed God off. They didn’t call those others sacrifices; they called them just punishment– justice: the first born of each Egyptian family, Lot’s wife, basically anyone who didn’t conform to the correct code. Force, and a big show of consequences, seem to be God’s stock in trade. If you can’t get them to go along willingly, to behave as you wish, use a big stick. Violence has a long list of uses in biblical history.
Free will, eh? Hmmm … use it at your own peril, that is unless you have a get out of jail free card, you know, the forgiveness that God wasn’t capable of, or willing to dole out without first inflicting a whole lot of pain and suffering, blood and horror. The show, it seems, must go on.
Sounds like child abuse to me, and teaching children these stories just continues the abuse, generation after generation. There’s a reason we have so much hate in the world, so much seething anger and violent push-back. If God is willing to nail his son to the cross, what is he going to do to the rest of us? You know, (you really do know) that saying you believe is something totally different from absolutely trusting in a vengeful God’s promise of compassion and forgiveness … and … if it was good enough for God, who are you to treat your children (or your neighbor) differently?
According to the story, after bleeding to death for you, Jesus wandered the hell realm (or enjoyed paradise … it’s a multiple- choice question / answer) for three days before his resurrection and ascension into heaven. Is it a resurrection if you aren’t fully physically present after being resurrected? Don’t know. Some say it was physical, others say it was in spirit alone. Either way, folks were able to see him before he boarded his flight for heaven, probably to debate the merits of crucifixion with his daddy. Talk about daddy issues.
The offer of heaven is the biggest carrot in the Jesus story. You get to go, assuming you’ve bought the right ticket, and which one is the right one is one of the great debates of Christendom. Wasn’t heaven implied in the forgiveness contract? It’s not a bad contract. You get forgiveness. You can do what you want as long as you believe correctly (whatever that is) and when you die, heaven awaits.
Unfortunately you have to die to find out whether the contract is any good. Jesus said, fear not, multiple times, but it is the fear of being wrong that keeps most people from tossing the contract out, even though they know that there are more loopholes and contradictions in it than promises … but what a doozy of a promise!
The belief in a vengeful god is so ingrained that it is hard to shake, even once you walk away as I did when I was 16. It has bled beyond the Bible and religion into every facet of our daily lives.
Sitting upstairs in the balcony, a teenager dutifully attending church, the preacher filling the air with his hell and brimstone speak, I looked around and it was just so obvious that it didn’t add up. It is a moment in my life that I will be eternally grateful for.
Jesus is a good friend. We’re buddies. I know he wouldn’t mind me playing around with his story, and the stories that are told about him. In fact, he’d probably ask me to set the record straight: It’s not complicated. I didn’t say to worship me.; I said to be like me. Love one another. Do that and you’ll all be happy. You’re here to enjoy this precious life!
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