Conflict

I first began to question my far-right evangelical beliefs in early 2020. As time passed I became more and more alarmed by the rhetoric of the far right. I began to change. The first thing to go was my calvinist beliefs. I became a universalist. Now I am wondering if I should still call myself a christian.

Looking at the Bible objectively I see story after story of an angry god. A vengeful god. A destroying god. A misogynist and patriarchal god. An enslaving god. A god who condones a harmful sexual ethic. A god who kills, exterminates, and commits genocide. Then I am also told that he is loving, that he wants the best for me. Juxtapose that over the the atrocity after atrocity committed on this planet that he has the power to stop but does not. In my lifetime I have witnessed, read, and heard about dozens if not hundreds of barbaric acts of hate and anger perpetrated by humans against humans. This is nothing new. This has been going on since the dawn of time.

Holding a lens to these diabolical acts attributed to god in the Bible I am struck by the fact that I cannot commit any of them if I want to be considered a moral being. This means that we as humans are more moral than god. He tells us to do one thing and then does the other - a "do as I say not as I do" kind of a thing.

This quote by Mark Twain sums it up pretty well in my opinion:

“Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago--centuries, ages, eons, ago!--for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane--like all dreams: a god who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell--mouths mercy and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!”

Now compare Jesus to god. The two could not be more diametrically different. As far as the east is from the west. Jesus preaches tolerance, forgiveness, turn the other cheek, pray for your enemies, live in peace, be content, help the poor, do not judge, etc…

How can these two be the same? The whole thing just does not make any sense. My visceral response is to not want to worship such a being. However, what I want apparently does not matter. If I could be an atheist with a clear conscious I would. Let me explain - I find cancer to be atrocious, deplorable, and wrong but that does not mean that cancer ceases to exist.

When I was in the Marine Corps I served under some absolutely horrific superiors. I also served under good ones too. As a junior Marine I feared the bad ones because of how unfair they were - they were bullies that hid behind their rank. I respected the good leaders - I did not fear them. When I became an Sergeant I strove to lead my Marines by setting the example. I did not want them to fear me, I wanted them to respect me and because of that respect to follow my orders. The god of the old testament seems to be the type of leader to fear - not to respect. Jesus seems to be a leader to respect - not to fear.

That does not dissuade Jesus from calling him father though.