So how has the great God of Reason done so far?
We’re still not out of Genesis and he’s –
Trashed his entire creation just because a couple who didn’t know how touchy he is managed to upset him;
Destroyed two towns and almost everyone in them because he found the locals offensive;
Drowned everyone in existence (except for an old piss-head and his family) because – you guessed it – they offended him;
Engineered a spot of child-abuse;
Decided the best way for people to show him they’re his bestest buddies is to have them disfigure their genitals.
Now, honestly, Christians, how can you say any of this is rational or logical, reasonable or considered? Your God’s response to everything is Smash! Kill! Mutilate! Destroy! – never as a last resort, always as his first reaction. He’s the Hulk, Godzilla and ISIS all rolled into one. Not once does he apply reason or logic. Smash! Kill! Mutilate! Destroy! And not only in Genesis but throughout the Old Testament:
His chums want the land occupied by other tribes? Smash! Kill! Destroy!
They don’t show him enough love? Smash! Kill! Destroy!
They break one or other of his mostly petty rules? Smash! Kill! Destroy!
They offend him in some remarkably trivial way (collecting sticks, teasing a bald bloke, doing sex wrong)? Smash! Kill! Destroy!
Over and over again.
Until, at last, he has another big idea! Another Master Plan! The Master Plan to end all Master Plans! (His fourth at least.) And guess what? It’s all Smash! Kill! Destroy! Especially Kill! This is a dude who really can’t think outside the box.
Here’s how it goes: the Lord gives up on his previous Master Plan, which he’d told some selected desert marauders was forever and ever, and decides its time to have another go at sorting out mankind that he helped screw-up in the first place. His idea this time is to come to Earth himself as a sort of clone, which he creates by raping a young woman, just like all the other gods of old. When he grows up this clone/avatar tells everyone how God wants them to behave so they don’t upset the version still in Heaven quite so much. The clone then gets himself murdered at the hands of the very people he’s come to visit – the same ones the Lord promised to take care of forever and ever in his previous Master Plan – which magically allows anyone who repeats a special incantation to join an exclusive club. Everyone else he plans to torture and murder for all eternity, because that’s what he likes doing best. Of course, the version of himself he sends to Earth won’t actually make any of this clear – that’ll be left to someone else to make up afterwards – but, in the best illusion yet, he’ll come back to life before beaming up to Heaven to cosy up to his other self, the one preoccupied with death, destruction and mutilation.
This time it’s foolproof: a well-thought through, logical, rational and reasonable plan.
Except… not really. It’s bullshit. There’s no reasoning here, just a lot of stuff made up as people went along. None of it makes sense. The copy seems to have no idea what’s going on and certainly no inkling that his death has cosmic significance. On top of that, no-one really knows how the magic works – everyone who mentions it has a different idea – and the record of it all is scrappily cobbled together donkeys’ years after it all was supposed to have happened. Still, the main thing is it all involves a lot of killing – the clone first; then the poor sap manipulated into ‘betraying’ him; a couple who don’t want to give away all their belongings; some of the dudes who believe the magic is for real then, after they’ve really pissed off the Romans, lots more of them and finally, once the nutjobs get the upper hand, loads and loads of other people – which must really have pleased the God of Death Reason.
If this is the best he can do, then we’re in trouble deep. If our ability to reason comes from him, as Christians claim, it’s no wonder we can be irrational, illogical, unreasonable and unreasoning. Which of course is why he is, because he’s a reflection of the beings that created him – us. Human emotions and cognitive capabilities came first and were projected onto the gods we created, including, eventually, the monotheistic monster, Yahweh. It was he primitive tribesmen decided must be responsible for natural disasters and the brevity and brutality of life. Such things had to be punishments, hadn’t they? And if punishments, then there had to be One doing the punishing. One who must be appeased if he was ever to stop. Hence sacrifices, behaving in ways that might please him, killing those who don’t, worship. All futile, like pleading with one’s own reflection in a mirror.
The God created by this kind of thinking only reflected back at his makers the worst of themselves; jealousy, anger, intolerance, belligerence, petulance, vengefulness and violence. Hardly ever Reason.
And so does he still.
rejectingjesus, 
Yep. Well said, Mr. Robinson.
Are you the husband of the famous Mrs. Robinson? You know, the one who was part of the narrative in Simon and Garfunkel’s work: Here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you will know…;-)
If course you aren’t, because the song was adapted slightly for the movie, The Graduate, and I bring it up because I think it somehow applies to your very clear commentaries here on the one true God.
When you write, in another essay, that we are not easily slotted as bipeds into good or bad and that the question is complicated, it harkens back to movie for me because the mind likes to compare and relate, to hop here and there (especially when you have a roaring head cold that refuses proper sleep.)You might recall that in the movie, The Graduate, Mike Nichols has an older woman seduce a young man. Later, the young man falls hard for the woman’s daughter, someone his own age and causes Mrs. Robinson, her mom, to go vicious-cougar on him. This is one good example for me of what you refer to as people living out what they know, their own histories and how this goes on from generation to generation.
We are not long out of the caves in terms of the history of mankind and one can easily see how a book like the black book could be cobbled together to make business sense of biped history. That it is utterly full of hateful rubbish and that the American version of Christianity is a viral harm, only makes it more delightful for the harmed, the Steven Andersons, the Jim Bakkers et al. They feel a burden on their hearts to save the lost and increase their savings at the local bank. God is doing a great thing in America today, leading the sick and harmed believers to follow the Donald into the presidency…
Mrs. Robinson found that her own sensual needs were brought back to her in a mirror when her prey strayed into her lair and took her daughter. Insight is a precious and very human possibility that is not very common in modern evangelical religion. Like Mrs Robinson, the church takes advantage of innocence and then goes ballistic when found-out.
Belief in the one true God (sic) is the cave all over again, the entrance into a more primitive time. It is a traveling carnival of oddities, the spiritual equivalent to those old carnivals that were called Freak Shows. As far as I know, though, Freak Shows never became tax-exempt. So, even if we plainly lay out how ludicrous it all is in 2016, we have to deal with that tax-exempt status and the big business side of belief. There is a good reason that the preachers who make a mockery of themselves and end up in the courts and jails, get out again and start preaching! What does it profit a man to ignore God’s big Wal-Mart sales. Is there any easier way to fleece the public than using religion/God?
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Yes, I was once married to Anne Bancroft, though the current Mrs Robinson is played by another actress altogether, still using Linda Gray’s legs. I think so anyway; I haven’t seen her for a while.
Sometimes I think I should live and let live, and give up on this here blog thingy. Then some prominent Christian or other starts talking out of his or her backside again and I feel compelled to say something.
The answer to your final question is ‘no’. There is no better way to fleece, delude and dupe the public than religion. After all, as Paul says, ‘Heaven holds a place for those who pray’ (Simon 19.68).
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Respectfully, I believe the corrected, American version, goes: ‘Heaven holds a place for those who prey’ 😉
Please do keep writing the world out as you see it. As America now appears to be trumped in more ways than Donald, clear voices are helpful to many of us. Thank-you for your work here.
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You’re right of course, though it’s rendered ‘those who pay’ in the KJV.
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