A to Z Blogging Challenge 2015: T is for Theism

I actually enjoyed listening to this sermon, although it raises for me the sort of issues that initially made me begin questioning the belief system of my childhood.

I was raised Catholic, and was very devout into my teen years. I began to wonder why the God I worshiped seemed to bless some and curse others. I had quite a difficult time during my teen years and wondered why God hated me when I tried my very best to do good and went to church each week as well.

It wasn't that I was perfect. I was a bit of a rebel. I smoked and I liked to party at any possible opportunity. But I was kind to others. I wondered why that didn't count for something.

Biblical literalism was the first thing to go from my belief system. The church was the next thing. I couldn't abide the many judgmental attitudes that I encountered among the believers.

I am still rather convinced that there is a higher power, or at least I strongly believe in the possibility of one. However, I no longer believe in the rather egotistical deity that I was taught to worship in my childhood. 

I can't align my own thoughts and beliefs with theism, because I find a deity that demands worship from its creations or it will cause them to suffer regardless of whatever positive and helpful traits they may have extremely off-putting. Deism makes more sense, as far as I'm concerned. A being so advanced that it could create the Universe surely would be beyond such a petty emotion as egotism.

The God of the bible (at least as interpreted by the majority of those calling themselves Christians) is an abusive parent who demands unquestioning adulation from his creations. I refuse to worship any being which is that egotistical. If there is a higher power, I believe it judges our actions, not our willingness to fawn over it.

~Morella~

Spectra Says It: Why I Don't Believe In or Worship the Church God

I do not believe in or worship the Church God of what many people call Christianity.

This is not to say that I don't believe in a higher power/creator force.

It is not to say that I don't believe in certain entities or possibilities currently termed "metaphysical" or "magic."

It is not to say that I don't believe in at least the possibility of beings such as those creatures that might be termed angels, demons, or deities. 

What I am saying is that even if the Church God exists, I do not and will not worship said being. However, in truth I believe that the Church God is mostly a projection of the ideals of Zir worshipers.

The Church God is an egotistical, abusive asshole. I will not worship an egotistical, abusive asshole.

What deity worth zir salt would require the absolute prostration of creatures so far beneath it? To an all powerful being, we would seem no more evolved than a cluster of caterpillars. To require absolute worship from us would be similar to me requiring absolute worship from my fish. After all, I feed the bastard and change its water. It should be bowing down and worshiping me. I allow it to live.

As for the omnipotence of such a being, if it is omnipotent and involved in our lives, then how dare it allow such horrors as children being raped, women and girls being impregnated by rape, children dying of cancer and other diseases, people of any age losing their intellectual capabilities due to terrible conditions that destroy their brains. 

What kind of a monster would allow a person who felt they were male be born into a female body to a father who, when said person hit puberty, raped them and forced them to bear the child of said forced copulation? Then, to add insult to injury, said person came to love said child, and said child died as the result of anaphylaxis following a bee sting. Then, while said person was recovering from the grief of losing said child, it is discovered that he has bone cancer.

The above is a true story which has all happened in the brief 18 years that this unfortunate young man has been on the Earth.

If the Church God exists, perhaps one can explain away the rape as free will on the part of the father, who chose to commit the vile act of rape. But how do you explain away the bone cancer? 

If Church God gave this person bone cancer, ze is malicious. I don't care if it's "so he can learn important lessons and get closer to God." That's just fucking awful.

If Church God did not give this person bone cancer, but ze cannot take it away, ze is not omnipotent. 

If Church God did not give this person bone cancer, but ze will not take it away, ze is either malevolent or apathetic.

The only one of these that I would even consider paying homage to is a benevolent but not omnipotent creator force which is able to give life but not prevent disease or evil.

Let us postulate for a moment that Church God is an absolute fact. Church God exists. Ze giveth and Ze taketh away. Ze allows evil of all stripes because human free will. (I'm still not sure how our free will allows diseases or death raining from the sky in the form of killer asteroids or anything but human-perpetrated crime such as rape and murder, but okay.) Ze is omnipotent (all powerful) and Zir followers claim that Ze is all-loving.

I still call bullshit.

A being that is all loving would not require absolute worship or to the eternal lake of fire and torture to any being that does not believe or refuses to worship. That isn't all loving, that's all ego. I refuse to worship any being under threat of punishment. 

A being that is all loving AND all powerful would never allow one of its creatures to be raped and murdered. Hell, it wouldn't have even created anything that was carnivorous. Everything would be eating leaves and seeds happily.

For a being that is omnipotent to stand idly by and watch its creations suffer?

That's just all kinds of fucked up.

Either Church God is benevolent but not omnipotent, ze is omnipotent but malevolent, ze is omnipotent but apathetic, or ze is nether benevolent nor omnipotent. 

The one thing Church God is not is benevolent and omnipotent. Because if Ze were, the world would not be nearly as fucked up as it is.

~Spectra~