1. God
I’m not writing this to deliver any ontological proofs for the existence of God nor will I offer any scientific evidence that proves that He doesn’t exist. Rather, this post will describe why I hate the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (the Judeo-Christian God) more than anything else in the whole world. I will try to deliver a fair and unbiased perspective that outlines the justification for this hate. I do not wish to offend anyone who has God in their hearts; I simply want to organize my thoughts on something I completely detest.
For sake of argument, let’s assume for the duration of this post that God does in fact exist, that the Bible is more or less the Word of God and that it’s true, enjoy:
God is a Misogynist
We must first assume that for God to be worthy of our complete devotion He must possess three qualities: he must be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. These qualities are claimed in various contexts in both the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament. However the first story in the Bible, the creation of the world, immediately displays that God is flawed. We see God place a tree from which Adam and Eve cannot eat from, a tree which Eve subsequently does eat from. Either God could not foresee this human error (he isn’t omniscient), created a flawed creature in His image (he isn’t omnipotent), or knew that Eve’s blunder would be justification for the Church Fathers to limit women for the rest of history (he isn’t omnibenevolent). We see Biblical references which show God not only favours man, but also sets up a scenario in which women can be easily hated and blamed from that day forward, Genesis 16-19 reads:
To the woman (God) said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
Whoa, in four verses God made women serve their husbands, he then punished men for listening to women by condemning them to death. Eternal life in paradise was no longer possible and the only certainty was death. Why would God do this? Why would God separate the sexes in such a way that one was enormously favoured by Him and the other made clearly inferior? It’s because He’s either not omnibenevolent or just really ignorant.
God is Hate
It’s commonly maintained by a lot of Christians that although the Hebrew Scriptures show a God who killed, tortured, and ruined lives, that all of this was justified and His love was proven upon the death and resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament. So God hates us, teases us, watches us as we suffer in the Old Testament and then says, through his Son, “it’s ok, you can know Me now.” Are you kidding me!!?
Basically to build on what I’m trying to say here I’ll give you a quick and dirty version of how God’s love comes through in the end.
- God blesses Abraham and his descendants declaring them to be the chosen people. A promise is made that one day they will be saved.
- God builds on this by creating a set of Laws explained by Moses, that, if followed correctly could gain the individual righteousness. These Laws however could not be fulfilled, people tried their entire lives, but they basically contradict human nature.
- A lot of suffering, Jews stay together expecting the promise of God to be fulfilled.
- Christ comes, declaring to be the Son of God, Son of Man, and the Saviour of Humanity. He dies for our sins those allowing us to know God through Christ. Promise is fulfilled.
It would appear that God did good in the end. Na, it is just Machivallian tripe, thousands devoted their entire lives to serving you and you watched them suffer to prove a point. If my best friend needs a liver to live and I remove the liver of some stranger for my friend to have life, am I really doing good? Because that’s pretty much what you did, you condemned many good people to death, in order to give people in a post-Christ world access to eternal life. Fair? No.
God is Ambiguous
We have thousands of denominations that profess to know the true meaning of God’s Word. The Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, Protestants, Pentecostals, Snake Handlers, Mormons, etc, all claim that they see the face of God. The trouble with this is that although these religions place Christ at the center of their devotion, the means from which they see God vary. The Catholic Church structures it’s belief system into something very worldly, demanding the follower to undertake a series of sacraments to enter into a community with Christ. Protestants who follow the teachings of Calvin hold that God has already predetermined whom He feels is worthy of His Kingdom. Faith in Protestantism is paramount, pushing aside what is thought to be the very archaic teachings of the Catholic Church. Pentecostals stress a more spiritual relationship with God, entering a bond that is so linked that many actually speak in an indistinguishable language known only by God. Snake Handlers display their love for God and Christ by playing with snakes, a sign of unwavering faith and expectation that God will save them from all trouble.
Of the two billion adherents to Christianity, not one faction holds a majority in terms of followers, and as we see new denominations sprout up and new reforms on already existing faiths develop, this face of God becomes more blurred and diluted. At one point in time, a few centuries after Christ, this image was clear, and although the Christ movement was new, it was also revolutionary, painting a seemingly perfect picture of who God was. However, after the Church severed into the Western Church (Catholicism) and the Eastern Church (Orthodox) who God was would never be agreed upon again. Add onto this the teachings of Luther and Calvin, the words of Joseph Smith or the merits of Liberation Theology and you are left with a very confused, disoriented population.
As someone who studies religions, I can’t help but feel a sense of frustration at the current state of Christianity. Something that is supposed to be about love, transcendence, and happiness, has descended into this posturing effort by individuals who want to assert their personal beliefs over millions. How can God look at this situation and feel that this is good for His creation? If God is omniscient He surely knows and understands that we are intellectually feeble and seemingly unable to firmly grasp the right way. Is God guiding us to the right path? How can He be? The world is moving towards secularism and Christianity has deteriorated into a dick measuring contest.
I suppose this has left me incredibly angry at God, because if He exists I have been neglected by Him, He must know my struggles in accepting Him as something good in my life. I entered religious studies at McGill to sort of survey Christianity and attempt to understand my struggles with believing in an invisible entity. But everyday I get more frustrated and more confused. Thanks God.
Why He Matters?
We have two options: first, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God who sent his only begotten Son to deliver us from evil, and only He will judge whether we are worthy to live with Him in an eternal paradise. Or second, He isn’t real or He isn’t the God, He is just a fable created through a collection of other pagan stories. If the Judeo-Christian God doesn’t exist, His image as some all knowing, all powerful figure is a sham, and over two billion people have bought into it. We’ve fought, murdered, and conquered in the name of something that is no more real than Santa Claus. If He does exist, we have a very powerful entity watching over us, this entity may or may not love us, and this entity has the power to send us to eternal happiness or suffer in a pit of fire.
If my whole existence is some lifetime leap of faith where every action is being judged by God, then my existence is not mine, it is God’s. When I die I will either go to heaven and live in HIS Kingdom, be surrounded in HIS love, and live in an eternity provided by HIM, or I will be tossed away and live in a world very far away from God.
If I knew for a fact God existed, if I was absolutely certain, I still would not accept Him into my heart. I would hold onto the only eighty years or so of life that could be unquestionably mine, living in my body. If studying religion has taught me one thing, it is that God’s love is something I don’t want. I don’t want the love of an individual who is a misogynist, homophobe, and racist.
I fucking hate God.
thanks so much for doing this.
thank you.
start up another one soon.
Good way to end. I feel you on this post.
i cant wait for your new blog.
start soooooner!!!
It is unfortunate that you have allowed your presuppositions on how things are to be dilute your understanding of God.
I would suggest taking a look at the entire Bible from a different angle — HIS angle. I am no final spokesmen for God, nor will I claim to know Him perfectly, nor am I claiming to be a master theologian. I am one who placed my trust in Christ at age 27, with very limited exposure to God previous to that point.
The story of life, the story of the Bible, it’s God’s story. It’s not about us, though we are part of the story. The only way I see the Bible making sense in the context of predestination and free will is this: God exists outside of time and space. He is not bound by any constraints that are reality to us. God’s story is written; He knows every nanosecond, eternity past to eternity future. We live in time and space. We make decisions as free-willed creatures. Or so it seems. We are not aware in any way what life’s next steps hold for us. It is a perplexing conundrum, but not ours to argue. It’s His story.
Let’s again assume that the God of the Bible exists, is true God, and that the Bible represents His story perfectly. Genesis - Did God really lack omnipotence, omniscience, or did He ordain Adam and Eve’s decisions? Since Ephesians 1 declares many things God did ‘before the foundation of the world’, then the ‘fall’ was necessary for the story to continue. Adam and Eve were parts in God’s story.
God even shows His hand occasionally, as He did with Joseph (”what you meant for evil God meant for good”), Samson (God guided Samson to desire a woman from among the Gentiles, which was forbidden), Job (Satan striking Job’s family and health as ordained by God), etc. Scripture gives us a few glimpses of God’s ordination of human activity.
Yet, you say, He is then guilty; I am not responsible!! Really? You can make decisions. Just like deciding between McDonalds or Burger King for dinner, you make 1000s of decisions daily w/o a thought of God’s intervention. You can also use ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ to strip youself of the potential of knowing and loving God, despite your issues you have with Him.
Oops, getting a bit long here. Bottom line — It’s His story. You can hate Him, reject Him, reject His love because it doesn’t measure up to your standard, whatever. He is God; He sets the standard. Like it or not, HE sets the standard. That standard is Christ. Don’t miss out my friend. You can hate Him and spend eternity separated from Him in utter anguish, or you can get over yourself, see the beauty of Christ, relying on His Holy Spirit to bring you to trust in Jesus Christ. He will forgive you. He will give you eternal life. He will bring understanding. Will you understand His story perfectly? No. There are many mysteries about God that may take eternity to understand. Perhaps we never will. It doesn’t matter It is His story. It’s about Him; it is not about us. Soli deo Gloria.
hey interesting share, can you talk about others god, from pagan, moslem, jews, hindu, buddhist, and other religions, i’m sure they want to know how you hate so much god according to their faith, not merely christian’s god. i’m waiting for more of your hating words about god that you could delivered it in such a beautiful words of hatred. very very refreshing and entertaining.. bravo.
congratulations my friend, this will be remembered.
In regards to your last post, I sincerely hope that if god does exist he at least has a sense of humor, that way you can share a laugh before he casts you into a lake of mayonnaise (89) for all eternity.
Hate,
Na, he’ll be in a seething sea of mayo with Tiger Woods taking potshots at his head and San Antonio bouncing basketballs off his noggin every time he comes up for breath. He and Job will be giving each other high fives as they fight their way out by stepping over George Bush and Jerry Falwell.
Good work, Luke, to stick with this for 100 posts. Although I have sometimes cringed at your targets (and certainly at your language!) you’ve constructed some great arguments.
After taking you to Sunday School since you were three, paying tuition through six years of Christian school education and three years of Religious Studies at McGill, I know that you are arguing #1 from a point of knowledge and not ignorance, albeit a somewaht faithless one.
That said, I do hope that one day G-d moves you and you see His side of the story.
Like your mother said - you have constructed some great arguments. We are proud of you and your intellect. Now go have a beer and lighten up a bit.
Is there a way to clean up the language and sell this online as a “blook”?
One should not need to take a leap of faith to “know” truth. In fact, faith is based on anything but truth.
“Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.” - Karl Marx
i envy you the longevity of your coherence. i’m a little prone to ranting.
Is it just me or is JPS recruiting you to be Christian?
JPS - It’s easy to argue for God’s love in retrospect. God is not infallible, however the argumentative structure designed by theists, is. Let’s look at it this way, the Bible is flawed in that it asserts (doesn’t outright claim) the Earth to be 6,000 years old. This is a pretty big problem and if anyone believes this literally they are insane. However theists argue that one day in the creation of the world to God could amount to thousands of years for us. These examples are everywhere in the Bible as Theologians work tirelessly to fill in the gaps.
I’ll concede that if you use the Hebrew Scriptures as a link to the New Testament, everything sort of falls into a neat little package. However we must remember that those who wrote the New Testament represented a Christ movement that was persecuted, they were grabbing at anything they could get. Paul delivers some pretty convincing stuff in Galatians 3, however there is absolutely no basis for this. He simply claims it to be true as he received it as divine revelation. John’s Gospel clearly represents a Christology specific to his time period and location, it is distinctly different from the Synoptics. But it’s still GOD’s story right?
You can assert it is God’s story. Please hold on to that, if God makes you happy then follow Him and hold Him close to your heart. I simply don’t believe that it is His story, it (the New Testament) is a warped political movement created by man.
Every culture in the world has a conception of the divine, it is an inherent desire in us to want to be part of something bigger than this pathetic existence. If the Judeo-Christian God is the real God then that means that four billion people are wrong about their deepest convictions.
I simply don’t buy it. When you told me to ‘get over myself’ I kind of laughed, I’m the biggest nihilist, passive, apathetic person I know. I’ve looked for God and what I’ve found time and time again is submission, hysteria, and mass insanity. There might be a God, it might be your God, but I’m willing to risk eternal damnation in order to live MY STORY.
<3
Word
Last time I checked, you weren’t done. You still have one more “thing you fucking love.”
don’t worry qwerty… it’s coming.
Luke (is that your name?), thanks a lot for the blog. I have been reading since day one and reading your blog has been truly cathartic for me too. Cheers from Ottawa.
Even though you’ve never really replied to my posts.