Call me Chris Condon...

...Because he was once called Loki (3rd post down)...

...Because he had heard this rant before.

It's about religion. Yeah I know I promised Crosswalks today (and oh man is it a doozie!) but I had this on my mind. Before I begin let me state a few things. First, yes, I actually am a fairly religious person. Second, My religious beliefs are just that; mine. I don't share them unless asked and I never try to get others to adopt my particular faith. Your beliefs are of no concern to me.

Now that that's out of the way, here are my problems with God. I've already had this conversation with my mother and she didn't give any good answers.

Let's assume, for a moment, that every word of the bible is true. God exists. He made us all. Jesus died for our sins. The whole bit.

NOTE: I'm going to argue against myself sometimes...it might seem weird...

What kind of person does that make God? Think about it. God isn't linear. He exists outside of time. He knows everything that came before creating the heavens and the earth, and he knows everything that happened after that. He knows these things just as clearly as we know our own phone number.

Let's talk about the angels. God created them all. Then one angel, Lucifer, wanted to be as great as God so he rebelled and started a war. He lost and a 3rd of the angels lost with him. Now we have Hell and the Devil. Let's move forward to Adam and Eve (I'm getting to a point here about God's character). God created Earth. Then Adam. Then Eve. He told them that they were perfect and would live in paradise as long as they didn't touch the fruit off of one tree. The devil comes down and tricks Eve into picking the fruit. She gives it to Adam. He eats the fruit. Then BAM! Man is cursed forever. Men have to do work, and women have labor pains. I could go on with more examples but I'll switch back to the main train of thought...

God gave us a gift. Free Will. He gave us he power to choose our own destinies. We can choose to follow god, or not. We can choose to be good people, or not. You get the idea. BUT, do we really have this freedom? Did Lucifer really have the freedom to choose if he was going to fight God? Perhaps not.

You see, like I said before, if we admit that the bible is true, then God knows everything; past, present, and future. Before he even decided to create the Heavens and the Earth, he knew how it would turn out. Back when there was nothingness, He knew that one day I would sit here typing. So, if you have the ability to know the outcome of something before you do it, AND the ability to change what you're doing (and therefore change the outcome) then is there really and free will at all? God created the perfect set of circumstances to lead Lucifer to rebel. He also gave Lucifer the personality traits to accept those circumstances. Then he gave Lucifer the freedom to pollute humanity, starting with Eve. Then he gave Eve the type of personality that would be susceptible to Lucifer's evil words. Do you see where I'm going with this? God gave us free will but first he set us with predispositions to certain traits. Then he set the environment we'd live in. It's like the Truman Show. We can do whatever we want but God pulls the strings.

Here's another way of saying it. They say that the harder you struggle to accomplish something, the better you feel at the end when you finish. Why is that? God could have made us any way he wanted. We could have been made to feel happy doing work. We could have been made to feel that the less you struggle on something the better the accomplishment is. We could be all immortals who don't eat or sleep or go to the bathroom. We could be without sickness or pain or suffering. There could be no heartbreak, or working, or job related anxiety. We could be born already knowing everything! But instead God made us like this. He gave us 5 minutes of perfection and snatched it away. He led us toward temptation and then killed 99% of the world in a flood. He's filled history with war and plague. He tells us to have faith and follow him and yet he stopped showing us his existence two thousand years ago. We may have free will but he created the choices. He created Hitler. He created every mass murderer and psycho-path. He created us to have hard lives where we grow old and wither away to nothing and eventually die.

Back to the flood for a minute. I have a big issue with that. Men had grown evil. Pretty much everyone but Moses and his family had turned bad. This made Go d angry. Out of rage, he covered the earth with a flood that lasted 40 days and 40 nights. So here's the question: Why was he angry? He knew, before the world was made, that it would happen. There are no surprises for God. It makes him seem manipulative. He makes us evil and then gets mad at us for it. It's like when a woman asks you if you think she's fat. If you say yes then she gets mad at you. If you say no then she gets mad at you for lying. She was going to get mad at you no matter what you answered. She wanted to get Mad at you...So she created a situation to do it.

moving on

Of course there are other options. What if God isn't perfect? What if God is another being with the power to create? What if there are other Gods out there with their own universes? What if God got bored with us and left? There are many questions.

They say he created us in his own image. If the if the bible talked about God having his own hardships then I would be more accepting of this life. It would all make more sense.

What I'm really asking is the ultimate question: Why? And I'll never get an answer. Because that's what faith is. Believing when you don't know any of the answers.

They say that God is so far above us that we cannot comprehend his purposes. Well, maybe they're right. I don't know. One day, I'll go ask my Reverend these questions and see what he says. Until then I will rant to you people...