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Sunday, September 15, 2013

The Limited God

Recently, I have realized that my non belief in Republican Jesus is too simple a way to characterize my distaste for the beliefs of most conservative Christians. Over the last couple of weeks, I've thought about how to expand my critique of their child like view of the Bible and have come to the conclusion that they start from a point of a very limited God.

For them, it's all about being naughty and hoping that the authority will forgive them. They are incredibly vain in assuming that we, as human beings, are the most important things in God's universe (especially our sexual habits which I will never understand as the Bible rarely talks about sex). One of my recent posts shows that if look at the percentage of time man has been on the earth as a part of the age of the earth...well...we really aren't all that important. Now, I know the Bible says we are but that was written by men so, honestly, would we expect anything less than such vanity?

Compare the small percentage of time man has been on the earth to to the age of the universe and we seem even less significant which is astounding. This general theme is explored in the wonderful Terrence Malick film entitled The Tree of Life. If you haven't seen this film, I highly recommend it. Here is the trailer.



All of this makes me ask the question...how significant are we to God? Given how long the universe has been around...how big it is...how it's very likely that there is plenty of life out there we have not yet discovered...how long the earth has been around...how big it is...how there is life on this planet we have not yet discovered...where do we fit in? God obviously has a wide variety and high number of other things with which to handle. Of course, it's God so H/She can deal with it:)

Generally speaking, starting with faith is good idea. My faith tells me that the most important thing we can do is love one another as we would want to be loved. We can care for each other and help out the poor and the sick, individually and collectively, privately or publicly. Doing His works and greater than these...

We don't do a very good job with the Golden Rule these days but we are better than we used to be. In some ways, we are ready to take the next step in human evolution and that's just what I think God wants us to do. We are very close to technology extending life indefinitely. Think of what it's like to be a parent. You want your children to do better than you did in every aspect of life (money, friendship, love, school, career). God wants the same thing for us. Science is indeed a part of God's creation so we need to take that as far as we can. Why limit ourselves/ Again, doing His works and greater than these...

I think our culture is on the cusp of a shift. It's time to shrug off thousand year old perceptions of God and not be content with having such a simple approach to our creator. The people that believe in Republican Jesus have a hostile fear of progress in just about every aspect of our society and that needs to left behind in history's dustbin along with the heavenly sphere, flat earth, and leech bleed believers.

We are clearly a small part of God's vision and we need to imagine how we, his children, might grow to a bigger role. Again, isn't what all parents want of their offspring?

5 comments:

GuardDuck said...

Now, I know the Bible says we are but that was written by men so, honestly, would we expect anything less than such vanity?

Again?

10 Christian bible says it is the word of God.

20 Fine, Mark can believe what he wants.

30 Mark calls himself a Christian.

Goto 10


You don't have to believe the Bible is the word of God, if you are an atheist or Muslim or Buddhist. But you pretty much have to if you are a Christian - it's kinda a prerequisite.

Just a thought, is it more vain to think that when God says we are important that he means that, or is it more vain for you to think that you know better what God thinks than he has said so himself?

GuardDuck said...

Wow, that was a poor edit on my part.

Was supposed to be

10 Christian bible says it is the word of God.

20 Mark calls himself a Christian.

30 Mark believes the Bible is the word of man, not God.

40 Goto 10

Juris Imprudent said...

Now this is ironic, M postulates a belief [amongst the others] in a Limited God whilst he himself is an un-selfaware apostle of the Unlimited Vision [see Thomas Sowell].

Anonymous said...

Mark says:

that's just what I think God wants us to do. (from this post)

[the Bible] is filled with a bunch of bullshit (from here)

In short:

"We should do what God wants."

Plus

"The Bible is wrong about what God wants."

Plus

"I am right about what God wants."

Equals

"We should do what I want."

Equals

"Mark is God."

This sounds awfully familiar:

You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’

— Isaiah 14:13–14

Anonymous said...

M postulates a belief [amongst the others] in a Limited God

The real irony is that in order for Mark to override the Bible, he has to think that God is less capable than the average human being. Any one of could hire a professional writer to put our own thoughts into well written words, called ghostwriting. But somehow, in Mark's mind, "god" isn't even able to do that much. But he has the cojones to claim we're (or more specifically, I'm) the ones who think God is weak.

I've said it before, Mark's version of a mirror is called "a projector".