pagtatalo Facebook Post: Why Hating God Comes Naturally

Cinders posted on Apr 18, 2008 at 04:05PM
Jared S says:
I know that just from the title I am going to receive never-ending waves of religious bullshit, but it will always be better to regret action than inaction. So here goes.

I'm an English major, so what the fuck do I know? I don't profess any special knowledge, expertise or insight; but I think that the tendency to (if not reject righteousness outright) persist in 'sinful' ways is a function of an inherent imbalance in our purported relationship with God.

For the purpose of discussion, I'll consider the hereafter from a Judeo-Christian perspective, with which I am most familiar, but alternative religious considerations are encouraged if adequately explained and evaluated.

God is, by definition, perfect. In theory, his omnipotence granted, God is above everything in every way. He is the most benevolent, the heaviest, the wettest, the fastest, etcetera. Think of a descriptive modifier and God is the epitome. He cannot be the least of anything, because that would (in the scale of things) put something above God (which is blasphemy).

God, as the summation of all things, is thus psychologically alien to the human. As people, we are filthy, undignified, perplexed, confused, uncertain beings, fraught with faults and failures. Even the most righteous among us, the myriad vaunted saints, can be considered despicable in the light of divine scrutiny. After all, isn't Original Sin supposed to be the kicker that gets most of us, an inherent shame tied up in our very being? Does not Christian salvation require the utmost inner rejection of the self and active surrender to the Divine?

Our antagonism towards God goes beyond our 'otherness' and propensity towards sin. Many people, in their hearts, reject the idea of God almost out of jealousy. Nobody REALLY wants to consider that there is a being so damned perfect he can be considered 'the best of all possible things'. At the very least such a thought causes us irritation. 'Yeah, yeah, we know, in theory the summum bonum, JUST SHUT UP AND GO AWAY.'
More so, as competitive beings we experience distress when confronted with an apparent superior. People love to secretly hate athletes and celebrities, or any person of supposed value. Why else would most of the popular media be devoted to their enshrinement in disgrace? We all want to be somebody important, it stems from our evolutionary need for dominance. When these needs cannot be satisfied, the mediocre masses experience resentment and jealousy. Who hasn't, in idle moments of fantasy, wanted to be God?
A more extreme and perhaps rarer sentiment is all-out rage against God. A typical thought in this vein runs like this: 'If the Almighty, All-knowing and all-loving God created me ('in His image', what a laugh), why did he make me so fallible? Why not create another race of angels, or at least more capable servants? Why lay in our paths so many snares, pitfalls and caltrops? (And you can't say pain is necessary: God is omnipotent and COULD HAVE MADE A MEANINGFUL WORLD OTHERWISE.) Why is his arrogance so great that he must create SERVANT races to stroke his ego? Why not create equals or superiors? Why BOTHER if this is the best he can do (Cheer, Leibniz)?
The problem of Evil is irreconcilable with our definition of God. From this, the most extreme feeling, obtained from a basic analysis of human experience, is hatred, and a declaration that God, if he exists, is morally unfit for worship.

I'm hungover and in pain, but I hope I've helped the creator of this group understand a few secular grievances against the Deity.

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sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas harold said…
Thanks for posting so we could read it without registering for another site. There seem to be two arguments: God is superior and we all hate superiors, and Evil exists, so God is to be reviled.
sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas alboinlstrd said…
I would submit for debate the point that since the writer of the article admits that evil exists, he admits that there is an absolute moral standard and therefore evil cannot be used as an argument for atheism. For where a moral standard that surpasses humans is there must be an adequate cause that surpasses humans.
sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas Dragonfly0879 said…
I object to two things:
1. God did not make us inferior. The Bible says we were cerated in God's image - as perfect humans without sin. Sin and with it all evil came due to man's rebellion and deliberate choice to disobey. God gave us free will and so we have to live with the consequences of exercising our free will.

2. God does not judge us for our imperfection. He remembers that we are dust (imperfect) and does not expect perfection. On the contrary, he is ready to forgive any sins on our part.



With these two thoughts in mind I don't think, that there needs to be any rivalry or hatred toward God.
sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas blisslikethis said…
God did make us inferior. he made us fallible - as in, capable of making the mistake that was Original Sin. he could have created a race that was perfect and incapable of sin, that would never have let evil into the world, but instead he made humans.

the Bible says we were created "in his image", but it doesn't say we were created "as his equals".
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sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas Dragonfly0879 said…
It does say though that we were made perfect, morally, physically and emotionally. Making us sinners would have meant creating something not 100% good, something an infallible God is not capable of.

Of course, even perfect humans would never have been equal to God. But being perfect also does not mean being incapable of sin.

God did give humans free will to make choices. Sadly the original sin was a deliberate act of disobedience in rebellion against God. This turned perfect humans into imperfect sinners, a blemish in their make-up. This made all the evil possible that exists today.

But God never created the world and humans in it with the intention of letting evil prevail.
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sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas blisslikethis said…
my argument (and Jared's) still stands: God made us inferior to himself, rather than his equals. we were created to worship him, which, if you twist it around, is a bit like spiritual slavery - "worship and serve me, or you'll spend the afterlife in eternal damnation".
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sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas Dragonfly0879 said…
As the creator, God has the right to set up certain rules. It's similar to parents who have the right to expect their children to live by rules. God doesn't force us to live by them.

The teaching of eternal damnation in the afterlife is a teaching made by humans, it is NOT in the Bible. How can God give us free will and then punish us eternally for using it. That is ridiculous.

This is what makes me sad. People confuse human doctrines with Bible truth and understandably then reject God. But he never intended for these rumors to be spread about him. A person has to know the facts.
sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas blisslikethis said…
i'm glad you feel that way! i've always thought it was entirely oxymoronic to say that God loves all his children equally, but some of them he condemns to an eternity in hell.
sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas MajorDork74 said…
Go ahead & hate God, He can take it. And the thing about punishment in the 'Afterlife' is in the Bible.
sa loob ng isang taon na ang nakalipas Dragonfly0879 said…
@ MajorDork74: No it's not. "The wages sin pays is death." - Romans 6:23
"From dust you are and to dust you shall return". - Genesis 3:19
"The soul that is sinning- it itself shall die". - Ezekiel 18:4
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