I saw this comment on YouTube and was stumped by it, this might sound like a dumb question but can anyone explain this?
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It’s not just one comment.
The response to several is the fact that he is the most valuable thing there is and he would be lying if he said otherwise. (If my last name were Lamborghini, I would be upset if someone like whoever posted that said that Lamborghinis were junk, or if I owned one and someone took a sledgehammer to it, they might be due some retribution, no?)
And maybe paying attention to borscht* like that is not the best thing you could be doing?
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*I probably learned more than that, but the most memorable particular from my seventh grade science class sixty-one years ago was the teacher’s favorite euphemism. ; - )
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The person has a certain construct of what God is like based on a literalistic and decontextualized interpretation of what the Bible says. Obviously this is all an inaccurate caricature of what Christians believe about God, so he is objecting to his own strawman version of God, not “the Christian god.” So what? Your time would be better spent engaging people who actually think deeply about theology and the Bible and actually engage what Christians believe. There are real questions out there that merit wrestling with.
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Yes, that. Â
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AntiChristian propaganda.
Like most writings of this sort it is based on a jaundiced view of the bible read in a literal manner with no idea about CHristian theology.
Yes the view of God changes. That is the whole point of Scripture. t charts the change in view fr a tribal God, through a national God to a Universal one.
The noton about Free will is based on a specific view of judgement that is over simplistic. Free will has to allow for the wrong coices otherwise it is not free it is coerced at best, and gun-to-the-head at worse.
I think most of this has been covered elsewhere.
Richard.
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What’s the Christian God like in comparison to the god this guy is describing?
The Christian God does not need anything from people. Being worthy of worship and needing attention are not the same thing.
Israel understood God via metaphors. One metaphor was that God was like a husband and Israel was his bride. As part of that metaphor, he wanted them as a faithful bride but they prostituted themselves with their worship of other nation’s gods. So God was jealous. All metaphors for our relationship with God anthropomorphize God to some degree and explain him in human terms. Taking a metaphor as some sort of absolute metaphysical reality is just being obtuse.
God revealed himself and his plan for humanity most fully by becoming a human. Christ communicated who God is more clearly than the old Jewish systems, which were limited in some ways by what the Israelites could grasp in their time and place and cultural context. There is a trajectory to God’s self-revelation, and it is ongoing through the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
I don’t even know how to respond to the avatar thing. God relates personally to his children through his Spirit and anyone united with Christ can stand in his presence, see the book of Hebrews.
There are ways to approach the OT accounts of genocide and destruction that are more nuanced than “God likes killing people.” They can’t be summarized in a few sentences though and they require an understanding of how to interpret ancient texts. Also, not all Christians believe God will send unbelievers to eternal conscious torment in hell. There is a spectrum of beliefs on that issue.
The problem of evil and questions about God’s omniscience and sovereignty are complex and also can’t be “solved” in a few sentences. Christians also have a spectrum of beliefs on this. But the problems and questions are more complex and nuanced than the simple assertion that God demands total submission but created a bunch of people doomed to rebel.
Seeing God as a “damaged” person is just more anthropomorphizing of God. God does not have a human psyche that can be traumatized and triggered.
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@Christy @RichardG @Dale I’d like the opinion of others on this.
The problem with the comment is the power dynamique and ad others the anthropisation of God. Its a comment trying to bring God to the human level.
If we change the perspective from the human, arguably on of a human child to one of a parent, then rules that seem to be their for God’s arrogants become rules that are their to protect us or because those rules are good for us and that he cares about us.
Maintaining a relationship with God is good for us, we just call it worship. Worshiping other man made things is bad for us.
From a parent perspective, rules are in place not for the parents ego but because those rules are good for the child. And as the child grows, the rules becomes more relaxed because the child is expected to use his judgement that was taught by his/her parent and his/her older sibling but his/her responsibilities will also expand. From the perspective of a child the rules of a parent may look tyrannical when in reality they are loving.
Not every criticism is that. And the above doesn’t seem to be one
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From my non Christian perspective I’m not sure that is true. I think what it is which stirs belief in God wants a relationship. I don’t know that worship is the form of the relationship that is sought but I do think the relationship is as fulfilling to the giver as to the receiver. I’ve got no chapter and verse for that opinion of course.
But that doesn’t mean I disagree that being worthy of worship and needing attention are synonymous. That is certainly true. The meme in the OP describes a straw God.
I agree. I think it is well within the Christian view of God (necessarily anthropomorphized because how else can we comprehend a Person) that God has desires and is passionate about things and is hurt by human rejection. Love entails desires. God desires relationship and that relationship entails worship. But the idea that God needs a bunch of humans to adore him or he flies off in a rage like an unappreciated adolescent is a caricature.
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Mark Twain, I’m sure you knew, wrote a whole book casting every possible idea of God in the least favorable light possible. In his defense I think he was mostly trying to be funny with A Pen Warmed Up In Hell. I wonder if blasphemous humor can be God inspired? Of course from the divine POV it is our notions of Him which are being skewered, not Himself.
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Some of these are a good argument against various distortions found in Christianity.
- the notion of a God who demands our worship. This is likely a fabrication of the religious to exaggerate their own importance. A good Biblical response is the first chapter of Isaiah.
- The idea of a jealous God is a metaphor which has both truth and failings to it like all metaphors. It is true that God loves us and true that God sees more harm being done to his children than good by many notions of deity in world history. But it is not true that God is subject to the sorts of insecurities that we find in a lot of human jealous psychology.
- This is a bogus argument since the behavior of any parent changes according to the needs of their children as they mature. But it is a good argument against treating the Bible as some kind of textbook manual for living ones life.
- It true that God appoints people as spokesmen and teachers, but God is indeed quite capable of speaking for Himself. However the attitudes and bad habits of people often make a personal relationship do more harm than good. Jesus did a lot to overcome this problem but has not always gotten through the hard-headed nature of many people.
- God is indeed motivated by love. The only thing which can separate a parent and child is when the parent’s presence in the child’s life does more harm than good. Being a part of some people’s psychopathology demonstrates that a belief in God is not to everyone’s best interest. It is certainly no panacea to human world problems and in fact creates a lot of problems. Religion is dangerous and requires a great deal of caution. But speaking against bad religion and channeling the religious impulses of people is an indispensable role for the established religions.
- The notion of a God who demands total submission is incoherent and confuses God with the devil. Such should be avoided as one of the more dangerous examples of religion.
last comment: This ignorantly speaks of Christianity as if it is a singularity of belief according to the delusion commonly found in some sectors of Christianity. The reality is that Christianity is a vast spectrum of ideas and beliefs.
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this delusion is most commonly found in the religiophobes wh make up statements like the one mentioned in the original post 
And most of those are produced by the sectors of Christianity filled with the distortions mentioned.
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These are also questions that are fair deductions from reading the Bible when the text isn’t given a good or consistent analysis. I’d like to see more pastors and Bible teachers addressing these issues, since it’s easy to focus on the qualities of God we like and not wrestle with the violent or cruel events in Scripture. We’d also be better equipped to help others through these questions, and to be encouraged to grow in a faith that welcomes questions because that’s what a faith does. It’s not much of a faith if we just believe the highlights and get really good at the answers, while ignore glaring contradictions to how God seems to behave in different places in the Bible.
I’ve been wondering why teaching and preaching isn’t much of a team effort in the church. I haven’t seen good examples of a pastoral team, but I’m sure they’re out there. Not everyone reads-or sees- things the same way, so for someone who’d rather go by the letter of the law, there’s someone else to whom it feels perfectly natural to take in information with a more abstract way of thinking. And maybe interpreting scripture is another way humans are interdependent. Thinking out loud here…
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Within the Christian church as a whole there is the Common Lectionary. It is usually 5 suggested reading one from a Gospel one psal, an Old Testament and either an Epistle or acts. It is a three-year cycle concentrating on each of the 3 synoptic Gospels at a time with John interspersed throughout. Within it there are the specific times of Advent, Lent, and Pentecost. It does not cover all over the Bible by any means.
Preachers do not have to use the lectionary but it is a generally accepted practice. Personally, I tend to to concentrate on the Gospel and might change the others to fit my theme. The point is that the Lectionary does not tend to emphasise the Old Testament, so unless I feel particularly drawn to it I do not preach on the subjects you refer to. In general, if you have a specific interest or concerns, they are better addressed at bible study groups rather than hoping for an appropriate sermon. Twenty minutes can seem like a long time but in reality, you cannot delve very deeply theologically, and besides, it would go over the heads of most of the congregation.
With the decline in the number of preachers.not to mention congregations, there is rarely enough people available to for a team. Occasionaly we might agrree n a preacing series with different preachers taking a section but it is not always possible, or practical to do so.
This is just the practicalities of church life. In general, the weekly service is not a place for theology, it is a time of worship with a sermon aimed at practical Christianity, rather than the minutiae of faith. In many ways, I wish it were otherwise, but some topics are just not for the pulpit and the wrath of God has been deemed one of them. I actually got criticised for doing an old-fashioned Hell and Damnation service, once. (Although it did inspire a rather good poem that I might share some time.)
RIchard
They’re just as woodenly literal as all on the Evangelical spectrum who try to square the circle of the evil of the primitive moral pygmy God by justifying it.
My take on the content of the stuff from the YouTube poster is that it’s more of the anti-Christian anti-theist false narrative which delights in calling good evil.
Jeremiah 17:5-8 tells me:
5 This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.
7 “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
8 They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”
That says to me that Yahweh does not come to us out of His need, but out of our need. It would, IMO, be a mistake to think that the Lord is obsessed with “cursing” humanity. There is a path that leads to life and a path which leads to death. The path to life is in "trusting Yahweh. The path to death is in not trusting Him.
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