Food for the Eagle Worm, redux

Thoughts provoked by Christof Meyer's comment on the previous post. Or, "My Beef with Christianity, Part 4."

Thank you very much Mr. Meyer. I don't mean this as a response to your well written comment, just another opportunity for me to see what I'm thinking by taking dictation.

First, I really enjoyed the Piper page. I like thinking about alternative views of Christianity. I'm struck, though, with how complicated it (religion in all its different manifestations) is for a simple mind like mine. I always have been. All my life I've wanted to believe in a literal God, in Jesus as God, as I was taught, but it is not the simplest way to view things.

I'm also happy that you've taken the time to express your thoughts in the context of the impending birth of your daughter, because it brings up the impetus for my final abandonment of traditional, evangelical Christianity. As I said, all my life I've known that Christianity doesn't work for me as a philosophy (I know, I know "relationship with a living God"), but what really sealed the deal for me was having kids and finding that I am a better father than "God the Father."

As a father, if you see your children are in danger you act. If they are hungry, you feed them. If they are cold, you clothe them. If they have flies laying eggs in their eyes, you take care of it. If I was omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnieverything I would take better care of my kids than God does. I know there are responses to all this, but again, they complicate things and for me the simplest answer is the best. I know "God has a plan," but again, if I have a plan that kills, maims, sickens, rapes, my children, then maybe I ought to think up another plan. I know God values free will in his children, wants them to love him of their own accord, but if I were the Christian God, I would rethink that. How many of us is truly free anyway?

I'm fine with Christians believing what they do, ditto Muslims, Baha'is, Mormons, whomever. I am acutely aware, though, that what the reader (and I) choose to believe is just a way of getting us through the night. The reason I keep harping on it, is my upbringing. It has been murderously difficult to break out of the milieu of my training as a child, and this blog is a way of manifesting that.

I also understand that Jesus was an important historical figure. The only reason he has become as outrageously important as he has is the intrusion of religion and the mythologizing of his life. We use him to justify all sorts of things from hating gays, to murdering Jews. The real Jesus, sans virgin this, and celibate that, and water into wine, has much to say to us today, and I think when we make a religion out of him, we miss that. Ditto for Lao Tzu, and Baha'ullah, and the Dalai Lama.

What if there really is a God, a real, personable, interested-in-us, loving God, but he isn't perfect? He makes mistakes. What if there is a God that got bored with us and moved on to something else? What if God got all this going and then died? What if God is sadistic? None of these are new, but they all try to do what I was trying to do, which is make sense of the Christian message, which doesn't make much sense once you take a step back. It's easier, and more elegant, to dump the ideas that don't make sense, and go with the simplest.

Incidentally, I believe I am much more christian (the fruits of the spirit) than when I was a Christian. One might say that is because I have internalized my parents' teachings, but I have taken such an abrupt step away from those teachings that I don't think so.