God And Religion

I suppose it’s a good thing that — of all things — a Futurama episode is fresh in my mind.  See, the robot, Bender, was flung from the Planet Express ship in this particular episode, and is seemingly destined to float for eternity in space.  Well, he goes through an asteroid belt kind of thing and a rock gets lodged onto his abdomen.  Or the robot equivalent of an abdomen, I guess.  This rock has little tiny people living on it and they start calling him the "Metal Lord."

Bender asks them to make him a brewery, and in return, also tries to do well by them.  Yet, for instance, when he answers one person’s prayer, the neighbors pray to him to help them be wealthy.  Bender gives them a coin, (a human-sized coin, mind you,) and flattens that part of their villiage.  They ask him to help give sunlight to their crops, and he does . . . until the crops are set on fire because the reflection from his head got too hot.

Then, about half of them live on his back.  They’re the non-believers who say that he must not exist, he never hears their prayers, etc.  When one of the people on the ‘believer’ side of him ask fgor help, Bencer says he should probably just stay out of it, every time he’s tried to help, it’s made things worse.

Then the two sides end of having what equates to a nuclear war and they destroy themselves.

I think that speaks a lot about what religion and God really are.  Now, I admit, I’m writing this in response to an opinion posted by another diariest, so I want to make one thing clear: I’m not trying to convert anyone.  I personally believe that there’s no way someone can convince someone else that God exists or doesn’t exist.  It all comes down to a simple statement on both parties’ parts.

"Prove to me He does exist."

"Prove to me He doesn’t exist."

And it truly is impossible for either one to be proven, and here’s why: An atheist is someone who is sure there is no God, who doesn’t believe in any sort of higher power.  Yet, no one can truly be an atheist because no one can truly be one hundred percent sure that there is no God.  To be one hundred percent sure, a person would have to know at least a smattering of every single thing in the universe, and as the universe holds who knows how many galaxies, germs, organisms, planets, etc., there is no way to learn everything, therefore, it’s impossible to know for certain that there is no God.

On the other hand, while a person can come up with arguments to prove there is a God, such as how does one explain life on this planet?  We’re just the right distance from the sun, our bodies have just the right make-up to be able to survive here, etc., it doesn’t prove beyond any reasonable doubt that there is a God.  Because someone can just bring up how we’ve conceivably mutated from one-celled organisms in the oceans.

But then there are also arguments for something like September 11th.  Yes, it was a horrible tragedy, and suppsoedly done in the name of God by blind followers of a mutated religion.  But I read or heard something about how, that day, that morning, only about a third of the people who were supposed to be in the towers were actually in them.  I know that gives no comfort to the people who did die, or did lose someone in the plane crashes, but my point is that the damage and the losses could have been so much greater.  Yet it’s hard to argue, I think anyway, that there wasn’t some kind of divine intervention involved when so few people were there compared to what was normal in the towers.

To be frank, I felt that the entry Blind Archer told me to read wasn’t so much an explanation for his atheist nature, but more an explanation of why most "Christians" or those with similar faiths, are morons.  I long ago separated my belief in God from my belief in people.  I do believe in God.  I think that life holds too many coincidences and odd happenings for there not to be some kind of higher power with His hand guiding things, even slightly.

I admit, I think most "Christians" are God-awful (no pun intended) hypocrites.  I mean, the Baptist church I went to, the kids could dress up for Halloween, but there was actually a list given out to the parents, or I believe to anyone who wanted to dress up, saying, "No ghosts, wizards, witches, zombies," stuff like that.  Not to mention the "Oh, no, you can’t mention that here!" reaction that a person would get if they mentioned Harry Potter.  ::Sarcasm ahead::  Oh, no!  He’s a wizard!

Freakin’ idiots.  I mean, seriously.  I look at it this way: the Harry Potter books are damn well written and frankly, they teach values that the churches are supposed to be doing, like sticking by your friends.  Going through with something because you know it’s the right thing to do, no matter what the obstacles.  Loyalty towards those who matter, respect towards those who deserve it and those who show it to you.

I won’t go into the stories I could tell about how the church I went to defied every one of those examples.  But I’ve never understood how people who claimed to be such unwavering believers could have their belief be so shaken by a simple book.

Anyway, back on target.  As to what you said about the Harlequin baby, my God, those pictures were awful . . .  I’m not gonna spout off about Original Sin and all that.  Personally, I want to read the entire Bible one day, because to be honest, if a person takes that road of belief that Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden because of the fruit, it’s like, okay, yeah, punish them, but why has every generation afterwards had to suffer?  It was the two of them, shouldn’t the punishment have died with them?

No, the baby didn’t do anything to deserve it.  What could a baby do to deserve it?  Everyone seems to forget one important force whenever they talk about God and their believe/lack of belief in Him.  What about the Devil?  No one seems to acknowledge him, let alone voice a belief or lackthereof in him.  What if all the bad things that happen to a person can’t be voiced as, "Why does God let this happen to me?" but as "Why is the Devil doing this to me?"

As far as I know, the Bible tells us that the Devil dwells in our hearts when we have doubts.  In other words, no matter how holy a person wants to believe they are, the Devil dwells in everybody, because no one is without doubts.  It’s just a matter of what we do with that knowledge.  God gave us free will; which is another bone I’d love to pick with some "Christians."

Okay, off on a tangent again.  I saw this one billboard outside a church that said, "Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans."  And I’ve always heard about how you have to give yourself up to God.  Give your life to Him.  He’s got a plan for you.  And so on.  Yet, if that’s true, then why do they say that we have fre will?  If we’re going to lay our trust and lives in Him so that he may guide us, then obviously, that’s not free will.  But free will is what God promised us, is it not?

Okay, it’s 5 am and I think I’m supporting the atheist argument right now better than I’m defending the Christian one, so I’m gonna go to bed now and come back to this later.