God, your ego

I’ve been meaning to write on this topic for quite a while now but as usual, procrastination got the better of me. With Christmas coming up and all these Jesus posts popping up on Facebook reminding me that religious nuts are still out there , now seems a good of a time as ever.

During the summer I visited my family. My mother, a devout Catholic and a Sunday school teacher, naturally began the annual dinner-table discussion about my atheism. The conversation slowly turned to what I felt were the evils in the bible and it ended with me asking her, bluntly, if she believed that death penalties as ordered by God were warranted. I don’t remember what her reply was but my next two questions were; should I be stoned for being a disobedient child and should her gay friend be stoned for being homosexual? Her reply was no, because those laws didn’t fit with today’s society. While I agree with that statement, it was interesting what she had done. She had decided which part of the religion she wanted to follow and through the process of verse elimination had created her own personalized God.

In the last few years I’ve debated, argued and discussed the topics ‘religion’ and ‘God’ countless of times and one thing I’ve noticed is that the perception of God and religion is much like snowflakes, no two are exactly the same. What I mean is, each person has a different perception of what they believe God is, what God wants and what God stands for. Just like every preacher can somehow have an entirely different perspective of a verse in a holy book and yet somehow, every one of them can claim that is how God intended the verses to be interpreted.

My mother isn’t an isolated case of someone creating their own God. I have a number of friends (whom I mean no disrespect to) that have their own perceptions of God. I recall a conversation that I had not too long ago with a Muslim friend of mine who stated that he tries to refrain from sinful activities “at least during Ramadan”. Clearly the logic behind this was that his personal God does not mind if he indulges in activities specifically outlawed in the Quran, as long as he refrains during Ramadan (and he plans to continue with them right after).

It is through the countless cases like these that I’ve come to the conclusion that God does exist, as you. More specifically, your ego is God. God is what you want him to be, how you shape him to be. You have created your own bearded man in the sky based on your likes and dislikes. Haven’t you ever wondered why someone’s personal God always seems to be a reflection of that person’s specific beliefs and character? How their God always has the same opinions as they do?

A quick look at any discussion/argument/debate on the internet regarding God vs. no God will show hundreds of people of faith, each attempting to prove the atheist wrong with a different story of what they believe God is. It is all too common that religious people of the same faith can agree with “God”, but not with each other. A great example is homosexuality. Scrolling down a pointless online argument, a Muslim man and two other Christians hold the belief that homosexuality is an abomination according to God. A further two Christians have presented the argument that God loves homosexuals but they should not start same-sex families. A number of others have stated that they do not believe their God would create homosexuals and it is entirely about choice, not nature. The popular opinion is that God hates the act, not the person. A lesbian who is presenting her arguments seems to have a very forgiving personal God who loves her nonetheless because her sexual orientation is not “her choice”. Each perception of how a person’s God views this topic is directly related to the opinion and personality of the person themselves. It's likely you could trace a person's background from the details surrounding their God.

I could go on and on. A few examples;

• - The friend of mine who mentioned in a conversation about religion that he believes his God has given him the wisdom to choose what he wants to practice from the teachings in the Quran.
• - Christian friends of mine who come up with a variety of reasons as to why they do not have to follow the teachings of the Old Testament.
• -Jewish people who find a variety of loopholes in the "no working on Sundays" law.
• - The relative of mine who loudly stated that “God is great” because the family has food on the table, while ignoring the millions of starving children across the planet.
• - Numerous friends of mine of both faiths who would aggressively (verbally) defend their religion and proclaim the greatness of their God, while drinking, smoking and being sexually active.
• - The rich churchgoer who feels God is happy with him because he donated a large sum of money for the decorations put in the church, which he mainly did because he wanted to be more comfortable there, instead of to the numerous charities available.

In each scenario the person possesses a certain behavioral trait, cultural upbringing or even simple desires. The characteristics of their God is directly related to these factors. No matter what is said in their religious texts, the follower of the religion adapts the traits of their God to suit their desires. The fact is, there is no deity up in the sky, merely your ego and a fictional creation that you have shaped based on your mental abilities and in an effort to reduce cognitive dissonance, you have made it an alter-ego of yourself thereby ensuring that you and your ‘god’ will never differ in opinion.

If I were a Muslim...

I would have to believe that God decided to wait tens of thousands of years after he had created man before deciding that it was time to make his laws known. That God chose specific time periods where man's ability to pass information was still in its infantile stages.

I would have to believe that although there were hundreds if not thousands of different languages and dialects, God felt the best way to get his message across would be with a single book, in a single nondescript region of the world, in a single language which was not, and still isn't understood by most. In a language that cannot be accurately translated into other languages, a dialect that would become less understood over time. In words so ambiguous, any number of interpretations could be possible.

I would have to believe that the almighty creator of the universe would not make the book himself, and instead decided that just a single one of his flawed creations should be given all the information. And instead of passing this information to his creation himself, he sent an angel down to earth to do it for him.

I would have to believe that instead of telling large groups of people, God intentionally instructed the angel to tell only one man. And out of all the men to be chosen from, God picked an illiterate man so that the man would not be able to write the information down for others to see.

I would have to believe that it is just pure coincidence that most of the information God wants the angel to tell the man is information that has already been widely available for hundreds of years.

I would have to believe that God did not want his laws to be all known at once and that he wanted some laws to only be known years and years later.

I would have to believe that it is more coincidence that God's messiah spent much of his time as a merchant on trade routes in the middle east where Greek knowledge was widely available. And that close followers of God's messiah were well versed with the same Greek knowledge that is included in the messiah's revelations.

I would have to believe that God had no qualms about letting his messiah live a lifestyle that would later become a main reason for many rejecting the faith.

I would have to believe that God had no objections to the revelations being in such vague nature that it would later be subject to many different interpretations which would cause separation, distrust, hatred and even violence among different sects of Muslims.

I would have to believe that God's earlier chosen messiah's failed at their tasks to spread the true message of God, and therefore God failed in his quest to spread his word.

I would have to believe that the preachings of the messiah are the truth. I would have to believe that semen originates from between my backbones and my ribs, that mountains stabilize the earth, that seawater and freshwater never mix, that the moon was once split in half, that the universe and earth were created at the same time.

I would have to believe that God's final messiah, who acted out the symptoms of schizophrenic paranoia, who used his position to commit polygamy, talked to an angel.

an imperfect god?

- Copied & slightly edited. Im not sure who the original author is.

God as it seems has existed for all eternity, he is the 'cause'. God is supposed to be perfect. If something is perfect, it is complete--it needs nothing else.Therefore there would be an equilibrium. If God was all that existed back then, what disturbed the eternal equilibrium? We humans engage in activities because we are pursuing that elusive perfection, because there is disequilibrium caused by a difference between what we are and what we want to be. If God is perfect, there can be no disequilibrium. There is nothing he needs, nothing he desires, and nothing he must or will do. A God who is perfect does nothing except exist, it would not create. A perfect creator God is impossible.

But, for the sake of argument, let's continue. Let us suppose that this perfect God did create the universe and humans. Neither however, are perfect.

If something is perfect, nothing imperfect can come from it. Yet this "perfect" God created a universe with imperfect humans. The ultimate source of imperfection is God. What is perfect cannot become imperfect, so humans must have been created imperfect. What is perfect cannot create anything imperfect, so God must be imperfect to have created these imperfect humans. A perfect God who creates imperfect humans is impossible.

The Creationist's objection to this argument involves freewill. They say that a being must have freewill to be happy. The omnibenevolent God did not wish to create robots, so he gave humans freewill to enable them to experience love and happiness. But the humans used this freewill to choose evil, and introduced imperfection into God's originally perfect universe. God had no control over this decision, so the blame for our imperfect universe is on the humans, not God.

Here is why the argument is weak. First, if God is omnipotent, then the assumption that freewill is necessary for happiness is false. If God could make it a rule that only beings with freewill may experience happiness, then he could just as easily have made it a rule that only robots may experience happiness. The latter option is clearly superior, since perfect robots will never make decisions which could render them or their creator unhappy, whereas beings with freewill could. A perfect and omnipotent God who creates beings capable of ruining their own happiness is impossible.

Second, even if we were to allow the necessity of freewill for happiness, God could have created humans with freewill who did not have the ability to choose evil, but to choose between several good options.

Third, God supposedly has freewill, and yet he does not make imperfect decisions. If humans are miniature images of God, our decisions should likewise be perfect. Also, the occupants of heaven, who presumably must have freewill to be happy, will never use that freewill to make imperfect decisions. Why would the originally perfect humans do differently?

Thus, the presence of imperfections in the universe disproves the supposed perfection of its creator.