all hail our divine puppet master…
Evangelical fundamentalists want to save your soul regardless whether you’re willing to cooperate with their efforts or not. A key rhetorical device in their efforts is a little thought game known as the “what if” scenario in which you’re supposed to agree that there’s a God who created the ten commandments and you’re probably not obeying them very well. Hence, you’re destined for hell unless you accept Jesus, who by the way died for your sins you evil thing you, and allow him to be your conduit to a glorious afterlife in heaven.
Ok, I’ll play along. Let’s say that there’s a God who created me and gave me everything good in my life. Shouldn’t I be thankful for that? On the one hand, I sure do like being alive but I had no say in the matter. At no point do I remember giving my consent to be born. And why does God give me only good things? What about the bad things in life? If he’s omnipotent and so nice to me, why doesn’t he want to do anything about the hurdles in my life? Have you ever noticed an odd pattern in which God is only around when good things happen? He’s like a manager who’s constantly present when a project is going well, then nowhere to be found when you hit a major speed bump? The one who takes all the credit when things go well and hasn’t even heard of an important project when it fails? Really, you’d think an omnipotent and omniscient being would hold himself to a much higher standard than that. No matter how you slice it, theologians have been trying to absolve their grand deity of any liability for whatever terrible things befall those of us on Earth, like lawyers composing liability wavers in the boardroom.
There’s also something unsettling in the idea that he provides me all the good things in life. So there’s nothing I’ve done by myself that turned out well? I’m such a useless lump that I can’t do things on my own? I thought I had to work hard and practice a lot so I could be good enough to write but it turns out, that’s all God doing it for me. Gee God, thanks. I really wanted to learn on my own and see what I could do with my abilities but I suppose I really can’t stop you if you’re a supernatural creature which can use me as a sock puppet of sorts. How good is my life thanks to God’s efforts, huh? I’m born without my input in the matter, not allowed to do anything with my own abilities since it all has to come from God, and I have to constantly thank him for doing all those things I never asked for in the first place. And why doesn’t that arrangement make me want to run to church and sing in his praises?
Now we hit on the biggest difference between atheists and theistic fundamentalists. The theists believe that this spiritual surrender is good. That it’s all for the best and there’s going to be an almighty, fatherly figure to hold their hand for their entire life. By contrast, a heathen like me is interested in seeing what can be done by a human and isn’t willing to blame some sort of little demon when things go wrong. I also wouldn’t want to venerate a God for something requiring quite a bit of blood, sweat and tears to get done and done right after I do it myself. I don’t want or need a narcissistic tyrant threatening to cast me into eternal flame for testing out my innate abilities, which I may also add were given to me against my will. And the same applies to what’s often referred to as Jesus dying for the sins of humanity. I didn’t ask him to do that. Would you thank me if I claimed to have given away all my money to charity because you didn’t and use it to convert you into venerating me and obeying the laws my friends and followers compose?
