Point of View
by WizenedSage
The following passage is the very foundation statement of Christianity, so what it means is very, very important.
So, god is making a really big sacrifice for us, right? Well, that depends on your point of view. Here’s what I see in that passage.
“Your birth offends me. I can forgive you, but someone has to die.” Once we scrape off the sticky sweet frosting of words like “love” and “gave,” isn’t that the real message of that passage? You may think god is doing the sacrificing here, but isn’t he also the one demanding the sacrifice, and rather arbitrarily, since he makes the rules? And, like any good TV huckster, god adds, “But that’s not all! If you worship me, I’ll let you live forever!”
Many are willing to look past the barbarity of the arbitrary death sentence for that promised prize. In fact, most never even see the basic immorality of this scapegoating plan. As a friend once wrote, “There is nothing about me or my actions worth anyone suffering for, let alone dying for. Anyone who would give his life to make up for my 'sins' has wasted his life.”
Some Christians would argue that Satan is deceiving me here. But let’s think about Satan for a minute. Where did Satan come from? In the Christian cosmology god created everything. So, god created Satan to try to get you to do bad things, right? Or, at least, he allows Satan to tempt you at will. What kind of sick game is god playing in this? What does god gain by letting Satan get us to do bad things? Well, for one thing, he gets more victims to torture for eternity in hell. How can this scheme make this god worthy of worship? This is moral depravity of the basest, most obvious kind. Only the most tortured logic can begin to make any sense of it.
So, in John 3:16, what appears to be sweetness and light, ribbons and rhinestones, is just blood and guts in disguise.
Let’s be clear about this. This god demanded a human sacrifice to assuage his own anger, to satisfy his own ego. Blaming us for being born is absurd. We are no more at fault for that than we are at fault for Eve eating the magical fruit. And even if we were guilty of something, why doesn’t god simply forgive us? He makes the rules, right? So why does he demand blood? Simply because he can, it seems. Could it be any more obvious that this god is a smug, egocentric, heartless, blood thirsty reflection of primitive men? Might it even be that worshiping such an entity, a god who demands human sacrifice, should be considered immoral? It’s certainly inhumane (against humans), by definition.
And it gets worse. Have you even thought about the fact that, according to your Bible, this god decreed that justice would be served by torturing the majority of humanity for an eternity (Matt. 22:14)? Why would anyone expect anything good to come of that?
The following passage is the very foundation statement of Christianity, so what it means is very, very important.
John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
So, god is making a really big sacrifice for us, right? Well, that depends on your point of view. Here’s what I see in that passage.
“Your birth offends me. I can forgive you, but someone has to die.” Once we scrape off the sticky sweet frosting of words like “love” and “gave,” isn’t that the real message of that passage? You may think god is doing the sacrificing here, but isn’t he also the one demanding the sacrifice, and rather arbitrarily, since he makes the rules? And, like any good TV huckster, god adds, “But that’s not all! If you worship me, I’ll let you live forever!”
Many are willing to look past the barbarity of the arbitrary death sentence for that promised prize. In fact, most never even see the basic immorality of this scapegoating plan. As a friend once wrote, “There is nothing about me or my actions worth anyone suffering for, let alone dying for. Anyone who would give his life to make up for my 'sins' has wasted his life.”
Some Christians would argue that Satan is deceiving me here. But let’s think about Satan for a minute. Where did Satan come from? In the Christian cosmology god created everything. So, god created Satan to try to get you to do bad things, right? Or, at least, he allows Satan to tempt you at will. What kind of sick game is god playing in this? What does god gain by letting Satan get us to do bad things? Well, for one thing, he gets more victims to torture for eternity in hell. How can this scheme make this god worthy of worship? This is moral depravity of the basest, most obvious kind. Only the most tortured logic can begin to make any sense of it.
So, in John 3:16, what appears to be sweetness and light, ribbons and rhinestones, is just blood and guts in disguise.
Let’s be clear about this. This god demanded a human sacrifice to assuage his own anger, to satisfy his own ego. Blaming us for being born is absurd. We are no more at fault for that than we are at fault for Eve eating the magical fruit. And even if we were guilty of something, why doesn’t god simply forgive us? He makes the rules, right? So why does he demand blood? Simply because he can, it seems. Could it be any more obvious that this god is a smug, egocentric, heartless, blood thirsty reflection of primitive men? Might it even be that worshiping such an entity, a god who demands human sacrifice, should be considered immoral? It’s certainly inhumane (against humans), by definition.
And it gets worse. Have you even thought about the fact that, according to your Bible, this god decreed that justice would be served by torturing the majority of humanity for an eternity (Matt. 22:14)? Why would anyone expect anything good to come of that?
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