September 24, 2014

Living with a progressively worsening illness that has now spanned 38 years (my entire adult life) has forced me to recognize some horrible truths that go against what I and most everyone have heard from religious authorities throughout our lives.

The key is that God, to be omnipotent, is responsible for everything...good and bad. And for me and most of the world, the bad is and always has been winning. It was a gradual and painful process of acceptance of the fact that it is God's will for me to live practically all my life somewhere between unhappiness and torture. When intense and/or prolonged suffering happens to YOU, you feel it more than if you hear about it happening to a stranger or even see it happen to a loved one. My lifetime love for my Creator, Who I was always taught was 100% good, has turned into bitterness, anger and EXTREME fear. I've tried so hard for so long to hang on to faith and hope, but I've had more than a mere human being can take and still maintain those things and any genuine love for God.

My extreme torment has also imparted to me much heightened awareness, empathy, and compassion for the sufferings of others. Paradoxically, it has made me a very self-absorbed individual that is of virtually no help to anyone. Friends and family have been neglected to a significant extent.

Thoreau said (paraphrase) that most of us lead lives of quiet desperation. Most of us struggle continually and have one or more horror stories to tell. And it's called "quiet" because no one wants to hear about it all. No one understands, and most are too busy to care. Watch the news anytime and weep. God is responsible for all the bad news reported. People don't suffer in a vacuum, and feeling the pain of others just makes your own pain harder to bear. Don't listen to anyone that tells you to feel blessed because look how bad things are for so-and-so. Instead, weep for so-and-so AND for yourself and give real help to so-and-so, if you are in a position to do so.

So why do roughly 3,000 people a day worldwide hurt so much so as to go against their strongest instinct (which is to survive) and take their own lives? Did God love Robin Williams? Apparently a good soul, Robin Williams was given by our God more than he could bear...plain and simple.

If, as the bible says, our days are numbered and God knows exactly WHEN we are going to die, then it logically follows that He knows exactly HOW we are going to die. So when did God come to this divine knowledge? Free will advocates must come up with a twisted explanation of that. Those of us who recognize that an omnipotent God and free will cannot co-exist must conclude that God planned all suicides at creation. Does any thinking individual really believe that Almighty God, the Creator of this universe and all its unfathomable intricacies, would just "let loose a big bang" and see what happens?!?

I have found that you can usually learn more about the bible and Christianity from atheists and agnostics than from Christians. Consider these words of non-Christian Bertrand Russell...

“The world, we are told, was created by a God who is both good and omnipotent. Before He created the world He foresaw all the pain and misery that it would contain; He is therefore responsible for all of it.

It is useless to argue that the pain in the world is due to sin.

In the first place, this is not true; it is not sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks or volcanoes to erupt. But even if it were true, it would make no difference.

If I were going to beget a child knowing that the child was going to be a homicidal maniac, I should be responsible for his crimes.

If God knew in advance the sins of which man would be guilty, He was clearly responsible for all the consequences of those sins when He decided to create man."

Russell also put it so succinctly well in the simple phrase, "If God is omnipotent, nothing outside His will can occur". C'mon free will advocates...THINK! God knows all that is occurring and has the final say-so in all things. All beings are under His dominion. Therefore everything that happens must necessarily be His will...even if you say He ALLOWS evil. If He allows anything, He surely CAUSED the circumstances by which it came about and would have known it was coming since creation, and He knew whether or not He would intervene. Read Isaiah 45:7. I find no place in scripture that states God "allows" or "permits" anything. God to be God directs everything. There are other such scriptures, but that one is easily read, remembered, and referenced.

Bible or no bible, considering my own horrors, pondering the horrors that happen to sentient beings all over the world every day, studying the horrors of history from time immemorial, and recognizing that evil runs the world leads to a most disturbing conclusion...that Whoever created the sentient beings of this world built a LOT of cruelty into the script He wrote for them to act out. Yes...all the world's a stage. No person or animal ever asked to be born as one of the actors in the Great Playwright's tragic drama. Solomon acknowledged that the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth. And Solomon had it all before he concluded that "all" is vanity.

And the infinitely disturbing conclusion is that IF there is an eternal hell that countless billions of souls will fall into, God created those souls expressly for that destiny. Read Romans 9 and shudder. No wonder so many Christians are afraid to die and face the God Who makes so many for dishonor, wrath, and destruction (and possibly eternal torture after death).

Blame it on the devil? He doesn't have free will either. God created Satan and all his attributes. Do you think Almighty God got a nasty surprise when Satan and a third of the angels rebelled? Do you think His plan for mankind was foiled by the serpent's subsequent temptation of Adam and Eve to which they succumbed? No, it and Jesus' sacrifice was all a setup from the beginning. See Revelation 13:8 referencing the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Does God love us? If so, He must be miserable beyond comprehension in watching us continually suffer and die. And it must really hurt Him to throw most of His children into eternal torture. Now think...would an almighty God create a scenario that would cause Him incomprehensible misery as a parent would feel for his or her tormented children? Don't the scriptures say that God will do all His good pleasure? Therefore, one must consider the extremely disturbing possibility that God actually enjoys our pain. C S Lewis pondered God as the Cosmic Sadist in his book "A Grief Observed".

As one of countless possible examples of human horror on a mass scale, click on the video below. That 10-minute clip from the movie God On Trial (see the whole movie on YouTube if you like) summed up the conclusion of a group of Jews awaiting their cruel fate in a Nazi gas chamber.

I deeply wish I could find a way to recapture the love and trust for the God I once adored as the embodiment of goodness, sought as my ultimate Father and Friend, and endeavored to please as the Center of my universe. I wish I could be proven wrong in these terrible beliefs I have so painfully acquired and must now live with day after excruciating day. When I try to trust and imagine that God will look out for my best interests if I just trust Him fully, I can't help but consider all the countless souls God obviously does NOT look out for. Why should I be any more deserving of God's care than those who don't get it?? God hated Esau before he was born, as the scriptures state. How am I necessarily any better or deserving of a better lot than Esau?? I once saw a bumper sticker that said "26,000 children will die of starvation today...why should God answer YOUR prayers?"

Someone please prove me wrong...and please avoid the tired old Christian arguments; I've heard them all. It seems to me at this point that the only solution would be justified atheism. But I am not an atheist, because the evidence compels me to believe in a First Cause outside of space-time that wrote a script and created the universe and all its inhabitants to act it out. Another possible solution is for God to be less than omnipotent...superior but not supreme. But then how do we ultimately account for the origin of all things? If God is not the Master Craftsman and Lord over all of creation, then who is equal or superior to Him and ultimately responsible for at least some of the universe and its inhabitants?

An offer of prayer? It's the great cop-out answer from Christians. Easy and painless. Here's why you don't need to offer prayers for me...even those from sincere concern. Prayer has proven ineffective for me. Both my parents literally prayed for me every night since the onset of my illness in 1976. My dad, who was the kindest person I've ever known, died in 2004 from a cruel form of cancer with his prayers for my wellness going unanswered. My mom, who is now 90, still prays for me nightly. Other family members and friends have sent up prayers for me through the decades. Not long ago, a prominent radio personality asked her large audience to pray for me. And of course, I have prayed for myself. All this adds up to many thousands of prayers that have gone unanswered. Therefore, don't quote the passages on persistent prayer in Luke 11. And don't quote the promise in Philippians 4. I've claimed that promise and still don't have a minute's peace. I almost never pray anymore. I've asked over and over for help, wisdom, instruction, forgiveness, correction, and some kind of perceptible response of assurance…all to no avail.

Think about this. If even 10% of maybe a billion prayers that go up for some kind of betterment every day got answered by God, the state of the world and its inhabitants would soon improve. Word would spread, and more prayers would go up in turn to make the world still a better place. And maybe we would end up with a world of peace and joy. But the world is not getting better. And neither am I.

Heaven will be worth it all? What is really in the scriptures that indicates a select few will live happily ever after with our friends and loved ones in a utopia commonly called Heaven with all its magnificence and luxurious adornments? That is an idea that has sustained me though many tough times throughout my life. I certainly never fit into this world. But the idea of such an ethereal place has grown its share of doubts for me in recent times. Is it real or something the church world promises us to keep us coming back and filling their coffers?

My conclusion at this time is that God loves a few and hates the many. Most of the few seem naturally wicked. God called and blessed Moses, David, and Paul...all murderers. The worst part of this is that He created the many to hate. I hope that somehow I am wrong.

This is both a rant and a cry for help. I have cried tears of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual torment virtually every day for the past two years. Some days I even scream in agony and hope my poor mother doesn't hear me. Sometimes she does. I have always been a good-natured individual that loves good and hates evil. I have always sought truth and excellence and (with a few exceptions) resisted doing evil. But I have learned that truth is ugly, and no good deed goes unpunished. Lord Byron said sorrow is knowledge, and those who know the most must mourn the deepest. Truth does not set you free; it binds you in chains.

For 40 years, starting when I was in high school, I have studied eschatology in the hope that Jesus would return to take me and all believers to Heaven. This year I gave up that hope. Countless Christians have clung to the "blessed hope" for nearly 2,000 years with all dying disappointed. Why would God give so many people false hope?

And finally, consider what God might have been thinking while the Bubonic Plague was torturing and killing 100 million Europeans in the 14th Century.

Thank you for reading my tome and offering any constructive feedback as you may be led.

Matt Thomas