Defining the Nature of God

As you know, I’m an atheist. Actually you could also call me a polyatheist because there are tens of thousands of gods I don’t believe in. But there is one god in particular that most of us allude to when we use the big “A” word. We mean Jehovah, Yahweh, THE LORD, the god of Abraham, Jesus’ dad, the god of the bible.

This god does triple duty for the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. But who is he? How can we define him?

I’ve found that if you ask 10 people about God, you will get 14 different answers. Even believers will contradict themselves when they define the god they worship.

But if we distill it down, what do we get? What is the essence of this supposedly supreme deity?

First let’s look and see what God calls himself in his book. In Exodus you can find the following:

• God is cryptic: God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14) – Isn’t that what Popeye used to say?


• The second of the 10 commandments: You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. (Exodus 20:5) – to the fourth generation! How spiteful!


• God’s name is Jealous: Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. (Exodus 34:14) -

God is often defined by his attributes:

• Unchanging – if God is unchanging then you can look at the old testament to get a good picture of his heinous character. It’s not very flattering. He’s barbaric, cruel and murderous.


• Perfect – and yet there is nothing perfect about anything that is attributed to him. Isn’t that telling?


• Omnipotent – If he’s all powerful why doesn’t he just fix some of his millions and trillions of mistakes by humane means? Why does he let such suffering continue? Why won’t he heal innocent children of birth defects, at least? Why won’t he do anything at all to help his creation?


• Omniscient – Even in the bible he doesn’t really know everything. There are several instances where he is surprised by what is going on. And knowing everything but not doing anything about it is not really very good, is it?


• Omnipresent – Again, there’s no evidence of this. If God is here with me now, it certainly isn’t tangible in any meaningful way.


• Loving – this is the one I get the most from Christians. What is the evidence? Certainly not from “the good book”. Just read it in its entirety and count up how many people God murdered, not to mention the innocent animals that he insisted be slaughtered and roasted in his name to purge people so they could be acceptable to this hateful deity. If you look at God today, again, there is no evidence that he is loving. I can’t think of anything. What you do find is people being good to each other. Why not use Occam’s Razor and look at the most logical reason for human altruism. As an evolutionary advantage? As a cultural adaptation? Do we really need to add a supernatural element? I find it dehumanizing to thank God when a human does something heroic. Thank the person, not the invisible sky daddy.


• Jealous – see below. He calls himself jealous. If he were perfect, he really wouldn’t need to be jealous.


• Angry – see below. He is the epitome of angry. If he were perfect he wouldn’t be angry.


• Murderous – So if you count up all the people in the bible that God murders, you get approximately 24,634,205. If you count up all the people in the bible that Satan kills you get 60. 

I Didn't Get Struck By Lightning

So I didn't get struck by lightning when I went to church this morning. But I do feel like I'm catching a cold from the exposure to all those christian strangers. I guess I've been smote by the rhinovirus of GOD!

The first thing I noticed was 2 cops directing traffic. Butch commented on taxpayer resources being used for such a purpose, but they were definitely needed. This was a big church with lots of cars. The building looks more like a school than a church, if you ask me.

Here's where we went: Chestnut Ridge Church. None of us got a good estimate of how many seats there were. It was set up like a theater with a big stage, a 6 piece pop music band, 2 giant screens where they put the words to the songs and the bible verses from the sermon, and movie theater seating. The control booth is state of the art, like you'd find for a rock concert.Free coffee was served before people went in and each seat had a cup holder like in a movie theater. There were no crosses, no crucifixes, no representations of Jesus at all, nothing that made it seem church-like. It was very casual, very relaxed.

Everyone was very pleasant and nice. We had to shake hands and everyone made eye contact. Children were all well behaved and not too many babies cried much. The TV monitors counted down to the start, then they just basically began with a rundown of the schedule, then everyone said hi to their neighbor then 3 or 4 songs which people were encouraged to sing to, with the karaoke lyrics on the screens.

People seemed to enjoy the music which was very loud. The audience had very little lighting, just enough for me to see my notebook and for people to see if they wanted to get up. But the stage had concert lighting including a smoke machine. The babies didn't seem upset by the incredibly loud music and the bass was really cranked up on the drums. People seemed to enjoy it but no one got "into the spirit" or did anything crazy, just a bit of keeping time and singing, stuff like that, maybe a bit of clapping when prompted.

We guessed the seating to be around 1500 but that's a very rough guess. It was about 85-90% full, mostly young people (teens to 30's, as a rough guess), about 99.9% white. One of my heathen friends saw one black man in African garb in the parking lot when we were going in. Other than that, I only saw white people. Then again, West Virginia is very white if I recall the statistics, so it doesn't mean too much.

What Would It Take To Make Me Believe In God?

So what would it take for me, a 7th degree black belt atheist, to believe in God? I've been thinking about this lately. Here's what I've come up with so far.

1. God would have to personally reveal himself to me and correctly answer every question I throw at him.

2. God would have to reveal himself to every person on Earth at the same time, in a way that doesn't make us all think we are suffering from some type of mass psychosis or delusion. Otherwise I might think I was just hallucinating.

3. God would have to demonstrate his power. He'd have to cure me and bring me to total health and fitness, end all suffering in the world instantly (after proclaiming to everyone that he would do so), end all wars, etc.

4. He would have to demonstrate his superior intelligence, and have an answer to every question that we have. He would have to have good answers for all of his stupid past behavior.

5. He would have to predict the future, in rigorous scientific experiments, with 100% accuracy.

6. He would have to bend the laws of physics and the natural world, but only in rigorous scientific experiments.

As you can see, I still won't have blind faith. I would require testable, repeatable evidence in massive quantities to believe. In this sense, I wouldn't "believe" so much as accept the evidence that would be available.

Now, if I believed in him, would I worship him? That's a separate issue. I don't think so, not the god of the bible. He's a hateful, childish, vengeful, jealous, petty god with anger issues. I think I'd say thanks but no thanks. I require more godliness and love to actually worship anything. I also require a god that actually does good and not harm.

So what are your thoughts? I know my list isn't complete. What else would you require to believe in God? And if you believed in him, what would it take for you to worship him?

Don't Assume I'm A Sensitive Soul

I received this email from a woman the other day. After careful thought I replied to it and decided it was worth sharing.

Here is the email in its entirety:

Thank you for sharing “Wild Geese”. After Joe Biden used most of this poem as his reflection upon the anniversary of 9/11, I went in search of the poem. The two of Mary Oliver’s collections I own did not include it. I was happy to find it at your site and amazed, actually. Amazed and delighted, because a poem I find so “religious” is at the same time such a balm for you. I grew up Roman Catholic; I am now an Episcopal priest. I am convinced after 20 years that what most people throw away – the cats they heave – are indeed worth heaving. Sometimes we have to go deeper, below the interpretations of history, to find our own deeper truth.

Yes, a “barbarous” God exists in the pages of the Bible: What all-kind God and Father would will the death of a Beloved Son? How could God command Abraham to kill his son Isaac as a test of faith? Isn’t that sadistic? Yes, indeed. On the face of it. For us in the 21st century these stories are barbaric. They are foreign to our experience. They were not foreign to the persons for whom they were written when the “first fruits” in ancient societies were offered up to the deity – including in some cases, the first born child. In some places in later writings there seems to be a critique of these practices in the Bible itself. The question becomes, it seems to me, is it worth reinterpreting these stories for our own time, or do we jettison them and replace them with our own stories of sacrificial obedience and love? Yes, life does involve sacrifice – we give up our children constantly to the gods of war who exact a savage price. There are no rams in the thicket to take their place …

But the same source of barbarism comments on itself in texts of amazing love and mercy. We cannot hear these texts enough.

OhmyGAWD, BECKY!

A secret friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, sent me a message the other day on Facebook with a link to the following video. I finally got a chance to watch it earlier today and I have to say, I am still shaking my head in awe. Either this is a brilliant example of Poe's Law, or this is honest to goodness flat-out crazy bible-thumping madness. I was thinking it MUST be a poe (spoof/fake, see below), but after I watched it, I went to the video's page on youtube and the guy posting it is momentumchurch. If he's faking it, he's going all out. I really think he means what he's singing about. Can you say GLORY AMEN!

Really, give yourself a 4 minute break and watch this. You will crack up in pure horror. Even the baby jesus is mortified. But DAMN, his ring and necklace combo is sexy! It makes me HOLY! HALLELUJAH! LOL!



Poe's Law (fundamentalism): "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humour, it is impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't mistake for the real thing," named after Nathan Poe who formulated it on christianforums.com in 2005. Although it originally referred to creationism, the scope later widened to religious fundamentalism.

Psalm 137:9 and Dealing With Religious Relatives - EDITED

The other day, a friend of mine left the following quote on her Facebook page, in the info section of her profile:

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones" Psalm 137:9
(Gotta love the fricken "good" book)

This is one of my favorite bible quotes as well, mainly because it shows the "good" book as the charming, moral, loving guide that it is. Meaning it is none of those things.

Anyway, a relative of hers sent her a private message on Facebook, saying the following:

This book that you so malign is so important to me and to many whom I love.  I do not understand why you feel such contempt and hatred for Christianity and 'the fricken"good" book'.  For many of us it is the foundation on which we base our lives. It is a history book, a poetry book, and to us, a divinely inspired book - one that shows us how to live and to love and attempts to explain the mystery of life and creation.  Some take it literally, most do not.

This upset my friend a great deal. She has been an atheist for a very long time, and her relative knows this. This was posted in her profile info, not in anyone's face. My friend was just expressing herself, not attacking anyone. So why did her relative have to go out of her way, all of a sudden, to be openly offended?

My friend sent a reply to her, which unfortunately I don't have. It was polite and loving. Her relative answered with the following:

Apparently the unknown person who wrote it was in captivity and despondent after the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. Apparently the psalmist was crying out that the Babylonians should be treated as they had treated the Israelites.

This woman goes to bible study classes all the time, so we can see what she is learning there. Classic Apologetics which is: the branch of theology concerned with the defense or proof of christianity. Because, it seems, if you believe in the bible, you have to prove the only book you've got has something special in it, and when it is shown to be inaccurate, you have to defend it to the bitter end, clinging to your indoctrination in your desperation.

Dumb As A Stump!

Oh for christ's sake! Some people in Sacramento have seen an image of Whacko Jacko show up in a stump in their front yard the day he died. It's a miracle! I wonder if it heals people and molests little boys? I wonder if it does the moon walk?

Now, you've got to feel for the local reporter doing this stupid story. Unless he asked them leading questions which were beyond stupid. Because if you watch the related video of the magical stump story, the people are exceedingly moronic.

When asked why MJ would show up, specifically to these people, and not some other celebrity or religious figure, this is what one idiot said: "Because Michael Jackson was an icon to us," said one neighbor. "To Stockton, Michael Jackson meant more to us than Jesus, to some people. I think they're both about even."

So pareidolia be damned. That's just a stupid psychological phenomenon where a vague, random stimulus (like an image or a sound) is perceived as significant. That's so boring compared to imagining a knot in a stump is something magical and exciting. Let's all start worshiping the magic michael stump!

Hell, I can't see anything. I guess I'm doomed to suffer in a lake of hair on fire or something.

Do People Need To Worship? EDITED

This is not about church so much as society and culture. Recently Farrah Fawcett died. Later in the day Michael Jackson bit the dust as well. The world seemed to forget about Farrah immediately and focus on Jacko and how much of an amazing person he was.

Do people have such short attention spans and memories? Do they so easily forget what a freak he was? Do they so mindlessly get selectively nostalgic when someone dies or a big event happens?

I am so over Jacko, not that he was ever big on my list. He was a pedophile and a full-on freak. Why is he being revered? Has the catholic church's silent acceptance of pedophilia made most people numb to such horrors when committed by the exceedingly rich? I question the cognitive processes of anyone who feels the need to worship at the feet of such sickness.

On the other hand, Farrah died at age 62 of cancer. She was a good person who actually contributed to our entertainment. When she made The Burning Bed in 1984 (which was based on a true story), she was forever changed by that experience. Not to mention, as a sex symbol, she was willing to make that movie in the first place.

I found out a few minutes ago that she left donations to shelters for abused women, as well as some of her belongings. That's wonderful and thoughtful.

But it's not as interesting, apparently, as Jacko, who slept in a hyperbaric chamber, drank "jesus juice",  was a jehovah's witness and liked to diddle little boys then pay their families off for the privilege. So the world weeps for him? That's disgusting. Why would anyone feel the need to worship such a horrid person?

Then again, why do people worship god in whatever barbaric religion he is in? Do most people need to worship and look up to someone or something above them? Is it some vestige of evolution that we have yet to shed?

EDIT: My most awesomest husband Butch has written an excellent article about Whacko Jacko, along with an exclusive photo of said molester holding some damning evidence.

Also, here are some Smoking Gun articles that may interest you:

Jackson the Predator

Jackson's Legacy (with transcript)