There are millions of people who do not believe in God but they do believe in the Devil. Just look back through history, they say. The unspeakably barbaric punishments inflicted on heretics — burning them alive, to name just one example, by none other than (Oh, my God!) the Roman Catholic Church.
Did a God of Love commit these tortures? Not exactly. It was the Church’s doing, a church, a religion, operating under the figurehead of God — a shell company in modern lingo but in actual fact a hell company, run by the Devil himself.
He was and still is the CEO — the Cruel Evil Overlord, so much over the Lord that the Lord is a helpless bystander, a non-voting lowly member of the board. The diabolical hypocrisy of that arrangement, vis-à-vis the Catholic Church, is beyond belief — and yet it continues to be the case to this day.
You don’t need to go back to the Dark Ages for the indescribable inhumanity committed in the absence — or even worse, the presence — of a powerless God. The relatively recent history of two world wars, the Holocaust, the horrors of “ethnic cleansing,” the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the mass murders, and right on cue, the global slaughter by a microbe cleverly codenamed Covid-19 — entire families wiped out, heartbreak upon heartbreak on the nightly death hour — a lovely little girl in Texas, the daughter of a heroic nurse, knitting face masks for health care workers and then being killed in a diabolically gratuitous accident. Is this the work of the God of Love?
There is and has always been a battle between God and the Devil, and you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or a Christian Scientist or a Born Again Christian or a Catholic or a Baptist or a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon or a Methodist or a Praying Mantis or a Whirling Dervish to know that the God of Love is losing the battle and the Devil of Hate is winning.
Which boils down (not so much in oil this time) for two billion Christians in the world and all you God’s chillun out there, that you ain’t going to no Heaven, you all going to hell. Some scary shit, huh?
Sobering at the very least, so many atrocities committed in the name of faith, love and virtues. We are a sick race
You overwhelming pessimism is unfortunate to say the least. I wish I could share the heaven I am already enjoying! True it is that sin in this world causes great grief. But Truer yet is the great hope, peace, and Love that is available. Nothing I can say can perhaps convince some of that. There is truth in your post. But it ends in a great lie. And lies my friend are of the devil.
Hans, I fervently wish (and even pray) that I could share the “heaven” you believe in, it would make losing my two brothers, my son and my wife somewhat easier to bear, but I am incapable for some reason (and I wish I knew why) of plugging into that faith and seeing the “great hope, peace and love” you speak of. And if in fact my essay ends in a “great lie,” then my point has been made — the damn devil wrote this thing.
Daniel, and the question is left twisting in the wind like a hanged victim of atrocity — where the hell is God?
You speak true my friend. Based on facts, logic and with omission of superstition, myth and ever-changing man made fantasies scribed long ago. Unfortunately your words ring true for only about 30%? of the worlds population. The rest are too afraid to face reality as it is.
“You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.” ― Ben Goldacre
By all means let’s be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.” ― Richard Dawkins
I like those quotes — thanks Wayne.
https://twitter.com/outosego/status/1262215262427918338
Thank you.