Friday, March 14, 2014

A God Worth Giving Up for Lent



Every once in awhile I read a piece and think, "Darn! I wish I'd written that!"

This is one of those pieces: Open Letter to a Too Small God by Michael Sandlin ... just up on the Huffingon Post Blog.

You'll want to read it all here ... but here's a preview:

Any understanding of God that cannot withstand questions and rational thought is a "too small" god ...That version of you is so myopically infinitesimal in comparison to what a god worthy of worship would be that it begs to be put down for the betterment of humanity.

That version of you hurts people. That version of you encourages one group of people to feel superior to others. It justifies self-righteous judgment and it's not uncommon to see it lead to violence. That god is a god of the privileged.

It is a god designed to reinforce exceptionalism and justify the unjustifiable behavior of the powerful. That god is a god tailor-designed to make lemmings of his adherents to the point of denying realty and dismissing science for the sake of further propping up a bastardization of the god I believe Jesus was trying to teach us about.

That, my friends worth giving up. Not just for Lent but permanently.
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5 comments:

  1. Unknown11:52 PM

    I wonder if Martin Heidegger's conception of God was to small! Or perhaps A.J. Ayers? Or even David Hume's ?

    Or maybe the majority of the peer-reviewed metaphysical community in philosophy... just a thought

    ReplyDelete
  2. SUSAN RUSSELL9:58 AM

    Pretty much, I'd say

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown11:56 AM

    Ok, list of non-theistic religions:

    * Buddhism
    * some sects of Hinduism
    * Janism
    * Unitarian Univerisalism?

    ReplyDelete
  4. SUSAN RUSSELL3:51 PM

    My issue isn't theism. It's the kind of theism represented by the described "God worth giving up for Lent"

    ReplyDelete
  5. Unknown6:27 PM

    Yes, Rev. Russell the religion or god conception you speak of is superior to the conception of a fundamental religion.

    But!!! I would implore you to do research in the area of ontology or metaphysics, or even modern cosmology for that regard. You will find that a lot of the questions you seek in Christianity, will seem laughable in comparison to reason and science or perhaps the unknown.

    WHY DOES IT SEEMS LIKE THE CHURCH HAS ALWAYS BEEN WRONG IN REGARDS TO SCIENCE AND REALITY?

    ReplyDelete

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