GFORCE'S GREATEST HITS
I'm feeling lazy, and I have a pretty busy weekend ahead so I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing. So I'll post an old rambling religion piece I did at my old, archaic Geocities website. You'll notice in the piece that I incorrectly guessed that Episode 2 would be the highest grossing film of 2002. Hey, I didn't have advance knowledge that it would suck.
God Already Knows?
calvinism, etc: dumb
originally written 9/18/01
In the Judeo-Christian concept of God, God knows and sees anything. With bigger words (as in words that George W Bush does not yet know), God is omniscient and omnipotent. God knows everything about us, heck, he created us. God knows everything that has happened up until now. So, based on Judaism and Christianity, does he know what's going to happen tomorrow, and every day after? Of course he does! When we say "god knows all", the future of human and universal events is certainly included in that "all". What's the point of having one true god if there are things that are news to him? If there is a threshold in the knowledge of God, no matter how high it is, then god becomes just another dude who knows a lot. Therefore, staying within religious tenets, we must assume and believe that God knows everything about what will happen in the future for every human being out there. God knows what movie will make the most money in 2002. (actually I think I know that too, and god, may the force be with you, hehe). God knows when and with whom every college student will get laid. And God knows the average windspeed of the next 20 hurricanes to hit the eastern seaboard, and the dollar value of the damage that each one will bring, both by today's standards, and adjusting for inflation. He knows all that shit.
You with me? Ok good...
Now let's limit this thought to the Christian requirements for salvation. If God knows everything that we will do until we die, then surely he knows who will be saved and who will be damned. Say there are two guys, A and B. Both of them are drug dealers, both around 20. Guy A deals until he is about 35, at which point he sees the "errors" of his ways, hits bottom, and realizes that he's gonna turn his life over to Jesus. He then leads a purer and prosperous life, retaining his faith, until his death 40 years later. Guy B, on the other hand, is shot down at age 20 in a deal gone bad. Because Guy A died a born-again, presumably he goes "upstairs" to the kingdom of the father, er, Heaven. Conversely, because Guy B died prematurely, before he could have come to the same realization that Guy A arrived at, he goes "downstairs" to the big barbecue in the ground. God knew, before either guy was born, that one guy would have time to find religion, while the other, in similar circumstances, wouldn't. Forgive me, but I'm not sure where the justice is in that.
But it goes further than that. Away from similar circumstances, think about just anybody. God knows, for each person he creates, which ones go to Heaven and which ones Hell. Based on Christian parameters, God knew, before I was even born, where I am going to go when I die, as well as before you were born, where you are going to go. That means, of course, that God created specific people with the ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE that they were going to end up in eternal damnation. Conversely, of course, God created specific people with the advance knowledge that they would be saved and go to Heaven. No amount of good deeds could changed the fate of those God has chosen to damn. Also, no amount of misdeeds could change the fate of those God has chosen to be saved. There isn't any justice in that. More importantly, there isn't any love in that. Nothing done by the damned can mitigate their pre-destined, God-ordained fate. There is no love in that.
Expanding on that, there is the accidental nature of the salvation of Christianity. Take the Tibetan Buddhist monk, who lives in the Himalayas, and sees maybe several dozen people in his entire life, and he dies without ever having heard a single thing about Christianity. God created him not only knowing he would never be saved in his lifetime, but also that he would NEVER COME INTO CONTACT with anyone who knew anything about, or had even heard of Jesus. As Hanson once sang, "Where's the Love?"
For these reasons, among many others, I have divorced myself from any fear about my post-life future. Such bogus, rigged judgement is illogical, imperfect, unjust and unloving. In my eyes, death only means that we shall advance to the next world. My favorite representation of the afterlife is, by far, the classic Albert Brooks Movie "Defending Your Life", starring Brooks and Meryl Streep, as newly-deads who go to "Judgement City", where their life is examined to see if they have overcome their personal fears from their lives, and either being reincarnated if they haven't, or moving to the next world if they have.
I'm feeling lazy, and I have a pretty busy weekend ahead so I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing. So I'll post an old rambling religion piece I did at my old, archaic Geocities website. You'll notice in the piece that I incorrectly guessed that Episode 2 would be the highest grossing film of 2002. Hey, I didn't have advance knowledge that it would suck.
God Already Knows?
calvinism, etc: dumb
originally written 9/18/01
In the Judeo-Christian concept of God, God knows and sees anything. With bigger words (as in words that George W Bush does not yet know), God is omniscient and omnipotent. God knows everything about us, heck, he created us. God knows everything that has happened up until now. So, based on Judaism and Christianity, does he know what's going to happen tomorrow, and every day after? Of course he does! When we say "god knows all", the future of human and universal events is certainly included in that "all". What's the point of having one true god if there are things that are news to him? If there is a threshold in the knowledge of God, no matter how high it is, then god becomes just another dude who knows a lot. Therefore, staying within religious tenets, we must assume and believe that God knows everything about what will happen in the future for every human being out there. God knows what movie will make the most money in 2002. (actually I think I know that too, and god, may the force be with you, hehe). God knows when and with whom every college student will get laid. And God knows the average windspeed of the next 20 hurricanes to hit the eastern seaboard, and the dollar value of the damage that each one will bring, both by today's standards, and adjusting for inflation. He knows all that shit.
You with me? Ok good...
Now let's limit this thought to the Christian requirements for salvation. If God knows everything that we will do until we die, then surely he knows who will be saved and who will be damned. Say there are two guys, A and B. Both of them are drug dealers, both around 20. Guy A deals until he is about 35, at which point he sees the "errors" of his ways, hits bottom, and realizes that he's gonna turn his life over to Jesus. He then leads a purer and prosperous life, retaining his faith, until his death 40 years later. Guy B, on the other hand, is shot down at age 20 in a deal gone bad. Because Guy A died a born-again, presumably he goes "upstairs" to the kingdom of the father, er, Heaven. Conversely, because Guy B died prematurely, before he could have come to the same realization that Guy A arrived at, he goes "downstairs" to the big barbecue in the ground. God knew, before either guy was born, that one guy would have time to find religion, while the other, in similar circumstances, wouldn't. Forgive me, but I'm not sure where the justice is in that.
But it goes further than that. Away from similar circumstances, think about just anybody. God knows, for each person he creates, which ones go to Heaven and which ones Hell. Based on Christian parameters, God knew, before I was even born, where I am going to go when I die, as well as before you were born, where you are going to go. That means, of course, that God created specific people with the ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE that they were going to end up in eternal damnation. Conversely, of course, God created specific people with the advance knowledge that they would be saved and go to Heaven. No amount of good deeds could changed the fate of those God has chosen to damn. Also, no amount of misdeeds could change the fate of those God has chosen to be saved. There isn't any justice in that. More importantly, there isn't any love in that. Nothing done by the damned can mitigate their pre-destined, God-ordained fate. There is no love in that.
Expanding on that, there is the accidental nature of the salvation of Christianity. Take the Tibetan Buddhist monk, who lives in the Himalayas, and sees maybe several dozen people in his entire life, and he dies without ever having heard a single thing about Christianity. God created him not only knowing he would never be saved in his lifetime, but also that he would NEVER COME INTO CONTACT with anyone who knew anything about, or had even heard of Jesus. As Hanson once sang, "Where's the Love?"
For these reasons, among many others, I have divorced myself from any fear about my post-life future. Such bogus, rigged judgement is illogical, imperfect, unjust and unloving. In my eyes, death only means that we shall advance to the next world. My favorite representation of the afterlife is, by far, the classic Albert Brooks Movie "Defending Your Life", starring Brooks and Meryl Streep, as newly-deads who go to "Judgement City", where their life is examined to see if they have overcome their personal fears from their lives, and either being reincarnated if they haven't, or moving to the next world if they have.
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