What Does the Lord Require?

It can be quite perplexing to clearly understand all of the things the Lord God requires, especially within the context of Christian scripture and theology. On the one hand, it seems we have to be “perfectly holy” in our words, thoughts, and deeds, as Jesus is quoted as saying from Matthew 5:20, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” We are also told from Jesus in Matthew 7:21, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven will enter.” On the other hand, we are told by Paul in Romans 3:28, “For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” So which is it? Do we need to be “perfectly righteous” as Jesus says, or are we simply “justified by faith,” as Paul says? These two ideas cannot simultaneously be true because they contradict each other. This is just one of several examples of blatant scriptural contradictions that have always confused me since childhood, and for some reason seems to be accepted by millions of “believing” adults. It is understandable children would have a tendency to accept these contradictions, but less acceptable adults would, and even less acceptable these contradictions would be defended by grown adults who have the capacity to think critically.

One of the other questions I have always had is why it is God cannot simply forgive without the need for blood sacrifice – for “justice?” The standard, canned response from theologians, pastors, and other “religious” people is that God is perfectly holy, and perfectly just, and His perfect Holiness demands “payment” in the light of “unrighteousness.” Therefore, because we sin and are “unholy,” God makes it possible for us to be “made right” with Him as long as we accept, in faith, the perfect sacrifice He required to “make things right.” That “perfect sacrifice,” we are told, is his son Jesus Christ. As we have explored several times before on “The Mystical Voice,” there are so many problems and contradictions with this entire belief system, it is difficult to know where to even begin.

First of all, if God is truly omnipotent, as Christian theology claims, that means He can do anything by definition. Dictionary.com defines the word “omnipotent” as “almighty or infinite in power, as God.”  If He can do anything, that means He can also forgive without sacrifice and the demand for “blood,” for “justice.” Since he cannot do this, according to Christian theology, then He is not omnipotent. Notice we are not told God will not do this, but that He cannot do this. The notion of an “omnipotent God” who cannot do something is a contradiction, like a “round square,” and therefore is not true because all contradictions cannot be true, as we have discovered before. I realize some would object to this definition for God’s omnipotence and say there are some things God cannot do, such as betray his nature, or create logical contradictions such as “round squares,” but this definition in itself creates other problems as we will soon discover.   Christian theology also tells us God is perfectly just, who sacrificed his innocent son for the sake of the guilty, which is by definition, unjust. So in this case, God can do something he supposedly “cannot” do – he can be “unjust” while being “perfectly just” at the same time. Not only is this notion impossible because it is a contradiction, but it also begs the question, “why can God betray his nature in one case, but not in another?” Why can God be unjust even though He is “perfectly just,” but cannot be omnipotent when he supposedly is omnipotent, and can therefore do anything? This is why the whole “God is omnipotent, but cannot betray His nature” argument is invalid. The bottom line is, when it comes to God and what he supposedly “can” and “cannot” do, these examples clearly show his abilities are in direct correlation to whatever the storyteller needs Him to have for their own convenience to make their desired point. The contradictions of God’s supposed “attributes” between different Biblical stories prove this fact. In other words, God is just another tool who is used and manipulated by the storytellers who make up their own rules as they go along for the purpose of controlling others.

This question of why God simply cannot forgive without blood sacrifice, without “justice,” is a question which has been especially gnawing away at me for the past few days as the pastor at the church where I work is now spending five weeks preaching on the subject of what happens after we die. It makes me wonder if he is preaching this sermon series for the congregation, or if it is more to convince himself of what he wants to believe is true in his own fear of dying. The wonderful thing about awareness of Oneness is it never requires we play these games of “convincing” and justification. Awareness of Oneness allows us to realize we are ultimately never separate from anybody and anything, and in this awareness the entire self-justification game comes to an end. I feel sorry for people who need to convince themselves over a five-part sermon series of ideas which they know deep down inside are not true because they cannot be true since they are logical contradictions and absurdities. If these ideas were True and Real, a five-part sermon series would not be necessary, but becomes quite necessary when there is no legitimate evidence to back up one’s beliefs. While those who believe in these things are often not consciously aware of this fact, their actions speak to their underlying, subconscious awareness of the fact their beliefs are false, by doing such things as preaching a five-part sermon series on an idea they desperately hope is true – not something they know is True. I found it curious how and why this pastor stated that hope is a “certainty” and not a “cross-our-fingers” mentality. I could not disagree more. If one is certain, then one knows. If one hopes, then one merely believes. The two are not at all one and the same thing.

It is often said God made us as beings with “free will” because He did not want us to be “robots” or “puppets” on a string. When this point is made by believers, it is clear they believe that being a “robot” or a “puppet” is considered a “bad” thing. The question I think we need to ask ourselves is why we judge such a possibility as “bad?” If we are told from Christian theology the Ultimate Destiny of creation will be “perfection” at the “end of the age” in which there will be no more sin, no more death, no more crying, and no more pain, why not just create this “perfect” situation from word go, and avoid this entire unnecessary drama of bloodshed, misery, corruption, abuse, and violence? How could all of this brutality be part of a “loving” God’s plan, as so many try to cleverly rationalize? Such a notion is an absurd contradiction. If we have no misery and pain, what difference does it make if we are “puppets” or “robots?” Who says a “robot” or a “puppet” cannot be happy, loving, and fulfilled? Animals and other less intelligent creatures cannot make “choices” as we supposedly can, and some animals, like dogs, can be loving and faithful, and are technically “without sin,” yet nobody calls them “robots.” Besides, an “omnipotent God” could make anything He likes, supposedly, including a “happy,” “loving,” and “fulfilled” robot. Since Christian theology says the state of “sinless perfection” is “ideal,” then how bad can it be, even if we are robots? We cannot have it both ways – to desire “sinlessness,” while at the same time saying that being a “robot” would not be desirable. What we are really saying is being “sinless” would have no value if we could not choose to not sin when we could. The problem is, we are also told by Christian theology we cannot choose to be “sinless,” as we sin because we are sinners, not because we sin. Under this scenario, the only way we could be “sinless” is if we were “robots,” since we are told we cannot choose not to sin. We sin because we are sinners. In other words, we are flawed creatures who were supposedly created by a flawless God, which is impossible. A truly “perfect” God could only create “perfect” beings who could not sin. The hopeless contradictions of this entire belief structure reveal the earmarks of pure fraud to keep us enslaved to an authority who wants us to mindlessly obey without questioning, and uses clever double-talk, contradictions, and double-standard “logic” to confuse and trick the unquestioning into accepting their authority over them. While the religious will often rationalize these contradictions with the words, “We cannot understand the mysteries of the Lord,” there is no “mystery” to understanding the fact that contradictions and double-standards are always false, like “round-squares.” The key to overcoming all of this confusion and enslavement to authority is in exposing the contradictions and double-standards for the fictions they are. It’s as simple as that.

So let us state the facts of this belief honestly – God created the possibility for sin, meaning he is ultimately responsible for it, just for the sake of giving us a sense of “value” for this “gift” of grace. This must be the case logically since without the possibility of sin, there is no possibility for grace. Therefore since God is the creator of everything, as Christian theology claims, then God is also the ultimate author of sin as well, because he is necessarily responsible for its very possibility, which is logically impossible if he is truly “perfect” and “without sin.” Amazingly however, this notion of a “sinless” God who is “only good” contradicts ”inerrant” scripture, as found in Isaiah 45:7, “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I the LORD do all these things.” God convicts himself by His own Word. I have yet to hear a single intelligent rebuttal to the discrepancy between this version of God, and the typical modern Christian conception of God as found in 1 John 1:5, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” These two versions of God cannot coexist since they are mutually exclusive and contradict each other, just like the concept of “round squares.” God cannot on the one hand create both prosperity and disaster, and be “only light without darkness” at the same time since each of these qualities are mutually exclusive. As we discovered in “Contradictions and Double-Standards,” these myriad contradictions reveal the non-truthfulness of this theology. That is all we need to know if something is true or false. If a concept contradicts itself it must be false. Only if a concept does not contradict itself can it be even possibly true. This is why Christian theology is false – because the numerous contradictions and double-standards contained within its belief system invalidate it automatically. And by their fruits… we shall know.

Even if we ignore this contradictory scripture and say God is “perfect,” and “without sin,” the notion Adam and Eve ever even had the ability to sin in the first place is a contradiction and impossible since a “perfect” being could only create “perfect” people who could not sin in their “perfection” as we discovered before. The only honest answer to this question if we maintain that God created everything, is to hold God accountable for making us flawed creatures who have the ability to sin. We hold everyone else accountable when they create products which are flawed. If we are about being honest, and not hypocritical, we need to be consistent and apply the exact same standard to God as well, instead of holding God to yet another double-standard for which Christian theology is so notoriously known. As we discovered before, the very presence of these contradictions and double-standards prove the fact these ideas are not true since all contradictions and double-standards are false, like “round squares.”

The ultimate and most disturbing double-standard revealed within the context of Christian theology is the notion God needs “payment” or “justice” for “sin,” while asking us to forgive without demanding “justice,” or “payment” from those who have wronged us. All Christians know God required his son Jesus be tortured and crucified to “pay the price” He demanded for our sin. The very notion as found from Isaiah 53:10, “the LORD was pleased to crush Him,” his son, should give us immense pause to contemplate just what kind of sadistic “god” we are asked to serve. What kind of being delights in crushing their own child? We are expected and even commanded by Jesus to forgive without demanding “justice” and “payment” or “retribution” for wrongs against us, as stated in his words for us to “turn the other cheek.” Yet while we can and do forgive without demanding “payment” from others, God apparently requires it. So we see human beings can do something God cannot do – to simply forgive without “justice,” “blood,” and “payment” for “sin.” This fact should give us pause as to what kind of absurd and ridiculous god we believe in who maintains such contradictions and double-standards, not to mention one who is supposedly “omnipotent,” yet cannot do what human beings can do. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

It seems to me it would have been much simpler and less painful for everyone – for God, and everyone else if we were made to be “robots” since God wants us to follow very specific “standards of behavior.” But instead of simply making us “perfect” people who would naturally comply with the “perfect will of God,” and never sin, we were instead made “imperfect” by virtue of the fact we are able to sin, which made it necessary for God to come up with the Ten Commandments, along with several other rewards and punishments to coerce us into a desired standard of behavior. The problem is, we cannot perfectly behave the way He wants us to behave because as we discovered earlier, no matter what the rewards or punishments, we are told we cannot perfectly choose His way, as we cannot choose not to sin, as we sin because we are sinners. Clearly, this entire situation is incredibly absurd. We are given minds by God which can think for itself, yet told by this same God not to use our minds to figure out the illusion of self and all of its trappings and justifications. After all, God instructed Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge – in other words, God demanded we remain ignorant. This fact should give us deep, thoughtful pause in the realization of the incredible insidiousness of such a ridiculous demand. No being of integrity would ever demand our ignorance. To promote ignorance is to promote virtually all of the suffering and misery we live with day after day. Our ultimate problem as a race is not sin, but ignorance. That is the beginning and the end of our entire problem, yet the God of the book of Genesis demands our ignorance, making it a sin to eat of the Tree of Knowledge – to ask questions. It was not “rebellion” when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. It was simple curiosity and the desire to know something for oneself. If that is a sin, then our natural God-given curious human nature is a sin. The realization of these astounding absurdities clearly exposes this “god” for who and what he actually is – and by their fruits we shall know…

Listen to the audio version of “What Does the Lord Require?”

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