Chapter 5 “The Judeo-Christian Issue”

I have dealt with several issues which have inevitably led me to this point of examining the crux of the issue I have with the essence of Judeo-Christian dogma. I have already stated it several times before one way or another, and after reading more scripture discover what my essential problem I have with it is.  I simply do not agree with their conception of God and salvation.  It is that simple.  Their conception of God and salvation does not resonate as truthful to me.  The notion of a god who rewards the righteous and judges and condemns the guilty, a god who is vengeful and angry, a god who creates eternal separation from himself when people do not do what pleases him, and requires a blood sacrifice to satisfy his need for blood as “payment” for sin so we can be “saved,” making him a god who can be bought, and his “love” purely conditional, and not unconditional is a petty, egotistical, small, childish, diabolically wicked, immature god.  If any person were to act in the way God is believed as acting in much of the Old Testament in particular, and how some of God’s character is portrayed within Christian doctrine, they would be described as just that, but because we say “God is God” and we cannot possibly comprehend his ways, he gets a pass even though his actions within this belief about God contradict everything we know to be true about loving, truthful ways of being.  This is nonsense to me, and I cannot accept this vision of God to be true. 

Of course, there are positive qualities about the Judeo-Christian conception of God.  There is God’s love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness.  But this is a god whose love is conditional, and the other qualities they attribute to God are not consistent with what is merciful and loving.  Eternal punishment for anyone, no matter what the crime is simply not merciful, and is not a product of Love.  It is a product of ego, and that is the crux of my problem with the god of the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Simply put, theirs is a god of ego, not of Love.  Think about how selfish this doctrine is.  So often it is all about “my salvation,” “my reward,” “my punishment,” “my redemption.”  Judeo-Christian scripture is filled with words like “vindicate me,” “rescue me,” “avenge me,” “save me.” There are seemingly endless pleas for the punishment and destruction of one’s enemies and cries for revenge, which are anything but loving and Godly.  All of these words are centered around the self.   It is all about the “me,” its vindication and justification.  True salvation is not about the preservation and justification of the self, as traditional Christianity makes it out to be, but the knowledge of the One within, not limited to the self. 

Actions always speak louder than words, and if “god” acts childish and egotistical, and we believe in this god, then we need to ask ourselves why we believe in this non-truthful conception of Him.  We need to ask ourselves who we are, and why we insist on projecting our egotism onto our small conceptions of God.  Perhaps it is because we ourselves are childish, immature, and selfish, and want god to be like us.  Ego and self is never the Truth, so believing in this notion of “god” is also not true.  That is not to say there are no consequences for turning from God, from Love.  Indeed there are, but that is not at all the same as “reward and punishment.”  Natural law provides for the fact when we turn from Love, we suffer, and when we return to Love, we prosper.  As the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 6:7, “A man reaps what he sows.” We all do. It is as simple as that.  The natural law of karma is perfect and absolute, and does not require a standard of behavior set by a god who dolls out rewards and punishments based on whether or not we conform to that standard.  The only “standard” is Love itself, which is not a “standard” persay, but rather the only law of Life.  That is why the greatest commandment is in short, to Love.  Period.  Loving intentions behind an action cannot always be seen within superficial “appearances” of outward action.  That is why the act itself cannot be accurately judged.  It is the motivation behind the action which determines whether or not the action is either selfish or loving.   It is this which determines what we get back.  Selfish actions bring consequences we will probably not like, and loving actions bring consequences we probably will like.  God does not reward and punish as we as human parents sometimes do, setting boundaries for our children, but we never would think of separating ourselves from them for all eternity because of any wrong they did us, or because they failed to “get it right” by our standards within life on Earth.  Even if God did reward and punish, why would a perfect and merciful God do this if it is unthinkable for fallible humankind to be that cruel? 

Unlike the god of Judeo-Christian tradition, the God I know is never egotistical nor selfish.  The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, 13:4-5, Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking…” Paul is describing what Love truly is, but God is not always portrayed as these aspects of Love within the Bible.  The usual argument for this is the notion God is wrathful and just in addition to being loving.  Since the only reality is Love, then the only God is Love.  And when the only God is love, then He has nothing to do with what is contrary to love.  Wrath and “justice” are products of ego, never products of Love. Period. I am certain much of Biblical scripture was written to control and frighten its readers so they would obey and order within society would be maintained.  Stories of a condemning god would assure obedience.  Reward and punishment, especially notions of eternal reward and punishment do wonders in getting people to behave the way we want them to, as “fear and wonder” are the powerful tools every authority group or government uses to control the masses.  There is a word for this – coercion.  It is a striking fact the church has done more to control and keep people in line than the greatest armies of the world.  They do this through lies of reward and punishment all in the name of “god.”  If there is any violation of the Commandments to not bear false witness nor use the name of God in vain, it is this.

 The implications of this are huge.  If I cannot agree with these aspects of Christian doctrine, how then can I possibly call myself a Christian in the traditional sense of the word?  I cannot.  I am not a traditional, conventional Christian.  Then again, I am not a traditional, conventional anything when it comes down to it.  I once heard a preacher on the radio state if we disagree with the Bible, then we need to change our thinking because the Bible is always right, and if we disagree, we are wrong.  I have already gone into my feelings on the lie of the inerrancy of scripture.  On a practical level, there are several historical accuracy issues resulting from the fact much of the Gospels came to us through oral tradition, with no surviving original manuscript of any Gospel, but only several copies removed from the original source.  There is also a great likelihood of scribal error and misunderstanding, or outright addition or omission of content. It is also a fact that there are several gospels which were left out of the Bible such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the Savior, and the Gospel of Mary.  Even the earliest known gospels, like the Sayings Gospel Q and Mark, were written decades after Jesus’ death, and probably none actually, factually penned by any eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus’ life.  On a purely practical level, all of these facts make the inerrancy of scripture argument even more implausible. 

Still, in the end, it really doesn’t matter whether the stories are factually correct or not because fact is not Truth.  The only question we ever have to ask ourselves when contemplating whether or not a passage is the Word of God is this – does the passage serve God, love, or fear, ego?  That alone tells us whether words are of the Truth, God, or of ego.  It is that simple. If we can see the passage serves fear and ego, it is not of God, and is a lie.  If it serves Truth, God, Love, then it is the Word of God.  A stunning example of this – with words of God and Satan back to back is found in Revelations, 21:6-8 “To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.  But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death.”  The Bible is filled with the word of both God and Satan, as this last passage dramatically illustrates, but I have only heard one person in my life dare say even one book in the Bible could be “the devil’s book.”  The fact the Bible contains 66 books, with the Beast’s number being 666 does give me pause, as it is an interesting coincidence.  And would that not be the most kniving, crafty, vicious trick of all?…to have Satan himself compose at least half the Bible, passing it off as the “Divine Word of God?”  That would be pulling off the biggest hoax in history.  As near as I can tell, Satan, or ego, managed to do just that. 

Many people instinctually understand these things about traditional Judeo-Christian dogma.  I have lost count of how many people I have heard who claim to be “raised Catholic, but not practicing,” or that they are “spiritual but not religious.”  I understand this because I have said the same things about myself.  The reason people say these things and go away from traditional religion is because they are aware of the non-truthfulness of it.  Who wants to follow a lie… a lie of punishment and reward, condemnation, and intolerance of others who believe, act, and think differently than we do?  It is not these people do not want to commit their lives to Truth or sincerely find what is missing in their lives, but they will not be drawn to that which does not reflect Truth.  Sadly, the traditional Christian church does not witness to Truth and the True God.  As long as the church continues to do this, we can expect their numbers to continue to diminish indefinitely.  Only the Truth endures.  All else falls away.

We all know words of fear and ego.  They are words of revenge, anger, “righting wrongs,” exacting “justice,” the damnation of sinners and the salvation of the righteous.  The Bible is filled with this.  None of it resonates as truthful, since all of these things are the desires of the ego, not of God, Love.  Love has nothing to do with revenge, “righting wrongs,” and exacting justice.  As the Apostle Paul records in 1 Corinthians 13:5, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.”  What a stark contrast to traditional Christians’ conception of the record-keeping god who punishes the wicked and rewards the righteous.  Since so much of the Bible is this, I find myself reading at least half the words of ego, and half the words of God.  I suppose that’s what can be expected when words are transcribed through the hands of fallible, sinful humanity.  For the message is only as clear and True as the one receiving it.  This is why Christ spoke to the necessity of being right within ourselves so we could be receptors of Truth. 

It is obvious from much of what we have in the Bible, several of these people who wrote these things down were about self and ego, not about God, as they could not see the vision of Truth beyond their beliefs and prejudices.  They may indeed have heard the word of God, but too often corrupted it with the commentary of their egos, projecting onto their conception of God their own fears and human desires for justice, revenge, vindication, and so on.  These things are very real, human desires, but they are not ways of God, Love.  They are ways of ego. Period.  As recorded in Isaiah 55:8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.”  So, I take every scripture in the Bible written from the perspective of ego, and know they are the devil’s words.  I also take every scripture in the Bible written from Truth, and know they are the Word of God… Truth… Love…