Third argument: No one deserves to live.
There’s this popular meme circulating among Christians about the “sanctity of life” — invoked to oppose war, guns, and so on. It sounds very Christian, very religious.
And so when we read in the Bible about God taking a life, God seems to violate this principle. Clearly, God has taken countless lives. Therefore, God does not hold to the sanctity of life. Does that make God bad?
Well, no. You can’t start with evangelical pop clichés and then judge God Almighty. That’s not how it works. God judges us; we don’t judge God.
God commands “You shall not murder,” but he never declares that human life is the highest good. In fact, in the Law of Moses, he plainly allows capital punishment and he orders the extermination of the Amalekites.
Does this mean that life is cheap to God? Hardly. God gave his Son so that those with faith in Jesus would live eternally. He gave his Son because the life of Jesus was the highest price he could pay. Life has great value to God.
Human life is a value honored by God, but it’s not the highest value. Love is, and only because God says so.
God is not like us, and so what is right and wrong differs greatly between us and God. In fact, what is loving differs depending on whether you’re God or man.
Think about it. Why is it wrong for humans to murder other humans? Well, it’s not loving. And why not? Well, because people generally want to continue to live and not die. And to go a little deeper, we humans don’t know the consequences of our decisions.
If I abort an unborn child, I have no idea how I’ve changed history. I don’t know what great missionaries and heroes might have sprung from that child. I don’t know how much good that child might do. I just don’t have the wisdom to know how very much harm I might be doing. Therefore, if I kill a child, I’m accountable for all the harm that I might have done.
But if God commands the taking of a life, even the destruction of a nation, he knows exactly what impact that command will have on world history and on the eternal fate of everyone affected, soul by soul. God can see whether that decision is ultimately loving or not, for our betterment or not.
Consider a classic moral dilemma. You invent a time machine and find yourself in the nursery of the infant Adolf Hitler. You could take the life of Hitler and thereby save the lives of millions and prevent horrible suffering. But Hitler is, at the moment, an innocent baby, guilty of nothing at all. Do you kill Hitler?
Well, humans never have the benefit of knowing the future perfectly. And even in the time-machine scenario, you have no idea how history would unfold with Hitler dead. Perhaps Stalin marches into a weak Germany and kills just as many people just as horribly or worse. Maybe another dictator arises with the war-time skills to defeat Britain and the U.S. Maybe by killing Hitler you let a worse dictator rule the entire world.
Who knows? Well, only God knows.
God is able to make these kinds of decisions because God has perfect foreknowledge. Humans do not and cannot. We are hopelessly, helpless bound by time. God is not.
Therefore, we don’t get to make those decisions. We are not competent to operate at that level.
God explains this to Job in no uncertain terms —
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(Job 38:1-41 ESV) Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3 Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.
4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5 Who determined its measurements– surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, 7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
8 “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, 9 when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, 11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?
12 “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, 13 that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? 14 It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment. 15 From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken.
16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep? 17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? 18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this. 19
“Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness, 20 that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home? 21 You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!
22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 23 which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war? 24 What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?
25 “Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain and a way for the thunderbolt, 26 to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, 27 to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?
28 “Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew? 29 From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the frost of heaven? 30 The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
31 “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? 32 Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? 33 Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?
34 “Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, that a flood of waters may cover you? 35 Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? 36 Who has put wisdom in the inward parts or given understanding to the mind? 37 Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, 38 when the dust runs into a mass and the clods stick fast together?
39 “Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 40 when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in their thicket? 41 Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God for help, and wander about for lack of food?
(Job 39:1-30 ESV) “Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does? 2 Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth, 3 when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young? 4 Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open; they go out and do not return to them.
5 “Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, 6 to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place? 7 He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver. 8 He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he searches after every green thing. …
19 “Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? 20 Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrifying. 21 He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons. 22 He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword. 23 Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin. 24 With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet. 25 When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
26 “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? 27 Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? 28 On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold. 29 From there he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it from far away. 30 His young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is he.”
(Job 40:1-14 ESV) And the LORD said to Job: 2 “Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”
3 Then Job answered the LORD and said: 4 “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. 5 I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further.”
6 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:
7 “Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. 8 Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? 9 Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?
10 “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. 11 Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. 12 Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. 13 Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. 14 Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you.”
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Somewhat sarcastically, God’s answer to Job is that Job is not God and has no business placing God in judgment. Job has forgotten just who God is, how far beyond human understanding he exists, and why it is that God is even beyond human morality.
And we can’t help but notice that God claims for himself the right to “Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low.”
It is, after all, more than a little arrogant to place the Creator in judgment.
God would and did destroy people and nations in order to preserve the higher good. The higher good is to give the most people the opportunity to be saved. In his estimation the Amalekites would have tempted far more away from God by their negative influence.
My father, who was a conservative Christian, was in the last few months of WW II. He never saw combat, but came out of that war believing as he went in, that just wars a so, so very few and far between. The idea of justifying a war simply because your country is waging it was not enough, as far as he was concerned, for a Christian’s participation. He believed that that there were times when a Christian should try for non-combatant roles. He never supported the Vietnam War. One of his friends lost a son there, who happened to be my friend; he said little about it, but his anger was apparent.
He was also, for a time, against the death penalty. That is until the radicals of the sixties caused him to change his mind; he then accepted it reluctantly. There were many of my father’s generation, it saddens me to say, who let themselves be frightened toward a more conservative position by the left. By then I was totally against the death penalty, and still am.
In all that, I never heard my father go into a discussion or an argument as to what God did or did not do and why. He simply spoke from time to time of God’s way being higher than our ways. However, when it came to peace, the Christian had the way and what makes for peace pointed to by Jesus himself. To that I would like to add, that many churches like to use the popular question and cheer, “What would Jesus do?”, when it comes to what I call the “biggie” morality questions, but that it is not heard at all when it comes to war and the death penalty.
By the way, it would probably surprise many main stream Church of Christ members to find out that the most conservative wing of the CoC, the one cup congregations, take the stand that a Christian cannot participate in war. The ones I have mentioned that to look at me like, “No way; a conservative not believing that a Christian can fight in war?”
Pacifism is a distortion of biblical teaching.
Not only did Jesus, during the Last Supper, tell the disciples to carry a sword. He also told Peter to put his back in the sheath in the Garden of Gethesemane. There is nothing loving about allowing your wife and children to come to harm when you have the power to prevent it.
But what about self-defense? When Jesus told us to turn the other cheek, was he prohibiting Christians from defending their life? I don’t think so. A slap on the cheek is an insult, not a life-threatening attack. We are not to return insult for insult. Self defense is another matter.
Ok, ducking and coveing now!
I think it is an open question as to what extent God chooses to exercise his foresight. In Abraham’s beginning to sacrifice Isaac for example I’m not so sure God knew beforehand what choice Abraham would make. It’s an interesting question but not one we can answer with any certainty.
I was taught at Lipscomb by Batsell Barrett Baxter that taking a human life is wrong because one would either be taking the life of a fellow Christian or of a non-Christian and thereby ending any possibility of his knowing Christ in this life. His reasoning was sound and I have notheard aanything in all these years since to cause me to change my mind. It is instructive that God preserved and protected the life of Cain and did not take his life. That was God’s original will regarding capital punishment.
Can anyone seriously imagine Jesus taking a life during his earthly ministry? Jesus’s rebuke of Peter who cut off the ear of Malchus tells us what Jesus believed and practised regarding violence and the taking of life.
Jay asked, “Think about it. Why is it wrong for humans to murder other humans?”
And Jay is right to ask this of us, I wonder just how many would think of just how many sins one committs when they take another’s life. Count them, here is just a few.
#1 taking something that belongs to another.
#2 breaking “the golden rule”.
#3 judging another being.
Well all the commandments given by God, that is all you do when you take another’s life.
Not to consider you may have condemned this person to “hell”.depending on whether he had made peace with God, before you took away his ability to do so.
As for Jay’s argument that it might possiably be worse to abort a fetus (because of what it might become) than actuall kill a living breathing person, we have an example in scrupture of that very thing, and Jay and God disagree on this matter. If you cause the loss of a fetus,(you pay in cash) if you cause the life of one’s wife, (you pay with your life).
Gary, in response to what Batsell Barrett Baxter said on the subject… If it comes down to a home invader killing my wife, or me killing the home invader, the home invader will lose. Yes, he will have to face God unprepared. But if my wife lives, she’ll convert a dozen or more other people. More people will be saved if she lives than if she dies. Yes, God can intervene to save her life. But maybe I am the means through which God intervenes.
Laymond attributes to Jay the comparison between “abort[ing] a fetus” and “actuall[y] kill[ing] a living breathing person.” You should re-read Jay’s comments – you won’t find that comparison. He only raised the question about the morality of deliberately killing an unborn child. Exodus 21:22 refers to fining the guilty for “accidentally” causing a premature birth but causing “no serious injury.” The text doesn’t just say “no serious injury to the mother.” Death of the child would be “serious injury,” which according to v. 23 is punishable with “life for life.” Keep in mind too that this injury was not a deliberate act intended to kill the unborn child and is therefore not analogous to a deliberate abortion. You would also have a difficult time making a case that the fetus is not “a living breathing person,” especially using this text.
Alan, of course we are all human and in our fallen human frailty we often choose to do otherwise than what Jesus would do. But we should not try to define the will of God by those human inclinations. The hypothetical you set forth is of course understandable but it has nothing to do with capital punishment or carnal warfare. Again I don’t believe we can imagine Jesus taking a human life during his earthly ministry even for self defense.
Tom, I’m certainly no fan of abortion but the historic Jewish understanding was always that life begins with the first breath that is drawn at birth. That is consistent with the account of the creation of Adam (which is the word for mankind or humankind). It cannot be proven from Scripture that a human being with a soul comes into existence before the first breath is drawn.
Tom, I have heard your argument before but it just does not fit the situation, or the penalty. The fine is for the loss of the fetus, the greater penalty, is for the loss of the wife.
Gary
I think it could be argued that many have come to know Jesus when faced with their immediate death. As I think someone famous once said, “There are no atheist when men are facing their impending death… or something to that affect. 🙂
Gary
Adam was simply formed matter before God breathed into him. He wasn’t moving, kicking, sucking his thumb, or having oxygen supplied through a mothers umbilical cord like a babe in the womb.
Monty, do you think the Jews recognized, a fetus, even a living child, or wife as anything except property, if you do you need to read the rest of Exodus 21.
That is the law of Moses that was repealed. Not the commands of God.
Monty, in response to your first comment the possible unintended consequence of an action, even if benefical, does not make the action right. Taking a human life cannot be defended as an evangelistic strategy. Your second comment is well taken but, again, it simply can’t be proven from Scripture that a human being with a soul comes into existence before the first breath is taken. Abortion happened throughout history but no Bible writer in either Testament ever chose to even mention it to my knowledge. The closest is the passage in the Law of Moses that Laymond has mentioned and that regulation undeniably distinguishes between the death of a fetus and the death of a living human being.
In the matter of answering these moral dilemmas, I am of the opinion that most people tend to offer the same answer: “I would do what most reflects my self-interest, as I see it.” (Sorry, but seldom does our answer take us another direction.) Then, we weave elaborate justifications for the action which springs from that answer, in hopes of taking what is essentially selfish and painting a coat of nobility on it. The only real answer for a believer for such a dilemma is to suggest that we do what God is telling us at that moment. This answer has the benefit of placing the responsibility of right-choosing squarely on the only one who can be depended upon to be right every time. Like those little WWJD bracelets, these hypotheticals serve as a reminder of just how much plain guesswork we let govern our lives, when we are not, in real life and real time, led by the Spirit of God.
Guessing about God based on the limited information we have about God is not the same thing as faith in God.
I think God’s question to Job is a fair question…Who would like to step up and question God ? He killed people when he thought it was right in the OT and the New (Anninias & Sapphira)..His angel wiped out 180,000 one night. And a Roman leader died and worms ate him because he didn’t give God the glory… I think I’ll stick with God who can do and/or order done what he chooses. I’ll do my best to decide when not ordered and trust in grace… That being said I don’t see anything wrong with trying to square his instructions about murder and killing with what He did and had done… But, good luck with that.
Gary,
I personally reject Open Theism (God chooses or can’t see the future), but I have to be in a certain kind of mood to discuss in detail — and have much Tylenol at hand.
On the other hand, I’m inclined to question the absoluteness of God’s contingent knowledge — that is, his knowledge of what happens if he intervenes, but it gets real complicated and my head is already starting to hurt …
Gary,
I often find myself in agreement with BBB.
Genesis 22:12, “Now I know that you fear God…” makes it difficult for me to conclude that God does not restrain his foresight. Also Clark Pinnock was one of the best theological minds of our time. So I guess I come down more on the side of Open Theism.
I think most objections to God’s comprehensive foresight come from our objections to certain results which would be attributable to that foresight, results to which WE object, and therefore to which God could not possibly have been a party. Another permutation of judging God by our standards of morality…
By what do we set those “standards of morality” Charles? couldn’t be the “word of God” now could it?
But, if Jesus did not speak the words of God the Father, then we are left to our own permutation.
Gary,
I am amazed by your comment, “It cannot be proven from Scripture that a human being with a soul comes into existence before the first breath is drawn.”
The matter or flesh in the womb then must have just a growth within the body of the mother, similar to a tumor. You indicate that it does not become a life until it breathes air. Is that really the message that God has displayed in scripture? I noticed your comments did not reflect a message in scripture that support your view, you just injected that there was no proof of any position other than yours. I really did not think you would argue with God but, we’ll see. Notice, what God said about matter that was formed in the womb.
(Jer 1:4 KJV) Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.
(Luke 2:21 KJV) And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Named even before conception. A mass of tissue without a life while in the womb?
(Luke 1:41 KJV) And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
(Luke 1:44 KJV) For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
The babe had a knowledge while in the womb which caused a reaction not controlled by the mother that was identified by the mother, as because of the understanding of a message. The mother testified that it was to display the infant’s joy.
.
(Luke 2:21 KJV) And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Jesus was named prior to conception, which surely indicates that he was more than just a mass of flesh while in the womb. He was a separate creation apart from his mother.
(Gal 1:14 KJV) And profited in the Jews’ religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace,
Paul knew that he existed as a complete human, that was not just a growth within his mother prior to his exiting the womb and breathing air. He was a “me” while in the womb, not an it or an extension of his mother.
We can get some understanding of God’s character and his values from the scriptures, but the current practice of judging God by the words about God we read in the canon still presumes a place too big for us. Please note how God responds to Job’s questioning of His acts. He does not explain them, he does not justify himself to Job– he clearly sets himself above Job’s judgment. It is clear from the story that Job got that message. I don’t think we do.
Larry, not every biblical statement is to be taken literally. Was Levi a living human being with a soul when he was in the loins of Abraham, his greatgrandfather, as the Hebrews writer tells us? The Jewish understanding for going on two thousand years has been that life as a complete human being begins with the emergence of the head from the womb or the accompanying drawing of breath. They were well acquainted with the OT passages you cite and see no inconsistency. There is certainly room for different understandings but this subject definitely falls in the realm of opinion and not settled church doctrine. Again not one Bible writer ever saw fit to even mention abortion.
Larry, how could John know the savior from womb to womb, and not know him at baptism.?
Sure God knew what would happen, he also knew Adam would be a man, but the bible says that Adam became a living soul when God furnished him breath.
Gary, when the sixth commandment says, “Do not murder,” it does not offer further specificity. Do not kill old people, women, the left-handed, short people, babies, red-haired little girls. To create an exhaustive list is truly unnecessary. To presume that whomever we find it convenient to exempt from this commandment should be exempted without further guidance from God is the most dangerous form of presumption. Hitler exempted from his list gypsies, homosexuals, Jews…
The current cant is to insist that we not tell a woman what to do with her own body. Arguable, but beside the point entirely. When it is HER body lying dismembered in the tray, that argument will gain relevance…
Charles, you make good arguments but apparently no one in Bible times saw it that way. That’s why I believe we have to leave abortion in the realm of opinion.
Gary wrote,
I have no interest in being drawn into a debate on abortion. I just want to point out that the idea of ensoulment — that God gives infants a soul — is Platonic or Greek, not Jewish and not NT Christian. Rather, “spirit” refers to the life force, being the same word as “breath.” But the Jews generally saw a person as a soul or saw the soul as a part of the person, but not something distinct from the person.
The Holman Bible Dictionary defines “soul” as —
http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T5974
Hence, souls do not pre-exist human existence. Rather, the soul is simply a part of what a human is. A fetus does not receive a soul: it either is or isn’t a soul.
That hardly answers the question by itself, but at least it should help us better speak in biblical terms — and perhaps it points in a direction in which the Bible does speak.
As noted in today’s post, the immortal part of us is not the immortal soul (that’s Plato) but us, if and when God chooses to give us immortality — and this happens when we are saved or, one might say, when we see Jesus. We aren’t conceived or born immortal.
Jay I basically agree with you as I believe we will live in a renewed earth in resurrection bodies through eternity. But the situation between physical death and that time is much murkier. Jesus told the thief on the cross, “Today you will be in Paradise with me.” There is a conscious existence after death but whether we are embodied immediately and, if so, how are mysteries we cannot now understand. Regarding the abortion question there is a fundamental difference between living human tissue and a whole human person- body and soul. Scientists are approaching being able to replicate human organs eventually but, if they are successful, those organs would not have the essence we most often refer to with the word soul.
Gary,
My communication and references in scripture were intended to draw your attention to the fact that God recognized that the fetus in the mother’s womb was not just a blob of tissue, and it definitely was not identified as just an extension of the mother’s body until it emerged. I know of no message in scripture that can be construed to produce the conclusion that the life of a child only begins when the lungs are filled with air. Using examples in the plant world as a comparison we would be bound to say that the sprout of the seed had no life until it emerged from the soil, remember the seed that was planted came to life while in the soil. In fact I don’t believe that you can validate that your concept would be correct in any of nature.
Your theory only serves one purpose, that being to deny that someone aborting a birth is committing a murder. So how many people in the world do you know that would make the statement that if the fetus is still born or is removed from the mother because it has ceased to be active would not say that that fetus had died? In the case above why conduct any kind of burial, just throw it out to the elements like the animals in the wild and allow one of the birds of prey or one of the other means of decomposition to have life from their natural source of food.
I really like for you to show us examples in scripture that support you concept, rather than projecting your assumptions of the knowledge of men that never communicated with you or wrote any messages to that explained this theory with the conclusion that you state.
Laymond,
Are you attempting to correct the mothers understanding of the actions of the children (fetus) in their womb? They were the authors of the explanation of their unborn’s actions. Notice, how your statement contradicts their statements.
“Larry, how could John know the savior from womb to womb, and not know him at baptism.?”
(Luke 1:41 KJV) And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: 42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. 43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
The action of the babe in the womb was definitely not controlled by the mother, yet she knew the purpose for the action. You see you injected the idea of know as if in seeing, not a knowledge of the event of the presents of the Messiah.
What a bunch of BRAINWASHED IDIOTS you christians are.
Mere unquestioning slaves to your belief system…Not one of you has the guts to cast aside all that superstitious garbage of belief you’ve been force fed by your “saviour” and his religion and go 1-on-1 with that God of yours HERE AND NOW 2013, and confront him with His cruelty, lies and inhumanity in what can be the only REAL RELATIONSHIP possible in this hour of our greatest need!
“…a God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his/her/it’s angels painless lives, yet cursed his/her/it’s other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell–mouths mercy, and invented hell–mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!”
Mark Twain – No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger
REBEL YE CHILDREN OF THE UNIVERSE AND JOIN ME IN THE MOVEMENT TO ABOLISH HELL FOREVER NOW!
GIVE THE CREATOR A PIECE OF YOUR MIND, FOR TOGETHER WE AS HUMANITY STAND AS ONE I∞AM
I THANK MY GUARDIAN ANGEL FOR SHOWING ME REAL AND TRUE LOVE AND SO TO ALLOW THIS PREVIOUSLY UNTHINKABLE OPTION TO BECOME A REALITY HERE AND NOW 2013
Khurram, I think you have indeed been contacted by a member of the spirit realm. His master once decided to take up the the place of “I AM” and failed.
In all fairness, this post’s judgment of God may be more harshly-stated, but is no more inappropriate than similar judgments made in more theological terminology. Both offer to apply our own wisdom to what God may or may not do, or what God must or must not be, based on our own moral compasses.
While I admire Samuel Clemens as a writer and observer, his insights into God make for interesting banter, and that’s about it. His later writings, such as “Letters From The Earth”, reflect more the bitterness of his personal losses than any divine revelation. I am reminded of a quote from an earlier writer, who said, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.”