God the First

It's hard for me to feel good about life when the only God I can see is a judgemental, non-caring one.

I never thought much about God growing up, He was just a part of life like cousins I saw on occasion but who never, really, meant much. Later, when I began hearing questioning His existence, I started wondering, considering the possibilities. As the years unspooled, I found little in the Bible to give me any sense of comfort. The God I read about there reminded me of a teenager, jealous and demanding, petty and brooding.

Sure, he was powerful and all that, He gave His son so if I chose I could stay with Him forever, but having seen what He gave me in this life, that wasn't an enticing prospect. Being all-powerful, He could certainly make things much worse for me, but I have trouble worshipping anything merely because the alternative is torture. It's like respect, something which must be earned.

I've said earlier (I think it was the rant about Heaven or Hell), that I'd most likely do anything if you held a gun to my head. That creates obedience, but not respect. I've heard many, many people speak of a loving, generous God who gives them things, but what I've received could just as easily have come from an uncaring one. I guess it's an attitude thing, and the food I eat and the wonders of nature aren't things I see as gifts, they're things I expect and struggle to get.

A God who didn't feed me, or allow me to feed myself, would be a cruel lord, indeed. Creating me just to watch me starve would be a bad thing, so feeding me is closer to necessary than an example of benevolence. There are many people on this planet who are doing very well, who have rich, full lives filled with bounty and happiness, but I think that's more because of how they react to things than because they're receiving gifts. If I were better adjusted, if my attitude was positive, I could probably do okay, too.

One argument that I like has to do with right and wrong. When God, I'm told, created the Commandments He set down our rules for living. My issue has always been that there are things outside of God, bigger than Him if you will. I cannot conceive of any universe where God had any choice about killing, for example. Killing is wrong whether God says so or not, He could not have said it was right, so even allowing everything else I can't picture Him as being all-powerful. Right and wrong, as I understand them, exist independently of Him and his choices.

It was important at one time in my life for me to have a God who loved me, who cared about me. I'd lie and say I had one, but I've never had any close, personal relationship with a diety. The universe I inhabit has some physical laws, including chaos, and random events that I sometimes see as coincidental. What I fail to see is any plan, or even any necessity for one.

People come into my life, and I sometimes entertain or amuse them. If I touch them, it's more on their terms than mine or anyone else's. I'm little more than an object, and no matter what I want or hope for, I see no necessities in any of it. I can have dreams, but they crumble or are met through what I and others do more than through the machinations of any divine hand.

If there is a God, I think his name his Randy. Random Chance.