A lot of the criticism aimed at God leaves out what the people are like, as if
they're so selflessly good with their free will that He doesn't have the right
to do anything to spoil their perfection. We know God can't be all-beneficent,
but people are in the see-able, touchable range, so we ought to know they
aren't, either.
Think of the God > people/people > animals analogy again and imagine the
criticism warranted for the bad human behavior of believers and non-believers
described at the 1st big batches of links on p.43 at the next link (and there's
enough in various categories beyond that to fill pages with links).
http://gtw6437.tripod.com/id58.html
A person could get pretty cynical about what the bad behavior of a lot of
people seems like to them (Mark Twain joked that they're less than animals--"The
Reasoning Animal"). And that's to an equal quality being--imagine how it must
look to a much higher quality being. We might debate about when a person has
the right to use a weapon on an equal quality being, but He's in a position to
pull the plug on anyone with impunity and you don't think He should because
people are too good? Me, you, and Mark Twain are allowed to get cynical about
people and God can't? Why--He's some kind of omnipotent moron? I'd figure it
was a concept of an airhead if He couldn't.
You don't feel there's been a fair trial till you've looked at it from both
sides before rendering judgment.
Imagine it the other way around, from the view of the God of the God concept.
He gives everyone life, and what do they do for Him?--ruin the Earth with global
warming to what could be within a century of mortal destruction. He may be
amused to think that He doesn't need to create an Armageddon--they're hell-bent
on taking out everyone, good or bad, on their own and saving Him the trouble.
A person may eat hamburger, never rescue an animal from a pound, medical lab,
or the farm of a food processing plant, never keep a pet in their house let
alone house a vagrant, yet they think they're a nice person and others think
they are, too--they think it's that person's prerogative. But the same person
insists God has to want every lesser being like themself live forever in His
house--why? You wouldn't, and neither would I. Think about some of those peo-
ple you'd have to have around forever you wouldn't want to spend a minute with,
and they're equal quality beings. (That's why I wrote in an earlier post that
He'd want to change the name of the place to Hell.)
Plug it into the analogy. A guy has a ranch. The brown cows are killing the
yellow cows are killing the the white cows are killing the cows that go "Moo"
are killing the cows that don't go "Moo"--they just shake those bells around
their necks. And a guy goes by the ranch and says, "That rancher is no good to
me--I wouldn't believe in him unless he had all those cows live in his house."
(Notice at this juncture that guy sounds like a moron.) And the rancher is
thinking, "That's unfortunate, because I was thinking a hamburger would go good
about now." Of course, he'd kill it before he cooked it. And that's how it
works. It's something like that.
When you think of the God of the Bible, imagine how that analogy works back
and forth, not just one way, and sometimes it can help you get the intended
idea.
