Observation 1: It's all in God's hands. God is omniscient and omnipotent. He created the world in six days, and he created man by blowing into dirt (Genesis 2) or simply willing him and woman into existence at the same time (Genesis 1).
Observation 2: God plants a tree in the garden of Eden. This it the Tree of Knowledge, and it grows apples. Side observation: God apparently hates Avalon and King Arthur.
Observation 3: God - the omniscient, all knowing god, who by virtue of being all knowing would see both the past, the present, and the future, tells Adam and Eve not to eat the apples from the tree or they will die, and then goes away.
Observation 4: Snake convinces Eve to eat the apple by telling her that they won't die. Eve, like the good wife she is, shares the knowledge with her husband. Neither die, proving the snake right and God wrong. God comes back, apparently learns that Adam and Eve disobeyed, and is shocked. Commence to exiling and the root of all sin.
Conclusion: God set Adam and Eve up for the fall because he's a gigantic jerk, or needs a new title because he is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. As an omniscient being, God knows everything, including what has been and what will be. That's what "all-knowing" means. Yet, somehow, God did not know that Adam and Eve would eat the apple, despite being timeless and all-knowing. Either God set them up and then punished them - and us by extension - because he's a gigantic jerk (seriously, he knew what would happen and he did it anyway? That's not a test. That's sadistic), or he genuinely did not know what would happen and therefore is not omniscient, or all-knowing. Alternatively, God is bound, like the Norse gods, to a inevitable fate of his own design and couldn't defy the eventual fate of planting the tree in the garden, leading to man kind's fall. Thus, God is omniscient, but not omnipotent, or all powerful, to be handicapped by a great design. And even if he did create the design, and this major puppet show, he's still an asshole for following it through knowing what would happen, and then punishing us for doing what he knew we would do all along, rather than stepping in and stopping us like any good parent would.
And note: This is deducted from the very first chapter. If your book has this many problems in its very first chapter, you fire the copy editor.
Trashing the Rapture myth in several easy steps:
Observation 1: God is omniscient and omnipotent. Never mind this business about a loving God; there's no way a loving God could punish someone for an eternity, and because that vengeance fantasy is at the heart of Rapture "Tehalogee" (intentionally misspelled), it plays no role.
Observation 2: God encrypted the myth about the Rapture in the Bible, in texts that have to be read a certain way, out of order, and taken "literally" in a way that defies what the dictionary has to say about "literal". Thus, these events are predetermined; they will happen, and in that order, because God is making sure of it.
Observation 3: The Antichrist is the ultimate enemy of God, and so is Satan. God is all powerful. Satan and the Antichrist are not (because God can condemn them to Hell). So God gives control of the world to Satan during the Rapture for the purpose of punishing him and humanity. Query 1: Can an omnipotent being even give up control, and Query 2: If he does, he is no longer omnipotent (Because he doesn't control everything, and isn't all powerful), which means he would no longer be an omnipotent God and therefore is not in total control of everything from beginning to end, to ensure that they play out as dictated. Rapture Myth: Debunked.
Observation 4: [continuing from the line of "thought" prior to the Queries in Observation 3]. The Antichrist assumes control over the world. But God is in control over the scenario. God stops him, and condemns him and his followers to Hell for an eternity.
Conclusion: It's a lie. It doesn't even have internal consistency. If God is in control of everything, then that means God is controlling both Satan and the Antichrist, which would mean that any attempt to stop the Antichrist and save the world would require directly confronting God, because God is behind it all. Satan cannot be "all-power" or as powerful as God is, because God is omnipotent. Even if God had a design he created at the beginning of time and is bound to that design, he's asshat for following it through, because he knows how it will end. And because he knows how it will end, why bother? He becomes an even more enormous one when he condemns people to hell for something they never had control over to begin with, including the Antichrist and Satan. This is the equivalent of punishing the puppets for a horrible puppet show and not the puppeteer.
Also: Why the hell is Satan even going through with it? There's enough movie and television shows out there now so that Satan should be pretty well aware that God is in total control in this scenario and dictating everything, he can't win. Satan's best option in this situation, providing he's somehow as all-powerful as an all-powerful entity, is to become Orcus and do nothing. He'd be utterly stupid not to. Sit this one out on your throne, Satan. There can't be a birthday party if the birthday boy never shows up.
Ultimate Conclusion: Fundism promotes determinism. Which means that they should all sit down and shut the hell up about anything in this Material universe, from the rise of "evil" in the form of equality to abortion to global warming - all of it. God is in control. He's doing all of it. God is behind every abortion. God is behind gay marriage. God is behind it all, because he's building towards the Rapture, and acting against it is acting against God's intentions. Right?
Alternative Conclusion: Rapture myth is a stupid myth, and Fundism is a stupid myth [/tautology].
No comments:
Post a Comment