Whose Idea Was This Anyway?
Did We ASK To Be Created?
A Silly Story
Why did god create us? With all the billions of galaxies and planets in the universe, what was the need for one more? What was the need for life? And most importantly, what was the reason for human life?
As a new Christian in a distant other life, I remember it being explained that god created Adam and Eve because he was lonely, and wanted someone “in his own image” to commune with. So I imagined what this would have looked like if all had gone according to plan: Adam and Eve living blissfully in the Garden, having children, and everyone, god included, living as one happy family in paradise.
But it didn’t happen that way. We screwed it up. Because we were disobedient, vain, and stupid enough to be fooled by Satan. So the bond between us and god was broken. We were not worthy of god, and deserved to spend eternity away from him in torment. Only by the blood of Jesus were some of us able to reunite with god and look forward to eternal bliss in his company.
It all made sense until I thought about it.
Wait a Minute
At first I had no trouble believing this whole story. My excuse? I was 17. As I grew up, and several years later grew out of Christianity, I began to look at this explanation from another perspective — ours. Because the story I had been told was entirely from god’s perspective and about god’s needs. We were just instruments of his desire who mattered not in our own right. Except when it came to taking responsibility for the whole mess.
God set us up to fail.
Had we asked to be created? As far as we know, we were just another non-entity in blissful oblivion. Then out of the blue, here we were in corporal bodies on this weird planet where living things had to eat each other to survive. And we were stupid, prideful, vain creatures who were no match for Satan on his worst day.
But how had we gotten that way? How had that stupidity, pride, and vanity gotten into our nature? We certainly didn’t put it there, because after all, we hadn’t created ourselves.
So either god made us that way deliberately or he did it by mistake. God, we are told, doesn’t make mistakes. Obviously then, he made us that way on purpose. When it comes to being a worthy companion to him, god set us up to fail.
A Cruel Plan
Christians are taught that the redemption Jesus brought to us was all part of a master plan in which god would choose a remnant of his cursed creatures as his favorites and re-establish the bond with us that was lost in the Garden. Then there will be this New Heaven and New Earth, both of which will somehow be like paradise.
Different churches envision this plan differently. One of the most horrific is found in white evangelical circles, involving an anti-Christ, a world war, and a rapture of white evangelicals followed by the tribulation — the global torment and slaughter of all of us not on that favorites list.
Is this any way to run a world?
None of this is our fault. Our only sins are against each other. We do not need to cosmically atone for this mess. That is all on you, Yahweh.
Why not just create us with a better nature — one which would enable us to commune with our creator as he desired. It’s here that the Free Will Caucus will chime in, explaining that god does not want us to love him because we have no choice. He wants us to choose to love him. We must freely choose to renounce our original sin and our rebellious nature, opting instead to accept our responsibility for the fallen world and Jesus’ forgiveness for ruining creation.
God would not value our love for him if we had no other choice, if it was just our inborn nature to do so. He wants us to choose to love him out of fear of spending eternity in hell. After all it’s a free choice, isn’t it?
And so we have the disaster that is humanity on Planet Earth.
Prisoners of a Holy Lie
When we’re young it’s easy enough to believe what adults teach us. If we’re lucky, we can think that the world is a wholly tolerable place, or even a wonderful one, where the really bad things only happen to people far away whom we do not know.
None of us reach middle age with such illusions.
Christians try to explain away the horrific side of life that does not spare even god’s favorites. It’s a lesson that god is teaching us. It’s a test god is putting us through. It’s a purification ritual to strengthen our faith. And if all else fails, it’s god’s mysterious will.
In any case, the reason for our suffering is said to be for some purpose of god’s. It’s happening to us because there is some reason god needs it to happen. And it’s a good thing because anything god wants is good.
As for us, we don’t matter. We are only pawns in god’s huge master plan. We only exist for god’s pleasure.
No Thank You
I don’t claim to know any grand purpose for life and the universe. But I know which explanation I will not accept. I do not accept that we were created as a slave species for an abusive god who threatens us with eternal torment if we refuse to love him. I believe that despite all our failings, humans do matter for our own sake.
And this is precisely where I break with the god of the Bible. We didn’t ask to be created. We didn’t request such a morally dubious nature. Neither did we design this thousands-years-long twisted plan to somehow turn it around.
None of this is our fault. Our only sins are against each other. We do not need to cosmically atone for this mess. That is all on you, Yahweh.
