Are You a God-Fearing Person?
by Randy Gage
It’s fascinating how different people can look at the same concept and see two wildly different things. Take the concept of fearing god. You don’t hear it as much today (thankfully), but when I was growing up people would vouch for someone’s character by saying things like “He’s a God-fearing man.”
And certainly today you’ll still find many people who are proud to identify as god-fearing. Last post I stated that I was an atheist, but if there were a god, I wouldn’t obey it. You can read that post to see my reasons. But let’s go deeper and explore this concept of fearing god…
I always begin any rational discussion of a theory by questioning the premise. And that leads me to the question that is there was a god, why would it want me to fear it? I believe if it was a benevolent god, it would want me to love it, not fear it.
So, if there was a god, I might fear it, but I certainly wouldn’t take any pride in that. I would view that fear as a sensible precaution against a powerful enemy, or an acknowledgement I was subjugating myself and giving away my power for free thinking, rationality and self-determination. If you take pride in the fact that you fear god and believe that makes you a better person, I hope that works for you. Just don’t see it working for me.
Thoughts?
-RG
Originally published at https://www.randygage.com on August 14, 2019.
