A Common Rebuttal

 You think you know better than God!?

There is a common narrative that says all people who question, who are non-believers, are just people who are too weak, spiritually speaking. They lack faith and they are arrogant and selfish, believing they know better than God does. 

While sitting with my grandparents last Sunday, they had some preacher program on TV and this man, named Charles Stanley was an old fogey who struggled to make a point of any kind, and one of his BIG messages of the day was about people who lack faith and who dare question the word of GOD!!! He was talking about how wrong it is to EVER go against the word of God, saying things about how humans should not be making any decisions of their own. Everyone needs to be reading the Bible to find the answer to all decisions in life, before making them. He used an example of Moses (it was a story I was not familiar with) where Moses made a hasty decision when he saw one of Pharaoh's men beating up a Hebrew. He stepped in and broke up the fight and defended the Hebrew and for this he was punished and sent away from the palace where he had to go to get a job as a sheep herder. This pastor likened this to Moses reacting to an event instead of just letting God’s plan work, in the big picture which was his big mistake. He painted Moses as a bad decision maker in this story because he had the audacity to decide to intervene in this event, not realizing that in a few years time God was going to liberate the Jews. I’m sorry, what!? This preacher was talking to his congregation about how we can’t be like Moses or we will all face the consequences of reacting to a small event instead of seeing the big picture. That’s why we need to NEVER trust ourselves to make any decisions in life without first consulting the Bible, because the answers to every possible question in life are in there. This man said Moses was wrong for stepping in when a man was being beaten. Here is a link to that sermon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hojII58_6s

This is a perfect example of how the church brainwashes people into NEVER questioning the Bible. I sat there, working with my grandpa on a puzzle, listening to this awful sermon. Grandpa chiming in here and there about what a trusted Bible scholar this guy is and how he knows a guy who knows a guy who met this preacher once. I realize that my grandparents are too old fashioned to ever entertain the notion of any preacher being full of shit, let alone the Bible being a big steaming pile. I respect them as elders who were raised in a different time and we will NEVER have a conversation about it. That said, I was totally grossed out listening to that crap on TV and it couldn’t end soon enough. I mean, what a terrible example to illustrate a terrible point. Moses deserves to be kicked out of the palace and God allowed it to happen because Moses was fucking up his master plan by meddling and stopping a man from being beaten mercilessly when he already planned to free the jews in a few years? Sure, keep telling me how the Bible is the moral authority… That makes ZERO SENSE!!!

The evidence for the Bible being true is not that the Bible is true because it says so in the Bible. That’s the exact same thing as agreeing without evidence that there is massive voter fraud simply because Trump said there was. 

If you have been a practicing christian or ever had a deep conversation with one you will quickly learn that they believe without any shred of a doubt that The Bible is the one and only true religious text and that there is NO other path to God except through Jesus. They would swear the lives of their children on it being true. They believe with every fiber of their being that theirs is the right religion. 

The thing is, all dogmatic religions are this way; especially abrahamic religions. They all believe (and are willing to go to war over it) that theirs is the true God and the one correct way to live. I mean, might I suggest that all ways are sort of the right way and that’s good enough? You will never convince a Muslim that his God is not the true God. You will never convince a Christian that his God is not the one true God. Same with Jewish people. Technically, they all have the same stories and worship the same God, but that’s besides the point. They all refuse to acknowledge each others’ religions as in any way possibly true. It's really odd. I’d say they’re all sort of right and otherwise pretty wrong.