Is Man Created Good by God?
[thoughts from ~burning woman~ ]
I’m still in this time of introspection and questioning. Deep questions should reveal deep answers, if we dare go to the bottom of the well our mind has dug. It’s a terrible place where the air is bad, the light almost non-existent and the smell horrible. But someone on a serious journey of discovery cannot avoid such places: they often hide much truth.
Now then, let’s consider this quote from “Les Miserables” (Victor Hugo)
“Can the man created good by God be rendered wicked by man? Can the soul be completely made over by fate, and become evil, fate being evil? Is there not in every human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish?”
Incredible assumptions are made by the writer in that quote. Just on the first line, let’s consider two points. Can the man made good by God be rendered, etc. The question that comes to mind immediately is, who says man is made good by God? Obviously someone who has no concept of who the literal, biblical God is. That God, as even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals, is evil. He is a genocidal maniac; a megalomaniac who possesses a neurotic need to be adored and worshipped by creatures he terrorizes if they won’t bow to him, and threatens with eternal torment in a lake of burning sulfur.
According to statistics drawn from biblical accounts, coupled with conservative extrapolations where no actual count is available, for example the story of God annihilating the entire population of the earth in a global flood, God is responsible for the killing of close to twenty-five million people on this world since Genesis. Add to that an embarrassing ten instances of God using, or condoning, torture in the Bible.
Surprised? For starters, he says to Eve, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”* In the poorest countries where there is little or no health care facilities one in every ten woman dies in childbirth. Enough? Not quite. The divine tantrum is still blazing, so it’s the man’s turn: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life, it will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken...”
A simple “gift” of forgiveness would have changed the history of man, of the world and we wouldn’t be where we are today. But thanks to the inspired, inerrant, word of God, the Bible is more than proud to give us insight into the real nature of God, thus explaining why man is in the mess he’s in today – and has always been – a mess he cannot seem to extricate himself from.
At the very beginning of the LORD God’s appearance in Genesis he delights in revealing his sociopathic nature and however you turn it, it does not look at all to me like unconditional love. That “divine nature” by default is man’s nature because it was that LORD God who made man in his own “image” – and surely the “good book” is not alluding to man’s physical properties, but to his spiritual and mental awareness and subsequent behaviour; his propensity to do evil. Man is the godling; son and inheritor of God’s mental makeup. Man, from inception, was endowed with a defective reasoning mechanism that would lead to all the man-made horrors history reveals and lay them all at our own feet today, all 7.2 billion of us, to stupidly stare at and wonder where to go from here.
All of the above is according to the good book. No one is forced to believe that. There is no question that man is evil to the core, but that need not be because he was created to be that way by some god. It may have come to him some other way. It’s just that I’m following through on the serve by Victor Hugo above and that serve is based on his faith in the biblical God.
That said, let’s consider the next statement, “Can the soul be completely made over by fate, and become evil, fate being evil?” Another huge jump into murky waters whose depths are quite unknown! Who says “fate” is evil? And why must it be so? Well, likely because Mr. Hugo was Catholic and Catholicism has no use for fate – nor does the rest of Christianity for that matter. Is the thinking here that God has no control over “fate” thus it has to be evil?
So, if not fate, then faith, correct? I imagine there’s a difference between these twins but I’ve never discovered it. One’s as good as the other and neither can guarantee a lottery win. It’s a funny thing, God doesn’t leave things to chance (fate) yet his whole creation, once it included Edenic-made man, was nothing if not a crap shoot, and remains so. Never once, no matter how much he threatened, cajoled and slaughtered his sheeple did he have any control over this little world. That in itself should cause one’s head to shake. Omnipotence and gross mismanagement at one and the same time? What? Oh, yes, some will exclaim “free will” and maybe even throw in the Devil for good measure. Sure, and if my grandma had wheels, she’d be a wagon. Only a self-empowered individual can have free will and in a God-ruled universe, that’s a total contradiction. Where you get threatened with eternal fiery torture for eternity there can be no free will. Could a Satan have free will? Not in a God controlled sphere – unless, and here’s the capper, God created Satan specifically to introduce “sin” into the world so God could then experiment with pride, greed, control freakishness, bigotry, hate, torture, scapegoatism, and skipping a whole segments of other divine attributes, genocide, not only in Genesis but at the very end of history, in Revelation. In other words God needed to vicariously experience suffering, pain, bloodshed and endless death from helpless victims to get his kicks. That’s what the Bible reveals. Who am I to contradict inspired Scripture?
Third assumption: “was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish?” Another giant step into the myth. God or no God, man is what he is. Faith or no faith, history reveals splendidly that man is the same, but for rare exceptions incidentally found on all sides of the fence, or fences that encompass and define man. If man turns to evil, it’s because he is predisposed and programmed to do so from inception. If man turns to good, it’s because he chooses to be good – a usually difficult choice if we consider what it means to be good in what is essentially an evil world. Even Jesus questioned the label as applied to himself – now that should say something about it. The sinless Son of God made man does not accept the label of “good” for himself? Ouch! He does however pass it on to his God by saying, “Only God is good.” Well, bless my soul, who’d have thought it, that doing overt evil means being good. Now Hitler’s the good guy and Gandhi is a monster. I suppose, if one believes in God, that would make sense. Perhaps because Hitler was a Christian and Gandhi, well, just another damned pagan idol worshipper.
No Victor, if man is imprinted with God’s image, whether created, cloned or slapped together from mud, history paints the true r picture: man’s nature is evil. He is not born with any divine spark or element that good can fan, ignite and made to glow with splendor. No, he is born with a twisted mind which opportunity will certainly fan, ignite and turn to evil which as his power increases, turns to greater evil. He will seek power for himself over others and will use that power, however much he can garner, to climb over others and crush them in the dirt. Look at people in government; the military-industrial complex; the corporations, the medical cartels, the various professions: doctors, lawyers, judges, police, scientists, academics who use their positions, knowledge, power, to manipulate minds, devising parochial, bigoted theories on race, inventing false diseases, killing in cold blood, brainwashing, manipulating, lying to, and controlling while sucking the lifeblood out of clients, patients, workers, and taxpayers. Look at those who become billionaires preaching “the word” to masses of ignorant sheeple who believe them and hand over their money as marks hand over money to midway conmen.
Not true of the majority? Then look at the “common” man who is too lazy or ignorant to bother. This man becomes a scorner, a mocker, a jeerer at sports events; a wife-abuser, drug-user, alcoholic and bully. He is the one who writes anonymous comments filled with racial hatred, gender slurs and death threats on emails and the Internet. He’s the one who cruises the porn sites and if he gets the chance, he’s the one who travels to the dark cities of the world to find child prostitutes. If he doesn’t do ‘em, he thinks ‘em.
Perhaps he’s not always this blatantly evil. Just another Archie Bunker who goes to his job, mocks fellow workers or clients and customers on the side, for the fun of it, no harm intended you understand, then simply commutes home to sit in front of the TV to watch stand-up comedians do best and get paid for, what he does himself, or complain about everything or say nothing and doze. Mr. Nobody driving his noisy brand new pickup through residential streets, or boom-box blaring from some beat-up rent-a-wreck; or driving an over-sized motor home from nowhere to nowhere, stopping at pre-selected sites to watch favorite sit-coms on TV or gamble. Perhaps he’s that driven type who puts his kids through every sport, egging them on to win at any and all costs, teaching them the value of a competitive edge even if it means breaking the rules or resorting to violence. Nothing wrong with that, just don’t get caught: that’s stupid. A good father (or mother) in other words. The not-so-silent silent majority that has little or no concern for the condition of its world or the people caught in the gears of the machine fed by consumerism.
And how can they not know? Of course they know, but their teeny-weeny little brains are capable of few choices and choose not to engage these things: they’re not pleasant, they don’t make you laugh and they don’t promise prosperity or free salvation so they are to be avoided. As Edith used to say about Archie: “With Archie, you don’t talk about religion, politics or anything else.” And that is how the sheeple within their pseudo-democracies lost even the little “freedom” these fake systems offered them. They’re gone and the sheeple stand staring at the fading billboard. And in America, in keeping with the programming, they defend torture and torturers because they believe it’s done to safeguard their freedom!
And who taught them? Their God, in the Bible, the inspired, inerrant Word of God. (Within that theme) no one but God has that kind of power and authority over souls. No one can give a better example of what divine love actually translates as. And little programmed puppet man has no difficulty understanding that kind of love, no problem exercising it. When confused as to who is a believer and who is not, just follow the example of that Papal legate in Beziers when that city was conquered by Papal forces: "Kill them all, God will know those who are his." Where's the problem?
Do I sound angry? Yes, I'm angry that I was lied to for so long and that in my ignorance I bought it. I am angry because the scam continues to poison the earth and millions die each year because of it and I'm helpless against it.
*According to UN statistics, mortality rates related to childbirths are 1 in 8 in Afghanistan; 1 in 8000 in the US, 1 in 14,000 in Canada (rounded figures). (Again, within my chosen theme) God is not done cursing women in childbirth, especially in war-torn low-income countries where much of the ravage results from abysmally ignorant inter-faith conflict ostensibly entered into for the greater glory of "Yawallah." (My coined name for the Jewish/Christian/Muslim God of war and sacrificial bloodshed)
“Was man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing.” (Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Sadly You (All) Will Find It Out:
The Universe Is Never Ending Sewer
And IT Ends On Planet Earth
IT Is Last Stop In Universe!
Man (Humans)Is Are Totally Irrelevant...
TRASK...
I much prefer the path of John Lennon when he wrote, "Imagine." But then, John was assassinated by a Jesus freak.
As always, extremely well thought out and cogent ideas. You must publish these essays in a book for history will prove them very valuable.
Ron
Love ya!
Jane