GBO, That was an amazing post and you brought up several fascinating points for me.
A few things:
First: How insecure is God that he needs to ask his creations if they love him or not, also making a choice between loving Him and loving themselves. WHy can't they love both? Why does loving God mean that you have to totally negate yourself?
Why should we have to negate ourselves? What is the historical significance of said?
To me, the story of God casting out Lucifer is a clear demonstration to any would-be objectors of their impending fate should they ever dissent. This seems to have obviously come from Men, not God. Please be advised (everyone) that this and everything else I'm about to post is only my own OPINION. If I too am a creature of God, why would I not hold myself in the same esteem as all other living things?
Second: What kind of love does God want? If given the choice between being cast out of heaven and faking loving god, how many angels simply lied to God? Does he want that kind of fake love?
Always a stuck point for me as well. What kind of weak diety would want nodding heads? Everyone knows you can't force love or alleigance. Threaten someone with the withdrawal of a priveledge like eternal life and they'll likely agree to almost anything.
Third: Is Love something that can be chosen? If one does not love god for any reason, is there really a choice to be made, and if it isnt a choice, is it punishable? DOesn't the fact of my love for god rest on god? Why should one be punished for not loving a god that is for whatever reason unworthy of it? Wouldn't the best solution not be to cast the unlovers from heaven but getting at the root of why they don't and solving that? It seems that god created the angels so that they could inflate his ego and nothing more, that kind of diety gets no respect from me.
Again, this simply doesn't pass the smell test. This simply says, "Don't question authority, not ever, or you suck." Parents do wrong things sometimes, teachers do, politicians do. Priests and people in all sorts of position of authority must be questioned lest we tender to them a degree of trust not warranted by their behavior (!
. Even God? I don't know. I DO know that there is no MAN'S version of God that I accept wholesale. The fact that God has been represented very badly by man does not prove his non-existance to me, it only proves the fallibility of man to describe his ideas. Blind followers of any ideal lend nothing to it's realism.
Fourth: I admire Lucifer much more than Michael. Lucifer has values, he realizes that simply being the creator does not automatically give God the right to being loved. He understands real logical justice, and that the self is the most important thing to anyone, without the self, there is nothing more. The self is the irriducible primary of anyones world, it is the essence of their personal experience. Without loving one's self, there can be no possibility to love another. And loving another is not something that can be commanded, love comes from a reaction to certain values, it is not a cause, it is an effect. And when the cause is missing, then faking the effect is totally empty. Maybe Michael and the rest of the angels on his side really did love god, maybe they didn't. I certainly don't believe anyone could love another is it meant the total renunciation of themsleves.
I do understand that you are saying "If this happened at all, this is my reaction", but I am unable to comment on this at all because I see the whole thing as allegorical. The whole reason why for many, religion and agnosticism or atheism seem diametrically opposed is in the reverence for or admonishment of self. Those who believe in the denial of self will always see those who believe in the reverence of self as sinners and hedonists. Those who see self-love as a sign of evolution and clarity will see those in self-denial as retarded socially or given to mythology.
In my opinion, all religion and spirituality stems from man's uneasiness with not understanding the world, his own existence, and the complex nature of the universe.
Yes, we have a winner! The more one researches what was going on in the world during the time when their own religion was in it's "formative years", the more one must accept this undeniable truth.
who wants to believe that when they die, they will be no more? Who wants to believe that in the end, Hitler and Mother Teresa enjoy the same fate? IS that fair? No. But maybe the truth is that the universe is not fair, it is not concerned with human existence. The world doesn't revolve around us, we are insignificant to the universe. Who the fuck wants to live their life believing that? I do because I believe it is true, and truth trumps all other things. I would rather have a sad truth than a happy lie. Most other people don't.
Here is where I just begin to understand religion. That we share a common bond of sorts seems obvious. Most people share the understanding of concepts like "truth" and "fairness" even though we disagree about what these things entail. We share the knowledge of "judgement" and "responsibility" as well as what it means to lie and steal. In our inability to reconcile concepts like "injustice" and "why bad things happen to good people" which violates our sense of fairness, we insert religion. Once again, just my opinion, but it seems history bears this out.
How frequently throughout history has religion been brought out to "end all debate" about what is and is not real? Nothing is more absurd to me than the flat assertion that one set of mythologies is obviously true and far superior to all other sets of mythologies. Even the belief that all mythologies are definitely untrue based on the flaws contained therein seems a stretch for me. I have no idea what the truth is, so I leave room for any eventuality to be proven right, in the mean time I don't give a fuck. What I DO know is that the Iquisition was wrong, the Salem Witch trials were wrong, every war waged in the name of God was wrong, and trotting out God as a figurehead to advance a political agenda is wrong. Poor God, he really doesn't get to answer for himself now that he has so many translators, now does he?
Further, hatred of our brothers is wrong, judgement based on superficiality is wrong, minding other people's business is wrong, and anyone arguing for their right to mind MY business is stupid and foolhardy. I won't give any credibility to a non-credible viewpoint, or I'd be as batshit insane as they are. Not my problem. Having an opinion doesn't make one worthy of respect!
God either is or is not. If God IS, then he IS God, which would indicate to me that He is not riddled with insecurities and can handle my questions. If He is not, then my questions are not trivial.
