Entry 882, on 2008-11-04 at 21:46:46 (Rating 4, Religion)
Yesterday I received a short flyer in my snail mail asking me if I would really like to "know the truth". It went on to list some specific questions which I might want to know the truth about. These included: does God really care about us, will war and suffering ever end, what happens to us when we die, is there any hope for the dead, how can I pray and be heard by god, and how can I find happiness in my life.
Yes, it was propaganda from the Jehovah's Witnesses so it had nothing to do with the truth. The thing that first intrigued me was the question of what was the target audience for this proselytizing. Obviously it wasn't the evil atheists like myself because you aren't likely to be successful in convincing an atheist of the validity of your points when your first question is based on the very doubtful assumption that god exists.
So presumably this is aimed at people who already have a religious disposition. Maybe its part of the infighting between various religious groups as the try to steal each other's followers. My other thought was why this instead of the personal door to door approach? I always look forward to visitors trying to convince me that their beliefs are true because it gives me a chance to try to reverse the roles and try to convert them to atheism!
Anyway, getting back to the flyer. They ask where would a good place be to find answers to these questions then go on to say that there are many books but they contradict each other then become rapidly outdated. So they go on to suggest the most contradictory and outdated book of all: the Bible! I mean, who are these people trying to kid? Do they really not see that the Bible is the worst source of the same flaws they accuse other books of being afflicted with? Apparently not, but self examination is not a strong point of most Christians in my experience.
So I'll choose one question (and its alleged answers) to discuss here because I just don't have the time to go through them all. The question is the big one: "does God really care about us". Apparently the Bible teaches that God never causes anything that is wicked and that God has a loving purpose for humans. They provide a few Bible verses which they claim support this contention. Well I could find just as many that contradict it so this proves nothing.
How would we really tell whether God cares about humans? Well we couldn't, of course, because the question is far too non-specific. Before we try to answer this question we need to define what sort of god we are talking about (and don't just say the Christian God because there are thousands of different versions of that). Then we have to say what standard of care we should expect. Many Christians point out that we would get really sick of a god who protected us form every little possible cause of harm, but where would that end? Should we expect this god to protect us form horrible diseases, war, famine, etc, or not?
And the final question is under what circumstances does God offer this care? The question just mentions humans in general, not Christians, or good people, or people who pray a lot, or people who have some connection with Jesus, or anything else. Somehow I don't think God's care is supposed to cover just anyone. Maybe its sort of like an insurance policy where the person has to pay his "premium" of some suitable form of obsequiousness.
If you define the question as: "does god, who is supposed to be omnipotent and omniscient, care about us in a way which makes sense to most people?" the answer would have to be no. If god knows everything and can do anything then he doesn't have the excuse that he isn't responsible for bad things in the world. If he's omnipotent then he could stop whatever does cause the bad things. If he's omniscient then he knows about them so why doesn't he do something? So god can't really be all those things: omniscient, omnipotent and good.
The excuse that god is good but in a way we can't understand is just that: an excuse. If this "goodness" is in a form which seems contrary to everyone's usual beliefs then it just doesn't make sense.
So I'm afraid the Witnesses' propaganda doesn't really reveal the truth. It only creates a lot more questions than those it naively tries to answer. Next time they visit in person I must remember to tell them all about it. Helping out religious freaks is just another service I offer!
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