Picking Some Intense Christian Boogers

To begin, this post is for people who know a decent amount about Christianity already. If you don’t, please look into it, then come back here. This should not be your knowledge source. I’m a person who feels the need to express myself, and I am expressing myself about a religion that I have been within my whole life. This post is mainly for expression as is my entire blog really. I don’t know if what I think and feel is right. I know Christians would say it isn’t. My whole life, I have called myself a Christian, but right now, I am allowing everything that doesn’t sit right and that keeps me from being fully devoted to merge to the surface. I am Christian, but I don’t want to be. And I haven’t wanted to be for quite some time. Yet, here I still am.

You can disagree with everything that I’ll say here. That’s alright. Maybe I even disagree and don’t know it yet. Please don’t tell me that all these questions are things that many people have, but we just have to have faith. That is forever tiring. These problems are huge. When you say that, it’s like a booger that can’t get out. The mucus covers the dirt that needs get out, but it’s still just stuck to each person’s nose hairs for the world to see anyway while no one says anything to each other. I’m tired of hearing it, and I’m tired of looking at your boogers. I, for one, find it hard to ignore. You’re trying to save face, and failing. Your nose has boogers. My nose has boogers too, but at least I’m not living in denial about it. This is not just about “having doubts”. I don’t think “doubt” is a strong enough word to express the inner turmoil of everything or the treachery of an un-picked booger. There’s no way I could cover everything in one blog post. Heck, my blog posts are long enough as it is. But I’ll do my best to explain the main issues.

Basically, I’m not one to be submissive. I never have been, and at the moment, I am doubtful that I ever will be. Christians believe that we should submit to God in everything. Many believe that wives should submit to their husbands, children to their parents, and anyone in “authority” over you. If you know me well, you’ll know my stance on marriage and that I don’t believe that a husband should be in authority over his wife. This is not something I would ever enforce as a rule. It is very unlikely that this will be put into practice in my own marriage. Anyway, submission and obedience seem to be big aspects of Christianity that I have never been able to follow, and never agreed with. My parents tried to force obedience from me, but the heart wasn’t there. The funny thing about me when I was growing up was that I obeyed my parents’ wishes behind their back because I felt like it would be dishonest if I didn’t. But in front of their face? Heck, no. I wasn’t going to follow a direct order. Especially if their only explanation was “Because I said so.” That is probably the most exasperating thing you can tell a curious person who doesn’t believe in the value of obedience for the sake of obedience.

 Just because I was unfortunate enough to be born into a world where the problem of authority has always seemed to exist does not mean that I have ever really had respect for authority for authority’s sake. I have followed the rules often enough either because I actually agreed with them, or simply because I didn’t want to go to jail, get an F on my paper, get a spanking, or lose someone’s trust in me. But I don’t think I have ever followed an order simply because whoever gave it was in authority and I should respect their position. Last time I checked, I had no control over whether or not I was born. I didn’t choose to be born into a world where I would be told what to do by other humans who do not have any higher intrinsic value than I. And I also did not choose to be born into a world where there would be a God who would rule over me either.

I would love to live in a world where no one was in authority over anyone else. People would just be loving, selfless, giving, helpful, and listen to others who clearly knew what they were talking about and not worry about official positions. In a perfect world, there would be no authority figures and no rules. People would just be nice to each other. So you’re the president? Doesn’t mean you know what’s best for your country. So you’re a parent? Doesn’t mean you know what’s best for your kids. So you’re God? Do you know what’s best for your children? Your supposed artistic masterpieces that you love oh so much and that you let starve to death or get raped, or tortured, or from whom you simply withhold that one thing that each of them wants above all else whatever it may be? Here I am, having a hard enough time submitting to imperfect humans, and then there’s God. The One who I should be able to trust above anyone, but I can’t. And I don’t. I try, believe me, I do, but I just can’t. Supposedly, this is where faith comes in. But honestly, you could have faith in anything. Where does faith become insanity? Faith in this does not make me feel better about now, or the future. So why should I believe it? It would make sense that there would be a God to say what is “good” so that we could feel like there is order and not chaos, and actually know what is good. But I cannot accept things as they are. As they are, they are not good, even according to the Christian God’s definition. Still, He does nothing.

Many Christians hold many opposing views at one time without any concern as to the illogicalness of it. Apparently “God has a plan for your life and everything that happens is His will”, yet, I’m still responsible for my actions? “You are made in the image of God,” yet I supposedly still manage to do things that are evil? Supposedly “God is letting this bad thing happen to you to teach you something”, yet I thought He was a merciful compassionate God. “Trust God. He loves you and will protect you,” is not a comforting phrase when many people who love God are being hurt every day. You cannot trust that an earthquake will not shatter your home cause, God knows, He doesn’t always come through. Why in the world do Christians walk around saying, “God did this for me today, He helped me with this today,” etc, and give God the credit for all of the good things that happen, but then when something bad happens, they say don’t blame God? And when they do actually blame him, they get a spiel from someone about how God definitely had the best of intentions. Did He? Because when bad things happen, it’s not like God’s going out of His way to reassure me that everything will be okay. In fact, I don’t feel like He even pursues me at all. What a loyal God to always have your back and flee when the worst things happen, right? But I’m supposed to believe that He must’ve had a good reason. “God is a jealous God”, yet isn’t jealousy a sin? Isn’t God supposed to be setting the best example?

I’m gonna pretend that I’m God for a moment. This might be a piece of God’s journal from a Christian perspective as it appears to me:

I love my humans that I created, but they’re just so evil. They won’t do what I say. How come they won’t listen to me? They’re all idiots. Oh look, I wanna give this good thing to this bad person, because I still love them. Oh, that good person who is following my will is suffering, but I don’t think I’m going to do anything because it’s my will that they suffer, I am sovereign, and I can do what I want, and if anyone questions my intentions they better think twice because I am God and I have authority just because I do. Everything I do is for their benefit. I created them and am not destroying them because I love them. They are sad that they are hungry? They should be thankful that they got that little piece of bread that I gave them yesterday. Be thankful you’re surviving! Stop thinking about the fact that I let the devil hurt you by killing your family, Job, and be thankful that I will bring you another family. That should satisfy you. You’re human and can be easily consoled by anything I give you because everything that I give is good. If you don’t like it, you must be evil. Just rejoice and worship me for my sake and for your own. I just want you to love me, that’s all, and I’ll love you. I’ve always loved you. Why can’t you see it even though I let you hurt all the time? I let you hurt because I love you. I’m doing it for your own good, you better believe it! Oh, I’m not going to let you have that thing that you want because you love it too much, and you’re just supposed to love me the most. You should just be satisfied with me and me only. I’m all you need. I should be enough. These little humans all think they know best, but their brains can’t even comprehend me. Ha! I don’t exist? Ha! I am evil? What do they know? They know nothing. They’re evil. I’m going to plan it all out so they do some bad things, create the illusion that they had a choice, tell them it’s all their fault, then act like I’m sacrificing myself for them in the way that humans sacrifice each other sometimes (when really such an act is nothing because I’m God and so I’m above all this anyway) and use that for manipulation so that they will worship me and think I am awesome! It’s such a good plan. Oh! And if they don’t accept my made-up sacrifice, I’m going to torture them forever in hell, even though they had no choice about whether or not they existed in the first place. It’s the just and loving thing to do. Worship me my children, worship me!

Am I crazy, or does this seem like a tyrant to someone besides me? You can say I’m blaspheming, go right ahead. But if this is the God I must submit to and worship, I’d rather die. I feel trapped because I don’t want to humble myself and act like I’m as worthless as crap without God. I don’t want to have absolutely no intrinsic value outside of God, yet I sense my imperfect helplessness within myself. But submit I will not, so yes, at times like right now, I would rather just have never existed at all. But as the Bible says, there is a Hell. And apparently, God controls me completely, and doesn’t even have the decency to just let me die. I have to choose Him or suffer for eternity. That’s just love and justice and mercy at their best, isn’t it?

I know, I know. I’m just an arrogant, ignorant, prideful human. I can just imagine Jesus looking at me with sadness. But I did not choose this. This is not what I would have wanted. This is not what I would have wanted at all. Something extremely strong within me fights against the idea that I have to change my natural inclinations to be God’s, and that supposedly, my will is flawed and God’s is perfect, even when the things I want are not evil at all. If I have to change myself for God, and He doesn’t have to change at all for me, then no thank you. That is not a give and take. I do not like the idea that I was made to be ignorant like Adam and Eve. Their sin was a thirst for knowledge and reason. Oh, such a crime. If they couldn’t have knowledge, why would God create them with the desire for it? How stupid.

If I have to constantly pursue God to have a relationship and don’t get to feel pursued by Him, then no thank you. It should not be that much of a struggle to know someone that is supposedly so eager to know me. If it is true, and God has called certain people according to his purpose, I guess I am not called. And to be honest, right now, I think I could accept it if I could just know that when I die, I will be dead and not tortured to death by a God who can’t stand the fact that I won’t bow to his tyranny.

This is how I feel. This is what has tormented me for way too long. This is what I try to look past. I feel like I cannot look past it anymore. I want love to be real. I want a loving God to exist, but they don’t seem to fit with reality. I get it, I don’t get to make the calls in another being’s universe, but if I have a problem with it, then maybe it’s not my universe. Or maybe there’s something wrong with the way a certain mental framework is explaining it. Sure, the world is “fallen”. It is not as God has intended it to be. But if the intention was for me to be ignorant, and if the idea of being ignorant is not pleasant to me and thus makes me evil, then I’d like no part of it.