Greater Than God

[Guest r3alchild]

One thing christians say more than anything else is how great their god is. But is their god really that great and can any of us mortal beings compare to such greatness.

 

Well lets see...

 

In order to work out how we could be greater than god we need two things. A base human moral action and a godly moral action to make our comparison.

 

First: Gods moral action.

 

Malachi 3:10

Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.

 

Here we see that if we offer the almighty god charity he will pour blessings out on us, whatever they could be. But only if and when we offer him something first.

 

Second: A humans base human behaviour and moral action.

 

People are capable of actions like charity, that can be selfless and without regard.

 

Third: The comparison.

 

In this case we will compare gods actions of blessings to other people to the base action a person can take towards another person.

 

The verse above seems to suggest that once you have offered some form of charity to the almighty he can only act and offer you things in return. If I compare this behaviour to a persons behaviour this would be like having a friend whom you would only offer support to when they offered service or some form of charity to you first. In fact charity without regard is one of the most basic behaviours we all posses. But god does not seem to posses the ability to offer us blessings without our regard first.

 

So are we greater than god?

 

I hope so

[flockoff]

A Christian might say that we're always implicitly in debt to god for giving us life, family, material goods and everything else they give him credit for, so who are we to make special requests on top of that without offering anything of ourselves?

[Guest r3alchild]

Then those christians are stupid since someone can't be in debt for something they did not choose to be in debt to. Thats like me making a robot that I know that needs power then making it pay me for its power, just because I created it.

[florduh]

The god to which you're referring was invented by an ancient and barbaric society. Today we are naturally more civilized and reflections of that old society, such as their gods, appear cruel and capricious by comparison. Men still do some pretty evil and cruel things, but such behavior isn't worshiped by the majority any longer.

[flockoff]

Then those christians are stupid since someone can't be in debt for something they did not choose to be in debt to. Thats like me making a robot that I know that needs power then making it pay for me for its power, just because I created it.

Then those Christians would give an emotional response i.e. it's more like you being indebted to your (presumably good) parents. Presumably your parents went through the whole largely thankless job of parenting you until you could make it on your own, presumably because they selflessly cared about you. You don't "owe" them anything per se, but after all that it looks ridiculous for you to complain that they don't just give you whatever you ask out of the goodness of their heart. Then they would say that god has given you more than you could ever return to him. Which you could respond by pointing out the bad things he's given you, and it carries on into them attacking your character as ungrateful, etc.

 

Just playing devil's advocate.

 

I don't generally believe any action is altruistic, btw.

[ExXex]

Just playing devil's advocate.

Technically God's advocate hahaaa.

Sorry, so many terrible jokes have resulted from my de-conversion.

 

As to the original question - are we greater than God. I think God was constructed by us when we reached out for something more and attempted to mould some form into our hopes and expectations of living. I think he's steeped with the good (compassion, omniscient knowledge, beauty etc) and the bad (desire for petty vengeance, dislike of gay sex, rivers made of honey which I imagine to be rather unpleasantly sticky) aspects of humanity over the millennia, so it could be argued if anything this God is more human than any of the mortals who created him, are we greater than something we have made together and continue to spread amongst each other? I dunno! Are we greater than the MRSA bacterium?

[◊ crazyguy123 ◊]

 

Just playing devil's advocate.

Technically God's advocate hahaaa.

Sorry, so many terrible jokes have resulted from my de-conversion.

 

If good, fun humor emerges out of your deconversion then I see that as a good thing. Besides, not everyone will think the jokes you have made were terrible, like this one for instance. I liked your joke about "playing God's advocate".

 

R3alchild, nearly every decent human alive on this planet has a far better sense of morality than the Bible god, but of those that happen to be believers, they will never admit it. They will lie to themselves and delude themselves to make it appear as though they are the terrible and horrible people while their god is this amazing and perfect being who decided not to torture them forever in flames... It is such a sick religion believers are still stuck in. It's a religion that teaches that every imperfection makes a person equally as terrible as a genocidal maniac and then goes on to teach that all imperfect humans and genocidal maniacs deserve punishments that are infinitely worse than genocide. But it also teaches that as long as a genocidal maniac is following his god's will and instructions, then it's not really genocide anymore. Then it's justice.