Llwellyn Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 There is no Good News. Tell yourself the things you want to hear and believe. Christianity teaches that its doctrines are "Good News" -- "Yahweh loves Christians and has provided a way for them to be forgiven for their crimes." But as you know, there is a shadow-side to the Christian good news which is anything but good: "Yahweh shall curse people for violating his law. The way that Yahweh could set aside this punishment is by laying death onto an innocent substitute." This is horrible news -- this news is a grotesquely deformed absurdity. I could not dream up a horror story more grisly and gruesome; more crushing of innocence and hope. Why believe it? So what, may I ask, would be GOOD NEWS? Someone might say that Good News would be news that there is no God. No life after death. News that there is no hell. Or, there is a God who loves and never hates, blesses and never curses. Perhaps it would be Good News to be told that Justice rules the universe. Perhaps that everyone goes to heaven. Good news is that there is a pantheon of Gods who together make wise decisions. But, I would say that we all ought to stop waiting to hear good news. When you wait until someone tells you something that makes you feel good, then you are dependent on that person; you will return to them again and again to hear the news. You can become a slave to that person until you learn to provide your own self-comfort. There is no good news. There is no bad news either. Tell YOURSELF whatever you wish to believe. If you wish to believe in a God, then tell yourself it and believe it. If you wish to believe that there is a life after death, then believe it under your own authority. If it makes you feel good to believe that the Cookie Monster is God, or that there is no God, then believe these things on your own steam. After all, no one knows, so your belief is as good as anyone's. That is the one sure "Rock" on which complete dependence may be placed - your own chosen framework for interpreting your experiences. You can have absolute confidence in the story that you judge to be good and tell yourself. Why? Because if you truly believe it, then it will be experienced as true for you. I'm not saying that it will be "true" in any objective sense, or will be "true" for anyone else. But it will be your lived reality, which, for you, is by definition, the most important thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deidre Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 Good News being that we should all be elated that God made himself a man so he could grasp all that his creation is enduring (but wait, I thought God was all knowing?) and then take a brutal beating and whipping in order to save the entire world from its sins, hanging upon a cross in utter humiliation so we might have new life? Doesn't that sound like "good news?" And even better, we should mirror that type of humility to show God our love and devotion. C'mon now, doesn't that sound like...good news? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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