The Lost Sheep

[megasamurai]

I've been thinking lately of how little the idea of the parable of the lost sheep makes sense. Supposedly, God is searching high and low for us and doing everything in his power to save us. According to Christianity, unbelievers are fucked. Theoretically, God can save humanity by shooting fire from the sky and yelling "I'm God. I exist". This should save humanity from hell. Of course, God chooses not to do this. Instead, Christians say he proves his existence by putting voices in people's heads and giving them funny feelings. This is the way to recover the lost sheep. If you think the voice in your head is your imagination you're fucked because you have the knowledge that voice was God imprinted in your head. Thus, even though he refuses to prove himself by breaking the laws of science, he still proves himself by putting voices in heads.

 

I ponder, have Christians pondered if maybe Hinduism and Islam still exists because they hear voices from their gods and any voice claiming to be Jesus is a trick from a demonic being? Have they considered that voices in your head don't prove God because the brain can easily imagine voices that belong to no one but the person "hearing" the thoughts. Wouldn't appealing to the five senses be more reliable than putting voices in heads? Isn't it obvious that God isn't putting maximum effort into making people believe, or doesn't even exist. Isn't it obvious that he isn't looking thoroughly for that lost sheep? 

[Gamecock1973]

I always liked what Hitchens said about the sheep analogy.  Is the shepherd doing all this work to protect the sheep because he loves it, like it is his own child or even a beloved pet labrador he will keep as a friend for the course of its life?  Of course not.  The sheep are simply an economic commodity and his livelihood.  They are being protected from the wolf so he can shear them and make money and ultimately send them to the slaughterhouse!

[megasamurai]

Of course, don't Christians use the parable of the lost sheep to explain how "God does everything in his power to make sure everyone gets saved." and that "God loves everyone. You're not just a number."? I've heard this parable used to justify hell by saying that this parable proves that everyone knows God exists and that he loves them.

[MySockSmell]

Wouldn't appealing to the five senses be more reliable than putting voices in heads?

 

My deconversion was finally complete the moment I realized Christian supernatural revelation amounts to nothing more than a form of mind reading and ventriloquism.  The roles of puppet and puppeteer alternate as God's disembodied mind operates from both inside and out.  Preacher acts as a puppet by receiving messages from an external puppeteer God, but also acts as puppeteer by projecting an invisible hand puppet called God whose messages are read out loud from inside his head.  The trick is, there's no invisible third party to be found speaking internally or externally; no disembodied mind; no mind reading.  There's just a ventriloquist and an audience willing to suspend their disbelief.  Once I recognized this, I never took first person testimony as evidence for God experiences again.  I don't believe in mind reading, so that disbelief includes even my own former mental acts of religious auto-ventriloquism.

[megasamurai]

Of course, there's also the idea of "prophesy" or the old guy in the back of the church who speaks in tongues while the other old guy translates the message to English. These messages are always Christian clichés like "read my word" and "beware Satan". Apparently, God can only speak in clichés.