“Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man”
-Thomas Paine
We can have a loving God, or a cruel one. The true values of God are reflected in the actions of those whom profess belief.
“Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man”
-Thomas Paine
We can have a loving God, or a cruel one. The true values of God are reflected in the actions of those whom profess belief.
“It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God.”
-Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
To forego the use of reason is to reject that which God made Man in his own image. It is only through reason that can justify a divine life.
“Why may we not suppose that the great Father of all is pleased with a variety of devotion? And that the greatest offence we can act is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable? …I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike, who think at all. It is only those who have not thought that appear to agree”
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
Did God. the great Father, create the vast universe, in all its splendor and diversity, only to have it reduced to the ravings of small men with closed minds, insisting their own limited vision and flawed belief is the only possible way that is pleasing to God? Is it His desire that in so doing we torture, abuse, and make less than human those who think or believe differently than we?
Can this possibly be what God intended?
It comes in all forms: Fundamentalist Christian, radical Islam, intolerant Secularism.
Faith is a vital component of human happiness, but that is often confused with a belief that one has knowledge of the “one true religion”. It does not exist as long as people are willing to disabuse others in the name of it.
God requires that we be humble. Any religion, or non-religion, is just a flawed worldview trying to make sense of what it ultimately cannot.
God belongs to no religion, sect, or creed. Any such thing is a contrivance of Man. If He is concerned with our petty ranting and raving, it is only to the degree that we would disabuse others in His name.
We have no idea.