@Hitokori: I admit I read maybe a quarter into that post and gave up, because all it was going to do was make me mad and make me retort in harsh defense, and this topic would spiral downhill faster than Indiana Jones' Boulder in "Raiders of the Lost Arc".
However, I get the gist that you're trying to tell me that the Christian rationale for our faith is an excuse for deviating from "reason and logic". You consider the concept of "worshipping through freewill" absurd. Well tell me now. You've just created a race of imperfect creatures intelligient enough to think for themselves (at least after the Eden incident) and you have ultimate power. You can create beings who will follow you unquestionably and do whatever you will. But you know at the same time that they do not do so by choice. Forced love is false love. They do not choose to love you, they either have to, or they have the will to choose, but why would they reject you after knowing the truth?
Here's the only way you can answer this conundrum. You create these beings and present yourself to them. You tell them who you are and give them direct guidance and help, as in all meaning of the word, they are young. You give them the ability to forge their own destiny, the ability to choose, even if you know what their choices will be. You know that Adam and Eve will eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but while upset that your creations have directly disobeyed you, you are also oddly excited that they have done so, as it means that your plan is working, though you knew it would.
As they become more self-sufficient, you intrude and influence them less and less directly. Eventually, they spread to all corners of the Earth and many, if not most, have forgotten you completely. Many remember a being such as you, but have instead filled the whole in their hearts where you were with false imitations in order to justify their existence. It infuriates you that you have been replaced with these nonexistent beings, but feel not all is lost, as their desire to worship a higher being is an ignorant desire to worship you, though they do not know you.
As time goes by, these religions pop up. You come to certain particularly faithful followers and choose them to carry out vertain deeds when the whole race needs a gentle nudge. You become even more excited, as these people who have only been told about you pray to you with unquestioning loyalty, abiding by your laws of living and desiring above all things to be with you in your realm when their mortal lives end. It saddens you to know that many have and will choose logic over you, requiring proof of your existence before they do anything. As much as you wish to reveal yourself, you know this will undermine your efforts from the start. With a heavy heart, you are forced to let these beloved people go down their paths into oblivion. And now, the end will soon come. The time when you will take those faithful, the ones you have searched for from the beginning and bringing them into the realm they have earned a place in. But some of those left behind are not at fault. Some never had a chance to know your love, others are too uncertain. And so, before the very end, you give those remaining a 7 year-chance to be saved, in which case your judgement will be final, and all will be well, your dream accomplished.
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Now tell me, does that, or does that not sound like the thinking of a being who can do anything he/she/it desires with the cosmos? I think the rationale behind that speaks for itself.
Your entire belief system is founded on the idea that monotheism existed before any of the polytheistic religions, including that of the very first human civilization. Historically, that just isn't accurate. But I guess we can forget about that for now, and address the rest of your post.
God created man in his own image, correct? Then what makes us imperfect? Our mortality? Our inability to know everything? Our desires? Our fragile bodies? God is responsible for everything that I've mentioned according to you. Why would God do this to his only sentient creation? Why would he limit us instead of allowing us to reach our full and true potential?
Forced love is false love, yes, but does fear of a being who can banish you to the fiery depths of hell equate to unconditional love? If a being such as your God were to actually exist and we all knew it, I wouldn't love him/her/it. I would fear the being, and I would resent the being. Who is he to tell me I can't choose my path? Who is he to tell me that if I don't love him and believe in him, I have to burn in hell for all eternity? How dare he! He gave me free will so what is the point in limiting my ability to make my own choices (choosing between eternal bliss and eternal damnation isn't really much of a choice).
God creates humanity, tells them to choose ignorance over knowledge of oneself and the world around them, and when they disobey, he banishes them from the garden of eden. Why? Why is knowing so disrespectful, so evil to your God? Why does he wish for us to forever stumble in the darkness? The "snake" doesn't even seem like a bad guy when all he really did was tell man to think for himself, rather than take God's propaganda at face value. It's almost as if God fears freedom of thought, as if his very existence depends on our ability to believe without questioning.
According to a bunch of different religions, God/The Gods are here, running amok, fighting wars with each other and using us as pawns, and then suddenly up and leave. Why? What's the point in abandoning your creation? Boredom? Disgust? Of course not, says the fundamentalist christian. It's all part of his plan! Obviously, his plan was to torment and punish humanity for thousands of years, tell us how horrible and sinful we are, screw around with us, and then just up and leave. Apparently, his plan is to make us forget how much of an ******* he is so that we can look back on the "good 'ol days" with a certain amount of fondness and get back to loving him.
As time goes on religions pop up? This bring me back to my first paragraph. Most of those religions "popped up" waaaaaaaaay before Christianity or Judaism was formed. Why don't our earliest writings coincide with jewish or christian biblical text? Surely the very first civilization, the Sumerians, would have mentioned the garden of eden and their monotheistic God at some point. It must be there somewhere! Actually, it is. The Garden of Eden can be found in some of their texts, under a different name. But there was no one God. There were many Gods, and we were their creation (and according to your own bible, in Genesis 1:26- "Then God said, "Let us make man in
our image, in
our likeness...."). But according to the Sumerians, we weren't created just because. We were slaves, and the Gods were our masters. We didn't love them. We feared them and we hated them, but worshiped them anyway. Why? Self-preservation. Please the Gods and you'd survive. And when you take it a step further, it actually makes sense why eating from that "tree" would have been so devastating. If everyone knew the Gods weren't Gods at all, our species might actually rebel. We wouldn't win, of course, but all of that time spent nurturing us and all of those resources spent breeding us would have been for naught. So toss those few bad seeds into the wilderness, and start over. Oh, and according to them, the snake wasn't the devil or some evil guy. He was one of the Gods who felt we had the right to know who we were and who they were. Just thought I'd give you a very small crash course on the "Genesis" of the Sumerian religion.
And then you go on to say God sheds a tear because some humans choose logic and science over religion, over God. But when you apply logic, or better yet, take the words of Jesus himself, do you really need religion to believe in a God or a higher being? The answer is no. Organized religion isn't necessary to believe we come from a single source. Just take a look at a few photos taken by the Hubble and see if don't question your purpose, or whether or not we're alone in this Universe.
Why wouldn't God want us to find him on our own, rather than be forced or coerced into believing in him? Why is it so difficult to believe that maybe, just maybe, it's ok to use science or philosophy to find the source/s of all creation? That maybe freedom of choice encompasses more than "LOVE ME OR SUFFER"?
And then you end your post by saying you've somehow stumbled upon the thought processes of God when your very religion says if you can think it, it ain't God. Some might call your conclusion blasphemy. If your God exists, he'd want you to be open-minded, to question his existence and your purpose. No one wants mindless ants wandering around, not really do anything. No one wants zealots blinded by hate and scripture. If nothing I said made you want to think about anything because your mind is so made up on the subject, take this quote to heart:
"Bless the mind too small for doubt." Don't let the "bless" part blind you from the meaning of the quote, either.
Just to get back on topic, Enki is easily better than Anubis or Satan, since they were probably derived from him anyway.
