There is no symptom of God's existance that cannot be duplicated with simple technology and knowledge. Water into wine? An easy parlor trick, especially amongst drunken primitives. Not good enough? Perhaps a little flavoring, or even hypnosis. You want real tech? Atomic mutation. It's not hard to see that soon we'll be able to manipulate molecules at the atomic level as easily as a child builds with Legos.
What about that so-very-happy feeling you get from knowing God loves you. Easy -- Pick a drug, any drug. Not natural enough? Perhaps a combination of certain chemical reactions taking place in the brain could trigger it. Perhaps if you drink milk the precise number of hours after eating an egg roll... Maybe that's all God is -- bad chinese food.
If you want a really excellent documentary of just how well God can be faked, I highly recommend the movie Leap of Faith with Steve Martin and Debra Winger (and Meat Loaf!). It is an excellent depiction of just how easily so-called miracles can be performed with just the slightest bit of technology and planning.
No matter how badly they screw up, it's God's fault -- er, will. Truly, He works in strange and mysterious ways. I didn't slam my car into that little girl, because I was drunk, it was God's way of telling me that I shouldn't drink so much! He put her there; she must have been an angel sent down to cure my drinking. Whew. Let's have a coupla cold ones to celebrate!
It must be nice to go through life thinking it's never your fault. Believing that, no matter how hard you try, your failures aren't really your own -- that Someone else is causing you to fail.
Unfortunately, I just can't put on those particular blinders.
This, however, does not stop the faithful from claiming the credit for their successes.
The government is supposed to avoid favoring any religion in any way. And yet, they shrug off millions of dollars in income per year by not assessing property taxes on church properties. It may not clear up the entire national debt, but it would definitely add up to a pretty penny!
And you can say that they treat all religions equally, but they don't. My personal set of beliefs falls in the category of atheism, and yet I'm forced to pay additional taxes or suffer a greater national debt so that the religions of others can profit.
Doesn't seem right (or constitutional) to me.
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is an interesting one. Basically, a whole lotta people in these two towns got more into having fun and partying than telling God how great he was. Naturally, this pissed the hell out of God. It irked Him that all these people were enjoying themselves and ignoring Him. Well, of course, God decided to wipe them all out (loving God that he is, eh?) except for this one guy, Lot, who had been doing a good job of kissing up to God.
Before killing everyone, God told Lot to take his wife and head out of town, and by all means, don't look back. So God starts destroying things and killing people, and Lot and the missus head out of town. Lot, like a good little boy, didn't look back, but his wife did. (After all, what could it hurt to take a quick peek and see what was happening?) Anyway, God noticed, and as punishment for not doing exactly as He had said, turned her into a pillar of salt.
So the moral of this story is, spend all your time kissing up to God, do exactly as He tells you, and above all, don't enjoy yourself.
Doing good, being nice, and so on has nothing to do with getting into heaven; virtually any "sin" can be forgiven. Ignoring God, however, carries serious repurcussions. In order to receive "eternal life", one must continually praise God, follow His commandments (no matter how silly or unpleasant they may be), and generally avoid pissing Him off at all costs.
Consider if you will, the "Our Father", one of the more common prayers of the catholic church. It starts off with Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Hallowed be thy name basically means even your name is totally cool. It then goes on to say thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. which means You're in charge, I'll do whatever you want me to.
After that, it says Give us this day our daily bread which of course alludes to the fact that if we piss off God, we may not eat for a while. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us is about as close to "be good to others" as this little prayer gets; it basically means we'll be nice to others so God will be nice to us.
The bit about Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil asks God not to play with our minds by trying to get us in trouble, and instead, save our butts from the bad guys. Presumably, all the cow-towing to God has left His followers unable to cover their own asses.
The last bit is the best bit of all. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and for ever. Amen. could just as easily be said Go ahead, take everything, It's all yours, we'll do what you say, just don't hurt us. Of course, supposedly God loves us, and wouldn't really hurt us, unless we really deserved it.
There's a part of the catholic mass I always called the "Lord have mercy's". At some point after reaching adulthood, I realized what this bit was about -- asking for mercy. Let me tell you, asking for mercy is not something I'm accustomed to doing, nor is it something I enjoy, and you can bet your bottom dollar it's not something I plan on doing anytime soon.
I dunno about you, but I'm not the type of person who submits that easily (let alone running around preaching about how happy I am about it!) I just as soon fight the system, even if that meant getting turned into a pillar of salt. I'll take my chances and bet that God is nothing more than a little man behind a curtain with some fancy gadgets. Or less.
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