Is God a Good Guy???

by Jen Hörst

I am proud to have the next submission for our little Atheist Jen!!

Many of us were brought up to believe that God is good and Satan is evil. When you go to bible school on Sunday, they teach you all these neat little things about God's "goodness." How God saved Noah and his family from the flood, how God helped Moses part the Red Sea so that his people could escape the following Armies of the Pharaoh, how he sent his son to die for our sins, etc. But is this truly the case? I wonder. In my little article here, we shall have a look at the evidence.

First let's look at God. We are talking Yahweh, the Judeo-Christian god here. Is he really so "good?" Okay. Well, first off, he creates a world that is somehow "imperfect" and has to kill every living thing on the planet (save 2 or 7 of every animal and Noah and his family) in order to redeem this creation. This omni-Max being sent his "son" to be killed. Did he have to do this? Couldn't the man just forgive everyone? He is all powerful, no? Why did anyone have to be "sacrificed?" And now that I mention that, what kind of a sacrifice is it to have someone dead for 3 days? I mean really! A sacrifice is something that you don't get back! Otherwise, it's not a sacrifice! It's an inconvenience. So, God wants your soul. Why? I'm not really sure. Christians will tell you it's because he loves you. He wants you to return to Him, so you can live in "paradise" and always be happy. But this is a lie. We will get to that.

Okay, now we have the devil, Satan, the horned one, what have you. This being is the end all, be all scapegoat of the Christian God. Why is that? Can't God take responsibility for the "bad" things that happen? I mean really, if God is all powerful isn't all the evil in the world ultimately his fault anyway? If there is an earthquake and supposedly the devil did it. Doesn't God have the power to stop it? Or is Satan able to overpower God? Is Satan really some evil dude? Probably not. Take what you know about the devil. What did he do in the bible? Not much really. All the bad stuff was from God's evil creations or from God himself. Satan wasn't even in the Garden of Eden. There is no reference of him. Your Sunday School teacher will tell you it is him, but there is no biblical reference of him being there. So you have these stories of Satan trying to beguile people into selling him their souls. But this is a myth. Satan is willing to give you your heart's desire in exchange for your soul. What will God give you? Nothing.

Maybe you should just be lucky that he didn't strike you with cancer or epilepsy or something. Satan is not the soul collector, God is. Basically, God has a good Public Relations (PR) Representative. God's PR Rep hired some great spin doctors (called priests and pastors, etc.) These people make sure that you only learn the happy fuzzy bunny stuff about God in the bible. If you really read the bible, God does some nasty, screwed up things! What does Satan do? Well, he does some stuff to Job, but God tells him to. So really. Who do you think is the "good guy"? Satan, who gives you stuff and fulfills your every wish? Or God whom you pray to and pray to and who almost never seems to be able to find the time to help you out? You make the call!