Should We Fire God? (Part 3b-1)

Perspective Three: Holy Scriptures and religion
There are the big three monotheistic Abrahamic religions that dominate the world today, along with others such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc. I’ll just be discussing the Christian scriptures and influenced perspective(s) since that is what I am familiar with, grew up with, and adhere to.

Did you catch that? I just gave away my world view and my presuppositions about my thinking. So I’m not so open-minded, now am I? I am just building up a straw man and blowing him over to push my ‘religion’, right? I’ll let you be the verdict on that. Everyone holds to something, and this is an expression of my current understanding of a piece of mine.

I think it is possible for one to be a Christian and wrestle with some of the previous questions throughout this series and pose doubts about what God is really up to. However, the main focus here will not be on what most Christians think but rather what Christian scripture may have to say about this topic along with some points of reasoning.

Scriptures… what about them?
If one does not consider these scriptures as authoritative and accurate about the nature and character of God, then the ideas presented here may be greatly resisted either due to their source or by the content. Likewise, if one simply cannot fathom God as possibly good and having good reasons for things, then it will be hard to accept something built on a premise that is the opposite of one’s current perspective. You may be under the persuasion that both of these presumptions, and other related ones, are much too large to make.

I hope that leads one to take a serious look at the literature among us that speaks to these topics, namely whether one can reasonably trust these scriptures and if so is this ‘Big Guy’ ultimately good? Many have stepped away on either side of the line (trust or don’t trust) after their studies and searching, as well as in between it. While these can be initial barriers using one’s current state of thought, I do believe there are some interesting and thought-provoking ideas to be taken away whether one can take the Christian scripture seriously or not.

Large and small, living and innate
In its most simplistically and perhaps overly reduced and inaccurate form, you could say cells inflict pain on other cells of which we would consider living organisms, namely humans and higher life forms with the cognition and/or sense to feel pain. This is insufficient because I don’t think we would say sources of pain such as wind and the like have cells, and also pain may be a perception of the life form(s)’s interaction with other matter made aware through consciousness.

Scripture speaks of humanity’s value and dominion over all other life forms, and so I will cover the pain and suffering of humans. It should be noted that similar questions could be asked in regard to animals, though not in the same category as the questions about humanity given the divide between spiritual beings (humans) and non-spiritual beings (all other natural life) in the scriptures.

We all face differing amounts of pain from both living and nonliving sources. The pain may be large or small, with its effect(s) being either temporary or spanning a life time. It could harm us physically, mentally, emotionally, etc. It doesn’t take long to recognize this in the world we live in.

There is a wide range of pain inflicting sources that can affect us for better or for worse. It’s easy to see how certain types of pain are not only good but crucial to our survival and long-term well-being. This could include the pain felt when pressing your hand onto a stovetop burner or when the body says to stop doing something through its convincing pain in order to prevent permanent damage. Pain isn’t just a suggestion; it can be a very forceful and effective means for shaping our behavior to protect the body. It’s easy to take a step back and see the long-term and short-term goodness of physical pain of this nature, but what about things that happen to us that are harmful across the different dimensions of the physical, mental, emotional, etc. nature?

We will continue in Part 3b-2.


Should We Fire God? series:
Part 1
Part 2a
Part 2b
Part 3a
Part 3b-1
Part 3b-2
Part 3b-3