Kathy,
If the Christian God exists - and, like you, I happen to believe He does, though I think my image of him is rather different from yours - then, we are told, he is great in compassion, mercy and love beyond anything we can possibly imagine.
How dare we, with our meagre intellects and stunted abilities to love, second-guess what His attitude might be towards anyone else on earth? Don't you think that He cares far more for the atheists on here that you ever will? Don't you think that they (we), in our own separate ways, might be searching for the truth using their (our) God-given intellect and humanity in ways which might get them closer to it than we are? Don't you think there are many paths to God and to ultimate truth?
I'm going to quote the whole of the passage from Harry Williams's 'The Pearl of Great Price', which I cited above:
'... at the very least this means that the kingdom [of heaven] is not something which can be immediately presented to you on a plate, so that all you have to do is to put it in your pocket and feel good. You will find many devout Christians who have forgotten what Jesus said and who will present the kingdom of heaven to you in exactly this way. It means, they will tell you, adhesion to a given form of doctrinal orthodoxy. Believe this, that and the other, and there, you've got the kingdom. But you haven't got it. All you've got is an excuse to stop looking for it. You may commend the views you have thus accepted with passionate earnestness and zeal, but these may only show that deep down you are afraid that you have been fobbed off with an artificial pearl. All fanaticism is a strategy to prevent doubt from becoming conscious. And meanwhile the apparent agnostic infidel in the rooms above may in his own manner still be seeking for the kingdom of heaven, while you aren't.'
I find this a very compelling passage. It seems to me to get the essence of Jesus's summation of the whole of the Law as loving God and loving one's neighbour as oneself. Nothing in there about 'converting' your neighbour or damning them or hectoring them with your own interpretation of what belief is.
Again, if God exists, he is greater and bigger than we can possibly imagine (as St Paul said, we now see through a glass darkly). All we can do is create our own images of Him and try to imagine what He might be like. These images can be very helpful; indeed, they are the only way we can understand Him. Yet because we, unavoidably, live in sin, they can also be very unhelpful and can actually act to separate us from His love. When our images of God start to distance us from His love, from our own desires and needs and, perhaps most of all, from other people, it might be time to look again at them and to wonder if we haven't created a false God, an idol after our own unhappiest personality traits.
Ahem. End of sermon. I don't want to preach on JREF (or anywhere else), but Kathy, your posts have been upsetting me and I wanted to share with you my own vision of Christianity. Would be happy to discuss via PM if you want.
