Written Aug '09: My First Doubts - Perfect Plan?

We’re told God is the perfect example of all righteous characteristics. We’re also told our purpose on Earth is to please and worship God, and get others to do the same. Doesn’t this sound like a prideful God? God has many more conflicting characteristics, such as justice vs mercy.

Christians commonly claim "God is so perfect and I just mess everything up." The human species is messed up, and even the Bible traces these flaws to the very first humans. When an engineer creates something, he designs every single physical and behavioral nuance. Every flaw of the creation reflects entirely on the engineer; the creation can’t possibly control how it was made. Either we admit God had several oversights in our design (rendering Him imperfect), or God purposefully created humans and their atrocious human nature (rendering him cruel). This raises innumerable critical questions. The argument that Satan brought us down requires that God's design was thwarted and God wasn’t aware this would happen. God’s omnipotence and omniscience rules that possibility out. The only conclusion in line with the Bible’s main teachings is that every nuance of this present world was designed by God for His pleasure. The only conclusion is that God is cruel.

We can say, “Well, He is God, I know His plan is good, and I trust Him,” but this concedes little basis for the conclusion. While trivial questions can be released, it’s the fundamental questions that would rule out all of the false religions in an unbiased process of selection. If the questions I’ve listed (such as “is Jesus powerful?”) aren’t fundamental, then what questions are? Many of us received Christianity from our parents and did not actually experience an unbiased process of selecting Christianity. We’ve never addressed the fundamental questions that should be used to draw conclusions on such a huge matter as religion. Instead, we just “know it’s true.”

How could I possibly/honestly persuade a non-believer that they want the relationship with God I have? I’m having trouble persuading myself; evangelism isn’t currently feasible for me.

These concerns are just the tip of a giant iceberg. At some point I have to ask myself, “what am I clinging to any longer?”