{"id":129,"date":"2004-05-29T20:07:02","date_gmt":"2004-05-29T20:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/3500years.com\/zsallia\/?p=129"},"modified":"2004-05-29T20:07:02","modified_gmt":"2004-05-29T20:07:02","slug":"god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/2004\/05\/29\/god\/","title":{"rendered":"God"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the comments to this post<\/a>, Mr. Renick takes me to task for my inhuman and murderous ways, then asks:<\/p>\n

“By the way, do you even believe in God? He may judge you one day you know.”<\/i><\/p>\n

Mr. Renick,<\/p>\n

What am I to believe in? What would you have me believe in?<\/p>\n

God. If I assume you mean by God anything resembling the all-knowing, all-seeing creator of the universe depicted in the Bible, Talmud and Koran, then I am afraid I must disappoint, for I have no real ability to relate to that concept in any meaningful way. I worshipped many gods in my first two thousand years. I was worshipped as<\/i> a minor goddess on and off for a pair of centuries. I have seen the religion complex from both sides and I am left feeling drained and unimpressed.<\/p>\n

I know that religion offers much to those who believe. Faith is an immensely powerful force in the lives of Men. It can motivate entire nations to greatness, and even when we accept that the converse is also undeniably true we can still sift through the results and reasonably conclude that belief in God is a Good thing.<\/p>\n

I am unimpressed by those who hold religion as maleficent influence in the affairs of Man. Yes, I am aware of the Crusades. I am aware of the Inquisitions, the Heresies and the auto-da-f?<\/i>. I witnessed many such in my time and had reason to suspect that I might be on the receiving end of such un-tender mercilessness. Nevertheless, this was not the doing of religion- it was the handiwork of Men who used religion as an excuse. Lacking God, they would have found some other handy tool to flog the populace in to a frenzy of fear and murder.<\/p>\n

I am no atheist. I do not pretend to great knowledge in the spiritual realms inhabited by such as you. I am denied such things. Your fears are not mine. Your failings are your own. That which I carry as an aching weight upon my heart would burn you to ashes in but a moment. That I might bear such burdens is by virtue of long practice and I undertake it without much in the way of joy or satisfaction. My life slowly becomes such that I wonder at my ultimate purpose. Perhaps I merely seek that one final act of contrition, that thing which might set the scales to balanced and allow me to fairly contemplate my own end in the sure and certain knowledge that what great harms I have done are finally, mercifully, put to paid.<\/p>\n

God. If He exists for such as I, perhaps he might be so kind as to answer a simple question:<\/p>\n

What did I do? What made You so terribly angry with me?<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the comments to this post, Mr. Renick takes me to task for my inhuman and murderous ways, then asks: “By the way, do you even believe in God? He may judge you one day you know.” Mr. Renick, What am I to believe in? What would you have me believe in? God. If I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-immortality","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jaeddy.com\/3500years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}