david-g-mcafee

If for every well-intended prayer uttered in hopes of making the world a better place, there was instead a good deed accomplished, the world might look as though those prayers had been answered.

For those who want to pray for me to "find God," please don't waste your prayers. If you really think God is listening to you, then please use those precious moments to ask God to care for the sick and dying, and leave me out of it. I'm happy without my faith and with living my life in the here and now. Besides, thousands before you have prayed for me to find God and it hasn't worked yet. Why would God value your request over theirs?

It is my sincere opinion that our precious time on earth should not be spent attempting to justify unbelievable acts of cruelty, death, and disease as a part of 'God__ Plan' or the greater good _ and clinging to ancient texts that preach ill-concealed bigotry and sexism. Instead, we should find ways to make this life happy and satisfying, without regard to the unknowable nature of an afterlife.

If you think it__ offensive that I call alleged biblical miracles ridiculous, you should ask yourself whether or not it__ ridiculous to insist that Muhammad flew on a winged horse. Or that the earth was hatched from a cosmic egg? Or that Xenu, the dictator of the Galactic Confederacy, brought billions of his people to earth 75 million years ago and killed them using hydrogen bombs? These are all religious beliefs of others, but that doesn't mean calling them ridiculous is an insult - it's an objective fact until proven otherwise.

The modern teachings of Christianity often preach of a peaceful, merciful, and loving God/Creator. Culturally, this concept of a God of peace is well liked and accepted amongst clergymen and the Christian community alike; however, some scriptural evidence gives us a contradictory and seemingly destructive version of our Creator.

Would a just God sentence a morally good individual to hell for never having heard of him? And for that matter, would a just God expel a morally good individual to hell who has heard of Jesus, but simply finds no evidentiary reason to believe? According to any reasonable interpretation of Christianity__ key doctrines, the answer is a simple and firm 'Yes.' This is because, according to Christian dogma, it is impossible to be 'moral' without Jesus Christ; I disagree with this on a fundamental level.