The Gospel According to Acharya S
A Question of Free Will
In the realms of religious debate, we frequently come upon the subject of free will. Whenever something bad occurs, sensible
people ask the question, "Where is God when things like this happen?" Where is the precious almighty when good people are hideously killed,
crushed to death in cars, slammed to the ground in airplanes, or tortured and murdered by psychopaths? The only answer the God-apologists can
come up with is that God gave us "free will."
What a nice idea! We have FREE WILL. These are words to soothe the masses and explain away the atrocities that could not
happen in a world that was truly under the care of an omniscient and omnipotent deity. Yet, under this totalitarian system of government proposed
by inane God-cheerleaders, free will is NOT allowed, because we MUST believe in Him or suffer all eternity in the fires of hell! If we "free
will" humans do not slavishly follow God's commandments or "believe unto" him, his silly son, his prophet or some other such fiddle-faddle,
we will be severely punished. So much for free will.
Now, this is schizophrenia, plain and simply. The masses are running about squawking out of both sides of their mouths, "We
have free will" and "We have to go to church/temple/mosque/ synagogue, or God will be mad at us." The God-fearers' motto is "Have free will, but
be sure to mindlessly march off to church, temple or mosque because someone else has told you to!" They are addled robots, not
free-will beings. To claim that God rules everything and we must submit to his will, yet we have our own free will, is broken-brained behavior
and thinking. How do proponents reconcile these irreconcilable concepts? What bizarre quirk of their minds is able to do such an illogical thing?
You can't have it both ways.
Indeed, while they may be saying "free will," they are fanatically following a book purportedly written by "God" that says,
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted
by God." (Romans 13:17) Does this sound even remotely to intelligent people that God gave anybody "free will?" How about this exhortation at 1
Pet. 2:13-18:
"Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as
sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to praise those who do right. For it is God's will that by doing right you
should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext of evil; but live as
servants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
"Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the kind and gentle but also to the overbearing."
(Emphasis added.)
Other authoritarian biblical messages include:
"Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the
teaching may not be defamed." (1 Tim. 6:1)
"Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters and give satisfaction in every respect..." (Tit. 2:9)
"Obey your leaders and submit to them; for they are keeping watch over your souls." (Heb. 13-17)
At 1 Pet. 3:1, "God/Peter" commands, "Likewise, you wives, be submissive to your husbands...."
And "Paul" is relentless in his anti-free-will dictates:
"Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.... Children, obey your parents in everything, for this
pleases the Lord.... Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters..." (Col. 3:18-22)
"Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the
church, his body, and is himself its Savior. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their
husbands."
At 1 Tim. 2:11-15 he exhorts:
"Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to
keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman
will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty."
Blah, blah, blah. Does any of this twaddle resemble free will? Slaves obeying masters and women being forced to be submissive,
quiet and bear children to redeem their supposed transgressions? Of course, the Adam-Eve fable is just another sexist device propagated by men,
as is the rest of this anti-woman gibberish.
How about God making his stiff-necked people eat their offspring because they did not love and fear him? (Deut. 28:53, et
seq.) Or Abraham being commanded to murder his son? Like the New Testament, the OT is glutted with authoritarian demands on the part of God, as
is the Koran. Is that free will?
Of course, there are words interspersed here and there to soften such messages, such as "live as free men," but these are
quickly followed by anti-free-will dictates such as "live as servants of God.... Fear God. Honor the emperor" (!). It is obvious that vested
interests such as priests and emperors are at work here. And it is equally evident that "free will" in religion is not free will at all. It's all
a grand mind-game, to be polite.
How about the constant exhortations in the religion of submission that a true believer must be a slave to Allah:
"It is not for true believers men or women to take their choice in the affairs if God and His apostle decree otherwise. He
that disobeys God and His apostle strays far indeed." (Koran 33:36)
"Lord, make us submissive to You; make of our descendants a nation that will submit to You..." (Koran 2:127)
"Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to
maintain them. Good women are obedient." (Koran 4:34)
"The only true faith in God's sight is Islam." (Koran 3:19)
"He that chooses a religion over Islam, it will not be accepted from him and in the world to come he will be one of the
lost." (Koran 3:86)
Obviously, there is little room for free will within Islam. In fact, quite the opposite, as unless we wish to be condemned to
hell in the afterlife or tortured and murdered in this life, we must submit ourselves to the slavery of Islam:
"God's curse be upon the infidels! Evil is that for which they have bartered away their souls. To deny God's own revelation,
grudging that He should reveal His bounty to whom He chooses from among His servants! They have incurred God's most inexorable wrath. An
ignominious punishment awaits the unbelievers." (Koran 2:92-6)
And why do religionists constantly apologize for the Lord, who, according to them, is not participating at all in creation,
unless it is convenient to their arguments that he exists? When a plane crashes, the survivors thank "the Lord" for allowing them to live. What
about those who died? Did the Lord let them die? And where was the Lord when the plane was hurtling out of the sky, terrifying its passengers to
the point of psychosis? Oh, he's not involved in that aspect of it, only in the saving of certain people, with whom he is apparently well
pleased. Did the other deserve to die? Apologists offer their typical pablum when confronted with this flaw in thinking: "The Lord has called
them home, for reasons only he can understand." In other words, the slippery canard: "God works in mysterious ways." Now, this is a sadistic god,
who, although omniscient and therefore able to see what is going to happen ahead of time, and omnipotent and therefore able to prevent it, allows
the shit to hit the fan again and again, never lifting a finger. Hey, how 'bout letting us in on the plan? Don't we "free will" beings deserve to
be treated with some respect?
And what about the absurd thinking behind the notion of some guy dying on a cross thousands of years ago somehow absolving us
of our sins today? What do he and his death have to do with us? Somehow the blind believers can reconcile these illogical concepts as well. What
does this mean? Does it mean that so long as we believe in Jesus Christ, Yahweh or Allah, we can do whatever we
wish, because we cannot sin? Are we free to rape, pillage and murder then, as long as we are "good" Christians? Why don't we all just do that
then, because we will automatically be absolved of such heinous behavior if we would just "confess the Lord Jesus Christ with our mouths and
hearts" or some other such drivel? Hey, we can get away with anything! Cool!
Indeed, vast armies of "good Christians" have done just that, freely and with clear conscience marauding and slaughtering all
who got in their path, merely because they held up the banner of Jesus Christ. Do you think ol' JC, were he real, would be pleased by this
disgusting behavior? If so, why is anyone following him, who sheepishly "turned his cheek" yet violently overturned the moneychangers' tables? If
he would not be pleased, why has not his Omnipotence put his foot down and made an appearance, setting his idiotic followers straight? Oh, he
gave us free will! That's the ticket.
If we have free will, then we are also free not to believe in the white, male Jewish-Arab-whatever God or Jesus in the first
place, without risking eternal hellfire or any other sadistic punishment by the megalomaniacal and tyrannical Almighty. We can be free not to
believe in some hallowed god person separate and apart from a wretched creation but, rather, to perceive the entire cosmos as divine. Out of our
free will, we can choose not to harm other sentient beings (and even humans), regardless of what so-called religious leaders, like so many
serpents, beckon us to do. We can choose to reject being part of a herd of panicky sheep who turn into wolves when it benefits them. Out of free
will, we can be "free agents" who do not belong to religious cults of any sort. Indeed, without "God's plan," we can be free to create our own
vision, one of a world that is not divided by spurious creeds based in myth and used to justify racism and sexism. With our boundless free will,
we can create a utopia of unified humanity. Free of our god-addiction, we can be free to just be.
"Let my freethinkers go!"
The Gospel According to Acharya S
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