beet analogy

Janice's beet analogy
I liken it to a child growing up being told to eat beets, they're good for you but not really knowing why they're good for you.

The first line of this analogy is about obedience. It wasn't said to this child, "Would you like to try something new?" Or "Here, this is one of my favorites, you might like this." The child is told to "eat beats". It isn't explained that there are vitamins and minerals that will help prevent colds, cure the chicken pox, and clear up acne. (Can beets really do that stuff?)

Yet it is highly appropriate that the beet analogy begins with a demand for obedience. For the christian god demands unquestioning obedience from his followers. God is the master, man is the slave and is not permitted, under pain of eternal damnation, to use his own judgment about morality.

Janice-
How do you not recoil in horror that god killed every first born in Egypt?
Exodus 12:29-30
Does it not horrify you that 42 children were mauled to death by two bears for teasing Elisha for being bald? 2 Kings 2:23-24
What war crimes tribunal would not be absolutely correct to convict a leader that ordered, "Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children."? (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)

Janice, I mean these questions very sincerely. I am not trying to ridicule you or make fun of your faith. How do the attrocities commanded by, ordained by, and carried out by god not fill you with condemnation, moral outrage, horror, or disgust? As a mother, aren't you the least bit appalled that a child was hideously murdered by a bear because he ran with the wrong crowd?

Back to the beet analogy

As for complimenting the meal, Easter and Christmas come to mind. FE admits to the joy she feels during Christian holidays while denying the existence of God.

The post Janice is referring to is me and christmas and is exclusively about christmas, I never was a fan of easter. The summation of what I like about christmas is food, decorations, lights, weather, singing, candles, family time, and Santa presents. Then after waxing rhapsodic about the details of each of these I go on to talk about my current disillusionment with the holiday.

I still miss it. I miss that special feeling that christmas engendered. That inner quiet beauty, sense of light, wonder. Awe that a supernatural being came to earth as a baby because he loved me.

Janice- if christianity stopped there, with his love for me, I'd be ok with that. But it doesn't. And it is all the rest of christianity that is unacceptable to me. To return to your beet analogy, I like beets, especially beet pickles. But if every time I ate them I got hideous stomach cramps and a migraine, I wouldn't eat them again, regardless of how much I liked the taste.

I look back on the list of things I really liked about christmas and a lot of them don't have to be religious. They could be secular. But now that I no longer believe there is a deity...well... it seems like a lot of effort to go through for nothing.

I guess the beet analogy here would be growing the beats, harvesting the beets, pickling the beets, canning the beets, and then throwing them away because they were poisonous to me.

No Janice, I do not deny god. I am incapable of believing in him. My reasoning brain has found no evidence to support his existence. No evidence that isn't better explained by science. I am also emotionally incapable of believing in a god that does not have to answer for his appalling actions. Should it come to be that the christian god exists I would demand an accounting of him for the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and certainly the entire Old Testament. And if he said, "Who are you to question me?" I would reply, "I am Fiery, I am who you made me to be, and you knew I would be this way. Now stop dodging the question."

If god knew, the moment he picked up clay to form man and before he bent to breathe life into its nostrils, that billions of his creations would spend an eternity roasting in a lake of burning fire... why did he keep going? Why did he breathe life into it at all? Why is the torment of billions an acceptable trade off for the worship of millions?

Janice, you said you wanted to understand my position about beets, and christianity, and christmas and morality. I hope this has shed some light on those issues.