What if God Were One of Us ...

The song asks, and then retorts, “just a slob like one of us” …  It is good for us to understand the lengths that Christ went to on our behalf, how much He was tempted like we are, suffered like we do, even died like one of us albeit He was tortured to death and eventually died of a literal broken heart.  In many ways Christ was more human than us.  But to attempt to put boundaries around Him, that would constrain Him to be no more than any one of us, is to take this attempt at understanding to a new dimension of dumb.  In point of fact, God was not just one of us, He is so much more.

Man’s natural inclination is to humanize things in order to equate to them.  Children give toys and inanimate objects character traits in a pretend world.  Adults extend this same phenomenon but under the guise of logic and reason, attempting to down-play anything they do not understand as non-existent.  Those that do not believe in Christ as a God who saves us, throw out His virgin birth, miracle based life’s work, and testimonials of all those who witnessed His physical presence after His death.  The most they are willing to acknowledge is His teachings on love and self-sacrifice, minus anything that would make Him divine.  They leave the man and throw out the God because they cannot equate to a God.

But this portrait of Christ, though inaccurate, may be less detrimental to His character and image than those who do claim to believe in His divinity and mission in saving us – yet they humanize Him to such an extent that He would tolerate and even participate in evil in its various forms.  Even some Christians are not convinced of His virgin birth, miraculous life’s work, or purported resurrection.  Christians who contemplate the possible “truth” of the Divinci Code, or the gospel of Judas or Mary, of the idea that perhaps Christ was either gay with John the Beloved, or fooling around with Mary Magdalene the prostitute (town slut).  These weak minded believers so pollute and humanize our God that they inadvertently accomplish stripping Him of any divinity more effectively than those who simply deny Him outright.

We cannot equate to a God.  Cheating and having sex is something we can equate to.  Living an entire life based on service to others, having the power of creation itself within you – but choosing to live without ever using it for your own self-interests is something we cannot equate to.  So for some, instead of admiring and aspiring to emulate Christ’s perfect example, we denigrate him with lowered expectations and weak faith.  The worst part, is that we lose His message of love, generally in favor of a guilt laden self-created message of judgment and condemnation to take its place.

It is funny how little we understand about God, about being God, or what God is like.  We think we “know” God because we read scriptures.  But scripture tells us that the chief rebel of the universe Lucifer, now Satan, never even aspired to be anything more than simply – “Like” the most high.  Satan craved the worship, power, and abilities of God, but even the 3^rd highest created being of all time so far, was smart enough to know, that the best he could ever hope to do, was to be “like” God.  He could not possibly BE God, let alone surpass God.  Satan’s highest ambitions reflect a better understanding about being God, than our purported “knowledge”.

Because we refer to God in a family based analogy does not ever limit Him in any way.  It elevates us.  Calling Christ our brother, and God our Father helps us to understand our relationship – it does NOT define the Nature of either of them.  We are encouraged to talk to God as we would talk to a close friend.  He does know everything about us.  He is the only one who can read our thoughts, decipher our motives, and judge our actions – past our words and what it may look like.  He is close to us, and desires a relationship based on friendship with us.  But He is ALWAYS God.  We are less than ants.  Because God chooses friendship with an ant does not make God any less, it makes the ant worth a bit more.

Once this process that God has started for our reconciliation with Him is complete, we will have all eternity to begin to understand what God is.  What it means to be God.  And even after eternity passes, our minds will only begin to understand it.  It is simple physics that the finite cannot define the infinite.  The created cannot define the boundaries of the Creator.  We have only our perspective.  Our limitations, both self imposed, influenced by evil, and inherent within us keep us from comprehending the infinite nature of our God.  Our lack of full knowledge is no excuse to attempt to bring God down to our natural or debased natures; rather, it should serve as inspiration to reach up to what we know about His.

We can lose a sense of awe or of reverence when we so familiarize ourselves with our ‘buddy’ God that we forget just Who our ‘buddy’ is.  Hollywood has been no help with this either.  The entire horror genre is based on a ‘scary’ evil which man either fights alone (the total absence of God from the concept) or fights in the name of a benign, unsympathetic and only marginally paying attention God.  Movies like the Exorcist, or End of Days, paint man as the hero fighting in the name of a God, but do nothing to show God engaged in the battle.  The way Hollywood describes it, when something evil this way comes, there is no God, or only a wimp God to look to for defense.  Thus the image of God becomes one of “what good is He in a fight?”

The truth is so entirely different, and real life so entirely more terrifying.  Beyond the immediate scope of human eyes is a world of the supernatural.  In it are two remaining forces diametrically opposed to each other.  They have been at war since rebellion broke out in the Universe.  The evil side rivals any imagery of monsters you have seen in a movie and has intentions far more graphic and horrific than any you can imagine.  They would gladly inflict all of this on you in a moment’s notice.  But here is where Hollywood preconceptions must be put to an end in order to reflect reality.  Angels and to some extent demons (former angels now corrupted by years of absence from God and intent to do evil) are scary beings when put next to humans.  Were we to fight them physically we would lose flat out.  But God is not us.  He is not constrained to some limits in His power, majesty, and love.  Against Him, NOTHING can stand – not all of the hate in existence, not death itself, no power seen or unseen has any shot at standing in opposition before Him for even a nanosecond.

This fact would severely change the plots of most Hollywood horror films.  How good would the movie be, if the human hero merely called out for help from our Creator God, and the opposing monster was obliterated completely and permanently in less than a nanosecond?  Note that man had no part in the destruction of evil as we are way less than effective in this.  But God’s destruction would be immediate, and permanent.  No chance for any sequel in the scripts written to reflect reality.  Where the tension enters the picture is mans seemingly limitless ability to flirt with evil without ever calling for God’s help to destroy it.  In this we are all collective experts.  Rather than flee from evil we approach it.  Rather than call down the eternal destruction of evil, we allow evil to do tricks for us, through us, and with us – until we reach a point we don’t want its destruction.  Yes this would be the first reality based horror movie of all time.  It might restore a bit of God’s honor to know just how powerful He is, and if nothing else, would depict man for his own true nature and the reason why evil is allowed to exist in this world of ours – chiefly because we let it.

Our God is more than our buddy, more than a loving Father figure, more than a brother who has always been there for us.  Our God is the source of infinite power, infinite love, and infinite grace.  His ability to destroy is unmatched, but He is not known for that, He is known for His ability to restore, to heal, and reconcile through forgiveness with a stiff necked, self centered, self absorbed group of ants.  The infinite has reached out in love to show the finite how much it is valued by its creator.  The whole story of the gospel is a love story from cover to cover.  It is not about judgment but of redemption.  It is not about eternal separation from God, but eternal proximity.  We are not destined to fail, but have already been selected for Salvation.  I praise my God of creation and restoration, and ask that He absolutely destroy the evil that lurks within me, and within the world around me…

Peace ...

It is becoming almost a foreign concept.  We live with so much violence that surrounds us; wars, and rumors of wars; fighting – to survive, to get ahead, to get what we are ‘owed’; our lives are made up of conflict after conflict after conflict.  Does the concept of peace ever materialize in our lives?  Is it still possible to relax, unwind, let down our guard, and just take a moment to enjoy peace anymore?

Our soldiers fight side by side in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where else tonight.  We are told they fight to defend our freedom, but I tend to dispute that notion.  I think they volunteered to serve to defend our nation, and the freedoms we all enjoy.  But they fight mostly to survive, and to protect each other – brothers in arms.  There is no higher state of tension to exist within, than life on a battlefield.  Your life, your existence could be ended in a second, so vigilance is keen, senses are tuned beyond the norm, instincts are heightened, and soldiers keep watch.  I am told most pray for peace.  I believe that.

But when a soldier returns to his homeland here in the US, peace is hardly what he finds.  Our entire way of life remains conflict after conflict.  Of course here we do not typically bet our lives on the outcome, and our vigilance is much less as a result.  We are able to enter into conflicts casually as a result, and enter them we do.  But is this the fate of all mankind?  The Bible states that the world is at war with the church – effectively evil remains at war with good.  God did not start it, but He remains in the thick of it, until evil is finally and fully consumed and exists no more.  So then do followers of God expect peace only after evil has been vanquished?  Perhaps.

But the war with evil does not seem to dominate our conflict agenda throughout the day in most circumstances.  We find ourselves fighting for a parking place at our destination, attempting to get just a bit further ahead in traffic, trying to secure the ‘last’ item on sale in the store.  We compete for better pay, better promotions and opportunities.  We argue endlessly with our families over questions and answers that have no real meaning – who stars in a sitcom we both enjoy, who sang that song 5 years ago, etc..  It is as though we thrive on the concept of conflict, and ignore or tune out any shot at real peace.

It gets so bad we begin to equate peace with death.  Peace looks boring!  There is nothing to do when at peace, nothing to captivate our senses, nothing to challenge our minds or bodies; peace looks like a real downer.  This however is mere marketing myth, proposed by, and maintained by, our evil adversary.  His intent in this regard is to wear us out.  Over stress us, to the point where our meager bodies fail us.  Heart disease is a leading killer, aggravated by stress.  Stress is known to reduce our immune system, and make us more susceptible to illness of all varieties.  But it doesn’t end there, oh no, evil also intends to so corrupt our minds that we believe the lies about existing in a state of peace.

Meditation, or the emptying of the mind, is sometimes equated to seeking peace.  It is not.  Being at peace does not mean being brain dead, any more than it means doing nothing, or being bored.  Being at peace begins by stopping what you are doing for a second.  Begin by thinking about your life and your activities in the context of the eternal.  Is getting a few more car lengths ahead on your way to wherever – going to truly mean anything in 3 months, 3 years, or 3 decades.  Will arriving at your destination a whopping 20 seconds earlier REALLY make a difference?  I doubt it.  So if getting ahead is not really that important, then maybe it doesn’t need to stress you out.  Maybe it is OK to simply allow yourself to arrive when you arrive. 

No, this is not an excuse to do what you want when you want to.  Nor am I advocating you should ignore your commitments to be on time.  Instead I would advocate better pre-planning and figuring into the equation enough time for the unexpected.  But what I am saying is that sometimes your journey simply takes longer than you want.  Accidents happen.  Looky-Loos slow down traffic to a crawl.  You wind up hating the guy in front of you for not being in the same rush you are. 

All these things are fully capable of adding stress to your life – or – you are fully capable of deciding to be at peace instead.  Again, allow yourself to arrive when you arrive.  It’s not that you had to pull the car off the road and do nothing to be at peace.  You are still driving.  You are still in the same traffic, on the same road, listening to the same radio channel, probably late for the same event.  But your mind is now free from the truly meaningless stress it was under.  Instead you could contemplate on something that does actually have more meaning like the loved ones in your life for example.  Your relationship with God, who by the way is watching and could still help you arrive on time – now there’s a novel concept, prayer to solve problems.

To really enjoy peace, don’t sit on your soda, get up and go outside.  Yes, you remember that other foreign place you pass through on your way to your car, into the store, back into the car, and back into the house again.  Yes, between all these events you were actually outside, in the great outdoors, albeit briefly.  Step outside in your backyard if you have one, on a balcony if one is available to you, or outside your place of business if needs-be, and just take a brief minute to enjoy the sky, the sun or the clouds (as the case may be).  Enjoy breathing for just a second.  See if you can hear any birds near where you are.  Listen for the crickets.  Feel the warmth, or enjoy the biting cold as the season permits.  It doesn’t take long, but just a minute in nature, a time-out for adults to THINK about something else besides every conflict we indulge every minute of the day.  These minutes of peace are what make life worth it. 

Winning is not everything, or the only thing, or the most important thing.  Winning, means someone else lost.  Winning, while being temporarily satisfying, does nothing to prevent or preclude the very next conflict.  And losing, well that is another horrific feeling along the way.  But being at peace, can help us to refocus on what is truly important.  You do not have to give up a pursuit of excellence to be at peace either.  You do not have to be substandard, or accept less, to be at peace.  Being at peace is a conscience decision however, and it takes a conscience decision to achieve it.  You don’t wander into a peaceful state.  You have to set aside other pressures to find it.  But it is always there.  A moment where you set aside your stress and rethink what is really important.  Allowing yourself to just be; deciding to overlook stress just briefly in order to let peace in your life.

Peace is what God intended for his creation to exist in.  Conflict was never His intention, it was a result of evil.  By nature evil is conflict as much as God is love.  But peace is the state we will spend eternity in.  Now take a second and really think about this, we will spend an infinite number of years living in complete peace.  If that is our destiny as God has promised, why do we find it so necessary to create conflict in our lives?  Evil will always bring conflict to us while it is around.  Why do we choose to make our own in addition?  So many of us choose to live so miserably everyday because we create conflicts and allow them to completely overwhelm us.  We do nothing to reduce them.  We are taught not to back down, give in, compromise, or give up.  We fight, and fight, till we forget what we were fighting for.  But not all these battles are really necessary.  Too many are of our own making, and therefore, we might be able to get rid of them if we chose to.

It is unrealistic to think that on this earth we will exist full time in a state of peace.  But it is equally short-sighted to believe peace is out of our reach at ALL times.  Let us choose to make ourselves peacemakers, rather than warmongers.  Let us not condemn others for their choices, but focus on our own, to improve us.  Let us look inward and refocus our lives on what is eternally important, and allow ourselves the freedom to let go of what is not.  Then we can begin to experience the peace of heaven.  Then we can enter into the ‘rest’ our Lord offers.  I thank God for the time He provides to me, to simply sit back for a moment and enjoy the peace He offers…

An Angry God ...

One of the Devil’s most prized strategies to keep us from trying to get to know our God, is to portray Him as angry, vengeful, and just looking for an excuse to wipe us off the map.  After all wasn’t that whole thing with Noah, just a precursor to a future hell?  And what about Christ’s ‘little rant’ in the temple to cleanse it, whips and overturned tables are imagery more associated with anger than with peace and love.  Is God mad?  How often?  Does He get mad at me?

The problem seems amplified when we look at each other and our relationships and realize how often in fact we DO get mad at each other (no matter how much we really love each other underneath).  Could it be that way with God?  I hope not.  The idea that God sits around mad, just waiting for us to screw up so He can rightly punish us, has its origins in the evil one.  This was the concept of God he tried to sell the rest of the Universe upon being cast out of heaven.  Fortunately no-one was buying it, except us of course.  God being perpetually angry is different though from God getting angry from time to time.

Does God ever get mad?  Yes.  Christ’s ‘tirade’ in the temple was an excellent example of what really gets under God’s skin.  Here we had a situation of supposedly righteous religious leaders who were systemically abusing the poor, overcharging them for sacrifices they had to make in order to fulfill their religious commitments.  The priests also sold the meat from these sacrifices at the local butchery, so you might say they made money coming and going with the enterprise.  Add to this, cheating on the exchange rate for currency, and the temple of God had become a den of thieves.  The perverting of a religious system designed to teach the mercy of God, by making only greed and an apparent payment-for-forgiveness-system visible was more than Christ could take.  He was filled with righteous anger, and as his eyes met those of the guilty, they realized His divinity for a brief second and fled in terror.  As Christ moved through the temple he overturned the tables and spilled the ill-gotten-gains out on the floor.  He makes His point clear to all who remain watching – my house shall be a house of prayer, not commerce.  God’s mercy cannot be purchased.

It is also interesting to note that immediately after this so called ‘loss of temper’ Christ begins teaching the children and the poor, and those who remained behind.  Now think about this for a second.  Have you ever seen someone burst into a room, screaming, yelling, and cracking a whip around – if so, you can imagine the first people to exit the scene would be the children in terror stricken mode.  Why did they not run?  The poor who already feel condemned by their lack of funds to make an appropriate sacrifice also remained – why?  Could it be that the blazing eyes, and whip cracking we attribute to Christ might be over-exaggerated?  Could it be that as he gazed into the eyes of the guilty they ‘knew’ their own guilt, they recognized ‘who’ was looking into the deepest recesses of their souls, and ‘who’ was condemning their actions – and they fled from His presence.  The poor, and the children only witnessed Christ ‘cleaning’ His own house.  They saw the benevolence of what He did for them, on their behalf, and they met no divinely condemning gaze, but one of only love and forgiveness – the very things they sought at this special place.

Which means, if Christ was never really out-of-control angry when He cleansed the temple, was He really that mad during the flood.  The Bible says when He looked at the wickedness in the world He was sorry (i.e. He repented) that He had made man in the first place.  Ouch!  Our forefathers were so evil in mind and deed, they actually made God sorry He created us.  And we seem doomed to repeat these exact same mistakes.  However sorry is not angry.  But for Noah who found grace in the eyes of the Lord, we might well be a footnote in the annuls of heavenly history.  Was God venting his anger with sin at us during the flood, or was He making a statement to the witnessing Universe, and captive Satan (bound here during this entire incident), of how much He hates what evil does, and where it results. 

If God had truly ‘lost his temper’ with man, why preserve Noah (the drunk), and his family with all three sons and their wives.  One of those sons would immediately pursue evil upon exiting the ark after the flood.  God knew this in advance.  Why save them all?  Why preserve the son who would pursue evil?  Was it merely for Noah’s sake?  No, God was not out of control, He knew what He was doing, and maintained this little craft while the entire rest of the world was completely and utterly destroyed.  But for God’s mercy this boat would have quickly been broken and sunk.  The inhabitants of the ark never really saw the level of destruction that was occurring outside their boat.  They knew it was bad, but only really saw the changes afterwards.  So even if you believe God was angry, the lesson of the level of violence in the earth would have been lost on the people inside the ark.  The lesson was for the witnessing Universe.

Consider the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, twin cities in the time of Abraham that were completely obliterated by God.  The imagery of fire descending from heaven conjured up in the mind, don’t lend themselves to feelings of comfort and love.  Was this another ‘anger’ episode?  Actually No.  In fact before any destruction was planned, Christ Himself with 2 other angels came to this earth to inspect the level of wickedness personally.  Abraham stopped them along the way and tried to bargain for sparing these cities on the basis of only 10 current followers of God and not of evil, but could not come up with that number.  Had he been able to, 10 followers of God, would have been responsible for saving hundreds or even thousands of others who were purely devoted to evil. 

In our present times we seem more than willing to sacrifice the lives of 10 innocent people just to get one guilty one (think Saddam Hussein, or Osama Bin Laden).  But our God values life the other way around.  He would spare 2 cities full of evil doers for the sake of 10 followers of His.  And we all know those 10 people would not have been perfect, just 10 who chose to serve God like you and me.  My question is why bother?  Couldn’t they simply move to another town and let God go ahead and destroy the evil people they left behind?  If God was in a hurry to wipe us all out when we do bad, why not just ask the 10 followers to move out?  But God is not in a hurry to see anyone die.  And perhaps the witness of just 10 people who follow God might have been enough to turn back the tide of evil that plagued those 2 cities.  Perhaps 10 followers of God could have made such an impact on Sodom, that the entire city might have repented and found our God.  But alas there was not 10 to be found among them.

Remember that the story of the destruction of these cities includes the sparing of Lot and his family despite there not being enough other righteous people to spare the entire place.  The single family who followed our God was spared just like Noah when he was fully surrounded by those bent on doing evil.  Lot and his family too were not to witness the destruction God had in mind, they were to flee without looking back.  Lot’s wife could not resist just taking a brief glance backwards to the place of sin while it was being destroyed and as result was immediately transformed into a pillar of salt.  While Lot and his family may have seen what happened to their wife and mother, they did not witness the destruction on the plains.  And there were no survivors there, so who was the intended audience for this act of judgment against sin – Satan, his fallen comrades, and the remaining Universe.  We are only witnesses to the after-effects of His judgment, not to a real-time feed of how lethal it may be. 

There is a just side to God, and it can tolerate only so much evil that man inflicts on each other, before action must be taken.  Sometimes it is to make a statement regarding the true nature of worship (like the cleansing of the Temple); sometimes it is to eliminate the abusive crimes of sexual rape against innocents (Sodom & Gomorrah); sometimes it is to stop man from playing God and creating new life from mixing DNA up between the species (the Flood); sometimes it was to get Israel to stop sacrificing children born of idolatry and orgies by throwing them into the fires of Molech (a heathen bloodthirsty idol); and someday it will be to end the reign of time evil has been granted to demonstrate its natural course.  And for those who believe that evil will reign forever, just take a quick gander at these examples of God taking selective action to terminate evil.  They are a fore-warning that evil itself is scheduled for termination.  It will not last.

To believe God never gets angry is probably doing Him a disservice.  But to believe He is vindictive, or just waiting to punish us, is completely misguided.  Sometimes the actions of my child may make me angry, but my anger tends to be short-lived, and my feelings seem more to center on love than on any kind of disappointment.  I believe it is more the same with God.  My evil actions and choices may sometimes cause Him anger, as He considers the pain I cause others in this way, but I have found His forgiveness complete, His patience eternal, and His love overwhelming.  I do not serve an angry God.  And I thank Him for this as well …

God's Funny Bone ...

Think He has one?  Do you?  Most people believe they have a sense of humor, though the truth of this may be up for debate.  But if we believe we can find things, situations, and language funny – isn’t it possible God can too?  Another huge myth about God is His perceived inability to laugh.  Of course this is a logical fallacy since if we His created beings are capable of laughing, our originator must also be capable.

When it comes to humor there are so many forms of it like understatement, exaggeration, slap-stick or physical humor, word play, puns, or intelligent questions about silly or common situations to name a few.  There is the humor we find in children doing ‘cute’ things, or pets doing ‘funny’ things.  There is the analytical humor of comedians like George Carlin who takes an in depth look at the language we use to describe common situations like pre-boarding an airplane – “how do you get on before you get on?”  Or “making sure we get ‘in’ the airplane, let Evil Kneivel get ‘on’ the airplane.”  I think George would make God giggle with this routine, particularly his entire section on airline security. 

In today’s day we find a new generation of Christian comedians who expound about life’s common situations and the funny things we find ourselves doing or saying.  Like music I find myself enjoying many forms of humor.  One in particular I enjoy is ‘dead-pan’ humor or asking very smart questions about common things, in a very dry monotone voice.  Steven Wright is a good example of this asking the question “why is the alphabet in that order?”  Or “what happens if you get scared half to death, twice?”  Others like comedian Demetri Martin ask questions like “isn’t a mobile home with a flat tire, just a home?”  I have to believe God is laughing out loud at this one, particularly since He knows all the real answers to these kinds of questions.

The humor of poking fun at yourself can be quite amusing and takes a fair degree of humility to do.  We find humor in impressions of others, the better the impression, the more funny it can be.  There can be humor in stereo-typing groups of people, but often this can degenerate into a series of offensive statements designed to illicit a laugh.  If it plays to the truth, and avoids playing to racist bias, it can still be funny.  When you start thinking about all these types of humor, and the literally hundreds of comedians who have been able to make you laugh, do you begin to wonder if God is not the author of humor as well?  Let’s face it, not everybody has the comic timing to tell a joke.  Still others think they are funny when they are clearly not.  The skill or ability to be a great comedian looks to me like a gift.  I know where gifts come from don’t you.

Making people laugh in this world is a precious commodity.  With all that evil has accomplished in diverting our attention to fixate on what would destroy us – comedians arise on the scene and ask us to re-examine what we take for granted.  They cause us to see the humor in our ruts.  They make us take a second and laugh at our strange behavior.  But beyond that, they make us think.  George Carlin talks with great humor about how business marketing takes advantage of us.  His routine is well-worded and articulate.  But beyond the immediate laugh, is the premise George uncovers – we are sold things we do not need, by people who do not care, for prices we cannot afford to pay.  If George were a preacher, I doubt his sermon, would have reached the millions that his routine has undoubtly been heard by. 

George may not be a Christian.  Neither is Bill Maher or Jon Stewart.  But the questions they ask, and the jokes they make about issues in the news of the day – cause people to sit back and think.  Given the goal of evil to keep our attention on anything but Christ, doesn’t it seem that thinking about what we see and what we are told causes us to look at a bigger picture for meaning.  The drive to find meaning in your existence is the earliest step on a journey that can ultimately lead to God.  I believe there is great value in what our comedians do for us.  I believe whether they realize it or not, they disrupt the routine of evil, and give us pause to think about our behavior.

One of the reasons I wrote this book is due to my admiration for Bill Maher.  It appears to me that Bill has been systemically poisoned by well meaning Christians about the character of God.  The myths we debunk in this book, shed a new, or more accurate, light on all the topics that cause an agnostic to question the character of God.  If Bill had not been programmed to believe all these lies about God, would he still be an agnostic?  Or would, as he eludes to on his show, he find that Jesus’ words embody the great truth of our existence.  I do not believe that intelligence, a common trait among comedians, is incompatible with a belief in God.  I believe the lies intelligent people wind up subscribing to, cause them to reason another way.  After all, I would be unable to reconcile the concept of a loving God with an ‘eternally burning’ hell designed for ‘bad’ people no matter what they did here on earth.  That would lead me away from God as well.  This logical fallacy is one key reason, why this commonly taught doctrine of hell is simply not true.

Some people are offended by the swear words comedians tend to use in their routines.  They consider this ‘offensive’ language to be unacceptable by God, and therefore something we should avoid listening to.  I agree with the concept of ‘offensive language’ being avoided.  However I find it in so many other places.  For example, when a homeless person asks us for a dollar and we say “no” – that is offensive to me.  When a sinner reaches out for love and support and finds only judgment and condemnation from us – that is entirely offensive to me.  When we blindly accept the lies evil tells and rationalize our words and our actions – that is offensive to me.  When a child asks only for a few minutes of time from a busy parent and the answer is “no” – that is offensive to me.  And most of all – when we use the name of God to justify our own ignorance and bias and inflict pain on others – that, is truly offensive to me – and to God.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not advocate using gutter language to express yourself.  To me some of the greatest comedians do not need the use of swear words to make their material funny.  Jackie Mason, Red Buttons, Lucille Ball, Bill Cosby, Carol Burnett, Demetri Martin, and Jim Gaffigan to name a few.  On the other hand, I try not to judge those who speak differently than I do, and I do try to listen to what it is they are actually saying beyond the words I may not enjoy.  After all, I’m sure some of the things I say may not always be the best, even if the words I use are longer or absent the expletives used in a comedy routine.

The wise man said “laughter does good like a medicine”.  I believe in that statement, both metaphorically and literally.  I think God gave us the ability to laugh, and to some the gift of being funny.  I think we laugh too little and worry too much.  Maybe we should turn that paradigm over on its head in our lives …