Religion has always been a fascination of mine. So much so that I have taken it upon myself to read and study a lot of religious texts. I have read the KJV and derivatives probably more times than most sitting in church this coming Sunday. I have read the Mormon texts, I am familiar with SDA, JW, teachings, I have studied Buddhism, Jainism, and other such religions, a few years ago I finished the English translation of the Quran. I am most familiar with Christianity tho, and will concentrate this post around the teachings of the KJV (or derivatives, if you prefer).

What I'm not:

• I'm not here to win an argument
• I’m not here to change your mind
• I'm not here to show you how silly your little christian beliefs are
• I'm not here to impress anyone with my vast knowledge and intellect. It's non existent, so no worries there.

What I am:

• I am a rather direct speaker. I've always thought that direct conversation was the best. You may not like what I say, you may not agree with what I say, what I say may even offend (Which I will try not to do), but you probably won't wonder much about how I feel about any certain topic.
• I do speak with a bit of snark. Sarcasm is a valid form of humor, and I received a double dose, but I will try to temper that for the audience.
• I do support your right to worship as you see fit. In the US I will fight for your right to do just that, as long as it strictly meets 3 criteria: Legal (obvious), Peaceful (obvious), but one that is not so obvious to a lot of people is that your religion stays out of my politics. This is by design and I cannot think of one civilization that has existed with a religiously dominated government, that turned out great. They all turn out bad, bad, mainly because you have two factions vying for all the power and dominance, but using each other to achieve that goal.

My issue lies in the belief in an omnipotent god. I have asked these questions of just about everyone who expresses a belief in a deity and practices a religion. At this point, all religions/gods/beliefs are the same to me. I realize you have made your choice, and firmly adhere to that choice...you are convinced. They are all the same to me in that every one of them basically state the same thing: "If you do not believe the way we believe and worship the god we worship, then you will not go to our heaven (eternal reward), but will go to our hell (eternal damnation.)" Now, they all have their different avenues by which they receive reward or damnation, but that is the crux as I see it.

Omnipotent god: In a nutshell, christianity believes in an omnipotent god. A god who does all, sees all, knows all, created all, seen and unseen. For the sake of a baseline, what would an omnipotent god know about me personally. I hear you say 'EVERYTHING", but lets try to quantize that. An omnipotent god of this caliber would know me on a cellular level. When I brushed my hair this morning, an omnipotent god would be intimately familiar with the skin cells that sloughed off in the process. This god would know me on a molecular level, an atomic or sub atomic level, a level scientist can't wrap their noodle around at this point. An omnipotent god of this caliber would know every last word I am about to write before I write it.

At this point, most christians would agree, that yes indeed their god knows us on levels that boggle the mind. Herein lies the rub tho. If this god knows us and is so familiar with us, then he knows something else too:

• An omnipotent god would have express foreknowledge of those who will spend eternity in reward, or damnation. God would either emphatically know this bit of information and retain his omnipotence, or he does not, and is not omnipotent, and therefore not worth of my worship and adulation. You cannot insert a ‘but’ into omnipotence.

When did he know this? He knew long before there was anything to call anything. When the earth was null and void. Jeremiah 1:5 - Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations. So, he created a human being, with express foreknowledge that person x would receive eternal reward, and person y would receive eternal damnation. Again, he either knows this and is omnipotent, or he does not and therefore is not omnipotent.

If I were to boil the ox down to the bouillon cube, there is one pivot that the entire biblical story rests on, and it's not Jesus coming to the earth to die on the cross for 'our sins'. No, it rests on the creation of angels, and one angel in specific: Lucifer.

God knew, before there was anything to call anything, that he would create Lucifer initially in a 'blameless' form, that Lucifer would rebel against God, God would kick him out of heaven, Lucifer would tempt the first two humans, they would sin, and this would plunge the world into sin, sorrow, pain, agony, and suffering......and he did it anyway. He created sin. In fact he sort of brags about it in Isaiah 45:7 - 'I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.'

This also calls into question our own freewill. True freewill, in my thinking, would be the ability to do something that an omnipotent god didn't anticipate. That would be freewill. But if an omnipotent god already knows all, then there is no freewill. What do we know about things that god knows? They happen! The entire book of Revelations is aout what IS going to happen, not what COULD or MIGHT happen. Christians themselves vocalize this notion regularly saying: 'God has a PLAN for your life'.

Could Lucifer have had freewill? Could he have passed on his attempt to take over heaven? If so, would god have to create a Lucifer 2.0 in order to carry out the rest of the biblical story? Without Lucifer, the whole story kind of falls apart. There would be no sin, sorrow, suffering, agony, no hell. Imagine!

Take any biblical story...say Noah and the Flood. Beyond the fact that this event is scientifically impossible, we'll just imagine that 40 days and 40 nights of the most torrential, global, downpour the likes that have never been seen, would raise the sea level to the current highest peak on our planet. The logistics of a vessel that would not only house two of every animal, but enough sustenance to feed and maintain them are outrageous. An omnipotent god knew before he created the inhabitants of this earth, that they would not do as he commanded, that he would send magic water to cover the entire earth killing all, save Noah, his family, and two of every animal. He knew it for fact, and did it anyways.

It's very hard for me to hear christians talk about a loving and just god, when he does these kind of things. There are a small handful of people I truly love on this earth. I love them unconditionally, meaning, there is nothing they have to do to receive my love, and there is nothing they can do to make it stop. One of them is a ladyfriend I've known for over 40 years. I don't go over to her house and beat the crap out of her do I? No. For one, I don't know that much karate. LOL Mostly because we do not intentionally cause pain to those we love. However, this loving, just, god does exactly that. That seems very twisted.

The word know’ shows up in the KJV about 700+ times. 'That ye may know ye are sons of god.' In Job, 'I know my redeemer livith.' There seems to be a whole lot of knowing. But when I ask, 'How do you know' the answers are vast. Even though I have never seen a phenomenon called wind, I know emphatically that it exists. I can prove it, I can demonstrate it, I know the mechanics of what causes wind, I can even create it. So, even tho I've never physically seen wind, I KNOW it exists.

It gets a little tricky when you ask a christian 'how do you know you are going to eternal reward.' Most of the time the convo digresses to circular reasoning which gets one nowhere. You cannot prove a negative. Some would say 'I have faith'. That's all well and good, but I suggest that everyone on this planet that is alive or has ever been alive, all had faith. Faith is not unique enough to bet your eternal soul on.

The attendees at the Jim Jones massacre party....do you think they had faith? Absolutely. They had faith to the last drop. Now, I realize towards the end of the party, some faith was wavering and they were shot, but for the most part they had unwaiverable faith. Take the Heavens Gate people. Did they have faith? Yes. I do believe all these people had faith and were quite sincere in their beliefs, tho I believe they were sincerely wrong unfortunately. However, everyone has faith. Even the most obnoxious, militant atheist has faith. Faith by it's very definition is not knowing. So, right off the bat, when you say you have faith, that's not enough for me.

Some would say that they had an epiphany or a profound change in their lives. Again, that is awesome that you saw an area of your life that was causing you trouble, and took steps to remedy that situation. However, profound changes happen to people 24/7/365 on a global basis. Profound changes are not enough to bet one's eternal soul on.

When I ask these questions of people of faith, I am most often confronted by 'How dare you question an almighty god!', to which I reply, 'I dare because I am supposedly one of his creations, and he gave us a direct order to do just that. He said '...test the spirits to see if they are of god for many false prophets will come.' Also, 'Come, let us reason together...' So this is a direct command to question. All knowledge and wisdom comes from a single question, so why not ask it?