We Are Worthy!

Back to Mr. Goodkind’s book series. I’m currently reading book 8, I believe. The series makes a brilliant case for many things, among them freedom, free will, the indomitability of the human spirit, and, my personal favorite (and the topic of today’s post), the indisputability of the worthiness of every person born on this earth to be.

Goodkind makes some observations that cause any thinking man to, well, think. His observations of the religious branch – the “true” leaders of the Imperial Order – give one pause. The Imperial Order kills in the name of their beliefs. “Kills” is really the wrong word. They slaughter mercilessly. They destroy everything in their path. They leave nothing alive. They murder, rape, steal, kill, and utterly destroy…in the name of the greater good. In the name of true faith. It is in the name of true faith, in the name of the cause of the greater good, that the Imperial Order declares that no one life has value; that life only has as much value as it is capable of contributing to the greater good and that, when life no longer contributes to the cause of the greater good of all, that life no longer has value at all. There is no individuality, no worth. There is no free will. There is no faith: dissenters are tortured, imprisoned, enslaved, and murdered…for the greater good, of course, because the Creator cannot tolerate dissent, argument, or, Creator forbid, questioning of any kind among His people.

The Imperial Order of Goodkind’s story teaches that all men are inherently evil. There are, of course, varying degrees of evil among men, but there is no man who can rise above the taint of evil that courses through poisoned humanity. All men are born evil and therefore, all unworthy of the goodness of the Creator. Men can only hope that through their charitable goodness toward their fellow man, that through their devotion to the cause of spreading the goodness of the Creator, that through the recognition of the fact that they are inherently evil and their willingness to give all that they are and all that they have to benefit others – only by the purest virtue of total sacrifice from cradle to grave – can any man ever hope to undo some of the blackness that has stained their entire existence by the very sin of having been born human, move the Creator’s heart to pity, and hope that He may keep them from a torturous eternity at the not so tender mercies of the Keeper of the Underworld.

Sounds appallingly ridiculous, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you laugh in the face of anyone who tried to speak such absurdities to you?

So, tell me…when was the last time you laughed on a Sunday morning in a Church service? Because this is astonishingly similar to what is taught from pulpits around the world even today. In point of fact, I have heard it taught with alarming frequency – and yes, the last time I stood face to face with a man who taught it, not only did I laugh in his face, but I made sure the pastor knew exactly why I was laughing and leaving his church.

Simply put, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” because “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”

Where does it say, at any point in there that “well, you’re evil unworthy little bastards, but I’ve got nothing better to do but throw my kid’s life away for you, so meh, I suppose that if I want you to give up ten percent of your income, I better hang the kid on a tree and make an example for you?”

Seriously? What kind of God is that ridiculously insane? If God wanted your money, He’d have made an example by raining denarii out of heaven onto Caesar’s head, not nailing His boy to a tree. If He wanted you to scrape and serve and bow down to everyone who asked you to, then Moses would not have walked up to Ramses II (his relative, technically speaking – Moses was adopted into Ramses I’s household if one takes the Biblical account as an historical record) and said “I’m taking my people and we’re leaving. Do yourself a favor and don’t try and stop us,” and He certainly wouldn’t have had His own kid look at Pilate and say “my kingdom is not of this world” and refuse to do parlor tricks for Herod.

If God was some kind of crazy psychopath sitting in the clouds with nothing better to do than make you sit around and wait for Him to decide you were good enough for Him, why would Jesus have bothered healing anyone or casting out any demons? All humans are evil, right? Tainted with the sin of having been born under a curse of ‘original sin’ of some dude who ate an apple in a garden so that none of the rest of us ever born could possibly ever be good enough to make God happy…so what was the point?

Well, the point was (because half of organized religion seems to have missed it and the other half seems to not care) that God doesn’t reckon us responsible for what our parents did (yep, there’s scripture on that), so why on earth would He hold us responsible for an apple in a garden that Adam ate? The point is that even a good man will die for his friends and a great man will be hero enough to die for a complete stranger because he values human life, so doesn’t it make a little bit of sense that someone you’re calling God values it even more than that great man who just took a bullet for a stranger?

I mean, really…come on…if you’re calling Him God, you’re saying He’s a Creator and all-powerful, all-loving, all-everything, does it even make a lick of sense that He’s a brainwashed deluded moron who places so little value on individual life – not to mention the life of His own Son – that He just woke up one day and said, “Hey Son, I’m gonna hang you on a tree today because, well, it sounds like a good idea and I just want to watch you die for a bunch of ungrateful jerks who aren’t really worth it, but, well, we just have nothing better to do from nine to three tomorrow, so, whaddya say? You game?”

Yeah…that makes about as much sense as saying you saw Elvis and Michael Jackson at Kmart this afternoon, now doesn’t it?

Doesn’t it make a lot more sense to say that because we are worthy, because God places value on each and every human life on this planet, He sacrificed His only begotten Son? Doesn’t it make more sense to say that God places so much value on each individual life and that he places so much value on independent thought and action and free will that we might want to consider placing that same value on individual life, independent thought, free will, and independent action? Doesn’t it make more sense to embrace the idea that each and every person is significant for the different ideas that they bring to the equation, that, if you embrace the idea of God as a Creator, then it also makes sense to embrace the idea that each person was created differently for a reason and we would do well to embrace those differences and value each life, each person and each different idea and method of thinking and acting, regardless of whether or not we agree with it?

Just something to think about…

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