When I look at Christian doctrine and dogma, I can't come to any other conclusion. I guess the same goes for Islam, also.
The 'god' character in this little melodrama we find ourselves in, created our galaxy with at least 100 billion stars, in a universe with at least 100 billion similar galaxies. So far, over 3600 exoplanets have been discovered, about 40 of them are not to dissimilar to earth, and in the habitable zone. That makes at least 40 billion planets in our galaxy alone that are in the habitable zone.
So, all this was created, so we humans can live out our measly 80 or so years in this universe, on one planet, orbiting a nondescript star, in a nondescript corner of one of 100 billion galaxies, as a means for the 'god' to determine if we are able to continue to the 'real life'. Which makes our life here, nothing more than a cosmic joke. Just a place to wipe our feet until we get to the after life.
All this, for no other reason, than to filter out the souls that don't pass his obscure 'test'.
And, so we are told, the 'god' wants us to be with him for eternity, so how does he go about making sure we get this important message? I mean, he wants us to pass through his filter, right? So, he will obviously make the rules easy to understand, and communicate them equally well to all humanity, right?
He appears to a small group of hairless apes, in a small area of the planet, to convey his message. Does all sorts of miracles, that would no doubt convince those primitive tribesmen, that he exists. Then, waits centuries, to appear again, only to sacrifice himself, to himself to act as a loophole for rules he created.
Then, did he record this message in some way as to assure that it would be passed down to all humanity in the clearest way possible? No, he inspires flawed humans to record it, decades, or more after the alleged events, on little pieces of parchment, in a language he would have known would die out. He would have also known would it would be susceptible to: copy error, editing, being lost, being misinterpreted, mistranslated, etc.
All the while, he fails the other billions of his creation all over the world, to inform them of this important message, allowing them to follow their 'invented religions' only to assure their failure to pass his 'Soul Filter'. And he does this, knowing in advance, that his rules will assure it will happen.
Why didn't this god create all the souls he wanted to spend eternity with in the first place? After all, he knows exactly which souls are going to make it though his filtering machine in the first place. Supposedly he knew this before he even created the universe.
The 'god' character in this little melodrama we find ourselves in, created our galaxy with at least 100 billion stars, in a universe with at least 100 billion similar galaxies. So far, over 3600 exoplanets have been discovered, about 40 of them are not to dissimilar to earth, and in the habitable zone. That makes at least 40 billion planets in our galaxy alone that are in the habitable zone.
So, all this was created, so we humans can live out our measly 80 or so years in this universe, on one planet, orbiting a nondescript star, in a nondescript corner of one of 100 billion galaxies, as a means for the 'god' to determine if we are able to continue to the 'real life'. Which makes our life here, nothing more than a cosmic joke. Just a place to wipe our feet until we get to the after life.
All this, for no other reason, than to filter out the souls that don't pass his obscure 'test'.
And, so we are told, the 'god' wants us to be with him for eternity, so how does he go about making sure we get this important message? I mean, he wants us to pass through his filter, right? So, he will obviously make the rules easy to understand, and communicate them equally well to all humanity, right?
He appears to a small group of hairless apes, in a small area of the planet, to convey his message. Does all sorts of miracles, that would no doubt convince those primitive tribesmen, that he exists. Then, waits centuries, to appear again, only to sacrifice himself, to himself to act as a loophole for rules he created.
Then, did he record this message in some way as to assure that it would be passed down to all humanity in the clearest way possible? No, he inspires flawed humans to record it, decades, or more after the alleged events, on little pieces of parchment, in a language he would have known would die out. He would have also known would it would be susceptible to: copy error, editing, being lost, being misinterpreted, mistranslated, etc.
All the while, he fails the other billions of his creation all over the world, to inform them of this important message, allowing them to follow their 'invented religions' only to assure their failure to pass his 'Soul Filter'. And he does this, knowing in advance, that his rules will assure it will happen.
Why didn't this god create all the souls he wanted to spend eternity with in the first place? After all, he knows exactly which souls are going to make it though his filtering machine in the first place. Supposedly he knew this before he even created the universe.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.