God's Control Panel

Honk to Joe.My.God. for posting this bit of hilarity (enlarge to get the full effect):

But there's also a serious point to be made from this.

If this is your concept of God, please - throw it out, it stinks.  This is utterly childish and primitive; better you should be a cool, logical atheist than believe a preposterous superstition like this.

Which, alas, so many people do believe:  a child's God, a genie, a thunder-maker, a cosmic sadist.  An arbitrary, unloving deity with no more compassion or conscience than a two-year-old.  And thus, such people utterly, utterly miss the point of every faith worthy to be called a religion.

Better not to believe in any kind of God at all than to believe in one like that:  a pyschological projection, an embodiment of brute, unreasoning force.  A fulminating, tyrannical Wizard of Oz behind an impenetrable curtain.  A devil, not a god.

But I submit for your consideration these words, which in your Head Trucker's opinion, come much closer to the heart of what religion means than what many people call by that term:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.  But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:  for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?  And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? 

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. 

(from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5)

Note the difference between this picture and the cartoon:  a loving, merciful Father who sends the needful blessings of rain and sun upon both the good and the evil - for all humankind are His children.

And we, His children, are all brothers and sisters here on this little blue marble.

Just a thought.