Let’s start with the “gender” of the Protagonist, God. The God of the Bible is always referred to in the male persuasion (see labels such as Father, Lord, He, His, Him). To be fair, there’s a slim chance that, even to this day, the gender reference may just be some grammatically correct default label used when referring to the God Entity. But, with all the reference in the Bible to a “God the male,” I’m suspicious it goes beyond just the grammatical. I suspect He is actually thought of by His believers as being “of the male gender,” only Bigger and Better… a lot Better.
Things do not go along as originally planned by the flawless omnipotent, omniscient God, and so He decides that humankind, a faulty species, must be saved from itself. God decides to have a progeny, an offspring, to correct the situation gone terribly awry. But rather than sending a female child to handle that correction task, God decides He will make it a boy; a son, Jesus. That would be no surprise since it is widely known that most males often see a son as their alter ego; women, a daughter as theirs. Jesus is even touted as “God in the flesh.”
Time for God to act on His new plan. Rather than picking out any random woman on the street, God picks out a young virgin girl. God “magically” impregnates her with (evidently His? / something’s?) male sperm of her own species, the only way known to humankind to impregnate a human female.
Jesus is born, grows into a man, spreads his peace and goodwill messages, culminates in his barbaric crucifixion by his fellow man, and God’s salvation mission is accomplished. Humankind now has a salvation mechanism, through God’s Son, Jesus Christ, humanity’s declared Lord and Savior.
So, in summary: God the Perfect Male; ruling Master of the universe; has his original plan go awry; gets Himself a virgin; has a Son, His alter ego; provides a correction mechanism for humankind’s failings; accomplishes new mission to correct His original failed plan.
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So here are the questions:
- Doesn’t the biblical scenario strike you as rather anthropomorphic?
- Should a rationally thinking person be at least somewhat suspicious of the entire spectacular story?
- As a theist, is it really that hard to understand why someone would declare atheism?
Thanks for posting and recommending!