#echoskepsi

There are christians who believe the imprecatory prayers of the psalms are prescriptive and instructive and permissive (this is how you should/can pray) instead of descriptive (this is how the psalmists expressed their anger and frustration; look: shared human experiences),

who have manipulated and forced and violated their way into positions of powerful decision-making and influence. They are launching wars. They are literally killing people. And demanding god do the same and more.

So who gets to pray imprecatory (this fucking word) prayers? Who gets to aim god as a weapon and launch god at people they don’t like?

Why don’t we all just demand god kill everyone?

Why don’t we all demand that god end all of this bullshit and trauma and harm and destruction?

Oh because an ancient people just transitioning from, and inevitably syncretizing, animism saw light refraction in the sky and guessed some intangible entity was speaking to them?

Oh because “The Lord…is patient toward you, not wanting any to perish but for all to come to repentance” ? (2 Peter 3:9)

That verse was what ultimately undid what remained of my very shredded faith.

According to the theology I was immersed in for over 30 years, that I studied and preached and led others in worship:

• god is omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, merciful, and more (and if not then not worthy of my devotion, submission, and worship);

• faith is a gift that god gives to each person by revealing it/[him]self/the spirit to you, and it is not possible to have faith unless god leads you to it;

therefore, if these are true, then

• god could reveal [him]self to the entire world once and for all and leave no doubt as to [his] existence, goodness, perfection, holiness;

• those who don’t believe, don’t believe because either god has not given them the gift of faith (weird…why?), or, they have rejected it when god presented it;

• BUT, god can control the hearts of people, like the hardening of pharaoh’s heart in order to free God’s people from slavery in Egypt, which is why faith is a gift that is given and not a realization a person just has

So, god could do this for all people at any moment? Could give every person a chance to repent at this very moment? Could end all this suffering and sort out the wicked who will be punished from those who will receive mercy, immediately now and once and for all and forever so that we are all released from the suffering of this life, the suffering inflicted on us by greedy, hateful sociopaths and psychopaths?

And…doesn’t? And we’re supposed to accept this as divine patience, instead of neglect?

That god is either monsterous, or doesn’t exist.

Rather than degrade my faith to tolerate and submit to a truly hideous belief, I let it go.

So it’s really super fucking obnoxious that I read this word one time a couple days ago and it is on repeat in my head like an itch I cannot scratch.

Fuck intrusive thoughts. Fuck tics. Fuck a dictatorial faith in a monsterous, hideous god and the people who gleefully weaponize it.