Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Why does God take credit for the good things but not the bad?

Well, first of all, god doesn't "take" anything, because god doesn't exist.
It's the people who assign to him the credit.
But why do they do that?

In the past, when polytheism was prevalent, people used to assign the bad things to the gods as well, not just the good things. Gods were often seen as capricious, erratic, and even irrational in their "behavior". And while it better matched the reality of how nature "behaved", it would instill a strong sense of inconvenience in the hearts of people. Imagine having your life governed by a bunch of capricious, erratic and irrational powerful beings. Doesn't seem very nice, does it? Quite depressing, even. It can make you feel powerless and helpless in the face of such odds.
Greek gods and goddesses influencing human affairs from above the clouds

Enter Christianity: Here we have these new 'preachers' who go around talking about an "all-loving" and "perfect" god. Such that always has our best interest in his heart. Such that even 'sacrificed' his own life for our benefit.
After years living under the tyranny of capricious and sadistic beings, now all of a sudden it appears that it wasn't these powerful beings who were at fault at all... Because they didn't even exist. But it was us the humans who were at fault.

Now, all of a sudden the "power" to "fix" the world lays in our hands. And all we have to do? All we have to do is to "fix" our belief system. Just believe in a different god who is "the one true god". Suddenly the people don't feel powerless anymore. Suddenly the good fortunes and benefits are right behind the corner, and it's super easy to get there! All you have to do is say "I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior" and ABRACADABRA you are now without illness or sadness and you are "saved", if not in this life then in the next.
The 'one true God' loves you and wants to help you. But there is something you must do in return.
From the movie "Agora" (2009)

It's almost like voting in political elections:
You vote for the candidate who promises you the best things.

If people had not assigned the good things to their god, then their god is redundant and unnecessary. Such a belief system would simply not survive as a religion.

If people had assigned the bad things to their god, then it makes their god capricious and undesirable. You wouldn't want to "vote" for such a "candidate". It also makes the people feel powerless to fix the bad things that happen in their life.

Bottom line is:
People assign the good things to god, and the bad things to themselves, due to wishful thinking.
They wish to have the power to change things for the better (using minimum effort as possible), and they wish that the god they worship would be a good god - and therefore worthy of worship.

To this effect, Christianity is the result of "religious evolution" where the religion that sounds better to the people (i.e. tells them what they want to hear) is the religion that survives better than the rest (and not because it's more "true" than other religions).

Special thanks to Atheist Republic for the inspiration to this post.