Our Sometimes Silly Beliefs Don’t Matter Much to God. 3 Ways God Views Our Beliefs.

Beliefs don’t matter?

I’M SAYING GOD CARES LESS what you believe than your pastor, Sunday school teacher, tv preacher, or parents might. It comes down to: What  do you think GOD IS LIKE? Here are some reasons why God might care what you believe – or not. They are not all equally attractive.

I.  GOD AS GOOD PARENT

1. Maybe God is a decent person and is kindly interested in what you think about things. Could be, you know. That fits how Jesus behaved and taught.
2. Maybe God knows that your beliefs matter to you and thus is interested in terms of
   • How your beliefs make you feel
   • How your beliefs direct your life in healthy or unhealthy ways
   • How your beliefs cause you to impact other people’s lives in good and not good ways.
3. God sees your learning – development – loving project and cares how it is going.
4. To God, love really matters more than theory. Could be, you know. Jesus taught that did he not?
5. [ See item IV, at the bottom –> ]

II.  GOD AS SOMETIMES INDIFFERENT – OUR BELIEFS DON’T MATTER FOR GOOD REASONS (a good parent might sometimes be indifferent)

1. You know though, you ARE cocky, and impervious.
2. You haven’t done your (read “any”, or “enough”) homework.
3. You listen to non-credible sources and follow them.
4. You don’t listen to Jesus.
5. Many of God’s thoughts, ideas, activities, take a little more moxie than you have in order to understand them. Way above your pay grade.
6. Why should God listen to you blather?
7. Your thinking is kinda boring.
8. Your brain, though very impressive in important ways, is just not up to handling the really big problems.
9. To God, love really is more important than theory – especially theory arrived at through the above attitudes and habits!

III.  GOD AS VICIOUS IDIOT TYRANT (as some theologians make god out to be)

1. Who cares what you think?
2. God is not interested in you actually learning things.
3. God has a fragile ego that MUST have everyone agreeeing, or “there’ll be Hell to pay” (fragile ego sorta like the people who teach that).
4. God won’t let you be forgiven and saved unless you believe certain right things – or at least imagine you do, or pretend you do.
5. God feels uncertain about his own sovereignty whenever anyone anywhere is not pretending to be in total agreement with all god’s teachings or ideas.
6. Accurate history, Bible knowledge, etc., in your head is more important to god than is your spiritual peace.
7. Insider statements of theology or religious thinking are way more valued by god than is love, incoming or outgoing .
8. God wants a Heaven full of people who are intellectual, theological, and personality duplicates. (But a question – Who needs more than one of them if they’re all the same?)
9. God is extremely narrow-minded.
10. Calvinist (etc) God: “I’m sending you to Hell regardless of what you believe or pretend to believe or try to believe or thought you should believe so give it up, Fool!”

I’m quite certain, in fact, that all these concerns about control and agreement and ego and even Hell come not from god but from wannabe human bosses or bullys with an immature but destructive need to dominate and control.

IV.  THE BIGGEST, BEST REASON!!

God wants you growing in love!

… which requires

• thought,
• honesty,
• experimentation,
• humility,
• boldness,
• self-awareness,
• change,
• love,
• interest,
• humility,
• interaction,
• love,
• thought,
• courage,
• love,
• etc.

Your created limited ability to “get things right” is not a moral basis for judging you.  It’s just not. God does not do that. But these spiritual virtues just listed WILL surely lead us toward better thinking and stronger spiritual living.
SO: It seems you (we) have to choose which kind of God we will believe in.
It truly is our own personal choice, and we are in fact making it. So we can make a choice that greatly insults god – and everyone else.  Or we can make a choice that is much more respectful, and thus loving – truly a Good God.  In this way, our belief matters very much. What is God like?

I pick The Good God that Jesus represented among us – item I on this list (also Item IV), who is sometimes a bit of item II for good reasons.

I pick that way for obvious reasons of hope and respect, of love, joy, and peace, of respect for God’s Good News!!

What is your God like?
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See also: Beware the Petty God: Bad, but Worshipped Everywhere, in All Religions.
See also: Brian McLaren’s good old book Finding Faith: A Self-Discovery Guide
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