Praise God and Pass the Ammunition

A few thoughts about religion.

If God loves me and I am his child, why does he subscribe to cruel and inhuman punishment?

The big threat from every religion is that if you are not good, you will go to Hell "FOREVER." Let's look at this as a punishment. If we decide that "forever" means the life of the universe as we know it, and we are currently in the middle of the universes' life span of 30 billion years, that means that forever, currently, is about 15 billion years.

So ..... religion tells me God loves me and cares for me and wants the best for me, but, if I somehow screw up during my measly 80+ year life span, God will sentence me to at LEAST 15 BILLION YEARS of pain, torture and anguish. That seems to be quite an overreaction and quite a punishment for someone you "love." The whole concept is rediculous.

Plus, isn't God supposed to be all-knowing and all-powerful? Isn't Heaven supposed to be the place where you will go to earn your "perfect" reward if you are good?

Yet, Satan and his followers were angels in Heaven. They turned against God (because he gave Man free will and angels didn't have that - wait a minute - if angels didn't have free will, how could Satan have turned evil and decided to challenge God? Oh that's right, I'm not supposed to question that). They started a WAR IN HEAVEN and tried to take over. If God is all-powerful, why would Satan have even tried to challenge him? Why didn't God just make them all disappear? If God is all-knowing, why didn't he see this coming and just prevent it? (God seems to be surprised and angered quite frequently for an all-knowing being) And notice that God didn't actually defeat Satan. They actually came to an agreement to stop the war where Satan and his followers got their own country. And they were then allowed to torture mankind. Doesnt sound like a crushing victory for an all-powerful being.

If you subscribe to the idea that God is all-knowing and all-powerful, then nearly every story in the Bible makes no sense. If you believe the stories in the Bible, then you have to accept that God is, at best, maybe just "slightly" superior. But certainly not all-knowing and all-powerful.

This is why religion makes no sense and is bunk. The stories and the rules are completely contradictory.

The purpose of religion is to pretend you are doing good for others so you can convinve your religious leaders to tell God you are good to save your own ass from going to hell. In the meantime, religion fosters intolerance, hatred, elitism, and the persecution of anyone not "of the faith." Thou Shalt Not Kill .... this is a COMMANDMENT .... unless your religious leaders tell you God said it was ok to kill "this time."

Rediculous.