Why Is It That People Say “Fear God”?
October 18th, 2008
Oh JEESUS! Why is it that people say “Fear God!”? Are we supposed to live our lives in constant fear that you will kill us if we dont follow your laws?
-Mr. Bo Planters
Dear Mr. Planters,
First of all, they’re not my laws. I’m not the one you have to worry about. I’m not the one who’s been accused of worldwide homicide by drowning! I’m not the one who’s been accused of turning people into pillars of salt! But that’s how it is, I guess: you hang out with someone enough and you start getting blamed for the things the other person does.
If anything, I should be afraid of you people. You’re the ones who have ceremonies where you pretend to drink my blood and eat my flesh. That’s creepy!
But whether or not you should fear God is a different question. Same answer, but different question.
I don’t understand why so many people who claim to worship God attribute so many clearly negative traits to Him. He’s understood to be jealous, vengeful, vain, petty, aloof, biased, and angry. Many of His followers refer to themselves as “God-fearing” people. But can you love someone and fear them at the same time? And if you have good reason to fear someone, how can they love you?
I mean, I know I child can love his mother in general, but fear her when she gets drunk and starts throwing platform shoes at him. But if he fears her all the time, then there’s a problem in the relationship.
Of course, that’s not a valid comparison because “God works in mysterious ways”, right? Wrong. That phrase is not even from the Bible. God never said that He wanted His motives to be a mystery. If He did, why would He give us the Bible in the first place? He could have just given us James and the Giant Peach, which is much more entertaining to read.
If God made man in His image, then the traits that we see as positive characteristics should be traits that we attribute to God: kindness, mercy, compassion, generosity, minty fresh breath, and courage. People talk about God’s mercy like peasants would talk about the mercy of a tyrant; as if God is showing us infinite mercy and kindness by not slaughtering us every time He’s in a bad mood. Do you think that God is only good sometimes? God is not your alcoholic mother!
A perfect God would exhibit those traits all the time, and He would want us to have those traits as well. He would not want us to live in fear of Him, and he would not want our motivation for doing good to be fear of punishment. Acting out of fear does not make you a better person. You have to do right because you know it’s the right thing to do.
And if you’re following someone who’s angry and wants you to fear him… it’s probably not God. Ask him to show some ID.
Thanks,
Jesus
Tags: fear, god, people
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