God is Hate!
October 29, 2011 by rupert
Filed under Christianity, News
I came across this image amongst a slew of “normal” rolling adverts on a big screen in Cardiif City centre this week. It is, perhaps, fitting that it stands beside a pile of rubbish because that is precisely what it is; a meaningless phrase which represents not any aspect of reality, but a fantasy of its authors.
Just stating something doesn’t give it any validity. One could equally say, “God is hunger”, “God is ignorance” or “God is hate”.
We may agree that love can be a positive, emotion compared to hate, but you don’t need God or religion to understand or feel love.
It is curious why the verse John 4:8,
“[6-8] The well that Jacob had dug was still there, and Jesus sat down beside it because he was tired from traveling. It was noon, and after Jesus’ disciples had gone into town to buy some food, a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well. Jesus asked her, “Would you please give me a drink of water?” (Contemporary English Version)
was referenced as there doesn’t seem to be anything about love within it. Perhaps, they are hoping that people will read on. I wonder if anyone bothers, apart from atheists like myself who have immunity to the mythology and ignorance of religion?
Rather than the quote referenced how about Hosea 13:16,
“Samaria will be punished for turning against me.
It will be destroyed in war–
children will be beaten against rocks,
and pregnant women will be ripped open.” (Contemporary English Version)
?
Charming! This is one amongst many quotes that can be found in the bible that highlights the hatred of “God”, or rather of the men who wrote the bible and claimed divine knowledge without evidence or justification.
I think the verse they had in mind must be 1 John 4:8:
“Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (NIV).
Ah, well spotted, that makes more sense, though still meaningless nonsense, of course.
The previous verse says, “My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him”.
We may agree that generally it is positive to love each other, rather than hate, but the statement that “Love comes from God” is rather demeaning to human beings implying that humans are not capable of such natural feelings. In reality humans are emotional creatures there is no need for any divine intervention or explanation.
This is one of the many points of difference. Christians say that religion and morality are connected. We say they aren’t – morality is independent of religion, on both philosophical and empirical grounds.
So when Christians do bad things (e.g. Roman Catholic priests abusing young boys), I suppose that’s a failure of morality rather than a failure of religion.
In other words, if “God is love” is meanlngless, surely “God is hate” is also meaningless.
Meaningless banal drivel of course, as most adverts are. And being a business ( one that doesn’t pay taxes either thanks to state sponsored superstition that our governments sanction) they do feel the need to have adverts to prop up their dwindling market share.