God is love, except when he's hate

Went to see my 4 year old daughter in a church Nativity play. This is the only time of year that I might ever enter a church, she was very cute (she played an angel), no-one tried to make me take part in any form of cannibalistic ritual, all was good.

But, unfortunately, if you attend a service in a church, then you have to listen to a sermon, and this was no exception. This one was all about love - how God loves us, we must love him etc.

It was some kind of New Age Bible translation being used - incidentally, if you have to keep translating the Bible to keep it up to date, does that mean it wasn't accurate in the first place? What does that say for the Word of God? Just a thought.

What the preacher came back to was this - the way to determine if we truly love God is:

1. Do we really love God? (fairly simple)
2. Do we keep his commands?

And that's the problem I have with Christianity. What kind of loving relationship is based on commands? And since when does anyone stop loving somebody else, just because they won't do what they tell you? Who gave you permission to say what's right and what's wrong?

Of course we have to love God, by this twisted logic, because a) he created us, and b) he sent his only son to forgive our sins.

a) is obviously false - no, God didn't create us, we're products of gradual evolution by natural selection. b) - aside from the problematic issue of Jesus' conception, the only reason sin exists is apparently because God set out the laws. You don't get to write the rules, then expect us to be grateful because you forgive us.

Anyway, according to 1 Peter, God isn't just love.

2:17 Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

Fear God? Honour the king? Weren't we supposed to love him? It's a strange relationship, no doubt about that. I seem to remember a certain book called 1984, in which the central character had a similar relationship to Big Brother.

Grrr. Christians just have to go and ruin a good holiday by bringing religion into it.