An Atheist Contemplates Scripture - Jan 25 2022

 

An Atheist Contemplates Scripture

Jan 25 2022

When God tested Abraham

   —   commanding him

to sacrifice his son   —

was it proof of love He sought?

Or a trial of trust,

a rite of obedience

unwavering faith?

Or was it more like bullying,

how the schoolyard braggart

needs a show of fear

to feel in charge?

As the insecure

who feel unworthy of love

must be repeatedly reassured.

Or as the powerful

are feared and followed

deserving or not.

Or perhaps to demonstrate

His magnanimity,

a merciful God, who dispenses compassion,

wresting the knife

from the executioner's hand.

Whatever it is, this is no god for me;

either too much human weakness and passion,

or a neediness

unbecoming of gods.

A Heavenly Father

made in the image of Man,

when He should be ineffable

not of this world.

Especially since the universe I inhabit

is indifferent and random;

more clockwork, than worship,

more physical law

than gods or virtue.

A place where idols don't rule

contingency does.

And where Man is not the purpose;

faith may place us at the centre

but is this not the sin of pride?

Because just as the sun

does not circle the earth,

I am no apple

in the eye of God;

I am insignificant,

and there will be no deliverance

no mercy dispensed.

I'm glad Abraham relinquished the knife

and spared his son.

But how sad

that human sacrifice is still with us;

the millions lost to war, genocide

the demonized “other”.

To man-made disasters

concocted famines

the cult of personality.

And if not on the pyre Abraham built

then on the altar of ideology.

So either godless, or an absent God.

Who doesn't deserve

to be feared or obeyed.

Who isn't worthy of love.

I was reading a piece about the response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that explored the difficult balancing act between the costs of prevention – social distancing, vaccination, masking, and most important in terms of economic cost, lock-downs – with the human cost in debility and death. The article was framed using this metaphor of human sacrifice in general, and incidentally referenced the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac.

I'm loath to write political poems, avoid philosophical ones, and have already alluded more than enough to my own atheism and lack of faith. But this story immediately triggered a thought I've often had: how the frequently wrathful, mercurial, and patriarchal father figure that is the Old Testament God is so much a projection of us, our needs, and our family and communal experience. In particular, His abiding insecurity: this constant need to be reaffirmed and reassured that His flock obeys, fears, loves, and has absolute faith in Him. Really, how unbecoming for such an omnipotent and omniscient being!