I made a comment under one of the youtube videos which features Christopher Hitchens. This one was almost his last I think: an interview with Jeremy Paxman. Initially I wrote that C.H. spent a lot of time and energy raging against a tyrannical god that few people actually believed in but that, rather ironically, he had helped me delineate my own understanding of what god most definitely is NOT.
Someone replied facetiously that they were too busy reading about the genocide of the Amalekites (i Samuel) to finish reading my post.
This was my reply to this.
There are numerous passages in the OT which do just what Hitchens described. I am not denying any of that but these books date back to practically prehistoric times and were written for a wide range of reasons often by people who were clearly using God for their own nationalist purposes . (Little has changed there.) The way that God's nature is understood changes considerably (God doesn't change but human understanding of his nature) as time passes and the God of Jesus, although not exactly a seachange, is certainly a consolidation of the changes made in the final hundred years or so B.C. There are also many developments after the death of Jesus in how the Christian church was coming to understand the nature of God - not least the concept of the Trinity. This latter is vitally important.
Furthermore, none of us can "understand" God and our conception of him can really only be developed and altered intrinsically through prayer and reflection.
My own belief is that the progression from belief to unbelief comes about gradually once personal prayer amd commitment has ceased. (personal experience). Once one decides that he doesn't exist it's ridiculously easy to fall back on the childish "old merciless tyrant in the sky" thinking.
One thing I still don't understand though about Christian thinking even today: why do people still belief that he is omnipotent? I just don't see it! The God that I have come to know does not have power to intercede in natural disasters and has handed over the reins to us when it comes to daily life. Miracles only happen when people make them happen.
I need to reflect a bit on the final paragraph. I am certain that God is not "omnipotent". But "handed over the reins"?
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