Today, designer-gods - whichever feels right - are in fashion. This generally means that young people are gravitating towards user-friendly gods who are all-nurturing, affirming, and loving. Since a God who is to be feared because of His judgments (even hell) is not always affirming, He is immediately rejected. Similarly, forms of meditation and self-help strategies that rule out moral judgments are also popular.
The late Margot Adler, a self-proclaimed Pagan, explained
the appeal of Paganism, which allows Pagans to pick-and-choose among many gods:
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They had become Pagans because they could be
themselves and act as they chose, without what they felt were medieval notions
of sin and guilt. Others wanted to participate in rituals rather than observe
themselves.” (Drawing Down the Moon)
Pagans/polytheists find a single truth and a monotheistic
God too imperialistic or coercive. Such a God, a Creator, requires us to live
by His requirements. Hence, we
experience sin and guilt when we refuse.
In contrast, paganism allows us to pick-and-choose among
many different gods or spirits and the freedom to believe what feels good. This
puts us in the driver's seat, according to Adler:
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Polytheism is…characterized by plurality…and is
eternally in unresolvable conflict with social monotheism, which in its worst
form is fascism and in its less destructive forms is imperialism, capitalism,
feudalism and monarchy.”
Truth and monotheism deprive us of our autonomy. Therefore,
they defy the spirit of our age where everything is permissible as long as it
feels good. This is the world of moral relativism, in which polytheism exerts
its appeal. Adler affirmatively quoted a pagan priestess:
·
“It seems like a contradiction to say that I
have a certain subjective truth; I have experienced the Goddess, and this is my
total reality. And yet I do not believe that I have the one, true, right, and
only way. Many people cannot understand how I find Her a part of my reality and
accept the fact that your reality might be something else. But for me, this is
in no way a contradiction, because I am aware that my reality and my
conclusions are a result of my unique genetic structure, my life experience and
my subjective feelings…This recognition that everyone has different experiences
is a fundamental keystone to Paganism; it’s the fundamental premise that
whatever is going on out there is infinitely more complex than I can ever
understand. And that makes me feel very good.”
Comforts prevail over contradictions, truths, and facts. However,
this is only the beginning of the costs:
·
Using statistics from the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime and international surveys of religious beliefs, Shariff and
Mijke Rhemtulla of the University of Kansas conducted a comprehensive analysis
of twenty-six years of data involving 143,197 people in sixty-seven countries. https://around.uoregon.edu/content/researcher-religion-influences-behavior-—-both-good-and-bad
·
Their study...found that criminal activity is
lower in societies where people’s religious beliefs contain a strong punitive
component versus locations where religious beliefs are more benevolent.
·
Indeed, a country where many more people believe
in heaven than in hell is likely to have a much higher crime rate than one
where these beliefs are about equal. These effects held true when statistically
controlling for other cross-national differences such as levels of wealth and
inequality.
·
Harvard University researchers found in 2003,
for example, that gross domestic product was higher in developed countries when
people believed in hell more than they did in heaven.
Therefore, we should not be surprised that Pagan societies,
which do not maintain the pillars of both heaven and hell, are particularly
violent and chaotic. Consequently, they are not know to build hospitals and
trusted institutions of justice,
Evidently, we need both heaven and hell. Without a loving
and forgiving God, we will be motivated exclusively by fear, and fear is an oppressive
master. However, without hell, moral restraint is cast aside.
The Talmudic Rabbis also recognized the need for a God similar
to the one revealed in the Torah. In The
Wisdom of the Talmud, Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser quotes Rabbi Reuben, who
believed that the worst possible offense was the denial of God:
·
“For no man violates the commandments, ‘Thou
shalt not murder,’ ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ till he has renounced his faith in
God.’”
To have faith in God is also to fear divine consequences for
our disobedience. Bokser cites the Talmud in support:
·
“Rabat said: when a person is brought for
judgment on Judgment Day he is asked ‘Did you do your business honestly...All
of this will suffice provided he be a God-fearing man, too, for the fear of God
is the treasury in which all else is stored.‘“
We need a God whom we will fear. However, we also need a God
who we love and serve in gratitude, the God who was revealed in Jesus and His
supreme act of love and justice on the Cross.
However, to know His hatred of sin, revealed in the atoning
death of God the Son, is to avoid it at any cost. Fear is appropriate, but we
also gladly take His yoke upon us in gratefulness to honor Him in every way
(Matthew 11:28-30). It becomes a joy and nourishment to follow our Savior:
·
Jesus said to them, “My food [nourishment] is to
do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.” (John 4:34)
This is also true for His children:
·
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel
of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of
scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he
meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2)
What had once been difficult becomes our delight, since we
are convinced that we are safe in Him, the One who loves us and had died for us,
even as we hated Him (Romans 5:8-10). We are also convinced that when we fall,
He forgives us and wipes us clean from the filth of sin (1 John 1:9). What
could be better!
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