It is amazing to see how often the idea of a personal loving God ends up being merely another self-serving concept that places one’s own needs and desires above the needs and desires of others.
When I look at the things I sometimes miss about belief in the Abrahamic God such as the personal sense of being loved (feeling important), having a single purpose with my life and feelings of security it does not take long to notice that all of them are things that revolve around me and my personal needs and wants. None of them relate to how I should treat other people, a sense of moral right and wrong, or an overall worldview concerning the value of humanity. Which are all issues that relate not just to the self but also to others and which have remained intact in me without my belief in the Abrahamic God proving there is no need for him either to maintain or supply those beliefs. And when I listen to others talk about their reasons for belief in God the most common and usually most important reasons are the ones that are personal displaying the value of these beliefs for the individual themselves.
It is funny looking back that it was not until I gave up my belief in my personal, all-loving (particularly me), all powerful God that I was actually able to live out my beliefs (also originating from my Christian background) concerning the value of others without a conflict. I no longer had to explain how God could love everyone yet favor only some and save even fewer.
If one truly believes that we should place the needs of others before our own then Christian eschatology must be rejected. I was and still am willing to give up the idea of heaven and accept the eternal sleep of non-existence for myself to be rid of the idea of hell for anyone else. Are you?
Do unto others as they say.
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