As a preface, be forewarned this discussion will be complicated, knotty and require you to be fully alert and possibly read one sentence at a time.  After all it is a discussion of God which is likely to touch on all of the big questions of existence.

Let begin the conversation by limiting the scope for a moment.  For the moment, this will not be a discussion of whether or not God exists, but rather if He did exist, what should he be.  My interest in the subject came early in Hebrew school.  A favourite Passover song says: `Who knows One?  I know one.  One is God who is in heaven and on earth.”  To me this was the first suggestion of what God was.  God was omnipresent, that is present everywhere in the universe.  We were taught that God was everywhere, and yet, wherever we looked, we couldn’t see God.

As Hebrew school advanced we learned that access to God was limited.  Even Moses, Judaism’s greatest prophet was only allowed to see the ‘back’ of God.  It was made clear that anyone who ascended Mount Sinai while God was present was killed.  So God was everywhere yet hidden.  God’s being hidden evidently was for our mortal protection because anyone who saw God unless under specific conditions could die from the encounter.

So we were asked to accept that god was omnipresent yet we could not see him.  As our age advanced, the explanations advanced to match.  A Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism) explanation runs that God created a sphere of the universe where he was absent such that free will of humans could exist.  Where he actually everywhere, only his will could exist.  So Kabbalah in my mind confuses omnipresence by actually removing him from the spectre of human events such that free will can exist.  This causes me problems theologically because I contend that free will is not a blessing, in fact, it can be an absolute curse if guidance is not provided in how to use it.  Any parent would know that leaving their children home for a few hours to exercise their free will would result in an insurance claim.

Ah, but a guide was provided.  Depending on which of the monotheistic religions you belong to, The Torah, The New Testament or The Koran is provided as a guide as to how to properly exercise free will.  I put it to the reader that leaving a group of unsupervised children at home with a list of rules on the fridge is still likely to result in an insurance claim.

Another Hebrew School explanation for the absence of omnipresent God is given in the tale of the two temples.  The first temple was lost because the ancient Israelites could not follow God’s rules.  God was a ‘cool guy’ about it and realized that he was sort of ‘far out there’ and forgave the Jews and allowed them a second temple.  But then began the infighting between the ancient Israelites (which continues I’d say to this day) and God said: “You can’t get along amongst yourselves?  Well that I can’t tolerate.”  This led to the destruction of the second temple and the second diaspora which we are still currently in.  (Some argue that the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 ends this diaspora but most, even the unreligious agree that the diaspora will end when God returns and the Third temple is built.)  Needless to say, I find this explanation equally troubling.  The solution to sibling rivalry is not to have the parent kick the kids outside and allow them to fend for themselves.  Some will contend that the shared suffering the Jews endured as a result of the diaspora, specifically the Holocaust, forced us to unite and hence began our course to the ending of the diaspora with the creation of the State of Israel.  I look at this suffering and say it only united us so much as to realize we needed a homeland from which we could defend ourselves from future atrocities.  As a personal remark, I find the entire idea of the Holocaust being a divine act in any way atrocious and repugnant.  As far as generating comradery and agreement amongst ourselves it took decades for “Hatikvah” to finally be accepted as Israel’s national anthem (November 2004), years after it was sung as such.  Further, religous/secular rivalry runs rampant culminating in the 1993 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.  If God intended the diaspora and holocaust to unite the Jews, then the attempt clearly failed which negates God’s supposed ‘All Knowing’ attribute.

Up to this point in the discussion we’ve been discussing what God was explained to be which is a different discussion from what God ought to be.  With the mention of the Holocaust we can introduce our first point as to what God ought to be.  I have made a personal decision that God ought not to have allowed the Holocaust to happen.  In my mind, there is no excuse which I would accept such that the Holocaust would be ‘ok’ with me.  Thus, should God appear one day and say to me: “The Holocaust was a test of your faith which you failed.”  I would respond: “I don’t believe you, whoever you are who is making this statement is God.”  Whichever lightening bolts or plague that befalls me as a result of my statement won’t change my mind that God would never allow the Holocaust to happen.  It is a core belief of mine.

Now let’s deal with this ‘absent omnipresence’.  I have made as a personal decision that God should be accessible to all.  I reject the contention that God’s presence negates free will in the same way children can still exercise free will within the guidelines and guidance of their parents.  I further reject that God removed himself from the world as a result of the infighting amongst the Jews.  This ludicrous explanation is tantamount to parents solving sibling rivalry kicking their kids out of the house and removing themselves from any process of mediation and amelioration of relations.  So to the first thing that God ought to be,  God ought to be omnipresent, moreover present and accessible.

I think that all readers would agree that God ought to be loving.  If that be true, and one accepts that he left his word in the form of The Torah, the New Testament or The Koran, why do we find slavery mentioned in all of them?  Why don’t we find discussions of democracy which has proven to be the most equitable form of government developed to date mentioned in any of them?  Instructions on how to sell your daughter into slavery (Ex 21:7) are found in the Old Testament (The Torah) which is accepted as a holy text by all 3 monotheistic religions.  Suffice it to say that I could provide reams of quotes which contradict the loving nature of God described therein.  God ought to be loving, but the God described in religious texts doesn’t seem to be, certainly not all loving.

I have deliberately skirted the issue of whether or not God exists.  I think from my views expressed here that it is obvious I don’t believe He exists.  However, I think the purpose of my discussion here is to shift the discussion from the existence/nonexistence of God to a discussion of what God ought to be.  Having decided for oneself what God ought to be, if one can detect no force which measures up to that standard you have set for yourself, your decision to believe in God or not should logically follow suit.

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