Ricky Gervais on religion
Ricky Gervais on WSJ’s Speakeasy:
It’s strange that anyone who believes that an all-powerful all-knowing, omniscient power responsible for everything that happens, would also want to judge and punish people for what they are.
Amen to that.
If we didn’t have free will, how would life be interesting? Free will opens the door to “bad stuff”, but also opens the door to “good stuff”. CS Lewis has some interesting stuff on the topic. If there is no free will, there is no heroism, no triumph, nothing like that, so life would be pretty flat if nobody could do anything wrong. I think it would be a shame to throw out the idea of God without thinking a lot about free will.
Also, God doesn’t want to judge, he must. Everyone hates injustice and God is pure justice, but he is also pure mercy because he sent his only son Jesus to take our judgment. So he gives us free will, then even when we deserve judgment, he takes that for us and continues to hold his loving arms out to us as a father to his children. That is the power of Christianity, an amazing loving God that gives us the choice to love him or not.
Micah Peterson, ‘the fuck?