IN AMERICA,

WE ARE FREE

TO CHOOSE

HOW WE BELIEVE

GOD EXPLAINS

"God, explain to me why there are so many different beliefs and religions in the world? How do we know what is the truth? How are we to know who and what to believe - who do we believe out of the multitudes who claim to know the truth?"

Zach proposed these questions to God in one scene for his movie.

God responded thusly:

I have set aside one small group of people to follow me. To this group, I say, I have chosen you. To you I tell the truth. To you I am good. To you I uncover the dark shrouds that cover the light. To you I send a savior. (Which group might this be?)

To the others (that would be all the religions I did not choose, those who are not practicing the "true religion.") Oh, to the others, I send false prophets. They will lie to you. They will deceive you. They will promise eternal life if you follow them, but they do not have the power to give it to you. They will threaten you with disease, pain and misery while here on earth and with hell after death if you do not believe and follow their God. They will take your money, break your spirit and demand your obedience. But they cannot deliver.

Only I, the one and only all-powerful God, decided only a portion of my creation will know the truth. The rest will wallow in darkness and lies. I laugh at all those who think they know the truth. The fools. How silly and foolish they will feel when they learn the truth. They have devoted their time, their faith, their love and their riches by worshipping a false God. Billions will burn in hell.

Oh well.

From the beginning many of my human creations have seen the power of religion. Knowing that men and women can be easily led, persuaded and coerced into believing what they are told, he has been creating false gods left and right. Civilizations since the beginning of time have been creating gods and religions. Some people have even claimed to be God, a descendant of God, or a direct representative of God.

They have erected buildings to gather and pray and collect money, which they say they are collecting for me - but I never see a dime of it. They have written books and scriptures, composed songs, and made laws and rules telling people that these are the inspired words of God and they must listen and obey.

Now, we are not talking about once or twice, or even five or ten times. No. We are talking about hundreds and thousands of times man has created his own God with his own rules. After all, the formula for creating a religion is pretty simple. Just about any deluded person or any unethical, ruthless, ignorant lout could (and has) create his own religion.

So, what am I, your all knowing, all powerful God, telling you?

Basically, I decided to tell one and only one group the truth - to hell with the rest of them (get it!). All the others have been lied to and fooled by their fellow man. So millions have followed the truth, while billions have been tricked by false religions. Those who have chosen to follow me will spend eternity in heaven, while the poor fools who have followed all of the false prophets will burn in hell.

I know it's not fair, but what's a God to do?

OR ......

"Cut," called Zach. "Ready for scenario two. Enter Voice of Reason."

A voice with no face but a calm, strong resolve came from the darkness.

"Or," said the Voice of Reason, "All have been lied to by their fellow man. We all know there are people in our world who are ruthless, without heart, without passion, without love - wicked people who are power hungry and will do whatever they want to in order to gain power, influence and riches. And we know there are those who really believe they know the truth, and really think they are doing what God wants them to do.

Having seen this self-evident truth (at least, self-evident to intelligent, thinking invidividuals), it is hard to understand how so many people could become religious leaders. First of all, there are the people who know what they were preaching is a lie and are just downright evil and disgusting human beings. Second of all, there are those who honestly believe the nonsense promoted by their religion, and actually believe what they are espousing.

This is truly a sad situation. Either the religious leaders are lying to and deceiving their followers, or they are so misinformed (some would say stupid) that they actually believe the false teachings of their particular faith.

Deception or ignorance - either way it's a tragedy.

Wouldn't it be nice to replace lies, deception, ignorance and superstition with truth, honesty, knowledge and reason?

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