Why would Christian God be such a cruel, jealous deity?

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I grew up Catholic, but then I stopped going to church regularly at the end of my school years (yes, including 9-12) when I was beginning to struggle personally and with the way our modern world system is. I have tried a few times to show joy and faithfulness in God and my upbringing, but instead it seems that all answers spoken about God point to him being a cruel, uncaring, jealous narcissist. Why would someone who created this earth and it's species be this way? I think our whole system is some sort of cruel joke or illusion.

God has already taken away everything from me and all the hope and desires I had. WHY is he so jealous that he desires ONLY us to worship him for eternity, and besides once we go away or get blown up here (most likely Kim Jung Un), that's it. Those who haven't got the chance to be able to fall in love with a beautiful woman, have a family and kids with her, you're going to be single for the rest of eternity and no longer feel the same desires you had here. It's not fair, I don't even have to ask why. Sure, those things I listed alone aren't all that we are doing here, but it seems that is the only thing churches and Christians (not so sure about religions in general) want to shove down other's throats by saying what WON'T we desire there. God only wants us to worship him. We are just tools or objects. We never chose to live here to begin with.

*sorry, I know I have ranted and "poor-me" before, but I just can't stand the way things are anymore, and I'm sure I wanted to discuss other things*

Have you considered the possibility that the Christian god may, like so many other deities, be cruel and jealous because he's an imaginary character springing from the power fantasies of bloodthirsty primitives?

Regardless of what is actually the case, it still makes me feel some sort of sense that this life is a letdown. I still feel quite guilty of it sometimes.

Read up about the late bronze age collapse of 1177 BC. The middle-east was in dark ages from that time forward several centuries. The violence and constant political turbulance probably had a lot to do with diety being seen as a God of wrath and military victory (ie. Numbers, Joshua, etc.).

I couldn't agree more. I can be (and frequently am) moved to tears by the stark contrast between the wonder of the world as various belief systems seem to promise us it will be and the reality that surrounds me on a daily basis. Given the option, I imagine many of us would swap our mundane lives for any of a broad swathe of fictions and fandoms.

Still, if I regard it as a letdown on some occasions, it's only in comparison to those belief systems - whether they center on a temple or a TARDIS. If I compare the reality I perceive to the billions of years during which I apparently didn't exist before I was born, or the billions of years I imagine I won't exist after I've died, I can get an ongoing charge of pure joy out of something as minimal as a ray of sunlight filtering through the evergreens.

I try to spend more time doing the latter. Not that the universe notices or cares...but I do, and I figure my opinion is just as important as the universe's.

You've been listening to too many atheist caricactures of God who think he is a Good Times vending machine: insert prayer, receive treat. It's simplistic and they betray their ignorance of theology. I'm not an expert in Christian apologetics, but the problem of evil is fairly well handled as far as I can tell in Christianity. This is a fallen world and we are a fallen race. God gave us free will (whoops) and all the sin, evil and nastiness of the world came of the fall of man. I think in John, Jesus literally says this is a world where Satan ruled not God - However you want to interpret Satan there, he definitely doesn't mean God.

Why doesn't God use his magical powers to rid the world of evil? Well, again half answered in the narrative of the Bible. Can an omnipotent God magically fix us? Technically I suppose, yes, but to do so would be to destroy us and replace us with something else. God decides that wiping out humanity (apparently after trying it once) a la the Noah's Ark fable, is not the way forward because, despite our fallen nature he still loves his flawed creation, as you might love an imperfect child. He promises not to try that again.

As the narrative moves on, God tries to lead humanity (the Jews at least) into decent societies with good rules, but Man is Man and our fallen nature means we can't run decent societies for very long. Evil, degeneracy, decay and injustice are endemic. Towards the end Jesus comes along and more or less eschews politics and the petty tribal quarrels of humans my kingdom is not of this world. He gives people advice on how to live and worship and tells them to stop worrying so much and love the bomb. He is often criticised for not outright condemning slavery, but this makes perfect sense as part of the same narrative. Hey the world is fallen and terrible, whether you are master or slave, both of you must try to be virtuous and make do with the cards you were dealt.

To go back to your first few sentences, Atheists and Christians actually agree on something here. The society you live in is a product of Man, not God.



It's our nature to worship. It may seem petty, but ask yourself what happens when we don't worship God. We worship other things in his place (idolatry). We worship money, power, fame, personifications of such (celebrity), science, sex, beauty, nature. The list goes on.

Have you read the Bible? Your desires are deadly sins.
If you believe the bible, then you should be happy about being relieved from those, and be happy about doing nothing but blissfully worshipping god in the afterlife.
But your desire for desire will send you to hell anyway, so don't worry about that.
Maybe some self-flagellation would cleanse you?

It's not the Christian God that is the Cruel, Jealous, Angry one that insists on following the law, you are in fact referring to the Jewish God.

The appearance of Jesus was allegedly supposed to forge a new covanant with God. This apparently worked quite well in the Earliest years of Christianity despite the persecution, and slaughter of Christians, but as Christianity became more popular, the 'New Testament' as well know it became codified and Finalised at the Nicean Council. It really went to s**t though when Constantine, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire converted to Christianity, and Christianity essentially became the State Religion of both the Eastern and and Western Roman Empires. --Christianity essentially became the spiritual mouthpiece of Late Roman policy

It sounds like they must have been really swell people. Makes me glad they died thousands of years ago