The People Journal

Atheism for Lent – Compromising God

Posted by: Jim Mondry

Thursday, March 24th, 2011 at 7:33 pm

Do you envision God as a being that can be bargained with? There’s a story in the old testament, of Abraham bartering with God over the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 18). He starts with the request to save the city, and when God grants that if there are fifty “righteous people” in the city, God will spare the city. The discussion continues until God is willing to save the city for only ten people. Now, depending on your point of view, this might seem okay, as Abraham is just trying to save the lives of people who are about to be killed, but at the same time here is Abraham trying to control God. This discussion is very similar to bartering that Abraham does to buy land to bury his wife Sarah when she dies – lots of flattery. There is polite banter, each person complementing the other, all the while having clear motives behind those kind words. In some sense, I see this idea of bartering with God being extended with Jacob, who wrestles with an angel, and is then given the name Israel – Wrestles with God.

So far, so good. In the old testament though, this idea of bartering with God quickly goes bad. Saul, the first king of the Israelites, is caught bartering with God in a sense, in 1 Samuel chapter 15 . (Side note: please ignore the ethical implications of this story for a moment, to look at my point). God tells Saul to attack the Amalekites and destroy every thing of theirs (and kill all men, women, children, cattle, sheep, camels and donkeys). Saul then goes to battle, but rather than do this, he and the army keep the king alive, and kept the best of the livestock. When Saul is caught red-handed by Samuel, Saul tries to claim that he kept those things as an offering for God. Essentially, he’s trying to offer a trade to God – let me keep these spoils of war, and I’ll give you some.

Freud sees this behaviour exhibited within religious ceremonial behaviour. This would be a good example of the “compromise” characteristic of religion – twist what I believe until what I unconsiously know is wrong, is consciously thought of to be good (or at least guiltfree).

“If the violation of a taboo can be made good by atonement or expiation, which involve the renunciation of some possession or some freedom, this proves that obedience to the taboo injunction meant in itself the renunciation of something desirable. Emancipation from one renunciation is made up for by the imposition of another one elsewhere”

This renunciation typically is of one of two forms: renunciation of some possession (sacrifice or offering), or some freedom (obedience). Saul sought to make up for his lack of obediance by making a sacrifice, but in the story God rejected this.

This is something that I have caught myself doing. For many years, I did not give any offering to the church I attended, with the belief that since I volunteer so much time, it made up for that. I rationalized that since I didn’t have much money, and what I did have was going to my university education (which actually was a lie in itself, as it went more for beer and food money), it was okay not to give. I even catch myself now with a similar attitude at times. I can rationalize this well in various ways, from questioning the way the money is spent, to saying that I give to other charities, to saying that I need the money so that I can buy ethical, organic, fairly-traded goods. At least in a sense those are somewhat true, but I’m still bargaining with God – let me keep my money to spend how I want, and I’ll give You my time for Your Church.

Now, my challenge though is that its not like I can instantly change my behaviour. I know that if I changed how I gave money, it would essentially be out of my guilt for not giving. That guilt would very quickly fester into resentment, and what was supposed to be a pious act would quickly turn into a meaningless action or worse. But in all of this, am I just rationalizing my behaviour so as not to change?

I also know that I have a serious issue with the way I react to people with differing beliefs. I mentioned in a previous blog post, that I suffer from some serious ego issues where I can see myself as a defender of “true Christianity”. I think that I make a type of compromise, in that I reject this individual (do not love them as my neighbour) claiming that I’m simply trying to defend Christianity (as if my beliefs somehow made me more acceptable to God). This is complete and utter BS, but yet somehow it’s defined a lot of my behaviour and thinking over the last several years.

Do you see any compromise behaviour in yourself? What do you offer God in exchange for something else?