~Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God~

In my opinion, the Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is just plain weird. I could never imagine having to live the way these people do. To me, these beliefs are so outrageous that I question how someone can believe them. I’ve never been one for religion much, so I guess my point might seem a little biased, but it’s still hard for me to understand why there needs to be fear forced into people’s lives so they follow the rules of a religion. So when I first read this story, I felt like I always feel when religion comes up: confused.

The view of “God”, so to speak, in this excerpt is one of total domination. He has the power to allow you into Heaven, but at the same time, he can crush you like the “spider or some loathsome insect” that you are. By bringing fear into religion, we are able to force people to believe in what the religious rules state. Or at least what we make the rules out to be.

But I think it’s wrong to force people to bow down and submit themselves the way the people do in the excerpt. I could never imagine living in a religion where you have such strict rules and if you make one little mistake, you’re damned for all eternity. It’s a warped idea of religion when you feel the need to make people believe. And it’s even harder to imagine people who lived and still live this way. But I guess if it’s all you’ve ever know, it can be understandable. I would say I feel sorry for those people, but they aren’t sorry they live the way they do because they chose that religion. So you have to respect people’s wishes and opinions just like you would want people to value your own.

So we have to scare people into behaving properly and then the world will be a better place for us all. Just so long as we wholly give ourselves up to “God” and his teachings. Yeah, right.