Even though I am a non-believer, I am bothered by one thing.  While I admit that most religions have some good points, rules for common sense living, I am also bothered by the idea of a supreme being who, it seems to me, wants and expects most of his children to fail.

I am going to play devil's advocate here and pretend that I am interested in finding a faith to follow.  (Please, evangelists, do not call me or knock at my door!)  I want to know how I can become one of those very few who will be allowed into eternal bliss after I breathe my last.  No that might seem a simple thing to ask for, but it can be complicated, and becomes complicated, if you read the various authors of hubs and other sources of information about religion, Christianity in particular.

In this scenario, my aim is to live the kind of life that gets me into heaven.  I am told that I must believe in Christ by Protestants, Catholics tell me that I must believe that Church is God's intrument on Earth, and various other groups of christian-like religions tell me other things I must do.

But as I look a bit deeper, I am beginning to think that it is not as simple as people say it is.  According to one hubber, most people, no matter their attempts to follow what they interpret as Christian duties, they are following wrong doctrines and won't be saved.  Heaven is out of the question for them. Yet another person disagrees and tells me that I should ignore person A and follow a different set of instructions.

If I were building a model, and had five very different sets of instructions, how would I know which one is right until after I built the model and discovered I chose wisely or not?  This, I believe is what many Christians are telling me, to follow their instructions, and I will find the right model life built after I am dead and standing before God.  And if I chose wisely, then all is good, but if I chose foolishly, then I am doomed.  Yet the only real way to know is by building my model according to what I think is the right way and then hope I wasn't fooled into following the incorrect instructions.

When my son and daughter were little, I instructed them very carefully in how to act, how to save, how to get along with others, and so forth.  they learned the lessons and there was no ambiguity. This is the way to live a healthy, fulfilling life.  I left them no doubt.  I did leave them the freedom to either follow my instructions, or to do their own thing.  Of course, they did their own thing until they saw that some of my ideas made sense and then more or less followed them.

I am told by Christians that this is our choice in how we relate, or fail to relate, to the God they claim to follow.  But I find many of the instructions very vague, indeed.  It does not matter, for example, if you do good things in your life, there is always another step you must take.  I never told my children, do as I say or you will die.  I always told them, I found out this is a good way to do this, and then they either did that or tried their own way.  Of course I am not God so sometimes they did better than I did, and I learned from them.

But that aside, in reading the Bible, which Christians explain is our guide book to pleasing God and saving our souls or spirits or whatever we have from damnation and Hell's lake of buring fire, or whatever it is that condemned souls are sent to, I have found that the path is not so clear as some people claim.  And then there's all that nasty "If you follow their path, you'll sizzle like a slab of bacon on Satan's griddle" stuff that makes me doubt the path I'm on.  And if I hear this from enough differing points of view, I am REALLY confused!

Would God really make me sizzle just because I followed this group instead of that group?  weren't they all claiming to be Christians, following what the Bible told them to do?  Didn't I also read the Bible and see that their message made sense from my interpretation of it?  Why is this happening to me?

My own idea is that while the BIble does indeed have some good, common sense stuff in it, don't commit adultery, don't steal from your neighbor, don't murder, etc., there is also a lot of stuff that apparently even Christians can't agree upon, the meaning is that confusing that people with equal fervor pray for answers and often get opposing sets of instructions.  Then, each side claims only THEIR interpresation is correct and the others must be tainted by some demon or Satan himself, and are doomed to the lake of fire, etc., etc., etc.

 The kind of father who wants his children to fail, or who expects 99.999999% of them to fail, seems like a father who really has better things to do than to teach his children well.  God blew it in the Garden of Eden, telling Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of three, but not explaining the consequences to them.  Or surely you shall die just didn't cut it.  He could have said, "Look, there;s this serpent slithering around and he's going to try to to fool you.  Don't fall for it!"

After all, I warned my kids that there are creeps out there in the real world who want to fool them and trick them, and that these creeps had some nasty intentions.  That worked, so my kids avoided the traps others set for them.  To me, that is what a father does.  He warns his children, gives them reasons and consequences, and his instructions are crystal clear, not vague or hidden in language the kids may not understand.

In my humble opinion God the Father did not do this.  Oh, there is plenty of "Thou shall not..." in the Bible, but very few "here's why and watch out for this."  And even when there is, it is usually cloaked in some words I really don't grasp. And since Christians seem to believe that Adam and Eve got us into this mess, should God, omnipotent and all-wise, have foreseen that unfettered freedom without proper instructions would lead to disaster?  Why would he allow his beloved children to get themselves into such a long-standing mess?  And then why would He make getting out of that mess so obscure to us?  And why does he only write his instructions so that only a few of us will ever see the message?  I am still puzzled over that one, unless other humans are not quite as beloved to God as some are.

And worse, even among those who WANT to please God, I am told most won't and will fall short of doing even what they want to do most of all in their lives!  Sorry, but this strikes me as cruel and even sadistic.

OK, I have said my piece, and now it's up to others to either enlighten me or agree with me or tell me I'm just doomed.  For the latter group, is asking questions not a way to find enlightenment, because for me, I have to know why some one-thing is better than some other thing.