Can there be such a thing as taking God too seriously?

Or perhaps taking our beliefs too seriously?

Silly question, right? We all know well enough that there has been absolute brutality, barbarism, torturing, killing throughout the ages and in parts all over the globe to this day. 

Putting that aside, however, within the context of our culture here within America today, and without getting into any veins of fanaticism, is there a line to be drawn as to how seriously we take God and our beliefs?

Religiously, probably millions of us would say, how can you take judgment of the soul in eternity too seriously? How can you take the Lord God Almighty too seriously? Just my asking the title question would likely enrage a great many people. But what is that, if not taking these matters too seriously? Thou shalt fear the Lord. It traces way back to the biblical beginning. Do we take the Bible too seriously? All the same question isn’t it?

We know so little of whomever whatever God is. We can’t comprehend who we are—the miracle of the human body, how life originated, how the earth came to be—much less God. Why is everything in the universe not completely random? Why are there any governing forces whatsoever? Where did these forces come from? Who created or invented gravity? Silly question? Then answer it. To think we have the answer is the silly part. “It just came to be of its own accord”? In the big-bangular picture, we know nothing at all. Self-aware amoebas, so to speak.  

But for ages we have killed each other over who has it right about God? At this very moment there is thriving hatred towards those who don’t hold the same beliefs. Two parties, for example, hundreds of millions, stand on opposite sides, each group with their own beliefs, each calling the other heretics, or infidels, or ignorant. Today in 2024, what percentage of the human population believes that on some kind of a judgment day, all those who don’t believe the right beliefs should and will be rightfully exterminated out of existence by God? Even some of the most beautiful, loving religious souls—good people who care for others and truly better the world—abide such thinking. 

Such strife. Such inane fighting of ideologies. “It’s like fighting over what love is—no fight is more foolish, more futile, or more tragic.”

I guess those of the religious folks who hate others feel that, for the time being, God needs their service in weeding out and outcasting those with the wrong beliefs. What a thing of human ego. Nothing to do with God whatsoever. Only the ego that keeps a human being consciously removed from God—from Love—is even capable of such thoughts of hatred and separation.  

While an atheist who loves and cares about strangers—at least to the extent of a desire for universal well-being and peace on earth—is in my mind closer to God than the haters in God’s name could ever be.  

As the great Ken Kesey once said, “In any given situation, there’s always going to be more dumb people than smart people. We ain’t ninny.”

To delve deeper, get your very own copy of “What Did Jesus Say About Hell?”