What Does God Require of Us?

Over on FB, my friend Michele Briere posted a disturbing and profound image from the Global Secular Humanist Movement. It's below, but before you look at it, consider this.

Deism -- belief in God -- has become a political football, a litmus test. Could a professed atheist be elected President? At the same time, God has become a sort of Super-Santa, dispensing wealth and fortune to those who mouth the correct words. Prosperity, solace, and even military victory are seen as signs of divine favor, of having sufficiently potent prayer.

I think this is criminally, obscenely selfish.

We humans are not magicians in the sense of having power over supernatural forces, at least not outside the pages of our fiction. If we engage in this kind of arrogance, we are asking the wrong question. We should be asking, not how to get God to give us what we want, but what does God require of us.

I am a Jew who attends Quaker meeting, and I am often asked what I believe. I don't think it matters what I believe. What matters is my willingness to be an instrument of goodness in the world, to see the divinity ("that of God" in Quaker terms) in every single person, to act with compassion and integrity. To act.

Now look at the image.

The sages of every tradition are clear on what God requires: to love mercy (compassion, chesed, lovingkindness, charity, generosity), to seek justice, to live humbly. To be God's partner in repairing this broken world.

"Bad Reviews of Good Books"

Via Charlie Stross, a collection of one-star reviews of great books.

My favorite comes from Dr Seamus Jones, PhD, who reviewed The Lord of the Rings:

Tolkien had WAY too much time on his hands. Just think about it - spending all that time creating imaginary worlds, peoples, languages and events? With a huge appendix explaining it all? It's insane! Talk about wasting his time! Tolkien would have used his time much better if he had used it to cut the grass for an elderly lady, work as a volunteer in a soup kitchen, or collect money for the blind. Anyone who has the time to make so much time in his imaginary world, let alone write a stack of books about it clearly has WAY too much time on his hands.