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Your God is Too Small If — 9 Comments

      • Sorry to contact you through the comments, but I couldn’t find another way to do it.

        My name is John Draper. You don’t know me from Adam. What led me to you is I’m a first-time novelist who is furiously marketing his debut novel, A Danger to God Himself. As such, I’m continually scouring the internet looking for sites (blogs or podcasts) that might be willing to interview me and/or review my book.

        My book is about a Mormon missionary who goes insane on his mission. I’d like to send you a free copy, paperback or Kindle.

        Let me tell you the story behind my story: Writing this novel cost me my religion. I’m not bitter or anything. Actually, it was liberating.

        I started the book eight years ago as an Evangelical who wanted to skewer Mormonism. In fact, I felt led by God to write the book. The book took me eight years to write. I probably read 50 books on Mormonism and 50 books on schizophrenia. What’s more, I started attending a local Mormon church undercover.

        Long story short, I saw that devout Latter-day Saints had the same religion I had, really. Basically, we both loved God and Christ and we wanted to serve God and live more like Jesus. I had to admit, the only difference between us was the words we used to describe our experience. Just words.

        Further, I came to realize that the only reason I believed what I believed was that someone had told me to believe it—just like the Mormon missionaries. Just like every Evangelical.

        Further, I realized that God is unknowable. It’s impossible to have a “relationship” with Him/Her/It/They. Religion doesn’t work.

        Bottom line, I became an agnostic.

        The novel is narrated in the first person by Kenny, the missionary who watches his companion, Jared, succumb to schizophrenia. (All missionaries have a companion. That’s why you always see them in pairs on foot or on their bicycles.) At first, Kenny and others assume that the voices Jared is hearing and the visions he’s seeing are from Heavenly Father.

        But as Jared gets sicker and sicker, Kenny has to rethink his whole view of God and how God does or doesn’t interact with the world. Kenny’s journey became my journey: theist to deist.

        So . . . I’d like to send you a free copy of my novel. I’m hoping you’ll write a book review—good, bad, or indifferent. Or maybe you’d like to interview me. I’m a barrel of laughs.

        If nothing else, you get a free book out of this.

        I know the book’s not for everyone. My mother, for example, loved it but complained it contained too much vulgarity. I’m not sure how much vulgarity is too much, but the book does contain 91 F Bombs. (I counted.)

        Let me know if you would like to talk more.

        Thanks for your time

        -john

  1. Not that ignorance has anything to do with blind acceptance of a text on the basis of somebody’s say so. As I DO affirm a God Whose Word is contained in Creation, I posit that the Unforgivable Sin is NOT using the sense God gave you. Just because something has unprovable and/ or mythological elements in it does not make the lesson contained therein any less valid. To insist on believing and compelling others to believe something illogical on the basis of tradition or an emotional attachment is blind fanaticism. THAT would be a definition of an ignorant fool.

  2. My god has no name. He needs no name. He don’t need to be worshiped. I don’t need to do anything out of fear of my god. To you that think you are among the chosen few that walk with god and enjoy his grace, you are all wrong. You think so small. You think a god that would create all that is did it all just for you. How stingy people tend to be.

    Every place on earth, they worship this god a different way. Each group tends to think they are the ones that are right. The problem is that each group there own version of what truth is. The fact is that there is no one, past, present, or future that will ever know the whole truth of existence. We are all connected and no matter how hard you work to separate yourself above the rest of the world, we will all always remain connected.

    That is one truth that just is. No individual group is special. I love you all because you are all just as I

  3. There is no one, past, present of future that will ever know the whole truth of existence. Yes, I agree with you.
    I believe in one God, our Father and he talks to me with his creation. I pray for giving me strength, to fight evil and to save myself.
    Maybe, we only get the answer to our questions, when we finally leave this earth. I feel liberated from all religious mythology, I can breathe and admire God’s wonderful creation around me every day and night.
    You are free to believe in whatever you are taught and whatever makes you feel comfortable.

    • The real truth you hit on is that we don’t know and believing does not equal knowing, that wonder and a life well lived is truly seeing God for what God is.

  4. The truth – as you mention, is not only knowing (reading, researching, discussions, etc.), but a life well lived.
    Question : what is a life well lived ?

    I was born and raised in Europe with a nature-loving family. We rarely went to church and there was little bible-reading at high school.I was always happy watching the ocean, climbing the mountains, looking at the stars, the clouds in the sky, smelling the flowers, feeling the sun, wind and rain, admiring/cherishing the animals, etc. We travelled a lot and I lived in many foreign countries for many years.
    God has always been talking and continues talking to me with his creation.
    Whatever and whoever is “God” – if we can open our eyes and our hearts, we might just feel him.

    • Sounds well lived to me thus far!

      I am not speaking of any allegiance to any faith, not even Deism. I don’t think God cares much what we believe, why would God care what we believe.

      God being the sum total of all things, all knowledge, etc. I think he’d no more care if we believed in him, then we would care if some life form we know of but was not aware of us “believed in us”.

      Well lived means living life to the fullest, being who you are, helping others when you can, doing no harm to anyone and making the best use of your dash.

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