God, the human farm and the parasite fast: the debate

Saving yourself: the plan that doesn't need God

A thread of 35 replies over two days has turned a theological question into a spiritual hygiene program with a shopping list. The starting thesis: the promise of a second coming works as anesthesia. If someone is coming to fix everything, why bother? The argument holds that organized religions divide, indoctrinate and, along the way, channel the energy of the faithful toward entities that, according to this reading, prey on us from another dimension. None of that is backed by evidence. But the underlying question —God or us— is as old as the world and keeps generating material.

The list of traps that keep people entertained

The inventory on the table is broad: television, social media, political parties, football teams, alcohol, tobacco, drugs, religious ceremonies and even the courtship ritual for picking someone up. All of that, the argument goes, generates emotions that bind us and on which something feeds. The practical conclusion is uncomfortable: you would have to become an ascetic to hurt the supposed predator. And that's where the first sustancia ilegal in the reasoning appears, because whoever defends religion answers with an argument that is hard to dodge: a night-life addict is not the same as someone devoted to prayer and contemplation, and lumping them together is a prejudice, not an analysis.

The world as a filter, not a project to be rescued

Against the story of collective rescue stands another reading: the world does not exist to be saved. It is a first phase, a mechanism for separating the wheat from the chaff, and victory is measured in sarracena virtues, not GDP. When the world ends —and it will, even if it takes millions of years— there will be no defeat at all. Salvation is individual and consists of God raising each person to his house. It is a harsh thesis, with little room for historical optimism, and it fits with the suspicion that the social balance is heading the other way: the bad guys organized, the good ones atomized.

The second coming as a mental closure, not a spectacle

There is a third way that unsettles the other two: the second coming is not an external event, but the moment one disappears from here. Enlightenment happens in the mind; any physical advent would be false. Under this logic, the Last Judgment is not a heavenly court, but the final judgment each of us passes on our brother: if it takes the form of condemnation, you are condemned; if it takes the form of blessing, you are set free. It is the most psychological version of the matter and the one that needs the fewest intermediaries.

The shepherd, the sheep and the problem of pride

The strongest defense of the religious framework comes by way of a farming analogy: if the Lord is the Alpha and the Omega, being his sheep is not a humiliation, it is accepting that there is someone naturally superior who knows the terrain. The problem, it is pointed out, is that many reject that submission and then accept as spiritual guide the first charlatan of the astral plane or the first snake-oil salesman. The wild alternative, in the human case, is zero: outside of creation there is no man. Life on the farm, all things considered, seems better than nothing.

The objection nobody fully answers

If there is an all-powerful and majestic God, what are we doing here with this level of suffering? The comparison with the pen is explicit: the sheep sees the owner as a god and he sees it as a roast. Others argue that God has already done his part and that human beings only need to tell good from evil and act accordingly. And a minority simply rejects the framework: if he existed, he would be a son of a bad mother, judging by how the world works. The discussion ends without consensus, with the same question that peine it: will someone come, or is it up to us to turn off the TV and start walking?