God is a controlling, manipulative puppet-master

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: "Go down to the potter's house, and there I will give you my message." So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Then the word of the Lord came to me: "O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the Lord. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. (Jeremiah 18:1-10)

The false God of total control

There are some false ideas of God out there that make Him into a tyrannical dictator that controls the universe on puppet strings. Everything is pre-determined and pre-destined. God has created a race of the "chosen" whom He loves and who He will save, as well as a race of the "damned" who cannot get on God's good side no matter what. Generally, you can identify the chosen by their sparkling smiles, good grammar, and clean cut appearance. The damned have tattoos, vulgar language, and they like to smoke and drink. God, it turns out, is the producer of "Leave it to Beaver" and other wholesome 50's sitcoms, and if we do not act like that, then we are going straight to hell.

God won't answer me or return my calls

"Why do you complain to him that he answers none of man's words? For God
does speak- now one way, now another- though man may not perceive it." (Job
33:13-14)

Who does God speak to?

One of the biggest problems that most people (including myself) have with a "personal God" is that unlike 99.9% of other "personal" relationships, we do not seem to hear from God very often, if ever. This problem is only compounded when we get around some "super spiritual" person who says something like "Well, God led me to find the cutest outfit the other day. I was talking with Jesus and praying for all the lost souls in the mall, when He led me into the juniors section and told me to buy this pantsuit!" Well, maybe it isn't that bad (although I have heard people actually say things like this)... but there are those people who constantly talk about God leading them to do this or that, or that God told them this or that.

It tends to make you feel like: (a) God loves them and hates you, and that you will never be "good enough" to hear from God like that; (b) That they are big phonies; or (c) They future mental patients. I mean, how can they be any different from the rash of insane mothers we have had lately who kill off their children under "orders from God"? Let me tell you from my experience in that type of religious environment that none of the top three options are usually true.

If God is so good, why is life so horrible?

If God is supposed to be so good, how come life is so horrible???

The world can be a scary, awful, painful, miserable ball of suffering sometimes. Horrible things happen for no rhyme or reason, leaving people, families, and even whole nations destroyed. Terrorists slam hijacked planes full of moms and dads and kids into office buildings while screaming "God is great"! Thousands more moms and dads and children and sisters and brothers die as those buildings collapse, along with hundreds of brave men and women who were trying to save them. They were just doing their job. They were trying to do good in the world. And their lives are snuffed out.

Young Patrick dies in a car crash on the way home for the holidays. He was not doing anything wrong, other than going a little over the speed limit. He had just gotten his life right with God, and now he is suddenly dead. Now, his parents and sister have been given a Christmas gift they will never be able to get out of their heads or their hearts. Did he deserve this? Did they?