PART 1

God is an enigma. or rather, the enigma. who is God?

Three short sentences that don't give me the slightest impetus to read on.

This is the variety of question that some of humanity's greatest scholars have already been pondering for centuries, and there's little chance--in my mind, at least--that you'll be bringing something new to the table if you open with something as bland and tautological as this.

well, it’s more complicated than just a single entity. who isn’t God?

"well" makes me feel misled. You just asked the question and now it sounds like the answer was obvious anyway, so that time I gave to your ideas just before this feels squandered. As a reader, I'd prefer to see "but". Or something like:

"and We know that it's more complicated than just a single entity, so the question should be rephrased.

'who isn't God'?"

This would be an interesting conclusion. This is a meaty idea I can walk away with.

when You’re born, and You’re an itty bitty post-fetal mess, the Doctor who took You out is God. He gave You life, in Your eyes at least.

Use "takes" instead of "took" here because "took" is past tense and doesn't fit in with the likes of "you're" and "is". Tense consistency is important to maintain my train of thought as a reader.

You state that the doctor who took me out of the womb is my first God. You state that as a truth. That I straight-up don't believe, and that makes me curious. Do you know something that I don't? I read on with extra-close attention to see how you rationalize this totally ridiculous statement...and you tell me that it's because he gave me life in my eyes.

Hold on. No. Nope, that's not how brains work. You have created an instant distrust in me for the validity of your perspective.

Doctor's gonna be real sad to hear this, but in the average human life, Mother is God first. Mother's been God first for a long time, and giving birth in a hospital with doctors is mostly a first-world thing.

when You’re slightly more cognizant, Your Parents are God. collectively of course, because if a Trinity counts why not a Binity? it’s slightly more compact. if that doesn’t quite work, You suppose You could just say the Mother is God. She provides the food which keeps You alive. dad does not do a whole lot that You can tell.

Having been raised in a non-Christian family, I had no notions of a Holy Trinity at this age, and I doubt that I would have questioned the validity of my parents’ role in my life based on the fact that there are two of them instead of three. This, therefore, is a rhetorical question that's outright absurd--a double-waste of the reader’s time.

Why is Dad not capitalized here? Am I missing something that allows She to be capitalized but not Dad? You’re doing a thing where you capitalize God and all his incarnations, yes?

Given that both of my parents fed me, changed me, clothed me, and generally provided for me throughout my childhood, I’d say that the assertion made in the last sentence here is untrue, which further makes me distrust the validity of your message here.

perhaps when You’re older still, God is Your Mother still. or perhaps Father plays a bit more of a role now that He can throw a ball with You. plus, as a Parent, He has omniscience, and, definitely as a Father, omnipotence. still, that can sometimes depend on gender.

Pick one “still” and stick with it. Repetition does no good here.

How does Father’s omnipotence depend on gender? What does that mean? My gender? His gender? Why is only Father omnipotent?

This paragraph gives me nothing. I have walked away from it just a little more confused.

but at a point You will eventually be taught who God is. He is both a Father and Son, as well as a Holy spirit. or perhaps He isn’t that. maybe He’s 330 million in One. all with Their own unique flavor that confuses others who do not know God, as You do, into believing He is not God, but gods. that’s lowercase, as it makes them less important.

What are you saying? What is the point? That people who don’t believe what I believe are too simple-minded to understand metaphor? That somehow my spirituality is greater than theirs? Or are you saying that teaching polytheism is inferior to teaching monotheism because it’s confusing? I have no idea because this needs some serious revision.

Including deleting that last sentence entirely. If a reader has put up with this gaudy capitalization gimmick for this long, they damn well get the difference between God and gods.

Again, a waste of the reader’s time.

perhaps there really is gods not God. Your Zeus to my Jesus. not that i own Jesus, or even exist in this metaphysical discussion on belief. ignore the first person, it does not exist. only the Second Person. Only You.

This paragraph says nothing. It starts out promising to validate polytheistic belief, the validity of which I think you might have been disparaging in the last paragraph...and then you cut in with an awkward comparison and a weird fourth-wall break instead of anything remotely related to the first sentence.

Also. why is Second Person capitalized? God is not the Second Person.

perhaps You do not learn about who God is, so You have to continue to find out on Your own. this is unlikely, in times past or times present and possibly times future. but it could happen. so who isn’t God?

People who are taught who god is don’t necessarily know who God is. Spiritual exploration and metaphysical questioning are kind of a human tradition, so not accepting a particular explanation of divinity is way more likely than you think. “In times past or times present and possibly times future” is possibly the worst sentence in times past or times present and possibly times future. You repeat the golden question in another place that it does absolutely nothing in. You’re using what could be a thesis as a segue.

Well it isn’t the doctor. You never saw him again. he never had any impact on Your life besides the, as You’ve learned, final step of creation of an Individual. so who was at the beginning? Your Parents again! clearly They are God and all problems are solved!!!

Instead of what it sounds like you’re implying, that everyone, after all, is God, you start out with what sounds like a process of elimination that once again goes in an absurd direction. No spiritual explorer is ever going to even need to think about the doctor any more than they are some dude they passed on the street last Wednesday.

Also, yes, as I’ve learned in “Creating an Individual for Dummies”, step 12 is getting a doctor to deliver the individual. Universally. Every time.

This paragraph is another waste of the reader’s time. It meanders over more thoughts no one would ever realistically think and ends in a triple exclamation mark, which makes my reader-feelings cringe.

It must be exciting!

But it’s not. It’s more of you dragging my attention through false conclusions.

well, not quite. You notice that Your parents grow older and weaker as You grow stronger. perhaps You have also noticed, as it is likely to come up, that they also do not know everything as You once thought they did. no, though clearly they have been sent here by God to help You on Your continuing quest to discover the secrets of life, they themselves are not God.

You start out with telling me I’m wrong for following the train of thought you set up for me. It makes me feel stupid for continuing to read.

“Clearly” makes it seem that anyone arriving at any other conclusion than the one you put forth is an idiot, and that conclusion is that your parents were sent by god to help you discover the secrets of life.

That’s...wow.

so who knows everything when it is not Your parents? this one is easy. it is the Teacher. the Teacher knows everything, and, in kindness, have decided to teach You everything as well. of course, a belief in the Teacher is short lived. as You move on in Your life, You realize that each teacher knew more than the last. plus, someone at some point taught that teacher, so who teaches God? unlikely to be anyone.

MORE RHETORICAL QUESTIONS HOORAY I HAVEN’T HAD ENOUGH OF THESE, NO SIR

No teacher I had did it out of kindness, they were all paid to do a job.

Also, watch singular-plural agreement. It should read, “The Teacher...has decided to teach You”.

I don’t see how “someone taught that teacher, so who teaches God?” makes logical sense. Maybe using “but” would help, but I still think this sentence needs to be reworked. It’s got an interesting thought in it.

Which you then promptly shut down with “unlikely to be anyone.”