Futurama

Bender finds it hard to be God

Bender becomes god to a bunch of midget people. He gets them to make him beer. In return he tries to reward them but everything he does causes devastation. But when he doesn’t help them they lose hope. In the end there is an atomic war and everyone is killed.

God concepts

A lot of people think of God as being angry with everyone, zapping them whenever they do wrong. Or they think of God like he is an old guy in a nursing home, kind and nice to visit but you wouldn't want to live with him. 

Prayer?

Is God scary?

Fry desperate to find Bender goes to a Church and asks if they can help find Bender. The priest says they can pray, so Fry asks whether prayer will actually help, the answer was ‘no.’ I asked the students whether they thought of prayer in the same way. You pray but it makes absolutely no difference. They all agreed that prayer doesn’t work; none of them have ever experienced answered prayer. In reply to a students question I shared that I frequently experience direct answers to prayer.

What would God be like in person?

If God game to earth as a person what would he be like? Not so much in appearance but in character, words and actions. The students said that he would be kind, he would listen, and he would do miracles to help people.

Who did God fight with?

So I asked the students who God was angry with, who did he have the most trouble with. Now the student who doesn’t believe in God said that Jesus would be angry with him because he didn’t believe in God. I disagreed.

There were people who tried to ask Jesus really hard questions. In they end they were the ones who arranged for Jesus to be killed. They were the religious leaders.

Hanging out with sinners

What would you do with God's power?

You would expect Jesus to be friends with the Church leaders and to be cross with the drop kicks, the drug addicts, the prostitutes. But when you read the Gospels you will find that he has dinner with them and it is the Churchy people who hated and opposed Jesus.

Students suggested the reasons for this were that religious people wanted power, influence and money for themselves and saw Christ as a threat to this.