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Why Does Thou steal….?
Read through the eyes of the oppressed, the Bible reveals God the liberator, who sees the sins of society ‘piled up to heaven’ (Rev 18:5) for allowing economic injustices to condemn masses to live in poverty. From the perspective of a liberation theologian, the scripture reveals a critique of the divide between the rich and poor of this world. So, when Rev Tim Jones declared in his sermon on Sunday that the poor of society should steal from multinational businesses rather then turn to prostitution, robbery or burglary; I, for one, agree.
He argued that ‘this is a call for our society no longer to treat its most vulnerable people with indifference and contempt.’ It was a radical statement, but a necessary one, in order to bring attention to the desperate conditions of individuals who as Rev Jones describes ‘are released from prison, or find themselves suddenly without work or family support, then to leave them for weeks with inadequate or clumsy social support…we create a situation which leaves some people little option but crime.’
The obvious argument against Rev Tim Jones, is that of God’s commandment ‘thou shalt not steal’, however when held in comparison to other biblical teachings such as 1 Timothy 5:8 ‘If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever’ proves to be exceptionally problematic for a Christian who is stricken by poverty. In a society that is blinded by consumerism and greed, how many stop to think about the poor and those with criminal records who seek to change their way of life and provide for their families? How will they cope at Christmas time, when the unemployment rate of the UK has reached 2.49 million, and they along with thousands of others can’t get jobs?
Yes stealing is a sin, but did fashion labels such as GAP not steal from the rights of the children working in terrible conditions in sweat shops for the sake of mass production? Do Tesco not steal the business from small local stores, where the owners are desperate to earn a living and supply for their families? We cannot forget the politicians, who steal tax payer’s money to pay to cover the cost of gardening expenses or leaking pipes. All of whom continue to exist without being imprisoned. Instead they make more money, the rich get richer and the poor continue to get poorer.
It is not a matter of accepting the righteousness of stealing, rather it is a statement that society needs to change, the poor need to be noticed. It is easy to ignore the needs of the voiceless poor, who reach such desperate conditions as stealing to be able to eat and supply for their families. As Rev Tim Jones stated in his sermon, ‘for many at the bottom of our social ladder, lawful, honest life can sometimes seem to be an apparent impossibility,’ and during a recession it is the poor that get hit the hardest.
Rev Tim Jones’ sermon raises a moral sense of responsibility to acknowledge that the poor have no choice but to rebel against a system that allows inequalities to exist. It is an ethical challenge that raises awareness to the Bible’s other passages, such as Psalm 24:1,‘The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it,’ so should everyone not have an equal opportunity to live off the gifts of the world. It is not simply a matter of declaring that ‘thou shalt not steal’ but instead questioning ‘why does thou steal’ and what can be done to stop it?
 Eva is currently in her final year, studying for a Master of Theology degree at the University of St Andrews. She then hopes to be ordained into the Church of England. She has worked in Church youth groups in Manchester and volunteered for various charity groups including Christies Cancer Research. She is a member of the St Andrews Labour Club and International Politics Association. Her theological passion and main research area is liberation theology, after being inspired by the works of Marcella Althaus-Reid and others such as Ernesto Cardenal.
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Eva Parker, 06/01/2010 |
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| | Visitor (Guest) | 24/03/2010 03:35 | | Definitely a thought-provoking article. The old ethics question "Would you steal bread to feed your family?" means a lot more to me now, and requires a lot more thought to answer.
I agree that we live in an economy that makes survival a near impossible task for some people, a system that could use some revision. But that would be no easy task. I think that, instead of lobbying for wide spread political change, working from the top down, we do more as individuals. I don't think that Christianity calls us to become political activists necessarily. But it calls us to help those in need, without a doubt. I, personally, am inclined to believe that individual acts of kindness and benevolence by the church would be more effective than trying to struggling through the red tape of politics and trying to change the capitalist system. I don't think we can actively make political changes until the church can honestly say that we have done all we can. Why should politics be reformed when the church remains greedy? Reform, generosity should start with Christians, as individuals and as churches.
I was bothered with the second-to-last paragraph. I don't think we should ever be tempted to justify stealing, or any other sin, by saying that it's ok for us to do it because someone else did it first or wronged us. God doesn't call us to compare ourselves to the standards of others of the world. I don't think that was your intention or anything, that's just how it came across to me a little.
Really good article! I really like the way you used scripture in here to support your argument. It's a great thing that you all are aiming towards. God bless!
| | | Al Kafir (Guest) | 10/04/2010 15:13 | | In an ideal world, there would be no need to steal, however we don’t live in an ideal world and I don’t doubt that “needs must” in some instances when one finds oneself in dire straits. However it is morally wrong to steal, but not a sin……nothing is a sin, nothing is sinful. The whole concept of sin is as bizarre as the whole concept of a supernatural deity who takes a personal interest in the day to day lives of us homo-sapiens as a species. Morality is innate in humans; altruism exists for sound evolutionary reasons, by acting in the interests of one’s own group as a whole. In dealing with whether it is right to steal or not, one must make an ethical and practical choice between the lesser of two evils, consider the consequences of one’s actions and act accordingly. This is not a black and white issue, it depends on the circumstances. The one thing you can definitely take out of the equation is worrying about what some imaginary sky fairy would think, or what some coddled together 2000 year old book says you should do.
A person’s religion is partly an accident of birth, if you are born of Christian parents, the likelihood is you will be a Christian. If you were born in Iran, chances are you’d be Muslim, in India, a Hindu etc. Can you honestly say if you were born in, say Afghanistan, you would arrive at the rational conclusion that Christianity is correct and Islam wrong. I presume, you have read about all other religions and dismissed all except Christianity as false, what was this decision based on, how was it rationalised? What does this say about the validity of one’s beliefs, it appears totally irrational, people believe in a particular religion partly through tradition. The other main reason why people become religious is due to indoctrination, in schools particularly. All faith schools should be abolished in my opinion, they are divisive and sectarian, all schools should be community schools to enable a cohesive multicultural society to flourish. Religions are also abusive, they take innocent children and indoctrinate them at a time when their brains are not properly developed and are (for very sound evolutionary reasons) very receptive to these ideas. They are programmed to believe whatever a parent or adult tells them, such as “Don’t go near the crocodile” for example, a child doesn’t question this it just accepts it, because it would be dangerous not to.
Anyway back to morality, I have a question: Who is the more moral, the person who acts out of fear of divine retribution, or the person who acts out of their own well reasoned sense of right and wrong, without fear of any supernatural consequences? The person who needs a rule book to know how to act, or the person who weighs up the ethical consequences of any action? To quote Timothy as you did “worse than an unbeliever”, what exactly is so bad about an unbeliever, what makes me a bad person, please explain? It makes me laugh that the religious claim some kind of monopoly on morality, properly read, these books should be an example of how NOT to behave. If anybody gets their morality from the Bible or Qu’ran, they must have seriously cherry-picked, or they would be going around “smiting” everyone, amongst many other unsavoury practises. A religious person may need to be told, as in Leviticus for example 'Do not have sexual relations with an animal and defile yourself with it. A woman must not present herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it; that is a perversion.” ….Somehow I can work this kind of thing out myself, without divine instruction.
The Christian faith has been comprehensively debunked, along with all other mono-theistic religions. Religion belongs in the infancy of our species, it was mankind’s first attempts to explain natural phenomena, such as the sun rising etc, and we imagined gods behind everything. We can now explain these phenomena without recourse to supernaturalism. For example the bible says the Earth is around 6000 years old, it is in fact 13.72 billion years, and yes that is pretty exact: that’s how far we have come as a species. It is blatantly obvious that all religions are man made: God did not create man, man created God.
There are hundreds of billions of stars like our sun, just in our own Milky Way galaxy, there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in our universe. This is what should inspire awe and wonder, not some burning bush, or some babblings of ancient Middle Eastern goat herders, blind faith is just that, blind and unaccepting of reality. This blind faith is for some strange reason seen as a virtue by the religious. Ignorance is bliss I suppose, to quote Orwell. I would contest that the single most, biggest problem for society world wide is religion, just look around you. Would a person have blind faith in any other area of their life, why is all rationality suspended when it comes to such huge questions as how we came into being? Christianity is basically a theory about how the Universe works, a theory that can summarily be dismissed. Anyway, good luck with your studies Eve, I hope you take note of Timothy again “Women should learn quietly and submissively. 12 I do not let women teach men or have authority over them.[a] Let them listen quietly.” I take it you don’t believe in equality for women and good luck with that becoming a bishop thing! I honestly hope you will eventually see the light though-lol
Al Kafir
| | | Al Kafir (Guest) | 12/04/2010 13:04 | | Just to correct an error in my above post, what I intended to say is that the Universe is 13.72 billion years old, the Earth is around 5 billion. It's a bit of a long winded way to create humans isn't it? Apparently god took around 8 billion years to create the Earth, then via Evolution another 5 billion to arrive at us homo-sapiens.Apart from anything else, we have existed more or less in our present form for around 200,000 years,all these years fighting each other and people dying of horrible diseases.Apparently your god sat with arms folded for 198,000 of these years before deciding to intervene with his son Jesus. How on Earth can you lot swallow all this crap, it's ridiculous-cheers
Al Kafir
| | | Kufrul-I'raadh (Guest) | 12/04/2010 17:30 | | I think you missed the point of the article, it does not appear to be an argument for proving the existence of God. Instead it was a socio-political critique that raises awareness and concern for the poor. If it makes you feel more comfortable you can remove God from the equation and make it a moral concern. In a sense it could be argued that this criticises old testament teachings and codes of conduct, by looking at it with a hermeneutic of suspicion, it raises awareness to the fact that this was written in a certain historical context and highlights that such contexts have changed, as a result of this it states that yes stealing is crime but there are underlying flaws in society that has led to individuals making this decision. Therefore rather than focusing on the notion of sin, focuses on the needs for society to have a concern for social justice and class struggle.
| | | Al Kafir (Guest) | 12/04/2010 19:45 | | I concede that I strayed from the point, but the article is written from a Christian perspective and asserts the existence of God as a taken.If God does not exist and the Old Testament is nonsense, then the reference point for the article is bereft of any meaning. Yes, I can leave God out of my response, but God is continually referenced in the article, it is what it is all about.If it was just a socio-political critique, then why all the references to the bible and God? The article is asking if it is OK to steal given that the bible says it is a sin. I am pointing out that the basic premises made are flawed.I'm not contesting that the article is about whether or not God exists, that is taken as read by the author, so it is legitimate to point out that this basic premise is incorrect and why this is so. So, if the author left the references to God and the bible out of the piece, then maybe you could legitimately say it was purely a socio-political critique. But if it is in any way a political critique, what politics are being critiqued? Take God out of this piece and what are you left with, "Is it ever justifiable to steal"- answer "Yes, sometimes, dependent on the circumstances" as I addressed in my first paragraph."-simple.This "Hermeneutic of suspicion", leads me to think that you believe the bible to be something that needs to be interpreted in the correct way, make it fit with what you want to believe. I understand that current religious apologists now maintain that the bible is meant metaphorically and needs interpretation. This just doesn't wash with me and what about all the centuries of it being taken literally? Are you seriously telling me that god decided to reveal himself to a group of illiterate desert dwellers and furthermore intended them to take his words metaphorically?... Big ask!If he was going to reveal himself anywhere, why not say China where at least they were literate.You further say that it was written in a certain "historical context". I presume by that you mean that as things such as slavery existed, then the bible was written in such a way so that the ignoramuses would relate to it. That also does not wash, it gives instruction on how to behave, it doesn't just take on board the societal norms of the time, it instructs, such as
| | | Al Kafir (Guest) | 12/04/2010 19:50 | | Sorry, ignore above and read this instead, I hope you're not intimating that I am kufrul l'raadh by the way-lol
I concede that I strayed from the point a bit, but feel I can justify this to some extent. You are correct that the article is not an argument for the existence of god, as it already assumes that god exists, as the article is written from a Christian standpoint, constantly referencing god and the bible. I disagree that this piece is purely a socio-political critique, what it is asking is –Is it Ok to steal, given that it says it is wrong to do so in the bible-in a nutshell. To point out the irrelevance of the bible and argue against the existence of god, I believe is legitimate as it is the reference point of the article. If the basic premise is flawed, I believe it legitimate to point this out and to give arguments why. Anyway don’t worry about making me more comfortable, I’m sat quite comfortably thanks. Hmmm…reading your next bit I think I grasp what you are getting at, that the bible is only meant metaphorically and needs interpreting, taking into account the society and practices of the time and that it was written in a context that people of the time could relate to. Am I right? This begs the question why did god decide to reveal himself to a bunch of illiterate desert dwellers, rather than say in China, which had a much more advanced civilisation? This argument also does not really work as the bible gives instruction on how to behave, it doesn’t just take into account customs of the time and try to improve the morality of the society. For example why instruct people that if they find a bride not to be a virgin on her wedding night they should take her to her father’s house and stone her to death on his doorstep? What about saying that if you have an unruly son you should take him to the village gates and stone him to death? If the bible is supposed to be a guide to morality, do you not think it would be improved by just leaving this kind of thing out? Do you really think the bible was written metaphorically and was intended to need interpreting because it was certainly taken literally for centuries, causing much suffering? If the article is meant as a socio-political critique then which society and what political ethos is being critiqued? It appears to be criticising consumerism and capitalism I suppose, but seeing as though Labour have been in power for well over a decade, then surely this is criticising the Labour party then isn’t it? Otherwise what are the underlying flaws in society, and what is needed to address this, as the article doesn’t seem to say, it doesn’t suggest any answers.
| | | Visitor (Guest) | 26/04/2010 03:51 | | "If anybody gets their morality from the Bible or Qu’ran, they must have seriously cherry-picked, or they would be going around “smiting” everyone, amongst many other unsavoury practises."
As Al Kafir mentioned in his last response, there are some questionable practices in the Bible, ones that often seem contradictory to the morality that we live by now. I've struggled with some of that myself, wondering why God only let one group of people enter into a relationship with him, and why He established some of the rules He did. But, as a believer in the existence of God, I have come to accept that God's plans are bigger than our own, and the commands he gives he gives for a purpose. I understand that, as a non believer, for you, Al Kafir, the Old Testament covenant seems completely ridiculous. But, as Kufrul said, their law was adapted to the customs of the time. What God demanded of them, he did for their own good. We live under a new covenant with the Lord now, under Jesus, and we aren't bound by the old laws anymore. For the time of the Israelites, the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law was a workable system. I believe commandments given to the Israelites were meant to be taken literally. Parts of this system continue in modern Christianity, including, I believe, not stealing. Throughout time, I believe God has proved himself to be a God of love, not a God of smiting anyone. I don't blame you at all for not believing in a God who is a distanced creator, punishing humans as he pleases and giving them nonsense rules. That is not who the Lord is. He has done some things that I will never be able to explain, but as His follower, it's about trust in Him, something that is really hard to explain to a non-believer. But if there's one thing I know, I know that it's not all "ridiculous crap."
The Israelites were not "illiterate desert dwellers." For their time, they were a pretty advanced civilization-- the people of the Mesopotamian region are considered to be one of the advanced civilizations of the ancient world. Phonecian and Hebrew peoples are credited with creating the first alphabet.
God chose to reveal Himself to the Israelites because of his original covenant with Abraham. Even though the Jews abandoned God time and time again, he kept his promises towards them.
Christianity has not been debunked. In fact, there is a lot of scientific evidence toward the existence of God. There are also people who believe in both God and evolution. Einstein confessed that the more he studied the universe, the more he believe in a higher power.
I cannot see how something as complex as the human body could have been made through pure chance. There are other things in this world than matter and atoms. There is thought, and love, and energy, and you can't claim that these things aren't real. They aren't a product of accidental chemical reactions. I'm sure you've heard the watch analogy: if you take apart a watch and put it in a bag and shake it up, there is no way for it to assemble itself into a working mechanism again. It is the same with humanity, and even more so. The body is not simply a machine that can be taken apart and reassembled. There is no way that something as complex as our bodies could have been created out of chance. We are perfectly suited to all the tasks we need for survival-- this was no accident.
"Christianity is basically a theory about how the Universe works," you said. I disagree. I believe that Christianity is the belief that Jesus Christ, Son of God, came to Earth, died for our sins, and rose again in order that we may be forgiven and enter into a relationship with God. As Christians, we believe that God is a supreme being and creator of the universe, but that is not the foundation of our belief system. Christianity was not established as an afterthought to the notion of a creator, as it seems you suggest. Nor is Christianity simply a guide to morality. As I said, Christianity allows us to enter into a relationship with God. Since God is completely holy, to be able to enter into His presence, we have to be holy as well. Jesus served the purpose of forgiving our sins so that we might have that chance. The moral code exists to enable us to become as like God as possible. We do not follow rules because of our religion, but because of our love for God. God also establishes this code out of his love for us and his concern for our best interests-- and in all reality, our best interest is following Him. He gives us this guide to do that to the best of our abilities.
"some coddled together 2000 year old book," you call the Bible. First of all, the Bible is much older than that. Second of all, it was hardly coddled together. The Israelites knew the Bible to be the holy word of God, and as such, they treated it with immense respect, passing it down from age to age. Jewish boys actually memorized large portions of the Mosiac law-- clearly, this was something of great importance to them, not something they would treat lightly.
Sorry that this has no relevance whatsoever to the original topic-- with Al Kafir, I felt there were more pressing matters at hand, and I have already expressed my opinion on the original topic in the first post. Al, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I'll be praying for you.
| | | Al Kafir (Guest) | 02/05/2010 23:59 | | Hi everybody, I’m back, your friendly neighbourhood atheist-lol! Sorry I’ve not visited in a while but I’ve had a bunch of Christians on a crusade against me at work and I’ve had to prepare my defence (final written warning….funny) I just read above post and thought, well he’s right there, I’m not happy with him praying for me, I think he should go the whole hog and sacrifice a goat in my name instead. Now, where do I start, there’s so much? Ok, firstly you have wondered why god only let one group of people enter into a relationship with him and why he established the rules he did. Do you not think that there are many other religions in different parts of the world, with followers wondering why their god only chose them? I would maintain that you are only wondering about your particular god because you are born in the West, if you were born in the East, chances are you’d be wondering about a different god. Why don’t you wonder about this a bit, as well as the fact that these rules you talk about sound awfully man made, don’t they. The kind of thing the rulers of the time would find useful for controlling the masses and to keep themselves in power. You are correct that the Old Testament seems completely ridiculous to me, for the simple reason that it IS completely ridiculous. Are you seriously telling me you believe in Noah’s ark for example, I can assure you that 2 of each animal is not sufficient a genetic mix for future evolution. I won’t even go into all the other logistical problems; I’ll just assume that you are going to maintain this is metaphorical too. Could I just point out that absolutely any book however nonsensical can be claimed to have been written metaphorically, such as Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky for example (wasn’t he one of your crowd too?) Anyway, I’ll leave the O/T, like you said that was the bad old days before “Gentle Jesus” arrived along with the concept of hell, which as far as I’m aware was absent from the O/T. This has terrified children for centuries during their indoctrination into the faith.
You say throughout time god has proven himself to be gods of love- examples please. I would contend that throughout time these delusional ideas have caused untold misery. Over time it has become more and more apparent that god does not exist, that it is a man made construct. You do realize when you mention your “Christian “values, that these are not exclusive or original to Christianity don’t you. For example the golden rule of “Do unto others” goes back much earlier, it was certainly mentioned by Confucius. This by the way is the ONLY rule I follow, or need and I have very strong sense of what is moral/ethical. The religious do not have a monopoly on morality, far from it in fact, I’ve recently experienced this firsthand. You say that “Trust in him is something that is really hard to explain to a non-believer”, this isn’t in fact true. It’s really easy to explain actually, you want to believe in something, so you do and probably spend a lot of time convincing yourself it is true. You have the capacity to suspend your credulity and accept things without any kind of evidence, whereas I don’t, nor would I want to. Reality is awesome enough for me, thanks, especially with all the discoveries we are making in things like Cosmology, Stem cell research, Particle physics etc, you know.. Science. You then seem to argue that the Israelites were an advanced civilization, so are you saying god chose them because of this or not. I would argue that there were much more advanced civilizations around at the time. You then say it was because of a covenant with Abraham. (Is this the epileptic/schizophrenic guy that heard voices in his head telling him to murder his son?) Hang on a minute I’m getting a bit lost here, let me get this straight the O/T is metaphorical, is that right? Jesus comes to Earth to die and be resurrected to make up for the original metaphorical sin of Eve who wasn’t even a real person, as part of a covenant with a schizophrenic and we all have to repent our sins or go to hell? Am I with it so far? Hmmm…I suppose you are right actually it is difficult to explain to a non- believer or any rational, sane person actually.
You then go on to say “I can’t believe that something as complex as the human body is made by pure chance”. Well who said it was? It was made over millions of years by the process of evolution, from chemical beginnings, amino acids forming, single cells, then multi-cellular life, fish, amphibians, mammals etc, we share a common ancestor with the Chimpanzee. This is FACT. There actually isn’t anything more than matter and atoms, well actually there is..anti matter. All matter is made of 3 or 4 basic particles, which make up more complicated particles and atoms, this is indisputable. As for thought (consciousness) this is an area under much investigation by neuro-scientists. I cannot legitimately say I have the complete answer to that, we just don’t understand it fully yet, but it is a fascinating area of research. If you just mean the act of thinking this has a material explanation involving chemical messaging, neuro-transmitters and the firing of various neurons. Love has very sound evolutionary explanations, to do with mating and group bonding. Instead of just “not believing” this why not pick up a science book and learn about these things and put your bible down? I note you then dispute that the bible is a coddled together book. What happened to all the other gospels that didn’t make it in then, what about the apocryphal gospels, the non canonical one’s, who do you think left these out and why? Anyway, it’s bedtime and I’ve got some serious sinning to do tomorrow, so I’ll have to go, I do enjoy these chats though- Cheers
Al Kafir
| | | Visitor (Guest) | 05/07/2010 04:39 | | Why are you on this site? Why are you reading Christian articles and leaving comments? Are you looking for answers yourself, or are you just trying to make other people fall away from God? It must be the former. What could you stand to gain by making people stop believing in God? I sincerely hope that you can find the answers that you are looking for. I know that I alone can't provide those answers, though. Please continue to investigate the Christian faith.
For now, I will do my best. I believe in a higher power because I believe the universe had a beginning, a creation. And I do not believe that this was an accidental event-- there was a plan. This plan had to have a planner, whom we call God. This God created beings in His image, and he instilled into all of them a sense of right and wrong. This global Law of Morality, of fair and unfair, of right and wrong, could not exist without a God. As you said, morality is not an exclusively Christian concept, but I believe it is evidence of something bigger than ourselves, evidence of a common creation, a uniting factor.
There IS science to back up Christianity, despite your claims that it has been thoroughly disproved. There are also major holes in the evolutionary argument. I'm not going to get into all that right now, but I'll have some facts next time to back myself up. Know this, though: you do not have to suspend your credulity to be a Christian. There are facts, there is evidence, and you don't have to convince yourself it's true. It is true.
For me, though, it's not all about the scientific debate, or who has got the best facts to back themselves up. That's not the point of all this, of religion in general. It's so much more than just facts-- God doesn't call us to just believe in Him, or just to prove His existence. I know that you are stuck on the scientific stuff, but know that that is not the reason for Christianity.
I don't believe the Old Testament is mostly metaphorical. Again, there is evidence of some of those events actually happening. As far as which books were included, I believe God had a hand in putting the Bible together, and the books which were divinely inspired were included in the final product. If other notable works were left out, then they must not have been a significant contribution, and not meant to be included.
God didn't choose the Israelites because they were the most advanced civilization of the time, but because Abraham did God's will.
Jesus came to Earth not just to die for the sins of Eve, but for all people who were, are, and will be. He had to come to replace the covenant under Abraham's Law, which, as you have clearly pointed out, was not sufficient any longer. This old law has been abolished.
You doubt that God is love, and ask for evidence. Admittedly, God has been pretty brutal to those who do not obey Him. But it can be said that even this is a demonstration of His love. He wants the best for us, and He knows that a relationship with Him is the best thing for us, and so He does everything He can in order to draw us to Him, which often includes discipline. When He sees that we are drawing away, he punishes in order to let us know that He is what we need. "Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father?...Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness." --Hebrews 12. And what could possibly be a better demonstration of God's love for us than the sacrifice of His Son? God so loved us that He sent his Son, so that we might be saved from the fate we deserve. There is no greater love than this. This is why Christianity is so special: God didn't just tell us what to do, he showed us, he sent us an example, even a part of Himself. "Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." --1 John 4. This is not a delusional idea, and it may only cause misery for those who believe that God's love comes without a sacrifice and faith on our part.
I hope this helps in the least bit, and I'll write more later to try and clarify some evolutionary stuff.
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