Maltheism...I'll admit that I'd never even heard of it before today, but when reading through the Maltheism message board on beliefnet.com, I almost started laughing. These people must be the ultimate of religious pessimists. Their belief, in a nutshell, is that God exists, but he's an egotistical asshole whom is unworthy of reverence, and if the human race denies him worship and treats him with disrespect and outright hatred, he'll fade from existance.
The Christians are so enamoured over eradicating and converting Satanists, who belong to a religion which does nothing but mock the church and promote self-indulgence, but they should be more concerned about endearing their faith to the followers they already have. It seems to me that Maltheists are Christians whom have become fed up with the hypocrisy of the Christian God and their respective churches.
It wouldn't surprise me in the least if the first Maltheist were a former Catholic. Catholics already view their faith as a burden, as was cited in the movie "Dogma". As I was raised in a Catholic household, I know firsthand that being a Catholic is no picnic and that many of the members of the church are bitter and perverted as a result of the stresses of membership...I mean, come on, look at the scandals in the clergy. God seems to be lost to the Catholics. You don't see them dancing on the rooftops of their houses of worship proclaiming the goodness of God, because I'm not sure they can FIND the goodness of God, let alone celebrate it. It would be easy to see how a Catholic, fed up with the archaic rules of the church hierarchy, could become filled with frustration and begin to hate God. This person could then start a club for hating God, stick it with a fancy Latin-prefixed name, and sit around like a pouty kindergartener, refusing to bow down to someone who claims to be the epitome of benevolency and yet makes "bad" things happen, and what's more won't take responsibility for the heinous events in biblical history, and instead blames them on the "sinful" human race.
I do not downplay the religious beliefs of others...I may make jokes or comments on occasion, but my philosophy is mainly "to each his own". I am not a Christian; I renounced my Catholic faith at the age of twelve and at the moment consider myself to be Neo-Pagan. My intent was not to offend any Maltheists or others with this commentary, and if I did, I extend my most sincere apologies. As an outsider looking in, Maltheists seem to have a rather negative interpretation of the Bible's God. I can, of course, see where they could be lead to this idea.
God, to me, has always seemed to be human, no better, no less. It is said that man was created in God's image, but I believe that those who fabricated this deity made him as a personification of a human being. It has been said that the one thing which separates man and his God is fear, but following the principles of basic human psychology, God also fears. It is never directly stated in the Bible that God is afraid of anything, but he does, as do the humans he supposedly created. Take, for example, the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. What is the one thing that God has going for him? Power. God has the power; he has the authority. What happens if he loses that power? He ceases to exist in the eyes of the world...the equivalent, for the omnipotent dogma, of failure and death. Those two things, interestingly enough, are also major fears of humanity...are we beginning to see a correlation here?
When Adam and Eve partook of the forbidden fruit, that was a defiance of God's authority. This sent chills down his divine spine, of course, and delivered a crushing blow to his ego. As would any person, God became angered, and thus told Adam and Eve to get the fuck out of his garden, locking the gates of Eden and adding a rather imposing angel wielding a flaming sword to see that they weren't tempted to return.
Christians are taught to "fear the wrath of God". But wait...isn't wrath one of the Seven Deadly Sins? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. The Seven Deadly Sins are: Pride, Envy, WRATH, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and everyone's favorite, Lust. So God is guilty of breaking one of his own laws {insert resounding gasp here}. The further one reads into the Bible, the more one discovers a pattern of likeness between humans and God. This poses the question "If God is divine, then why is he so similar to us? What makes him better?" From this point of view, God begins to look nothing like a deity and everything like an egotistical, power-hungry human who denies any negative events he may have caused and accentuates the miracles and goodness he has bestowed upon the world. Think politician. In essence, Maltheism may seem unorthodox to me, but I can see where the followers are coming from.