Brian2
Veteran Member
No Christians can't brush that off. We give the benefit of the doubt to God however and don't blame God for it all when we don't know the full story.
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Convince me that God is loving
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
No Christians can't brush that off. We give the benefit of the doubt to God however and don't blame God for it all when we don't know the full story.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
They start to believe that God is loving as soon as they get old enough to go to church... that's when the brainwashing begins.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do not give the benefit of the doubt to God even though all the other Baha'is do.
YoursTrue
Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
He could, just like He had a flood in Noah's time. But it wasn't to kill innocent people. But in general, although He allows these things, He does not cause them to happen and kill innocent people.
YoursTrue
Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
In order to understand it, you have to know that "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." and then follow what happened.
YoursTrue
Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
You don't? Why not?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
If God doesn't cause those things to happen, why do you think God causes the beautiful blue color of the sky?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
What happened?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Because God is not going to be the one to get us out of the situation, people are going to do that.
God will assist people, but people will build the new world order.
“This is the Day in which God’s most excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most mighty grace hath been infused into all created things. It is incumbent upon all the peoples of the world to reconcile their differences, and, with perfect unity and peace, abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness. It behoveth them to cleave to whatsoever will, in this Day, be conducive to the exaltation of their stations, and to the promotion of their best interests. Happy are those whom the all-glorious Pen was moved to remember, 7 and blessed are those men whose names, by virtue of Our inscrutable decree, We have preferred to conceal.
Beseech ye the one true God to grant that all men may be graciously assisted to fulfil that which is acceptable in Our sight. Soon will the present-day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead. Verily, thy Lord speaketh the truth, and is the Knower of things unseen.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 6- 7
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stvdv
Veteran Member
True, the person may be convinced, as in "now he believes what I say"
BUT
I was talking about proof. Proof is part of the material world, emotions,mind and science, proof is not part of the Spiritual world.
Hence, proof doesn't apply to Spiritual matters (Spirirituality (God, love) is beyond the mind), hence asking someone for proof, means that the person is ignorant about this.
There are 2 ways to convince (which was asked for in the OP) someone:
a) Proof: impossible for Spiritual matters
b) Faith based: useful for Spiritual matters
The OP person, like you said, has a problem with Faith, so option b) won't work, hence I provided her with the info, that proof won't work for Spiritual matters
I think this is important for @Trailblazer to understand and accept, otherwise she will keep turning in circels and hoops, and asking us the same question (different wording maybe), but never get an answer, and will get frustrated
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Brian2
Veteran Member
They start to believe that God is loving as soon as they get old enough to go to church... that's when the brainwashing begins.
Not everyone becomes a Christian when they are kids................................. with some the brainwashing starts later.
Brian2
Veteran Member
It's nice to be honest about how you feel with God also, as I imagine you are.
idea
Question Everything
They start to believe that God is loving as soon as they get old enough to go to church... that's when the brainwashing begins.
They start to believe God hates them as soon as they get old enough for church. All the fellow grandmothers, grandfathers, they all gather around the little children, tell them how special they are - do you know how lucky you are to have such wonderful parents? Such a strong loving father who provides and mother who nurtures? You are so lucky to have the priesthood in your home. You be a good child, be obedient to your *pefophile* father, be humble and submissive like your beautiful mother, and one day you can have a *loving* family of your own.
You are so lucky, so privileged, #blessed.
Say your prays.
God is there watching over you. Watching over you every night as your father repeatedly rapes you. Say your prayers and God will be there to watch.
It's not hard to see why that can't be allowed. If one can go from hell to heaven after death, the church loses control. What do we need with baptism and last rights if these things don't matter in the end? What power does excommunication hold if it can be overruled after death and one get to heaven anyway? What difference do original sin and free will make in that scenario? What do we need with the church at all if one can be "saved" after death?
But you will give God credit for what you like without knowing the whole story, either. In this way, if confirms your faith-based assumption that God is good. Using these criteria, Satan can be called good as well. If others call him evil, just point out that we don't know the whole story, and mere humans aren't qualified to make such judgments about transcendent beings anyway, so just give Satan the same benefit of the doubt and he'll look just as good as God, an idea that is no longer needed now that we have a benevolent Satan.
Why would anyone be benevolent if they did not love the object of their benevolence? I define love as the state where one is willing to take risks for and share scarce resources with others in order to promote their wellbeing. If that's not your purpose, your act is not benevolent. It is either selfish or done for no reason.
That's in the tradition of softening Christian hell theology. In the evolution of the Abrahamic deity, he has gone from the angry, harshly judgmental, strongman to the gentler god of the New Testament that stood by the old hell theology that characterizes Christianity, to the new god, who would never design a torture pit and gratuitously subject souls to endless suffering. This god is becoming more humanist, and that is a trend in the right direction.
Great question, but I think you know the answer. Once you decide that this god is good, then whatever we like comes from God, and everything else is either actually good for us even if we can't see why with our puny human minds, or just not God's fault. Notice that our puny human minds are excellent judges of what's actually and obviously good like blue skies, but that man is in possession of too puny a mind to be competent at making negative moral judgments unless they don't involve judging the deity. Man is also excellent at identifying and condemning sin, but only in man - not the deity.
This is the position to which I just referred. Incidentally, the humanist, whose values differ, doesn't absolve this tri-omni deity of responsibility. With that status comes omni-responsibility.
Sure. Suffering is always for a good reason when God is behind it. That kind of thinking follows from assuming divine omnibenevolence. Of course, it's absurd to think that Jesus needed that final lesson before graduating to his place at the right hand of God. What use is it to know what crucifixion feels like in order to govern mankind lovingly, and why would Jesus need to feel it when seeing it is lesson enough that that is no way to treat a human being, just as with slavery? We also don't need to be whipped as a slave to understand the human condition well enough to deem it immoral.
Alien826
No religious beliefs
I am fine with God being benevolent, I am hunky-dory fine, I only have a problem with God being loving.
It makes sense that if God is omnipotent, God had better also be benevolent.
However, God does not have to be loving in order to be benevolent. People just want God to be loving so they believe he is loving. And they want God to be loving so they can feel loved by God. This is psych 101 stuff.
What does it mean anyway to say that God is loving? That is an important question.
I might believe that God is loving if believers would stop trying to shove that belief down my throat. If they knew anything about psychology they would know that trying to force someone to believe something usually has the reverse effect.
Now I'm puzzled. I would say that "loving" and "benevolent" are very close to the same thing. I certainly use them interchangeably. The word "benevolent" has roots meaning "wishing well". If you love someone don't you wish good things for them?
Perhaps you can tell me how you define the words?
Alien826
No religious beliefs
Hah. You seem to have misunderstood what was I was doing. I know that for many people an epiphany (def: A revelatory manifestation of a divine being) is followed by an immediate acceptance of the beliefs of the nearest religion, Christianity in this case. Not so for me. True to my nature, I approached it in a scientific way. Here's how it went, roughly.
I had this experience, what does it mean? I seem to have received a communication from something that has power to influence my life. What more do I know? Nothing for sure. Where do I go from here? Well, the revelation followed a question, so I'll ask more questions.
True I did join a Christian church, but that did not mean I accepted all Christian beliefs. So why join? I thought I was being told to do so, and it made sense to to pursue my search with others that could contribute to my thinking. I "shopped around" churches before joining the United Methodist church, which proved to be reasonably flexible in it's theology. The last thing I wanted was to be in a dogmatic church that would just insist on their own version of things. So I didn't even consider Catholicism or the Baptists, for example. In fact I never did come to believe in the more esoteric stuff like virgin birth, resurrection and so on. (As an aside, I crossed non-Christian religions off my list of possibilities because I felt the cultural gap involved in say looking into Islam would be too great.)
I hope this makes it all clear. I welcome your further comments.
Alien826
No religious beliefs
Easy. Note the hole in the middle of the donut. That part has been taken by god for himself. It symbolizes the centrality of god in our lives and also demonstrates the benevolence of god, who has left the greater part of the donut for us, his children.
Easy. Note the hole in the middle of the donut. That part has been taken by god for himself. It symbolizes the centrality of god in our lives and also demonstrates the benevolence of god, who has left the greater part of the donut for us, his children.
No, I ate them. They were delicious.
Alien826
No religious beliefs
No, I ate them. They were delicious.
Heretic!!
Well, for some people, holy communion involves some bland, tasteless wafer. Donut holes are pretty tasty and seem to work well with holey communion. Do you think God would mind?