How much does the Christian God really love us?

[Enoughie]

We are constantly reminded by devout Christians that their God has immense love for all his creation, and that we should believe in this God.


So how much does the Christian God really love us?


We can compare the love of the Christian God to the love of a good parent. A good parent would want his children to be righteous and successful. A good parent's love for his children is unconditional.


But is the love of the Christian God unconditional? No. God's love is conditional. The New Testament tells us:

"For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father" (John 16:27)
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In other words, the Christian God's love for us is conditional on our belief in Jesus and us obeying his orders. And if we don't believe and obey? Then the Christian God will have the most horrible things happen to us:

"Their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur" (Revelation 21:8)
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Is this how a good parent would treat his children? Would you want your child tortured for eternity if she disobeys your unreasonable demands? Of course not. A good parent would do everything in his power to help his children.


But does the Christian God do everything in his power to help his children? Not even close. After all, the Christian God is supposedly all-powerful. He could surely do much more to help the poor, the diseased, or the starving.


Would a loving parent purposefully make his children sick? The Christian God creates us sick and commands us to be well. And then, he would only grant us eternal life (something that should be incredible easy to do for an all-powerful God) on the condition that we become enslaved to him!

"But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life" (Romans 6:22)
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Remember, this is supposedly an all-powerful and loving God! Can't he grant everyone eternal life, unconditionally?!


So how much does the Christian God really love us? Apparently the Christian God does not really love us that much after all. His love cannot possibly be compared to the unconditional love of a parent. And he wouldn't do everything in his power to help his children. But he would do the most horrible things to children who disobey him.


The Christian God does not love us like a parent loves his children, he loves us like a slave-master loves his slaves.


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Geopolitics.us - Natural Philosophy of Life - a simple, elegant, and powerful alternative to religious dogma

 

[outhouse]

the christian god loves no one in my opinion.

If he had a human form he would be tried for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death lol.

lets not forget the animal sacrifices or the genocide or the jealousy and childish games he played on job. We know its mostly fiction in my opinion so I dont get to wound up on it.

 

[Nerthus]

the christian god loves no one in my opinion.

If he had a human form he would be tried for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death lol.

lets not forget the animal sacrifices or the genocide or the jealousy and childish games he played on job. We know its mostly fiction in my opinion so I dont get to wound up on it.

Exactly, if a person does half of what God does, they would be put in prison for the rest of their, or worse. But, because he sets rules and offers something fairly good at the end of it - he's a brilliant, perfect loving God. Not in my opinion.

I really struggle to see this 'love'. If I said to my child do this and you will have a brilliant life with all you have ever wanted, but if you don't you'll suffer for the rest of your life - I would be done for and never see the outside world again!

 

[Gloone]

the christian god loves no one in my opinion.

If he had a human form he would be tried for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death lol.

lets not forget the animal sacrifices or the genocide or the jealousy and childish games he played on job. We know its mostly fiction in my opinion so I dont get to wound up on it.

Who do you think Jesus was anyways.

 

[ellenjanuary]

I think the LC just ate the Christian god... I'm sorry... :sorry1:

 

[outhouse]

Who do you think Jesus was anyways.

I wasnt sure about his real life

Im under the belief that he lived as a traveling hellenistic jewish teacher and was killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

he was no more a deity then you are. The authors of the bible took a fable and added super fiction jesus to the OT myths and called the NT to fix the jewish tradition to meet there own needs.

 

[Thesavorofpan]

1st john4:19We love him, because he first loved us.

Well according to the writer neither Christians or God truly love each other. We just love each other because there's no one else.

 

[look3467]

But is the love of the Christian God unconditional? No. God's love is conditional.>>Enoughie

Dear friend, you ought to rethink about the consequences of that statement.

If God subjected us to vanity, how suppose we could do anything about it?

If God by the same token subjects us to salvation, can we still do anything about it?

Either way, it is all God's doing and the best thing we can do is accept His unconditional love despite our own selfish desires.

By so doing, our selfishness becomes His desires and shall live then in Him!

Blessings, AJ

 

[Enoughie]

We know its mostly fiction in my opinion so I dont get to wound up on it.

What does mostly fiction mean? Alice in Wonderland is also "mostly fiction."

_____________________

Geopolitics.us - Natural Philosophy of Life - a simple, elegant, and powerful alternative to religious dogma

 

[outhouse]

What does mostly fiction mean? Alice in Wonderland is also "mostly fiction."

_____________________

Geopolitics.us - Natural Philosophy of Life - a simple, elegant, and powerful alternative to religious dogma

It means the real story ended with jesus death then,,, was handed down orally in its best case after 20 years of campfires, it was then written down by 1 unknow author who didnt even know jesus. it went through a few different versions, before it came to be the canonical gospel we know today on top of that.

This is just the NT

The OT is even more far fetched starting with genesis which has 5 maybe 6 different authors. It was handed down orally for over 300 ish years of campfire tales lol A few different books were used to combine the 4 authors and then during the roman greko era [i believe] they asigned moses as the author as they asigned many works to who they though MAY have wrote them.

If your bored look up historical jesus wiki, its a great read. OR authors of genesis. google is your friend

 

[EverChanging]

The gospels came from more than one author, and besides that, there are hundreds of gospels. Pre-modern people did not conceptualize of history the way we do today. Mythology was the way they described the world while leaving it unexplained. It was no big deal to alter a text and create another version.

Both fundamentalists and some atheists make the mistake of reading the gospels and the Torah as history and fact, either to prove or disprove it. It isn't, and it wasn't intended to be.

 

[outhouse]

The gospels came from more than one author, and besides that, there are hundreds of gospels. Pre-modern people did not conceptualize of history the way we do today. Mythology was the way they described the world while leaving it unexplained. It was no big deal to alter a text and create another version.

Both fundamentalists and some atheists make the mistake of reading the gospels and the Torah as history and fact, either to prove or disprove it. It isn't, and it wasn't intended to be.

understood thats just half or a quarter of the story behind one lol

I dont think you have to worry about atheist or agnostics making mistakes. The ones that believe it literally like the christians are the ones you have to worry about because they all make up there own interpretations.

 

[look3467]

The name "Christian" implies the belief in the "Christ".

Therefore, anything dealing with Christ, no matter how diverse it may be, still alludes to the belief in Christ.

Anything about Christ, His origin, the origin of His God, our Father creator, has to be accepted, taken by faith..... period.

That is why there are differences amongst those professing.

It is like a father with six children for example, the children may not love their father in the same way, yet, they lo9ve their father in their own way.

Now, there may be some instance where one child may not want to acknowledge a father-ship relationship, such as an unbeliever, yet, the very fact of his or her existence is due to a creator God.

So, for the believer, there is ample information in the compiled story book,(Bible) some fact and some metaphoric, yet the whole is divinely inspired to make a very strong case for the existence of God, that is................if one has faith in God.

Faith (In God) then, is the ultimate sum of all that has transpired beginning with Abraham.

Apart from that, an unbeliever has no grounds to claim a non-existence of God.

The very fact of a very wondrously complex makeup of the animal kingdom, mankind, the world and everything in it, the universe and all that vast make up of the heavens is evidence of a creative being, a power, a mighty force can not be denied.

If anyone, really trying to make something of it as there not being a creator in all of this amazing existence, is the unbeliever.

Case in point: Up and until Abraham, there was no information, revelation of the existence of a God creator.

Therefore, because of the inner spiritual conciseness in mankind, and without any revelation to it's source, were led to make up their own belief via things, objects turned into gods.

I.e. Sun god, harvest god, etc.

The believer, has revelation identifying who this God really is, and one in which has been proven to have effected the lives of those who place their trust in Him.

There is no guess work involved in it, either one believes, has faith in God, or one doesn't.
There is no other option!

The God given ability to either accept or deny His existence, (Free and without eternal banishment) is a gift.

Our choice, take it or leave it!

Should one choose to take it, then there is a life changing experience of which to an unbeliever, would be a blessing missed out.

Blessings, AJ

 

[Blackdog22]

The God given ability to either accept or deny His existence, (Free and without eternal banishment) is a gift.

Our choice, take it or leave it!

It is made rather clear that their is eternal banishment or some form of torture for not believing in God, or do you believe the lake of fire was a metaphor for happy popsicle fun time?

Secondly, love is a feeling, religion is a belief. Although their are feelings in religion, the majority would have to be wrong on their feeling if any religion boasting the, "One True God," is to be believed.

Also their is no understanding or agreement on anyone One religion. Their is an agreement and understanding on what love is. Thus loving someone can be done differently, whether silent of effectionate, but the love part is still the same. This isn't true of a belief in something. Most beliefs are still exclaiming to have the answers while contradicting one another, if love if used as a comparison, you could say that religions are desperately trying to figure out what love is and they are all contradicting each other.

Thus love and religion do not work because one can be felt and generally agreed upon while the other has nothing to go on but a book and a most of its followers cant agree on anything.

TLR = Love and religion do not work as a comparison because they are vastly different from one and any comparison falls apart.

 

[Blackdog22]

To the OP, I think this was a really well written article that briefly shows some of the flaws of the Bible in an easy to read format.

Of course their is going to be someone who chimes in with the Bible being a giant metaphor for ummm.... something.... that they can never figure out (Seriously, if you think its a metaphor then state what it is exactly). Which honestly if someone takes that route, then Jesus was a metaphor for a whale that eats on the third day of every week for 3 days and then rests.

Either way, even if someone goes that route, it just looks silly and makes your argument that much more convincing. Just the idea of something loving calling us "slaves" and "sheep" is quite telling.

 

[outhouse]

Thus love and religion do not work because one can be felt and generally agreed upon while the other has nothing to go on but a book and a most of its followers cant agree on anything.

I agee with most of your statement.

only thing i can find at fault is that love is not always two ways. many times love is one way and religion proves that. You have 1 person who loves an imaginary charactor in my opinion. Never recieving anything back.

love and religion work but in a very sad way.

 

[AntEmpire]

Love me above all other things/people/yourself OR ELSE you will be eternally punished?

But is God this? Does God even think? Is God a conscious being like us? Or did MAN personify God to relate to the almighty It?

 

[look3467]

It is made rather clear that their is eternal banishment or some form of torture for not believing in God,>>>Blackdog22

The banishment part was a designed default in the creative process and not an evil work of God.
You see, if we are to be gods, (in the image of God) then we are made independent entities "apart" meaning dead, from God, as in eternal banishment.

A designed default that was not left without rescue.

In the same design, there was made another designed default, and that being the gift as spoken in my post before this one.

Now, humanity as a whole, because of the unconditional love of God us word, He has granted us the gift of life. Not the fleshly life, but the spiritual life after this one.

Now, as for the metaphors, the story of Jonah and the whale, as one example may or may not be a true story. That is up to you to decide.

But the message in the story is what is key in understanding what the designed default was in the salvation of mankind.

In order to see the truth in it, the spirit of God must first be in us live so that the revelation be forthcoming.

Yes, I agree with you in the case of the word love.

But you see, there is a love that can hardly be understood by even many of the Christians, let alone non-believers, and that is that a God would love the worst sinner, the unbeliever the same as a believer and the most righteous of us all.

The story of the Prodigal Son brings that out.

That to many is a mystery still.

Also their is no understanding or agreement on anyone One religion.

True! But you see, that is the point of the whole design. Love can not be generated where there is only agreement. It is in the disagreement, in the trials of life, in the sufferings of life, in the argument where love must be born.

A perfect state has no growth. Therefore, we must be placed into an imperfect state, being also imperfect, will have the opportunity to develop our ability to love.

That's where you and I are, learning, working and striving through the trials and tribulations of life to a point in maturity where we have hopefully, come to understand what love really is.

It is an individual thing and only each one of us can experience it in our own different ways.

Yet, we can love one another as He who created us loved us.

Blessings, AJ

 

[Enoughie]

Anything about Christ, His origin, the origin of His God, our Father creator, has to be accepted, taken by faith..... period.

an unbeliever has no grounds to claim a non-existence of God.

You know, if you accept something on faith only, then - by definition - what you accept is unsubstantiated.

An unbeliever - someone who does not believe in Christ - is not the same as someone who claims that a God does not exist. These are two separate (and at times mutually exclusive) things.

Belief that Jesus is God is unsubstantiated. Unbelief in Jesus IS substantiated - all the evidence we have in the world (biology, geology, cosmology, etc.) point to processes that contradict the Biblical accounts. This means that the Biblical claims are highly improbable.. err.. nearly impossible.

Also, there's no reason to think that even if a God exists that God = Jesus. There's also no reason to think that if God exists it has the characteristics that men attributed to it (saying "to him" is already a characteristic men attribute to God).

_____________________
Geopolitics.us - Natural Philosophy of Life - a simple, elegant, and powerful alternative to religious dogma

 

[AntEmpire]

How could god make us ignorant and expect us to correctly choose in the maze of religions the correct path to god?

Oh but he left us a giant vague book? How is man supposed to know this book is the book to base his life on? Because his parents did? And what if they didn't?

To me it makes no sense for someone as smart as god to do something so dumb as to expect anything of man without giving us to work with besides books that were made by man.