Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
If he has wants, then it follows he has needs. If he does not need it, then it is a waste of time to do it.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Why Does God Hate Sex?
- Thread starter Skwim
- Start date
If he has wants, then it follows he has needs. If he does not need it, then it is a waste of time to do it.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
No, God does not want or need anything for Himself, He just wants us to have stuff that profits us, but He does not need us to have stuff. If we do not want what God has so be it. In the following passages where it says that God can dispense with His creatures it means God does not need us at all.
“Consider the mercy of God and His gifts. He enjoineth upon you that which shall profit you, though He Himself can well dispense with all creatures.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 140
“Your Lord, the God of mercy, can well dispense with all creatures. Nothing whatever can either increase or diminish the things He doth possess. If ye believe, to your own behoof will ye believe; and if ye believe not, ye yourselves will suffer.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 148
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
You might as well be quoting from Harry Potter
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Does Harry Potter talk about God?
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Yeah, it's a problem that Abrahamic religions tend to have, I'm afraid.
It's not just the prejudice against sexual orientation, freedom, partner choices, etc......... it's that so many marriages are totally upset and busted over this 'No sex before marriage' thing.
I can understand why the Israelites were controlled to only closed couples because disease could rip through them so easily, just as I expect that it had done with neighbouring peoples .
But today, now, for couples to marry without ever having discovered if they are sexually suited is crazy. I knew a Bahai woman who married a very pleasant guy, but not that long after the wedding this (now pregnant) lady was deeply despondent and telling all the other Bahais how shocked she was about her husband's unreasonable demands. 'He wants me to do these things to him!' she cried, thus busting yet another Bahai law about not back-biting!! The separation and divorce followed.
Couples need to know each if they will spend all their days together.
Milton Platt
Well-Known Member
I've known two people from India who had arranged marriages where the parents made the choice. The were both miserable failures.
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
It can happen.
But a work mate of mine was married by arrangement, his Dad received a large sum of money for arranging for a very rich man's daughter to come to England for marriage. They now have four children and are happy.
He once explained to me that when he met his future wife, they sat and talked, wondering about what their parents had lead them into....... and then they decided to get on and see what happened. They fell in love.
And yet I know masses of people who chose their spouses and who now rant and rage about how horrible they are, and all the bad things that they have done.
It's a lottery........ I can only be glad that in this one respect I have been a winner.
PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
It's true that minors can't consent. But what is a minor, and what is consent, and what is abuse and not abuse etc. are quite fluid.
Recall when people said it would never happen that doctors would kill the elderly or handicapped, or that homosexuals can get married, or that half of the kids come from broken homes, or that the average western woman has more lovers than kids, that narcotics will be decriminalized, that pornography will be mainstream etc etc etc..
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
I think I disagree with this. God created, first and foremost. God created us in God’s image. That means that we, too, are creative. And when we create, it comes from inside us. The creative impetus in the human being is a need. It’s a need for us to pull out that which is inside us — that which is deeply “us” and create some entity out of it that expresses us in the world. Something with which we can build a relationship.
When God created the world, I think God was doing the same thing. God blew God’s breath into us (having fashioned us from the earth) and we, too possessed life — same as God.
James Weldon Johnson, in his work, The Creation, says:
And God stepped out on space, and he looked around and said, “I’m lonely. I’ll make me a world.”
I think God has a need for God’s creation, in order to be present within relationship.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
With all due respect to your Christian beliefs, I do not believe that we can have a "direct" relationship with God. According to my beliefs, we can only relate to God through the Manifestations of God (Messengers, Prophets). God is too great for humans to relate to directly.
God is exalted and sanctified from the whole creation.
“God grant that, with a penetrating vision, thou mayest perceive, in all things, the sign of the revelation of Him Who is the Ancient King, and recognize how exalted and sanctified from the whole creation is that most holy and sacred Being. This, in truth, is the very root and essence of belief in the unity and singleness of God.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 191-192
God has no partners. God is one and alone, self-subsisting.
God has no need for humans because God is detached from all things.
“And now concerning thy reference to the existence of two Gods. Beware, beware, lest thou be led to join partners with the Lord, thy God. He is, and hath from everlasting been, one and alone, without peer or equal, eternal in the past, eternal in the future, detached from all things, ever-abiding, unchangeable, and self-subsisting. He hath assigned no associate unto Himself in His Kingdom, no counsellor to counsel Him, none to compare unto Him, none to rival His glory.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 192
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Then God could not have blown God’s own Spirit into us in the beginning. Moses, Samuel, Elisha, Elijah, Noah, Abraham could not have spoken with God. Jacob could not have become Israel due to striving with God at the Jabbok.
According to my beliefs, God lives in the spaces between us, that is, within the relationships we foster, which is why the Judaic Law was concerned mostly with how people treated each other, and why Jesus was so concerned with love.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
With all due respect, I do not interpret the Old Testament the same way Christians and Jews do. I do not believe that God blew His Spirit into us in the beginning or that the Spirit of God lives inside us. I believe the soul was instilled into humans somewhere during the process of evolution, and at that time humans became a separate species from the animal. The soul is a sign of God, a mystery no human mind can ever unravel.
Most Christians I have talked to believe that the soul is the "breath of life" and that is all the soul is, so they believe that when the body dies the soul is extinguished. I do not believe that. The soul can never be extinguished.
The soul is the breath of life in the sense that the soul animates the human body while we are alive on earth, communicating its desires through the brain to the physical body, which thereby expresses itself. The body is just a vehicle that carries the soul around while we are alive on earth, a place to house the soul. The physical body is pure matter with no real identity. The soul is our self, our true reality; the body is just our outer shell.
I believe that the soul is the sum total of the personality so it is the person himself. The person, after he dies and leaves his physical body behind remains the same person, and he goes to the spiritual world where he continues the life he conducted in the physical world. At that time the soul takes on another form, a form comprised of heavenly elements that exist in the spiritual realm.
In the sense that God is omnipresent that is true, since God is everywhere, closer to us than our life vein. I was referring specifically having a direct relationship with God. I do not think that is possible. A Mediator is required to bridge the gap between an ineffable God and humans. That Mediator is the Manifestation of God (Messenger, Prophet) through whom we can know about God and relate to God.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Ok. I’m cool with that. I will comment on one thing: God is ineffable (transcendent). God is also imminent (close by and tangible). Not that you have to believe that.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do believe exactly that. God's transcendence and God's closeness are both expressed in this excerpt from a longer Tablet.
“Meditate on what the poet hath written: “Wonder not, if my Best-Beloved be closer to me than mine own self; wonder at this, that I, despite such nearness, should still be so far from Him.”… Considering what God hath revealed, that “We are closer to man than his life-vein,” the poet hath, in allusion to this verse, stated that, though the revelation of my Best-Beloved hath so permeated my being that He is closer to me than my life-vein, yet, notwithstanding my certitude of its reality and my recognition of my station, I am still so far removed from Him. By this he meaneth that his heart, which is the seat of the All-Merciful and the throne wherein abideth the splendor of His revelation, is forgetful of its Creator, hath strayed from His path, hath shut out itself from His glory, and is stained with the defilement of earthly desires.
It should be remembered in this connection that the one true God is in Himself exalted beyond and above proximity and remoteness. His reality transcendeth such limitations. His relationship to His creatures knoweth no degrees. That some are near and others are far is to be ascribed to the manifestations themselves.
That the heart is the throne, in which the Revelation of God the All-Merciful is centered, is attested by the holy utterances which We have formerly revealed.
Among them is this saying: “Earth and heaven cannot contain Me; what can alone contain Me is the heart of him that believeth in Me, and is faithful to My Cause.” How often hath the human heart, which is the recipient of the light of God and the seat of the revelation of the All-Merciful, erred from Him Who is the Source of that light and the Well Spring of that revelation. It is the waywardness of the heart that removeth it far from God, and condemneth it to remoteness from Him. Those hearts, however, that are aware of His Presence, are close to Him, and are to be regarded as having drawn nigh unto His throne.
Consider, moreover, how frequently doth man become forgetful of his own self, whilst God remaineth, through His all-encompassing knowledge, aware of His creature, and continueth to shed upon him the manifest radiance of His glory. It is evident, therefore, that, in such circumstances, He is closer to him than his own self. He will, indeed, so remain for ever, for, whereas the one true God knoweth all things, perceiveth all things, and comprehendeth all things, mortal man is prone to err, and is ignorant of the mysteries that lie enfolded within him….” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 185-186