In this shallow world, perhaps I am one of a small minority that ponders about God and his actions as captured in the Old Testament, esp. If God loves eveyone, why did he reject Cain’s sacrifices? Also, the “Jacob have I loved, but Esau I hated” is very intriguing to me. What do you think this says about God’s love? Are there other Biblical examples, either pro or con to my position that perhaps God does not love us all the same?
Not you. He hates you. He loves everybody else though.
Ask any parent if they love their child. Then ask them if they’ve ever rejected a behaviour of that same child? Then ask them again, if they love the.
You can love someone and not like them, or not like the things they do
First, define “love”.
Depending on your answer, pick the answer that you think fits better:
“Then god obviously wasn’t that fond of the people he’s directly harmed, like those chaps he drowned in the flood or the dudes he collapsed Jericho on.”
or
“If that’s love, I’d rather be hated, thanks anyway.”
[IMHO] God Loves all His human, angelic, demonic, nephilm, and even His devil children. He seeks to dwell in us all, but can’t unless our heart is right. Cain’s heart was not right from God, so his sacrifice was not (totally) based on Love, so the sacrifice was to another god, perhaps trying to compete with his brother. Cain’s punishment was a result of the reality that Cain followed with the help of that spirit of competition. God protected Cain, though Cain suffered greatly, God set up conditions that Cain would be saved. About the statement Esau I hated, hate is not the opposite of Love, indifference would be more the opposite. Love is God, God is everything, absents of Love would be nothingness, which I believe is what outer-darkness is. [/IMHO]
No. First define “God”.
Except fo the Pharoah.
Exodus 10:1
And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him.
Exodus 11:10
And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land.
Sounds like this god guy is a rotten bastard.
Waiting for the biblical “expert” that will tell us what the verses really mean.
I know the Pharoah thing is a whole other can of worms…a bone of contention between those who believe in free will vs. the belief that life is pre-determined.
I don’t believe this has anything to do with free will and prederterminism. The Pharoah was not destined from before his birth to refuse to let the children of Israel leave Egypt. This is god sticking his mits in after the fact and interferring with the process.
This is like putting most of the ingredients for a cake in the oven, then after 20 minutes remembering to add the butter.
If the God of the bible exists and if people go to hell for eternity then it’s not possible to say that God loves everyone.
As a parent, I might disapprove of something my child does. I might punish them or reprimand them. There is no conceivable way that I would torture them forever or ALLOW them to be tortured forever.
Yes. Even Norwegians.
I’m fed up with all the stupidity of all the excuses one has to make for an all-loving, all-merciful Christian God that nevertheless condemns people to Hell. It make me pine for the Greco-Roman pantheons of gods that were vastly powerful, but were prone to the same foibles and desires as humans.
There aren’t “all the excuses.” There’s just one, which is: you don’t get it.
You demand an understandable reason for things. But you reject the idea that there exist any set of reasons that you simply couldn’t comprehend.
There’s a good analogy to this in the excellent tome Flatland. This book posits creatures that live in a two dimensional world, utterly flat. One day, Mr. A. Square is visited by a creature he takes to be a circle, but one that can seemingly shrink and vanish at will. The circle explains that he’s actually a sphere, a three-dimensional creature, and he’s not shrinking or vanishing. He’s simply rising up out of the plane of Mr. Square’s world. Square can’t understand what he’s talking about, until the sphere grabs him and shows him, pulling him up out of the world.
The Square returns to his own world and tries vainly to convince the rest of the Flatlanders that there is such a thing as a third dimension. “Where is it?” they ask scornfully. And all Mr. Square can do is repeat what is to them a nonsense pharse: “He took me up… but NOT north.” To them, of course, UP and NORTH mean precisely the same thing.
Interestingly, the sphere returns to discuss things with the square, and at one point the square asks him, "So, this means there must be a fourth spatial dimension, and perhaps you may be visited by a hypersphere, who can pull you in a direction you can’t conceive of or name.
The sphere is highly agitated and offended by that remark. “Ridiculous,” he says. “There are only three dimensions!”
Hasn’t that excuse been used for some 5,000 years? I daresay first you have to prove the existence of a God before getting me to accept an unfalsifiable excuse for its limitations. The more likely explanation is no such God exists.
Read it, enjoyed it, and it has a major edge over God-myths in that the extra dimensions can be proven and even understood, even if not directly observed. I take it as a good primer for people interested in expanding their horizons into fields of scientific study, not the intellectual dead end of religion. I figure the close-minded dogma of religion is effectively satirized when the sphere, despite his experiences with the square, simply refuses to conceive of a fourth dimension, assuming his three dimensions are all that exist. Religion isn’t an expansion of thought; it’s an excuse for not thinking, and all the various arbitrary myths are interchangeable.
+1
It’s more reasonable to suppose that there isn’t a God then to suppose that there’s a reason for hell/suffering/etc and we just can’t know it.
God loves us all.
But unfortunately, it’s a dysfunctional S&M relationship, and we’ve forgotten the safe word.
The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong.
-Psalm 5:5
The LORD examines the righteous, but the wicked and those who love violence his soul hates.
-Psalm 11:5
“Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal,
I hated them there.
Because of their sinful deeds,
I will drive them out of my house.
I will no longer love them;
all their leaders are rebellious.”
-Hosea 9:15
[quote=“Bricker, post:15, topic:542590”]
There aren’t “all the excuses.” There’s just one, which is: you don’t get it.
QUOTE]
Boring! Can’t you come up with something better.
Reminds me of certain movie fans. If you don’t like Showgirls, Blade Runner etc. its because you ‘don’t get it’.
I’ve read the Bible and have taken Bible study classes and I believe I do get it. It’s a collection of stories and myths about a primitive desert, dwelling people. It’s interesting as a historical artifact and nothing more.