Question for Christians: How do we know God loves us?

Great Debates
201

I think the only way for people to pursue the truth is to be true to themselves as much as possible. That may mean being involved in religion for some and being an atheist for others. We can honor the individuals right to find their own way, even as we are dealing with the inevitable confrontation.

I remember that. It may have been the first Star Trek movie which wasn’t all that good. It might be interesting to watch it again now.

Funny… I might see it as saying that a God who sought to court our worship and allegiance by promises of making things much better, less struggle and pain, might not be so great after all. I suppose Blockbuster has it.

202

I think the best way to seek truth is to look outside of ourselves as much as possible. Self-deception is extremely common, and the hardest deception to overcome.

203

We don’t have to know fully. We simply keep moving forward dealing with the experiences that come along. There are a lot of facets to the human gem that need polishing. Sometimes it’s the clash of those different answers that help us to discover the more exact common answer, if the discovery of truth is the goal rather than winning the clash.

Neither do I. I think the atheist response is a reasonable one. I just don’t think they have as much dibs on logic as they sometimes think. :slight_smile: At some point we have have to go forward admitting we just don’t know and life still goes on. Each is free to pursue their own path to discovery and what they find to be true and valuable. Faced with tragedy or hardship we must respond and in that response we often find something meaningful. That doesn’t make the tragedy less painful. Daniel Pearl’s family started a foundation to celebrate his life and aide humanity in hopes of preventing more of what happened to him. Isn’t that an expression of love in one of it’s most noble forms? I have a Bahai friend whose young son was in a comma for four years before he died. She doesn’t know why, or what great lesson she was supposed to learn, but having faced that and survived she is able to help others in dealing with tragedy in ways I never could. Rather than being bitter and angry, which would be understandable, she remains positive and available. It is those type of examples that lead me to the conclusion that the mystery and the boundaries of love are worth pursuing.

This seems reasonable. I think logic can be a part of it but since we are dealing with emotion and so many unknowns it’s very tricky and we must use caution when considering the logic of the argument. That’s why I say, I don’t know , is both honest and logical.

That’s one of the reasons I rejected traditional Christianity. For me the obvious premise was If God is then he loves all people equally and deals with all people equally. There are no hoops for us to jump through only the barriers we build or tear down ourselves.

Since we can’t be clear on exactly what the purpose is and how we accomplish it, we can’t say what suffering is unnecessary can we? Also, I don’t think it’s about getting to an afterlife. It’s about the quality of our life as we live it moment to moment and the experiences that push us and move us. The possibility of an afterlife is just an interesting detail that doesn’t have to affect how we live in the now. It’s just that death itself cannot be seen as a horrible thing once we assume God is.

204

I don’t even have a guess.

Would God have to make himself known every morning to the people who had dismissed that knowledge? every hour? I don’t find it all that relevant but I’m open to suggestions.

205

We’ve had enough mind reading in this thread already …thanks

206

Say you suddenly discovered, beyond doubt, that God and Jesus don’t exist. Would you stop pursuing love and truth? I rather doubt it. You act on and pursue these things for excellent reasons quite independent of the existence of deities and the possibility of the afterlife.

You need to give yourself more credit for the good within, not as a goal without.

207

**"Let me say clearly that I don’t appreciate the whole “Don’t sweat it” presentation. I get that fairly often even though that is not my meaning and I do not present it in that way. I am in no way trying to minimize suffering to force my beliefs to work.

That being said, mankind endures certain hardships in order to fulfill a purpose. We have root canals and surgeries. We risk injury and our very lives sometimes just for entertainment, or sometimes for discovery."**

The “don’t sweat it” bit is directed at the POV’s logical position, not at you personally.

Those are the 3 possibilities that logically follow, that’s all.

If I’m missing another possibility aside from “I don’t know how it all works,” I’d be interested to hear it. That’s my point.

The fact that suffering can be instructive is already covered by one of the 3 and shown to be either: indifferent (“don’t sweat it, you’re going to heaven”) meaningless (“you’ll learn from this…even though you’re dead now”), or callous (“others will learn and grow by your suffering”).

It’s an attempt to explore the logical implications, that’s all.

You don’t know, fine. It’s an attack on the callousness and heartless cruelty of the logical implications of the position, not on you personally.
And by the way, my friend had both his mother and father die in his arms.

One suffered while dying and one did not. He didn’t learn anything more from the suffering death than he did from the non-suffering death.

Which leaves the other possibilities or, of course, the old “it’s all a mystery.”

If we dismiss the insistence on a benign universe, the logic seems to dictate a not-so-nice set of realities when it comes to suffering while dying.

It’s possible that that’s just what it is, no meaning whatsoever. Not a meaning that we can’t understand yet, but simply no meaning at all in fact. That could be.

208

It would be nice if you’d help if you’re going to participate then and instead of just saying “no, that’s not it” educate me on what it is, succinctly. I’m glad you can see how one would think that since it’s what your earlier post seemed to indicate.

209

Right, so nobody needs to believe in god. They can just value love and truth if they want to make their life about valuing love and truth. That’s true. And lovely.

210

Nobody knows anything, of course. We just posit and hypothesize about what might be the case based on what seems reasonable.

Some suppositions are more reasonable than others. And some suppositions can be logically explained and others do not comport to logic, true or not.

It seems to me the only logical reason (assuming we’re trying to think it through and not including as one logical possibility “don’t know, it’s all a mystery”) for god to not make himself known are the ones discussed earlier: namely, (1) being unknown is part of the purpose of the game of life and you’re supposed to try to figure it out, or (2) it’s irrelevant (perhaps close to your view of valuing love and truth regardless), or (3) there is no god (understood in the way the word is defined in the dictionary). If I’m missing a logical possibility, I’d like to know. If it’s beyond all logic, then it’s pretty much beyond all meaningful discussion.

If it’s being said that “we are all god collectively and all a part of god which is not otherwise a separate entity/deity” then that’s fine, it’s just another way of stating a humanistic POV with use of the word ‘god’ which works as well without it.

211

Yeah, it was generally considered they jumped the shark on god with that one.

True, and I think that was part of the point they were making that a god that courted worship and allegiance through bribery isn’t so great after all.

It can therefore follow that there is no god, or at least not one worth knowing if he operates like that. Which, I believe, is what many people conclude about god.

212

That earlier ‘argument’ (aka ‘position’) **does **need to know fully in order to be a meaningful assertion. That’s the whole point of the OP as to what the definition of a meaningful assertions is.

If one asserts that the god’s love and purpose are available to all of us if we try really hard and want to believe and spend our life and experiences in furtherance of that – but there’s no way of fully knowing if that’s achieved – then it’s not a meaningful assertion.

If Mother Theresa died feeling that she didn’t know god’s love and purpose after having spent her life the way she did (which looks as if it might be the case from her diaries), and while wanting desperately to know god’s love and purpose, then it can be said there is no way to negate the assertion that the way to know god’s love and purpose is to want to, yearn, and live a life in furtherance of it.

Therefore, it’s not an assertion at all. That’s the point of the linked article in the OP. Assertions must be negatable to be assertions.

Yes, but not death itself: suffering right before death.

And, as I posted earlier, it goes to the same option – specifically, that if we “can’t be clear on exactly what the purpose is and how we accomplish it, we can’t say what suffering is unnecessary can we?” then that is choosing the extra-world POV.

213

Okay, if it’s not relevant I won’t spread the thread out on it.

214

No mind reading necessary. The slippery sliding of the POV I’m referring to is well-documented (and even linked for the sake of convenience! LOL).

Maybe you can try taking things less personally. I’m attacking a POV, not you; as was made clear in the other thread where I went so far as to say nice things about as much of your character as I could divine from your posts; specifically, good intentions and conversational generosity.

Right before you proceeded to post a half dozen attacks about me being snide, disrespectful, etc.

I have no respect for bullshit, nor should I. I can be disrespectful of a point of view (POV) without that having anything to do – particularly on an anonymous board – with respect for the other human being.

So thanks for not accusing me of mind reading. I’m referring specifically to the proven course that the POV I’m referring to takes when challenged on assertions – specifically, to continue to parse definitions down to meaninglessness rather than admit that the argument has failed. I’m very familiar with it; as familiar as you think you are with atheists who claim all dibs on logic (though every single post I’ve seen in every thread thus far indicates that, quite to the contrary, non-believers are desperately seeking to employ logic to further the discussion, not claiming dibs on it. They use it as a tool. Some POVs work better with that tool than others. Those that don’t are rather moot for the purposes of a logical discussion which is what the OP is based upon.)

215

I think you’re both referring to the fifth movie, the one directed by Shatner, which is commonly considered to not really exist, but is the result of something we collectively ate. Anyhow, it has the line “What does God need with a starship.”

The first movie is the remake of The Changeling, with the Vger (Voyager) probe looking for the meaning of life and eventually transporting Captain Decker to heaven. KInd of.

I know there was some plot in the fifth, but my mind exploded about the time the superannuated Nichelle Nichols did her sexy dance, and I can hardly remember anything after that.

216

Anyway, for those interested in a discussion based on logic alone here’s my answer to the OP (which started to get derailed from the first post):

So, questions for debate:

  1. Is Flew’s logic sound? Does one need to make a leap of faith to believe that God is loving?

Yes, Flew’s logic is sound. One does need a leap of faith to believe God is loving. It cannot be logically arrived at as the inevitable conclusion of reviewing the available evidence.
2) If the assertion “God loves us” cannot be disproven, does that nullify everything brought forward as evidence to substantiate it?

Yes, it nullifies the evidence insofar as that evidence having meaning to prove the assertion since the premise is not negatable even in theory.

Obviously, “God loves us” can be the truth. However, it is not a logical assertion because it cannot be negated and assertions that cannot be negated are not assertions at all in any meaningful way as Flew succinctly explains.

217

ROFL. Methinks Shatner’s entire essence can be described as jumping the shark, no?

I liked that movie, but you’re right; it’s one of those people wish hadn’t happened. LOL

218

That’s a perfect lead in to what I was going to post. Given the unfalsifiability of the assertion “God loves us” we can examine it using Ockham’s Razor. This doesn’t prove anything, but is a good guide.

Which is the simpler explanation for what we see of the world, including natural evil, suffering, etc. Natural evil is easily explained by uncaring natural forces. Evolution has given us pain for good reasons, this unfortunately includes pain when we are dying as a side effect, since there would be no good reason to stop this pain then. Natural variance of our genetic inheritance explains why we have sociopaths and saints. Some of these answers may not be palatable, but there are no major issues.

On the other hand we have the problem of a god (an issue it itself) allowing or causing pain for unfathomable reasons, none of which we are told or can deduce. I’m not sure we can expect a better attempt at an answer than cosmosdan has given us in this thread.

Surely the naturalistic answer is simpler and more elegant. That doesn’t mean it is true, but it is certainly the way to bet.

219

Strictly speaking Star Trek jumped the shark about the time of Spock’s Brain at the beginning of the third season. Since the sixth movie was so good, I’m not sure the fifth was anything but an aberration, even if you can say that movie series can jump.

220

OKay, that’s the way you meant it. For me to explain my own pov I’d have to alter it. We would b the player controlling the avatar or the actor playing the role.