The thing is that God seems to be like parents who give their children food, clothes, a room, toys, everything money can buy - but they don't love the children.
wynn, I've already explained it wynn. I don't see it like that. You can't just love someone or something at the drop of a hat. jan.
I don't understand. Whom is this aimed at? That I would need to try harder, and then, perhaps, God would love me?
because proof of love is difficult enough on a human level.. who says you are supposed to prove that you love God? It is enough that you do..God does not required you to prove that you love him,he would know. just as you do not require your spouse to prove that he/she loves you. this is what i hate about religion,they try to validate their authority by trying to distract us by making us jump through hoops, the bible doesn't claim 'God loves us IF' the bible says 'God loves us' the rest is humanities desire for control(to get us to 'do as we are told') "God so loved the world that he gave us his one and only begotten son" it is not conditional.
If you can't prove to someone that you love them, you can't really say you love them. If they don't believe you you love them, then you can't really say love them. But how is one supposed to love God? Who or what is there to love?? How do you love this - Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! - ? You must have some reason to be with that person, and that reason should not be merely that you want to be with them. You have to have some good reason to believe that they want to be with you too. There is plenty of strings attached to this one.
god created us ( although we were here first , but thats another discussion ) he'd better love us he should know that it his fault we are in the mess we are in , with all this religious fighting between branches of , christians , jews , muslims so god , straighten this mess out otherwise religion will be mans down fall
Hi NMS, sorry i haven't got round to responding to your last post as yet. Yes, i do believe in love at first sight, but i don't believe we can love on demand. jan.
i think you got that a little backwards.. IE If they don't believe that you Love them, then you can't prove to them that you love them. If you don't say that you Love them, then they can't believe that you love them.. ignoring the fact that you are asking some one to tell you what to do/believe.. how is one supposed to love their spouse? that is for you to decide. any other answer is subjective. dunno what that is.. it is usually an emotional decision, not a rational one.. and why does it sound like you are questioning the relationship you are in, rather than God? are you having doubts about your current relationship?
here we go again.. religion was created by Man, not God, religion is screwed up because man is trying to justify his own beliefs by forcing it down the throats of others..this is mans doing not Gods.. its not God responsibility to clean up after us..we got ourselves into this mess, we have to get ourselves out of it. and yes..religion will be mans downfall...
that is quit different than loving at the drop of a hat.. I think what you are trying to say (at which i would agree) when you are in a relationship,you will not always feel love for your spouse, there will be times that you dislike them so much as to call it hate, the feeling of love comes and goes,(this is another issue of the probs with relationships today as ppl tend to throw their relationships away when they quit feeling love, unaware that it is a cycle) but at this point i think it important to distinguish the differences of Love as a feeling and Love as a choice. when a person gets married it is supposed to be a decision to Love the other person for the rest of their life,no matter what..unfortunately this is lost to most of the current generation, since they are more focused on the feeling of Love. so when you say a person cannot love on command you are both right and wrong at the same time..dependent on whether the focus is on the feeling or the choice (i wanna say act of love , but that means something completely different these days that has nothing to do with love.) am i correct?
In the mode of goodness a child is loved unconditionally, whether the child understands, knows, or not. As the child starts to develops it reciprocates, and the relationship is based in love. As it develops, it become more and more personal. I don't thnk there is any point in knowing whether or not God loves us, because we are not developed enough to percieve it. Just like a new born baby cannot percieve the depth of its parents love. jan.
so there is a god , but he is not responsible for religion so god had no idea of the possiblity of the branching off that has happened ? non-sense and if god did not see this happening , then he is not a god , but a being that makes mistakes , and we are paying the heavy , heavy , price
sure he could, just because we cannot see the outcome doesn't mean he doesn't, maybe in the bigger scheme of things he see's a positive outcome...I don't know, but i do know there are thing that i do not agree with or see any logic to it, that is beneficial to us..how much more so is this with God? of course to be fair.. it is us that defines God as all knowing..I believe this, but still that does not negate the fact that it is us that is defining God as such. so it really isn't fair to say that if God isn't X, then God doesn't exist..
Not quite. While romantic love can occurr very quickly, and consequently end just as quickly, unconditional love, where you love the person, seems to work better over time. I think it takes a certain type of intelligence, present in all parties. God has gone as far as we are able, and/or prepared to percieve Him. We are here, now, talking about God, meaning we are conscious of Him, even aware of him in some cases, in different capacities. There are scriptures informing us of God, and different pastimes of great devotees of God interacting with the human race, leaving us with exemplery knowledge, on how to attain to attain God-consciousness, throught various processes. How can we really ask for more, given our present spiritual condition. It would be more pertinant for me to ask for more from Him, after I've sincerely followed His instruction and come to no avail. Our problem is, that we're not prepared to. At least for alot of us, not outside our comfort zone. jan
Obviously, one can utter the words "I love you," but what relevance does that really have? For how long, to what extent does that statement really count, for how long is it really true? A second? A minute? An hour? How long after people have uttered "I love you," do they do something that blatantly contradicts that "I love you"? So that they have reason to believe one actually loves them. That picture is a depiction of God's Universal Form. Imagine actually seeing something like that for real. When you say you "love God" or that "God loves you," whom or what do you mean by that word "God"? An old man with a beard? A spirit? A force? The Universal Form? A statue made of marble or brass? ?? Granted, the way we think about our (potential) relationship with God is in some way shaped by our relationships with humans, especially those who talk to us on the topic "God."
What do you mean? That when the child is in the mode of goodness, then he is loved unconditionally? If you do, then this means you are contradicting your earlier point that when people are in lowly circumstances, this doesn't mean God doesn't love them. The pertinent issue here is that much theistic preaching, including in your tradition, is based on taking for granted the premise that God loves us. One of the bases for the problem of theodicy is precisely the lack of certainty as to whether God loves us or not. When you look around, do you see the world and the things that happen to you, as evidence of God's love for you? Or rather as evidence of the absence of such love? That's a cop-out. IOW, you're saying "You're too dumb to understand this, but you should believe it anyway." Ever tried doing that yourself?
That is a statement of faith. Are we? We are certainly using the word "God," but how can we be sure that anything we say really has to do with God? Perhaps God is looking at us and wonders "Gee, whom are these people talking about, using the word "God"? Because it certainly isn't Me!" If God is in charge of everything, then the desire for more that some of us feel, is under His charge too. How can you be sure that the instructions you received are really from God, and not simply from a fallible human? That is also an awfully convenient guilt-trip, for yourself and others. A lot of pride and "self-esteem" can be gathered in such guilt-trips.
wynn, The parents. When parents loves their baby, the baby isn't aware of their depth of love, it simply accepts what it needs, but the parents just carry on performing the duties of maintainence. This is done out of the dept or resovoir of love. As the child grows the relationship changes, because now the child is aware of something, and can even articulate, or act out this awarness. The child may grow to take the parents love for granted choosing not to acknowledge their parents love, but somewhere deep down inside they are aware of it. I think God loves us because he is maintaining us in this material world, and through the agency of material nature, provides us with everything to tap into that resovoir, because spiritually, that is what we need. Like the selfish child, I think we take that for granted, and forget that it takes unconditional love to maintain and nurture just one individual, what to speak of innumerable individuals from time immemorial. Alot of times we realise the depth of our parents love when we in turn have to care for our own children. We realise how selfish we were in those formative years, but still our parents loved us. We then get a glimpse into that resovoir, and there becomes no need to ask questions. But to get to that stage, the emphasis is on us to realise, not the parents. They already did their job so to speak. QUOTE]When you look around, do you see the world and the things that happen to you, as evidence of God's love for you? Or rather as evidence of the absence of such love?[/QUOTE] That I can look around, and I can ponder, is evidence of Gods' love. The human body is a brilliant machine, and I don't think it's simply just a product nature developed over time. I think it is intelligently designed, and we as souls have the oppotunity to wear it, giving us the potential ability to understand the ultimate reality. When it comes to acquiring any kind of knowledge, we have to accept things on faith, initially. If you're not prepared to have faith, then you will have a difficult time obtaining anything truthfull. I think it's the same with God. I think once you come to the platform that faith is necessary, and you understand what faith is, and why it's necessary, you don't have a problem with it. But faith is just the begining. It's like taking a first step, riding your first bike, or driving for the first time. Once you get used to it, faith is not as necessary. But now it's about expression, learning, understanding, untill of course you come to another obstacle which initially requires faith, and so it goes on, all the time growing. It requires a great deal of patients to acquire great knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. There's no getting around it. jan.
In some ideal world, perhaps. I've seen statistics that say that about 50% of the current population was conceived unplanned. Then there is a considerable percentage of the population who were conceived so that the parents-to-be would collect various economical benefits (e.g. some people have children so that through that, they receive financial support from the state, and don't work). Then there is a percentage of the population that was conceived in an effort that the woman would prevent the man from leaving her. Another percentage was conceived under some other pressure. The percentage of the population who were conceived because the parents-to-be simply wanted to have children is probably very small. Just because people materially provide for their children doesn't automatically mean they love them. Not rarely, the situation is simply that people don't want a child, have sex, the contraceptives fail or they forget about them in the heat of the moment, they end up pregnant, out of guilt and protecting their reputation, don't opt for abortion or adoption, and then keep the child and materially care for it because it would reflect badly on the parents not to do so. They materially care for the child for the sake of their own reputation, because they don't want to appear like "bad people", not because they would actually love the child. Tell that to a child whose parents tell him that he was a "mistake" or who tell him that he is the reason why they are so unhappy. What are you talking about? Spiritually, we need the material world? Nobody put a gun to God's head or a knife to His throat and threatened to kill Him if He doesn't maintain the universe. I suppose your parents didn't tell you that you were a "mistake" and that you're the reason for their misery, did they? Do you know what that is like, when your mother buys you a birthday cake, but she also told you that you were a "mistake" and the she regrets having you? Do you know what that is like? Why? Can you explain? Taking things on faith is fine, as long as one doesn't have to take things on faith from people who despise one. And theists have a tendency to despise ordinary people. Freud would love you for this ...
