I am forced to love God (if he exists)

[Zvezdichko]

Greetings,

Has anybody of you felt this way? Being forced to love God? Jesus says that there are two commandments : you should all God with all of your hearth, your strength and your power... and you should love your neighbor as yourself ...

Rick Deem has a good website covering many issues about Atheism, the construction of the Universe and the Problem of Evil... There's also a subsection about love. However, I still feel that despite the fact how many people write about the possible evidence for God, about the possible evidence for Jesus - it's one thing to be an atheist, a deist, a pantheist, a theist, or a believer - but it's another thing to be a devoted Christian. To me it seems that the first steps: to get from atheism to deism and then to belief are pretty small, however the very last step - from belief to devotion and Christianity is quite huge.

When I was still a schoolboy our literature teacher told us to read our Bibles, and we had to study it as literature, just like we have studied greek and roman mythology before... When I started reading the Bible I was shocked...

Matthew 10:37: Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me

I was really, really annoyed to read this... I remember back them I was single, without a girlfriend... I thought : "Hell, if somebody tells me something like what Jesus said, I wouldn't want to have anything with him, I would tell him to get away from me"...

When I read the Bible more and more and more and more... I was more and more and more shocked. God wanted Abraham to sacrifice his son is one of the things that shocked me. God sending curses over Egypt was another thing that annoyed me. Then, we had the story of Jephthah's daughter. When I read The God Delusion of Richard Dawkins it seemed that his description of the God of the Old testament is perfect...

I really don't understand it... Many people tell me "God loves you so much"... but I just shake my head and say to myself "Well, am I the only one who has trouble with these verses?"

I even came to the idea that Christians make an image of Jesus in their mind, after which they open the Bible and cherry-pick the verses that fit well with their Jesus as they imagine it, but reject the verses that sound annoying.

Any idea what's going on?

[jlay]

if you are sincerely interested in dealing with the 'difficulties' I would strongly recommend the book, "Is God a moral monster," by Paul Copan.

Matthew 10:37: Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me

That is a tough verse. Until we understand the context. Jesus is speaking to a specfic audience (His disciples) regarding their commision to go out and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. And he is speaking of a specific time of tribulation in which one's own family will abandon or betray each other. This does NOT apply to you, today. It has a specific application.

Same goes for Abraham. God doesn't ask us to sacrifice our children. God had a plan with Abraham. He wasn't flying by the seat of His pants or playing games. It isn't coincindence that the same hill Abraham ascended, was the same hill Christ ascended to die on the cross. The cross happened about 2,400 years before Christ, yet God was already foreshadowing the cross when He called Abraham to covenant and founded the nation of Israel.

[Philip]

if you are sincerely interested in dealing with the 'difficulties' I would strongly recommend the book, "Is God a moral monster," by Paul Copan.

Yes, "Is God a Moral Monster" is an EXCELLENT book. It really helps one understand many difficult and disturbing passages in the Old Testament. Like references to slavery - it totally destroys any false understanding that anyone might have if they equate the limited servitude type of slavery practiced in ancient Israel to the evils of slavery practiced in the Americas. The book also offers a comprehensive understanding of the ceremonial laws, and of why some things were considered clean and others unclean.

[Tina]

When God told Abraham to sacrafice his son, it was a test to see how loyal he was. God would not let him do such a thing, that is why an angel was sent to tell Abraham to not do it and that it was a test.

[Zvezdichko]

Too bad I can't find a downloadable free PDF I don't have a credit card so I won't give 15 bucks right now

When God told Abraham to sacrafice his son, it was a test to see how loyal he was. God would not let him do such a thing, that is why an angel was sent to tell Abraham to not do it and that it was a test.

An atheist would immediately claim that a moral creature would never create such tests.

[Reactionary]

When God told Abraham to sacrafice his son, it was a test to see how loyal he was. God would not let him do such a thing, that is why an angel was sent to tell Abraham to not do it and that it was a test.

An atheist would immediately claim that a moral creature would never create such tests.

An atheist would first have to define a basis for morality.

[Zvezdichko]

I guess I can speak for myself I consider myself a moral person and as a moral person I prefer not to be rude with other people. I keep in mind that other people have feelings and it's easy to hurt these feelings

According to my moral point of view, rudeness is amoral.

[B. W.]

if you are sincerely interested in dealing with the 'difficulties' I would strongly recommend the book, "Is God a moral monster," by Paul Copan.

Matthew 10:37: Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me

That is a tough verse. Until we understand the context. Jesus is speaking to a specfic audience (His disciples) regarding their commision to go out and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. And he is speaking of a specific time of tribulation in which one's own family will abandon or betray each other. This does NOT apply to you, today. It has a specific application.

Same goes for Abraham. God doesn't ask us to sacrifice our children. God had a plan with Abraham. He wasn't flying by the seat of His pants or playing games. It isn't coincindence that the same hill Abraham ascended, was the same hill Christ ascended to die on the cross. The cross happened about 2,400 years before Christ, yet God was already foreshadowing the cross when He called Abraham to covenant and founded the nation of Israel.

Hi Zve,

What Jkay mentioned is correct - context is important. How can we love God is found in this statement...

1 John 4:19. "We love Him because He first loved us..."

Coming into that understanding helps - knowing what he did and why - very powerful... Do you know?

Regarding the Genesis comment about the offering of Isaac: Did you notice how Abraham said in Genesis 22:5 this: “…and Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you."

Abraham told the others who were witnesses to this that both he and his son would return- and we will come back to you

How could he say that if Abraham did not know something that others did not know?

Do you know why?

Keep asking questions
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[Zvezdichko]

Very interesting... but I guess I still can't force myself to love him. Perhaps I'm not sensitive enought.

[jlay]

Love coecerced isn't love at all.

How do you define love? If you think it is a feeling, you are not going to find many answers. If you are imposing your idea of love onto the biblical text. It is better to let the text speak for itself, and then understand love in the context it was intended.

An atheist would immediately claim that a moral creature would never create such tests.

As already pointed out, on what basis is the atheist judging God's morality?

I guess I can speak for myself I consider myself a moral person and as a moral person I prefer not to be rude with other people. I keep in mind that other people have feelings and it's easy to hurt these feelings

According to my moral point of view, rudeness is amoral.

Please hear me out on the following comments. I want to stir your mind a little bit and see if you can understand where many of us might be coming from. Don't take it personally.
I think you meant to say immoral. Amoral has a totally different meaning. if one considers themself moral, then they have to have some foundational point from which to claim morality. Morality implies a standard. In an atheistic world, the cosmos is ammoral. No inherent/objective standard. Above, you say according to YOUR moral point of view, rudeness is amoral.(immoral) It sounds like you are stating that you are the standard. (According to ME) And if so, aren't you really imposing (invoking at the least) your morality by claiming that rudeness is immoral? Asuming an ammoral world, by what means should any of us care or yield to your point of view. I'm not saying we favor rudeness. We don't. We value people's feelings. But we also have a standard beyond personal preference by which we value others.

I think one thing that is often hard to grasp is that God is not a human. And since he is above, beyond, and over humans, are we really capable of bringing God down to our level? One can not attempt to judge God without at first smuggling in an objectively morality.
If there is a God, then there are certain traits that must be inherent in his nature. He must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial, transcendent, all-powerful, and more. If He is creator, then is the created being not subject to Him in all things?
If God holds life and death in His power, then how is He immoral for asking Abraham to do this?

[neo-x]

Zvezdichko on Thu Jan 05, 2012 9:58 pm

Very interesting... but I guess I still can't force myself to love him. Perhaps I'm not sensitive enought.

And that is the beauty of it, Zvez God loves you even when you can't bring yourself to love him. And you dont have to bring yourself to love God. Real love is not forced, nor can be produced by effort. It sprouts in you when you realize that you are loved.

[Canuckster1127]

Zvez,

I might surprise you but as a Christian, I actually understand your point.

Scripture is something that I believe to be inspired and to represent divine revelation. The Bible is also a human book and God didn't supress the human elements of it when it was written by the human authors.

Much of what becomes problematic at times is the result of any number of factors that impact how we read a passage. The Bible is almost 2000 years old in terms of the most recent book that was written. It was written in a different language (which impacts how people think more than we realize), there were different idiomatic expressions, the culture was different and that too impacts how we read things and understand them.

You're an educated man obviously, so please don't think I'm speaking down or trying to be condescending but the term we use in Biblical Study (which is an area I've done academic work in) is called a "hermeneutic". It means that there is an element of interpretation that exists when we approach the bible and that is true of everyone, even the people who don't realize this and claim that how they read and understand the Bible means that the Bible only says what they understand.

There are all kinds of different ways that we can approach the Bible. Some approach it as a Spiritual document and see it as allegories and metaphors and alway look for ways to make those applications and they change from person to person, culture to culture, language to language etc. Some approach it as a strictly literal document which means that they read it (often just in their own language) as if it always means exactly what it says when read in it's simplest form.

Some treat the Bible as if every word in it is directly spoken by God instead of reading it and asking questions of context. While I believe for example that God inspired the Bible and the information in it is reliable and, I also recognize that not every word in it is spoken directly from God. Satan has words preserved in the Bible. People referred to who say things can, I believe, be relied upon in the Bible to be accurate in terms of its preservation but that doesn't mean that every idea and direct statement made are "God's words" in the sense that everything stated is equally true.

Many people do have a great deal of difficulty with things in the Old Testament that come across as harsh and by our standards and culture today even "immoral". Often times that's a direct result of some of the issues I give above (and there are more, it's not exhaustive) and sometimes too, it's a result of the hermeneutic we have at work as we read and understand things.

My approach is fairly simple and it's also circular which I recognize and own up front. I believe the primary purpose of the Bible, Old Testament and New is to point the person reading or hearing it toward Jesus Christ. That's not the only purpose, but in terms of a unified theme that reaches across the many different elements of the Bible that's the one thread that ties it all together. In light of that then, when I read the Bible the first question I ask is how does this passage fit, in terms of seeing Christ. Sometimes of course it's a stretch and maybe the immediate tie is not very evident or strong, but in general that's what is going on in my mind.

The Old Testament is every bit as inspired in one sense as the New Testament, but what is seen in the Old Testament is only a partial revelation of God. The fullest revelation of God is not the Old Testament or for that matter, the Old and New Together. The fullest revelation of God is Jesus Christ. The Old Testament looks forward to Him and the New Testament presents Him or refers back to him, or even looks to the future but as it ties to Christ.

So, and this is simplistic I know, when the Old Testament makes statements that seem harsh or show God in a manner that seems to put Him in the role of a fickle human who acts rashly or with anger and malice, it's important I believe, to look at the passage and ask questions like:

1. Who is speaking or writing"
2. What is the immediate context of the passage and how does it fit with the whole section that it's found in.
3. What is being spoken about?
4. Are there any cultureal of language idioms that I'm not taking into account which would help me to understand it in the way the human writer meant something and the original hearers understood it?
5. Is the statement being made by God about Himself (self-revelation) or is this something being said about God by someone else that doesn't necessarily represent God accurately? An example of this would be the Book of Job. God speaks directly there. Job speaks and then there are large portions of the book where a group of friends known as "Job's comforters" are speaking and at the end of the book, God makes clear that these "friends" don't understand God and haven't given good counsel. I wish I could tell you how many times I've chaffed when hearing a sermon where some well intentioned but ill informed speaker refers back to the book of Job and quotes those "comforters" as if it is God speaking without doing the little work needed to see some of the things above.

I say all this to encourage you in your questions. Yours are honest and good questions and they are worthy of looking at and seeking to understand as best we can why something may come across the way it does. Often we find when these missing elements are understood the passage makes more sense.

[Gman]

Greetings,


Matthew 10:37: Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me

I was really, really annoyed to read this...

Any idea what's going on?

Zvezdichko.. Don't be too surprised about this.. If you want my honest opinion on it, we can't effectively love others, including those closest to us, until we put G-d first in our lives. We have to remember that our loved ones make mistakes and are not perfect, therefore if we put them first in our lives before G-d it's not effectively putting them in the proper context..

Of course we are to love our family members, but we also must realize that our love for them will also flourish when we put our love for G-d first in our lives..

[spartanII]

I guess I can speak for myself I consider myself a moral person and as a moral person I prefer not to be rude with other people. I keep in mind that other people have feelings and it's easy to hurt these feelings

According to my moral point of view, rudeness is amoral.

Well i understand that you may consider yourself a moral person, and yes, you seem like a nice person. But you have to consider the atheistic worldview. In the scheme of things and how morals came to be are nothing more than societal parameters that will change over time. None of them are objective...so that's the basis of morality as an atheist, if you are one.... you'll have to abide by morals being subjective in order to be internally consistent. So in other-words, amoral on every issue, whether it be child rape or murdering a person; to each his own. People like Nietzche, Russell, Hume, etc. have struggled with this issue for their entire lives... but that's what we have to realize if there is no God.
It logically follows

If there is no God no objective moral values or duties exist (think of a Godless universe, the highest authority is yourself)
Objective values and duties do exist
Therefore God exists.

[Tina]

I can honestly say that I had thought the same thing once. But once I studied more and realized more about who God is, that changed. No man has greater love than to die for another. He came here and died for us. And according to places in the Bible, love is an action verb. Actions speak louder than words. I recommend learning more about how He feels about you. He is your Father.