William asks…
Why should I believe in a God who has more imperfections than me?
I have my own conception of God, so I am not lacking in spirituality, but recently I have seen many people threatening nonbelievers with eternal damnation and quoting scripture and it made me wonder.
Some people seem to believe in a God who is jealous, vengeful, vindictive, hungry for praise and worship, needy for acknowledgement, and requires complete submission to Him to consider granting any sort of forgiveness.
I wonder, and would like to hear your opinions, on why anyone would wish to believe or want to worship a God who bears all the characteristics of some of the very worst of mankind.
*Do keep in mind that I am referring to a specific conception of God. I am not singling out a religion. Certain Christians, Jews, and Muslims subscribe to these beliefs. Many other groups/denominations and individuals within these religions do not.
Frank, thank you, but I could be the scourge of mankind and it would not change the soundness of the question. It was a rhetorical question. For future reference, Frank and everyone else, the question is why would anyone want to worship a God who has all these negative characteristics?
Personally, I believe God must be a kind, benevolent, understanding God who transcends petty human emotions such as jealousy and wrath. As such, he shouldn’t care what people believe so long as they act morally, justly, and charitably. He gave us free will, perhaps, because the best way to learn a lesson is to be allowed to make mistakes. I only ask why you prefer to preach otherwise?
- Lolo, that was a smart thoughtful answer. My real concern, though, concerns nonbelievers and people of other religions. It is surely justice for a rapist to go to hell, but is it justice for a Jew to go to hell? Or a Muslim who lived his life morally? Or, for that matter, an ‘infidel’? Should an atheist who lives his/her life working for nonprofits and charities
It seems like God wants people to believe in him so they follow his teachings. If someone followed his teachings inadvertently, God should be just as satisfied shouldn’t he? Isn’t it more noble and pure to follow God’s law without knowing it because you are simply that sort of person, than to follow it simply to avoid eternal punishment?
–> Consider this hypothetical: A child is born (let’s say it’s the 1100s) in some remote part of, say, Australia. This is a little village of only a handful of people who have never heard of the Bible, or Torah, or Koran. They know no religion, but they know how to keep the village happy,
admin answers:
First of all, I believe that G-d is perfect, and definitely does not have more imperfections as me. That being said:
I have the same question as you. It doesn’t make sense to me why people would want to be loyal to a god who promptly sends people to eternal damnation just for not believing in him (and the RIGHT him too). But this god of eternal damnation is not the Jewish G-d. Judaism doesn’t believe that all who don’t follow Judaism are going to hell. They believe that all those who keep 7 basic, moral laws of humanity (called the 7 noahide laws) have a place in heaven. It’s really not all that hard, and many people may actually be following them accidentally, if they are moral and believe in One god.
Also, the Jewish view of G-d on punishment is this: The world was set up with a certain system, and just like when the body consumes something that is bad for it, it gets sick or has pain, the same thing happens when people sin. They get hurt as a result of the sin, as a spiritual consequence of their spiritually harmful actions. G-d is actually extremely merciful, because He tends to unnaturally hold back many of these consequences from people in the hopes that they may repent and therefore negate the reason for the consequence.
Something which I think may be interesting to note: Many people have come up with the complaint that G-d is haughty and full of Himself. The thing is, they don’t realize that all the moral and interpersonal rules that apply to us don’t necessarily apply to Him. The reason it’s bad for us to be haughty and full of ourselves, and think that we’re the center of the world, is because we’re NOT. On the other hand, G-d IS, so it is 100% not a problem that G-d thinks the world of Himself. Would you think of someone as being rude and haughty if they proudly declared that they’re more important that a strand of carpet? No. Would you think of the strand of carpet as being rude and haughty if it declared that it was just as important as you (bear with me and my silly example, lol)? It’s the same with us and G-d.
And it’s the same with different attributes G-d has. Many things are forbidden for us because we do not have the authority to act that way, while G-d does, since He created and manages this all.
Powered by Yahoo! Answers