Why Is God Love?

[BillM]

Joseph,

 

Saying "yea" to something is a way of giving it approval, sanction, support, encouragement, etc. Surely you have heard of the "yea's and nay's" in voting, right? Those who are for something vote "yea" and those against vote "nay." And let's be honest, Joseph, the context of this is not running a red light or copying off from someone's test paper. Rather, as quoted, it is "the most abominable" person, act, or condition which could come to a person's mind (Rom's quote). All I have done is to place the concept into a real-life, hypothetical situation.

 

I am a person, not a rock or a flower, so I take things "personally." Personally, I think you are simply upset that I implied the "f-word" which is, granted, usually a social no-no, poor net-iquette. So I find it incredible (beyond comprehension) that you could take offense at my implied language and tone while allowing this sort of moral relativistic nonsense to go unchallenged. It is analogous to moderating a forum where people can say "yea" to the most despicable acts we can think of doing to one another...but telling them that they can't use profanity. So people can say that rape should be given a "yea", but you can't say the word "damn." I went too far in saying I would defend my family, but Rom did not go too far in saying that the most despicable should be said "yea" to. How is this in any way sensible? Yes, help me understand.

[BillM]

Joseph,

 

I would, however, like to contribute something a bit more "constructive" to this conversation. Rom said, in an earlier post, that it seems that the universe has unfolded in such a way that there doesn't seem to be a morality to it, that things just happen. You have said elsewhere that you don't think that God is love. There may be a great deal of truth to this. Things do just happen. Perhaps the universe is amoral. Perhaps it is we who assign the labels of what is good and what is evil.

 

Speaking from a deist perspective, this is a very real possibility. Classical deism says that we can know nothing more about God than what we see in nature. And what we find in nature is that it does seem to be amoral. Things are born, things die. Tragedies occur. People get cancer and die, Christian or not. Plagues decimate whole continents. I don't attribute any of these "evils" to God's intervention or God's punishment upon our sins. I simply think that how things are.

 

But, again, let's be honest. This is not the general view of the bible or Christianity. Christians tell us, endlessly, how God is love and quote John 3:16 as the most important verse in the bible.

 

So if God, whatever or whoever God is, does not ontologically consist of love, then, IMO, it undermines the whole of Christianity, progressive or not. If God is not love or does not love us, then it makes no sense that we should love God. And if our Creator doesn't love us, why should we bother to love one another? Why should we attempt to be "moral" if God and the universe is amoral?

 

To me, if this is the reality, then Rom is right - we can say "yea" to everything and anything - for there is no such thing as morals and love. It is all ignorant illusion to try to give our lives meaning when they truly have none. This is, IMO, a very real possibility. But, unlike Rom, I do find it sad. Sad that so many of us could be so self-deceived for so long in believing in and living out what we thought were virtues, but were nothing more than our deluded imagination. The only ontological truth in this scenario is "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Everything we do in the meantime matters not, does it?

 

And it means that my own personal experience of God as love and acceptance was just my own self-delusion. Perhaps Spong is right, we are just making all of "this" up. Very imaginative apes, are we not?

Edited July 14, 2013 by BillM

[JosephM]

Joseph,

 

I am a person, not a rock or a flower, so I take things "personally." Personally, I think you are simply upset that I implied the "f-word" which is, granted, usually a social no-no, poor net-iquette. So I find it incredible (beyond comprehension) that you could take offense at my implied language and tone while allowing this sort of moral relativistic nonsense to go unchallenged. It is analogous to moderating a forum where people can say "yea" to the most despicable acts we can think of doing to one another...but telling them that they can't use profanity. So people can say that rape should be given a "yea", but you can't say the word "damn." I went too far in saying I would defend my family, but Rom did not go too far in saying that the most despicable should be said "yea" to. How is this in any way sensible? Yes, help me understand.

Bill,

I am not in the least bit upset at your opinion or comment. I just thought (IMO) it was s a post that could be expressed in a more acceptable way without making it personal or using such language. I think Rom was trying to say something that is difficult to communicate in language so he even used the quotes of others to help. Perhaps it would be best to ask him questions to try to fully understand his point of view instead of assuming he was for encouraging "bad acts" or for society taking no action concerning certain acts?

 

Joseph

[JosephM]

You have said elsewhere that you don't think that God is love.

Bill,

 

Perhaps you are taking things out of context??? If you examine my post you referenced, i said " Love, as defined by the majority of people i have met, indeed doesn't click as God for me either" As i think you will find i have often referred to God as Love but not in the context of what many humans might define as Love. Anyway, no big deal. Effective communications are often difficult for us all. Perhaps i could do a better job at making myself clearer.

 

Joseph

[romansh]

Bill,

 

Perhaps you are taking things out of context??? If you examine my post you referenced, i said " Love, as defined by the majority of people i have met, indeed doesn't click as God for me either" As i think you will find i have often referred to God as Love but not in the context of what many humans might define as Love. Anyway, no big deal. Effective communications are often difficult for us all. Perhaps i could do a better job at making myself clearer.

 

Joseph

 

I won't speak for what is what is god ... I have a sense of what is not god, at least for me.

 

Love has many facets ... acceptance (and even letting go) are a couple of them. The problem with the word acceptance when juxtaposed with something is that is most abominable plainly can lead to an emotional reaction. Which is fair enough.

 

I am not saying we should stand by idly when rape pillage and murder occur. Far from it. I would try to deal with the causes prior to these events.

 

If I had to emphasize a facet of love it would be understanding. Evolution I think has endowed us (most of us) with an ability to have a sense of good and bad (evil). This is ability while useful has some room for improvement, I think.

[romansh]

Rom,

 

I think I understand exactly what you are saying. There is no such thing as good or bad. And even the most abominable things should be accepted and encouraged. This kind of thinking is the hinge-pin of moral relativism. I find it interesting that you can assert these things with no challenges, but my post stating that I have the right to defend myself and my loved ones against moral relativism is rated down.

Bill

That you think I am promoting some moral relativistic position does show that you do not understand my position.

 

For the record I think moral relativitism as dualism gone mad. A sense of morality (or more accurately our ability to have one) is an evolutionary trait. As far as I can tell the stardust that I am composed of is amoral. Also as far as I can tell so is that of the neighbour's cat and the rock in my garden. Now why would a human being's pattern of stardust be moral and that of a rock not?

Edited July 14, 2013 by romansh

[BillM]

Well, I think it best, for the sake of peace, to simply state what *I* think and not comment on what others may think or say.

 

Here's how I see it: From a teleological viewpoint, I think there is evidence (please note that I did not say proof) that the universe was designed in such a way that existence and even life is possible. The odds for all of this happening by chance are, quite simply, astronomical. So it seems to line up with current scientific understanding that there is a Creator.

 

Now, what is this Creator like? Classical deism usually says that all we can know about the Creator is what we see from creation, from nature. This is in opposition to revealed religion that says God reveals himself through prophets or holy books. But beyond what we might be able to ascertain from creation, so says deism, we don't know what the Creator is like. From this alone, there is (as far as we can tell) a pull towards order and even life in the universe. Is life rare? It would seem so. But we know of at least one planet that has achieved this. Was this God's plan from the start? That, we cannot know.

 

Granted, I have within me the same kind of atoms that exist within a rock or a flower. And certainly rocks and flowers show no sense of morality. Nevertheless, morality does seem to accompany higher life forms. Humans, apes, dolphins, whales, they are show some sense of care and compassion, some sense of belonging to one another and caring from one another. We could, of course, attribute all of this to evolution, that it was best for species to develop compassion and caring and some sense of how to act and how not to act socially in order to continue. But I would postulate that if there is a Creator who designed the universe in such a way that, against extremely high odds to the contrary, life could happen, then it is a possibility that something of that Creator is within the creation that continues to pull it toward life, compassion, and caring, sometimes at great personal risk or cost.

 

If this is the case (and I'll grant that it is a big IF), then there is a very real possibility that the Creator does has some sense of morality that would accompany what we call "higher life forms." If so, then our morality is not simply another astronomically-against-the-odds by-product of evolution, but than our morality, in a general sense, does come from our Creator. The seeds for this are in each one of us. Christians might call this "the image of God" or "prevenient grace." But I find this concept much more persuasive and sensible to me than to think that our sense of morality "just happened by chance." The odds against far exceeds the odds against there being a Creator, at least to me.

[The Rhino]

The last few posts are a good example of how over-examining something can lead to confusion and unhappiness.

A thief is not bad, his actions are bad. We all have light and dark within us. However, what appears to be under debate here is whether we can place any importance on moral ideals such as good or bad at all. The answer of course is determinable by your view. If you consider sentience unimportant in the grand scheme, then of course there is no point, a purely materialistic standpoint would do this, nihilism centres around this premise, however if we are honest how many of us truly see a 'bad' act and do not feel bad,? Is this argument an excuse for a poor standard of social behaviour? 99.9% I suspect would say no.

 

The majority of atheists say that we are herd animals and as such it is imperative for us to survive as a herd animal, as we intelligent we have created a complex moral system to do this. All well and good and most likely (if not definitely) true.

 

The theists like to place a governing force to morality giving substance metaphysically or not to the same notion described in the paragraph above.

 

Essentially for the sake of acting within a moral code, it makes little odds which is chosen, at least in theory. And what path is chosen is not related to anything other than the emotional (or possibly spiritual) make up of a person.

 

I was reminded of the ending to life of pi when writing this ***Spoiler Alert****

 

“I told you two stories that account for the 227 days in between.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Neither explains the sinking of the Tsimtsum.”

“That’s right.”

“Neither makes a factual difference to you.”

“That’s true.”

“You can’t prove which story is true and which is not. You must take my word for it.”

“I guess so.”

“In both stories the ship sinks, my entire family dies, and I suffer.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?”

Mr. Okamoto: “That’s an interesting question …”

Mr. Chiba: “The story with animals.”

Mr. Okamoto: “Yes. The story with animals is the better story.”

Pi Patel: “Thank you. And so it goes with God.”

 

- conversation between Pi and Japanese officials, in chapter 99 of ‘Life of Pi’

 

This appears to say that people choose God because it is the better story. But i think people choose to believe what they want to when there is no adequate evidence. Those who say otherwise on such matters are imo either ignorant or arrogant.

 

As far as this story went I would say the one with animals is better, but I would be inclined to believe the dull story, based on my experience. Though I would not simply state that the tiger story is impossible.

 

With God, my own experience is that God exists in a very real sense, but I don't expect others to see it as I do.

 

To me God is Love. It is the qualities of love such as caring, understanding, patience, bravery, passion, forgiveness etc that I hold most dear. Those who see the world this way are followers of the same path. My current belief is many will call the destination of this path a different thing, be in God, Allah, Heaven, Paradise, Nirvana, or simply Love. Many will say there is no destination, and all will have different reasons for traveling this path. But what matters is that you are on the path.

 

We should help those who stumble whether on the path or not, for that is what treading this road is all about, some may join us, others may shun us and try force us to walk with them. We will not force, we will not fight, only listen, try to understand and offer help where we can.

 

God bless

 

Rhino

[romansh]

Rhino

If in fact any posts did actually cause any confusion or unhappiness, it was not from over-examining. I would argue quite the opposite.

The last few posts are a good example of how over-examining something can lead to confusion and unhappiness.

[The Rhino]

Rhino

If in fact any posts did actually cause any confusion or unhappiness, it was not from over-examining. I would argue quite the opposite.

That is your right. But I disagree. We often read into things that are not there, and lable our biased opinions as reasonable.

[PaulS]

Here's how I see it: From a teleological viewpoint, I think there is evidence (please note that I did not say proof) that the universe was designed in such a way that existence and even life is possible. The odds for all of this happening by chance are, quite simply, astronomical. So it seems to line up with current scientific understanding that there is a Creator.

 

 

Bill,

 

I've never understood this argument - Although we don't 'know' the answer we seem to accept it because it's just too big for us to understand at present. If the odds of the universe happening so as to allow life are astronomical, then the odds must be even more astronomical for there being a creator who existed before existence itself existed.

 

At least the lottery is only 175,000,000 to 1 (yet people win it).

 

I would hazard a guess that much like ancient people who scoffed at the odds of the earth revolving around the sun or that indeed the earth was a sphere and not a flat disc, primal cause is still yet to be understood. Personally, I find less and less points toward there being a personable creator, but maybe I am wrong.

 

Paul

[The Rhino]

Belife or disbelief in God has very little to do with reason. It makes sense to me that If God exists he would not give an unfair advantage to knowing him to those who are clever. If God is indeed love, we get closer to him the more we love. Intellect helps very little with understanding this emotion. If they are one in the same why are people surprised that this is the same with God?

Edited July 15, 2013 by The Rhino

[JosephM]

Being inseparable from God, I create reality which is seen to us humans as perishable and " mine " yet "knowing" I am not separate, God exists because I am. (I exist or more accurately stated just "I") I or Existence itself requires no proof. Therefor God requires no proof nor can be known without realization of "I".(not only "i" as in that which which is created).God is more than any belief. God is an ever present Reality.

So it seems to me,

Joseph

[BillM]

Paul,

The teleological argument for GOD is more than just about odds. Within the context of your analogy, the lottery game does have a designer(s), but the winning ticket has neither sentience nor the ability to reproduce nor the ability to shape its own surroundings and existence. Atheism, at its core, says that all of this happened by chance. So the teleological argument is more than just about existence, but about the EXACT kind of existence that leads to what we call life.

To me, GOD is supranatural. In other words, over and above (and yet in) nature, so in my conceptions, GOD is not bound by the laws of the universe (cause and effect being one of them). Therefore, again for me, I have little to say about where GOD came from because I don’t think the law of cause and effect applies. Just my own POV.

As to the personability (is that a word?) of GOD, I’m not convinced of it. This is, perhaps, one of the big differences between theism and deism. Theists tend to believe that everyone does or can have a “personal” relationship with God (for Christians, through Jesus) and that God has a unique plan and will for their lives. God answers prayers. God protects and provides for them on a personal level. And, as I’m sure you know, God has a “personal” place for each person to go after death. Most deists reject these notion of GOD, feeling that these things are mainly anthropomorphism taken to the extreme.

Having said all of that, yes, I still tend to experience what I call GOD’s presence in my life. And I sense it as something good, pulling me toward the good. How much of this is really GOD and how much of it is me, I do not know.

Anyway, Paul, if GOD is really there, it probably does not matter to GOD whether we believe in GOD’s existence or not. This is quite a difference from the Christian view that insists that God MUST be believed in (or else). In fact, to me, GOD may not even care whether or not we destroy ourselves or our planet. I think GOD has given us the potential to make of ourselves, our culture, and our planet what we can. But I don’t expect GOD to rescue us from our stupidity or short-sightedness. So, in this sense, I guess I have a sort of atheistic/humanistic viewpoint…but I believe that the source of the best things in life, in ourselves, and in our world come from GOD.

But, like you, maybe I am wrong. Just doing the best I can.

[PaulS]

Bill,

 

personability

1. The quality of being personable.

Synonyms

• personableness

 

I can't agree that the teleological argument is more than just about odds. In fact, the whole basis for the teleological argument is that life is so complex and its existence astounding, that there must be a creator/designer who created it. This is an argument for odds - the chances of life being created other than by a sophisticated creator beyond our comprehension, are simply too great due to its level of complexity. It seems to me that this a position created to explain the unexplainable, but without any 'answers'.

 

I started this thread using the term 'love' because that is what I often hear from people concerning the main attribute of God. So I was interested to hear about how people actually understand that. But at a deeper level I ask the same question about the existence of God at all - how do people understand this entity's existence and how do they come do believe this entity exists (I use the term entity 'loosely' to broadly cover person/spirit/chemical/feeling/etc). It seems to me that everyone who believes in God has their reasons, which as we have seen here vary far and wide.

 

It just seems to me that any arguments for the existence of God seem to boil down to an individual's personal experience with such experiences varying widely - some genuinely heartfelt and many perhaps constructed by teachings and culture. I am curious as to how all of these different views fit together (if indeed they do).

 

I appreciate everybody's input into the discussion. Thanks.

 

Cheers

Paul

[BillM]

Paul, you're a really smart cookie, so I'm sure you know that regardless of whether there is a God or not, or whether God is personable or not, the search for God and any subsequent experiences from that search are personal i.e. they vary from person to person. And this search and these experiences can become very "sacred" or intimate to us, part of us even. Organized religions are not always comfortable with this, so they often come up with creeds, dogmas, and rituals that can be used to control how people think of and experience what we call God. But those of us who tend to be free-thinkers, independents, and even rebels know that, unlike lottery tickets, no two of us are exactly the same.

 

Therefore, it is no surprise that my reasoning does not work for you. It is *my* reasoning and works for me at this season of my life. It is how I deal with the angst of being human and with not having all the answers (perhaps none of them). So I think it is very much the case, as you have stated, that much of this comes down to an individual's personal experience and point-of-view. Some think that in order for truth to be true, it needs to be perceived exactly the same by everyone. But I question that. Perhaps, as with beauty, something of truth is in the eye of the beholder. As I've stated previously, my sense of God as love simply points to the fact that we are here and have the potential to make ourselves and our world better. My definition will certainly not satisfy everyone. I can't prove God, that is for certain. All I can tell you is that I no longer live in fear of rejection and hell. And that is enough for me.

 

Peace.

 

Bill

[PaulS]

Very well put, Bill.

 

I like it.

 

Cheers

Paul

[romansh]

Here is an example of a teleological argument.

 

I go into the doctor's and she says that the tests have come back positive for some nasty disease. I ask what is the false positive rate? She says 5% and it does not give false negatives. I say what I have a ninety five percent chance of having this nasty disease?

 

What is my doctor's correct response?

 

Apologies in advance for overthinking this problem

Edited July 18, 2013 by romansh