Seasons

Hail Pengwin! Viva la Pengy!

Let's face it, God could MAKE us love him if he particularly wanted to. I think the point is to leave us on our own and see what we do though...love means more if it's a conscious choice rather than a forced action. Of course there's no scientific way to tell if this is God's motive or if there is no God to have a motive. But just because there's no scientific evidence doesn't mean something can't exist. There's a lot of things that happen for no apparent scientific reason. (Whether this is because science doesn't cover them or because we don't know enough science yet is of course unclear.) When all is said and done, all we can do is believe what we believe, and not worry too much whether it's right or wrong. Unfortunately, a lot of people take this to mean they can do anything to anyone and get away with it.

Mr. Crab,

Loving God is a moral issue because it is part of what He created us to do. If you love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength, e.g., with everything that is in you, then you will serve Him with equal abandon. The one who is serving God will of course be acting morally.

As for your second question, you aren't the first to ask it.
"And a scribe stood up and put Him to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And He said to him, 'What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?' And he answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.' And He said to him, 'You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.' But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' Jesus replied and said, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,
and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them; and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him. On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, "Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you." Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands?' And he said, 'The one who showed mercy toward him.' Then Jesus said to him, 'Go and do the same.'" -- Luke 10:25-37

Well, that's a little weird. Maybe I'm just not reading very well, but if you follow the logic of this story, the only person the robber should feel compelled to "love as himself" would be the Samaritan. That's not the way I understand this fundamental principle at all -- in fact, I'd automatically assume it to apply to the entire human race (maybe with some exceptions) and I'd be wondering whether animals, plants, and rocks should also be worthy of neighborly affection.

As for the first part, you blow my mind when you say loving God is a moral injunction because God wants us to do it. If I want you to bark like a beagle, does that impose a moral obligation on you? What if God wants you to slit my throat? Or is this getting too close to "if Jane told you to jump off the Empire State Building..."?

That's not how I understand the concept of morality at all. There is no foundation of empathy there. I don't of course, mean to suggest to you that you should stop loving God, if indeed you do, or that loving God is equivalent to slitting my throat (unless you belong to a religion in which you must demonstrate your love of God by slitting my throat, which I don't think either of us would say you do). But there's no *moral* reason why one should love God -- all you've given me is a religious one.

I think sometimes religion misses the point. We should act in a moral manner not because God tells us to or because we think it'll get us to heaven, but because it's the right thing to do. However, I rather doubt most people would do so if there was no idea of God and his commandments to go by. Let's face it, God could've created us and kept himself secret if he wanted to, but then how would most of us know what was right? You'd have very few moral people and a bunch of criminals and perverts. Kind of like it is now, except in our world when someone does something wrong they have a bunch of people to point fingers at them and tell them they're wrong.

Following the lessons in the bible to their intent (not to the letter) will very likely make you act in a moral fashion. But being good has little to do with loving God, whomever that may be.

As Christians describe him God is both jealous and vain. If there is a God, I sure hope that's not him.

Actually Christians seem rather schizophrenic...one minute they're calling God forgiving and the next minute they're saying if you don't do what he wants, your ass is grass. Perhaps this is just to test our behavior, but more likely it was just a bunch of priests trying to make their own ideas seem like something God said.

Think of a committee....
Think of a committee composed entirely of poets...
The King James translation was put together by a committee of poets.

And then there's King James himself. Naming a Bible version after him is like having the Wilt Chamberlain version or the Madonna (Ciccone) version. But I digress.

The Biblical account of God paints God as someone who IS forcing us to love him. If it's a gift, well......when you give someone a gift, do YOU say "Accept this or you're dead meat?" It makes God seem more like the Godfather. An all-powerful deity would be able to come up with another entirely satisfactory way to do the same thing, like....oh I don't know...... just flat out forgiving someone instead of making an innocent person suffer.

Whatever the case, the bible has a lot of holes in it.

It was His first book. Give Him a break.

got some interesting stuff to say about this but won't try posting it until we get ISP fixed as it usually won't let me - trying through netscape to see if it works any better but I doubt it'll be consistent anyway.