Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
Well that's incredibly sad. How can a person follow God without loving him?
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Why do believers love God?
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
What do you take this to mean?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I agree, there are a few, but people who are looking to be loved rather than giving love are not in that few.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That's easy, I do it out of principle, because I believe it is the right thing to do. I do not need to love God or feel loved by God.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Just what it says -- I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
God is responsible for BOTH the good and the bad things that happen in this world, not only the good things.
However, I do not believe that God is responsible for human free ill decisions, humans are responsible for those.
The Virtues are the Light, all that is Love. God wanted to share that Love, or to be known
For us to know and to Love, we had to be given the choice between Love and the entire lack of it.
Thus God created the Holy Spirit, which is the Light of all virtues, from that spirit all creation eminates, the pure light is the Manifestations the lack of that light on to absolute darkness is the degrees of evil or Satan.
We are placed in creation on the edge of the Darkness and given the potential of the Light. We have now got the capacity to know Love, it is a choice, it is unconditional, as all creation comes from the Light.
Truth is thus relative to our perception of Love.
The greatest joy for Baha'u'llah in his life was Abdul'baha, how can we not Love what Baha'u'llah greatly cherished?
Do you see it all boils down to our choices, our perception of what is God? Another way is to say our chosen frames of references. This is the hardest thing we face Susan, our own perceptions of reality.
Regards Tony
My basis is that we are not separate from God. We are all essentially God, drops in the Divine ocean, but that is hidden under a "veil" of ignorance. St. Teresa of Avila hints at that in this attributed quote:
“Christ has no body now but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world.
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
To me, Love is the opposite of selfish. Love is the complete lack of self.
Yes, not all want to find that Love.
Regards Tony
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
You ripped the verse out of context. It's specifically about God punishing a wayward nation. It has nothing to do with God creating or causing evil. And the KJV is not the best translation of the verse.
God doesn't cause evil. He allows it, and free will is real.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do not see that our perceptions of God are a choice. We don't choose how we see things, and that is why I would never blame anyone for their beliefs or non-beliefs.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
But it's biblical that you should both love God and understand that he loves you.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Yes, loving others is the complete lack of self. If people have to love God in order to love others then so be it, but I can love others without loving God. Love is an action, not a feeling.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That is true, God does not cause evil, humans cause evil by their actions.
But God did cause suffering by creating a world in which suffering is unavoidable, and like I said in the OP:
I believe that God determines fate for the most part, leaving very little room for any choices. Any free will that people have is circumscribed by many factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances, so many people cannot just make changes they would like to make. So many things are beyond our control, and it is God who determines much of our fate.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Why should I believe that God loves me, just because it is in the Bible?
I cannot force myself to love God, but I can still try to do the right thing and love others as Jesus told us to do.
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
I thought you regarded the Bible as inspired?
Wildswanderer
Veteran Member
But that's not reality.
What is meditation then? How does science discover unknown things if the mind does not explore different frames of references.
It is a choice to think that deeply, and that can take us far from our comfort zone.
Regards Tony
There is Love and then there is all the other love.
I personally see that Love is Spirit that eminates in feelings, that can then be expressed in actions.
Regards Tony
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
I do believe that the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit. I also believe that Baha'u'llah wrote came from God, and He says the same things about God loving us and us loving God, as I said in the OP, but I cannot force myself to feel what I do not feel.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Then what do you think IS reality? The following is what I believe about free will.
“Some things are subject to the free will of man, such as justice, equity, tyranny and injustice, in other words, good and evil actions; it is evident and clear that these actions are, for the most part, left to the will of man. But there are certain things to which man is forced and compelled, such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes; these are not subject to the will of man, and he is not responsible for them, for he is compelled to endure them. But in the choice of good and bad actions he is free, and he commits them according to his own will.” Some Answered Questions, p. 248
Man is compelled to endure them because God set it up that way since we live in a material world where some of the bad things happen are beyond our control.