If God exists, would God care how many people believe in Him?

[columbus]

God gave us more than one nature, a lower selfish material nature and a higher noble spiritual nature, and we have free will to choose between those two natures.

God gave us a nature. It's what it is.

But you can confidently make unsupportable assertions if you wish. It's what religionists do, they aren't free to stop. It's in their nature.
Tom

 

[Trailblazer]

do you think we have another world to escape to?

Yes, I think we will all go to the spiritual world after we die but right now we have to live in the material world.

Although we can escape this world somewhat by focusing our thoughts on the spiritual world, we should not try to escape completely but rather try to deal with life in this world.

 

[whirlingmerc]

This post is for both believers and atheists:

• Believers: Do you think God cares how many people believe in Him?

• Atheists: If God existed, do you think God would care how many people believe in Him?

Believers and atheists:

• Do you think God cares if some people are atheists?

• If God sent Messengers, would God care how many people believed in His Messengers?

• If God sent a Messenger, would God have a certain time frame on how soon afterward people believed in His Messenger?

A perspective of a believer:

God's passion is for God's glory.
One of the ways God is glorified is by man's dependence
One of the ways man depends on God is by believing in Him.

 

[74x12]

I can agree with that, but I do not believe that God wants the belief of people who do not want to believe in Him.
It has to be a choice.

God's love is fighting for people and you never now if they will believe; because no one comes to God unless the Father drew them.

 

[columbus]

God's passion is for God's glory.

That sounds like the sort of god a human would create in their own image.
Tom

 

[Trailblazer]

I would have to think of God in at least somewhat anthropomorphic terms to consider him caring about things, i.e. feeling better if one thing happened than another. I would imagine then that God might have some degree of preference for people believing in him, since he would consider a state where people knew the truth as preferable to one in which people didn't. but I would imagine this to be very far down the list of his priorities.

I do not think we can know if God cares about things, by the definition of the word caring.
Definition of care for

Certain scriptures say that God cares about Creation, and humans in particular, so in the sense that God wants what is in their best interest, what will benefit them.

God might have higher priorities though, like keeping the Universe going, however he does that.

On the assumption that God sent messengers, it would appear that he did want people to believe in him, or at least in his message. It would be possible that he had no particular time frame in mind for bringing everybody to believe, but it's hard to see why he wouldn't prefer sooner to later.

I can agree with that. God probably would prefer sooner, but i do not think that God would interfere with human free will in order to make that happen.

 

[Trailblazer]

Why do you think that?
Tom

Because of what Baha'u'llah wrote.

 

[Trailblazer]

God gave us a nature. It's what it is.

You just did what you accused me of, you made an unsupportable assertion.

 

[columbus]

You just did what you accused me of, you made an unsupportable assertion.

No.
We humans have a nature. That's all I said. It's you making up stuff about higher and lower and such.
Tom

 

[Trailblazer]

A perspective of a believer:

God's passion is for God's glory.
One of the ways God is glorified is by man's dependence
One of the ways man depends on God is by believing in Him.

I never thought of it that way. Do you have any Bible verses that support that God wants to be glorified?

I think that God wants us to believe in Him, depend upon Him, and worship Him, but that is not the same as saying that God needs to be glorified by us.

 

[Trailblazer]

God's love is fighting for people and you never now if they will believe; because no one comes to God unless the Father drew them.

That is also a belief of my religion, we call it being guided. God guides those who He chooses to guide and we cannot ever know who those people will be. God has His reasons and we cannot ever know what they are. That is why we should never judge anyone. After all, any believer can fall from grace at any time.

“He should forgive the sinful, and never despise his low estate, for none knoweth what his own end shall be. How often hath a sinner attained, at the hour of death, to the essence of faith, and, quaffing the immortal draught, hath taken his flight unto the Concourse on high! And how often hath a devout believer, at the hour of his soul’s ascension, been so changed as to fall into the nethermost fire!” Tablet of the True Seeker, p. 266

 

[Trailblazer]

No.
We humans have a nature. That's all I said. It's you making up stuff about higher and lower and such.
Tom

Okay, fair enough.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

This post is for both believers and atheists:

• Believers: Do you think God cares how many people believe in Him?

• Atheists: If God existed, do you think God would care how many people believe in Him?

Believers and atheists:

• Do you think God cares if some people are atheists?

• If God sent Messengers, would God care how many people believed in His Messengers?

• If God sent a Messenger, would God have a certain time frame on how soon afterward people believed in His Messenger?

From a theist standpoint, you've got the entire point of this question wrong.

That is, you're focusing on whether God has a need for a certain number of followers. In other words, you're confusing God for a figment or qualia. Qualia are subjective factors of the human mind, like how "red" the sky is at night. The idea also being that you can somehow make God more or less real, like a figment. A God is a free-standing agent, something which does not require food or water or attention yet still continues to exist. The idols of the ancient world were not a God, but rather dependent on human worship.

But this question is backwards because God doesn't need our worship. We need a relationship with God. You may ask, why do we need a relationship with God? Isn't God just an imaginary friend? That's what an atheist will tell you.

But in fact there is a marked difference during certain situations between an atheist and a theist. Let's call this "crisis mode." For example, your wife left you, you lost your job, and your supposed friends suddenly call you a failure. Setting aside both the efficacy of prayer and the question of whether God is real or not (I could tell you, but it's not relevant here), a believer during such crisis mode has two support systems that an atheist would not have: an extra group of people from church to talk to, and the ability to approach God in prayer. In other words, before we even get to the question of whether a believer is saved or not, they still have a noticeably better life in two major points, which aids in their ability to bounce back during a crisis.

 

[leov]

Yes, I think we will all go to the spiritual world after we die but right now we have to live in the material world.

Although we can escape this world somewhat by focusing our thoughts on the spiritual world, we should not try to escape completely but rather try to deal with life in this world.

We can not escape pleroma. God sustains everything and everyone either we believe that God is real or not.

 

[columbus]

Okay, fair enough.

Honestly, I see human nature as the true Problem of Evil.
We're born ignorant and rather stupid. We have a batch of instincts, many of which are immoral. To a degree, we're able to learn to do better. But that ability is weak and spotty at best. And God clearly doesn't care what we believe or do or what happens to us, anybody with eyes can look around and see that.

If there is a God who wants us to be better it wouldn't be difficult. We aren't much different from clever apes, with opposable thumbs and vocalization. God could do much better.

If God cared. Clearly there is no such God.
Tom

 

[Trailblazer]

From a theist standpoint, you've got the entire point of this question wrong.

That is, you're focusing on whether God has a need for a certain number of followers. In other words, you're confusing God for a figment or qualia. Qualia are subjective factors of the human mind, like how "red" the sky is at night. The idea also being that you can somehow make God more or less real, like a figment. A God is a free-standing agent, something which does not require food or water or attention yet still continues to exist. The idols of the ancient world were not a God, but rather dependent on human worship.

But this question is backwards because God doesn't need our worship. We need a relationship with God. You may ask, why do we need a relationship with God? Isn't God just an imaginary friend? That's what an atheist will tell you.

But in fact there is a marked difference during certain situations between an atheist and a theist. Let's call this "crisis mode." For example, your wife left you, you lost your job, and your supposed friends suddenly call you a failure. Setting aside both the efficacy of prayer and the question of whether God is real or not (I could tell you, but it's not relevant here), a believer during such crisis mode has two support systems that an atheist would not have: an extra group of people from church to talk to, and the ability to approach God in prayer. In other words, before we even get to the question of whether a believer is saved or not, they still have a noticeably better life in two major points, which aids in their ability to bounce back during a crisis.

I fully agree with everything you said. The reason I posted this is not because I do not already know what *I believe.* Rather it was because I want to know what other people believe. I also posted it because there is a certain atheist I know who seems to think God has an adding machine at His bedside and God is keeping track of how many believers He can "get." He also seems to think that God has a timer and so God had better "get" a certain number of believers believing in His new Messenger before the timer goes off. He also believes that if God was worth His salt, everyone would believe in God, as if it is God's responsibility to see to it that everyone believes.

I told him that God does not "get" believers; people choose to believe in God or not because we all have free will.

 

[MonkeyFire]

God doesn't care about anything whatsoever.
What possible reason would the Creator have for caring about anything?
Tom

If you didn't care at all you would self terminate.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This post is for both believers and atheists:

• Believers: Do you think God cares how many people believe in Him?

• Atheists: If God existed, do you think God would care how many people believe in Him?

Depends which God we're assuming, but no: I can't take the idea seriously of a God who tries to, say, hide himself from humanity to preserve "free will" (as if this would actually do that).

If God were to exist, I would expect that the evidence for him would be akin to our evidence for the Moon: it doesn't do much stuff directly on Earth, but it's often directly observable and it has measurable effects.

Believers and atheists:

• Do you think God cares if some people are atheists?

• If God sent Messengers, would God care how many people believed in His Messengers?

• If God sent a Messenger, would God have a certain time frame on how soon afterward people believed in His Messenger?

Back up a few steps: I don't think it's reasonable to believe that God would send human messengers at all.

 

[columbus]

If you didn't care at all you would self terminate.

I'm a human. I care about stuff.
I'm not God.
Tom

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I told him that God does not "get" believers; people choose to believe in God or not because we all have free will.

You choose your beliefs? I don't.

What do you mean when you say you "choose" to believe in God? One meaning I can take from this is that you're saying it's a deliberate act of will that stops you from being an atheist. Is this what you mean?