Does God wants us to know him?

K

KneD

Le Penseur
Registered Senior Member
Does God want us to know him?

ok, let's assume for this thread that there is something like a god...

God once punished humanity because adam and eve ate THE apple. God didn't want this to happen, because he wanted his people to be perfect.
Since then, earth ain't a paradise anymore, but you can reach paradise by living by the 'book of rules'; the bible, koran etc.

So in fact religious people are his perfect people, people like he wanted humanity to be.
If God wants us to be perfect, he must want to have as much people as possible to follow his book.

Since God is almighty, why doesn't he let something happen which makes all the doubts go away about there being a God or not. This will lead to more religious people, who live by the book, and 'his' people will be perfect again.

Why doesn't he do this?
Why doesn't he want people to follow his book?
Why else should/shouldn't he want us to know him?

reactions pls.....
 
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The Unknowable ...

Hey, good thread, <b>KneD</b>.

It seems rather ludicrous for a God to place people on the Earth, instruct them in things, let them loose, be right there when they screw up initially (Adam & Eve thing), curse and punish them and all bystanders (Satan, animals), then head off into the clouds to see how it all plays out.

It's as if we have Adam & Eve to both bless and curse for their actions because it affected everyone else down the line.

IMO, God checked out as soon as he possibly could. It's like he laid the foundations for an Earth-type existence, put the key characters into play, then got the hell out of there to go catch the latest flick (re: us being the latest flick). It's almost perfunctory enough to be routine, which tends to put God's emotional investment into us around nil.

Then there's another interpretation that I have floating about. Perhaps God respects us enough to hang back (eternally) in the background and let us decide our own course of action. Sure, he wants people to return to his fold of thinking, but he realizes that coercion (by His means) is not the way to go. So, instead of teaching through calamity and tribulation, he teaches through silence and (seeming) indifference. Naturally he realizes that religions can and will be corrupt, but he also understands that it's not by His doing.

Well, anyway, thanks for getting me thinking along this topic!

prag
 
Yeah, I think about this topic too, KneD. :)

I think He knew Adam and Eve would eat the apple, because the Serpent had tricked them into it.

I wonder, why can't he just program us to be religious robots? We wouldn't know, so it wouldn't be an injustice.
He gives us free will, yet the desired purpose of our lives would be to worship him and sustain ourselves in His love. So do we really have free will? Obviously, people would choose God over hell, because no one wants to suffer forever. Yet they don't...which is confusing.

He wants us to choose, and I guess it's more fulfilling when we choose to follow Him than if we were programmed to.

Does God present sin to us, so that our joy will be more bright when the time comes? Like, there is no light without shadow, it makes life all the more sweet kind of thing?

Sorry, all my thoughts are going off in random tangents. I tend to argue with myself a lot. :rolleyes: :D
 
I love my own thread too :)

Ok, a friend came up with a similar idea as Bluesoulrobot:

When there's no doubt a certain religion is right, that will cause that even the evil souls will reach heaven by living by the rules, and that is contrary with the idea of heaven and hell.
Good point.

But, when everybody knows God is right, everyone will follow him from birth (parental influence etc.) and then there can't be evil souls anymore.
unless souls are already meant to be good or evil before they are even born: which means that life ain't necessary, let's kick them to hell right away.

Another brick in the wall of dividing evil and good: when you're good when you live by the book, you can't be a good person when you never heard of it.
That means that people somewhere in the jungle can never be good, they can not choose to be good: pretty unfair I guess.
IMO God must give a sign for them, to give them a change too, else his 'system' doesn't work.
 
Yeah, or what about babies who die in childbirth? Do they get chucked into hell for being born sinful? :(

Another brick in the wall of dividing evil and good: when you're good when you live by the book, you can't be a good person when you never heard of it.
That means that people somewhere in the jungle can never be good, they can not choose to be good: pretty unfair I guess.
IMO God must give a sign for them, to give them a change too, else his 'system' doesn't work.
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About the people in the jungle, Revelations says that the Apocalypse will come when the entire world has heard of God's word. And it's so freaky, because my friend told me there is only a small part of the world that hasn't heard the word. There's a name for it, in longitude and latitude, but I forgot it. :D But really, churches are sending missionaries into those parts to spread God's word, because everyone deserves a chance.

Hmm...KneD, I think you got a little confused. You don't reach heaven just by being good and following the rules, you must truly believe that God and Jesus exists, and that you are willing to trust in Him. Christians appear to always be doing good deeds, because it's part of their belief, and a promise that when they reach heaven, there will be rewards beyond imagination. They follow after Jesus's examples, and the Ten Commandments, and things like that. :)

By the way, what does IMHO mean? I know that IMO means In My Opinion, but what's the 'H' for?
 
That means that people somewhere in the jungle can never be good, they can not choose to be good: pretty unfair I guess.
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I have ALWAYS wondered that. and even if everyone has heard of the christianity.. it doesn't mean its even practiced at all in that area....
 
According to the Catholic church, babies who die at birth and those who never hear of Christ apparently are in purgatory. And the 'h' stands for 'honest' I believe.
 
Ok, thanks! :)

I have ALWAYS wondered that. and even if everyone has heard of the christianity.. it doesn't mean its even practiced at all in that area....
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Yeah, it's kind of cruel, to tell them about God and leave them to figure it out themselves. I bet they won't believe in Him, and go to hell because some well-meaning Christians decided to come and enlighten them. :rolleyes:
 
KneD...

God once punished humanity because adam and eve ate THE apple. God didn't want this to happen, because he wanted his people to be perfect.
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Correction! God didn't want them to be perfect, else he would have offered Adam & Eve the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life right off the bat - or kept them far away from it. What he wanted was a limited being to take care of his little garden, so he created Adam. It says so right in Genesis.

I doubt God is "almighty" either - after all, he couldn't keep a lowly snake out of his garden!

Reading Genesis is an interesting experience. It says quite clearly that Adam & Eve weren't the first (or only) human beings created, nor is "Lord God" the only God. (Either that, or he has schizophrenia...you decide) It sounds to me like we were created by a pantheon of Gods, then later YHVH set up a little garden experiment that failed pretty badly. (Partially because of the intervention of a shamanic talking snake)

Modern Christianity sure has wandered far from it's roots. Does Lord God still like the "pleasant aroma" of burning flesh? (And to think they bash pagans for having animal sacrifice in their history...)
 
Modern Christianity sure has wandered far from it's roots. Does Lord God still like the "pleasant aroma" of burning flesh? (And to think they bash pagans for having animal sacrifice in their history...)
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Actually, sacrifices are no longer necessary after Jesus, who was the ultimate sacrifice, being the Lamb of God. It's confusing though, because it says His death cleansed the sins for the past, present and future. The Bible says that at His death, the curtains of the tabernacle tore open, from the top to the bottom (to represent that it was God's will, coming from higher above), because the tabernacle was the place of offerings, and only priests were able to enter. After the tearing of the curtain however, it signaled that sacrifices weren't needed any more, because Jesus had taken on the sins of an entire world in His death.

But I wonder why we still have sin? :confused:
 
Genesis

God didn't want them to be perfect, else he would have offered Adam & Eve the fruit of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life right off the bat - or kept them far away from it. What he wanted was a limited being to take care of his little garden, so he created Adam. It says so right in Genesis.
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You're right.....I just read Genesis (1,2,3) and came to the same conclusion, which is weird though.
What is wrong with letting us have knowledge????
Not really flattering for us.

About the 'almighty' thing: I took it from the Koran, it has the same base as christianity, and exactly the same genesis etc.
In Part 2 verse 20 it says that God has power over all things. An that he is alknowing, alhearing and almighty....
I admit I am not sure how christians think about the 'almighty God' but I thought it was the same, which indd is contradictionary with the snake, but also with many other things in the bible.

Yes, God want we to knows him
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Hmmmm, I guess this is a way of saying the title of the thread is in very bad english? I know, I saw it when I just posted it, and you're not able to change it after that.
It's a shame we don't have signatures any more, it used to say "sorry: bad english". But I guess everyone can understand (most of) my english...
 
maybe you could change your title from "the thinker" to.. "Ooops! ..misspelled! LOL.... but i think most of us understand you pretty well. don't worry. :)
 
"Yes, God want we to knows him." doesn't sound very convincing. What proof have we got? Either God simultaneously wants something else, too, which doesn't allow him to get to know us, or he is far from almighty...
 
New faces....

I've not been around lately everyone here seems new, to sciforums, so welcome.

I often debated, and thought about genesis, however it's crap like this thread that makes me an atheist.

Not that the thread is not any good, it is the lack of information, and the contradictions of the bible, that makes the story of Adam and Eve vague and ludicrous.

God is said to be omnipotent, omniscient, if so then "it" knew that Adam & Eve would eat of the apple, "it" knew that the devil would tempt them, and that "it" tempted the devil to corrupt man.

It's all psychological rhetoric in order to control the masses. If the above entity is a god, then "it" is childish, evil, and most defenetly malevolent to human kind.
 
Sheesh guys

I would like to know how you came to the conclusion that we were created by more than one God (according to Genesis).

The tree of knowledge is probably a metaphor for a thought/action of wanting to be God (i.e. not having to love Him anymore, but ourselves). The snake could also be metaphor for tempation. Something that comes with the act of existing (because we *want* things). The tree/serpent wasn't a mistake - it was part of creation/existence. Free will = choices. God wants us not just to know Him, but to love him. Love is a choice. You can't be forced/tricked/manipulated to love. God told them what was right and what was wrong, they were tempted and sinned. The ultimate message of Genesis is that God created life, and let it live (i.e. didn't destroy people just because they didn't listen = forgiveness).

I can't see anything evil or malicious in anything God did according to Genenis. Please be more specific?

Remember we are working under the assumption (thread) that God exists.
 
Re: Sheesh guys

Originally posted by Jenyar
I would like to know how you came to the conclusion that we were created by more than one God (according to Genesis).
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In a nutshell...Genesis 1:26

26: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."


And that's not the only spot either, it's just conveniently in the first chapter. AND - this creation isn't Adam's creation either, this is the creation of the general human populace. "Lord God" created Adam later, seperately. According to Genesis, anyway.

Originally posted by Jenyar
The tree of knowledge is probably a metaphor for a thought/action of wanting to be God (i.e. not having to love Him anymore, but ourselves). The snake could also be metaphor for tempation. Something that comes with the act of existing (because we *want* things).
Click to expand...

Okay, and by that token, God is probably a metaphor for Nature and his "love" is a metaphor for the natural order of things, which solves everything. *shrug*

Originally posted by Jenyar
The tree/serpent wasn't a mistake - it was part of creation/existence. Free will = choices. God wants us not just to know Him, but to love him. Love is a choice. You can't be forced/tricked/manipulated to love. God told them what was right and what was wrong, they were tempted and sinned. The ultimate message of Genesis is that God created life, and let it live (i.e. didn't destroy people just because they didn't listen = forgiveness).
Click to expand...

Until later, when he flooded the whole planet, that is... No, I disagree - I think the serpent wasn't part of God's plan, though I'm thinking Adam & Eve eating of the tree probably was at least part of his experiment.

Originally posted by Jenyar
I can't see anything evil or malicious in anything God did according to Genenis. Please be more specific?

Remember we are working under the assumption (thread) that God exists.
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Hmmm...howabout putting a couple of children in a garden with something they're not supposed to have, and then punishing them AND all their children for eternity with pain and labor for one infraction of the rules?

I mean - if you had a puppy and you locked him in a room with a brand-new pair of shoes...who is to blame if he chews the shoes? And would you wait for the pup to grow up and then punish it's offspring for the chewing too? Systematically and deliberately inflict pain and trouble upon each baby dog, because it's parent ate a pair of shoes years ago. Doesn't sound particularly fair, does it? Maybe even malicious and rather evil, huh? Or at least petty and childish.
 
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