A STUNNINGLY simple question about JOHN 3:16 "For God so Loved the world."

by Terry 384 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  R.Crusoe

  The supposition that god exists though unproven and then reasoning about the love this god has as well as all the expectations this god has without ever having the god present is tricky in the extreme!

  Getting connected to your inner feeling maybe will produce a personal god and the essence thereof but how well that stacks up to the organised god of millions when on a battle field of democracy means your god loses!

  Which sorta means ones who control and organise and brainwash will prevail and be the subjects of their collective god who loves them more because they survived which karma intended! Circular bullying from your own big bully in the sky idea!
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  Perry

  This is the Christian God ...... the one who created the heavens and the earth..... the Alpha and the Omega..... the possessor of all possible power and authority.

  Isaiah 53:

  he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

  What you see above is what I surely deserve and many more times this. My God took my just and due punishment for me.... in my place.
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  BurnTheShips

  Some more from Gustav Dore for you Perry:

  
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  Deputy Dog

  Terry

  ON WHAT BASIS can God suddenly love mankind when man is without merit in God's eyes?

  AGAIN ON THE BASIS of the righteous works of this Man, His Son, Jesus the CHRIST!
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  Terry

  Terry ..... you tortured soul.

  Perry.....you unresponsive-to-the-actual-question soul.
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  BurnTheShips

  This struck me as a parent: "If there is a God in heaven, and we were created in his image,....."

  We do not want to be alone in this world. Apparently neither did God.. He created everything from the Universe to humans to animals to enjoy and share his world.

  Here is another thought. You may be the epitome of goodness or love or any quality. You can never express that aspect of yourself alone but only in relation to others.

  Burn
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  myelaine

  'ON WHAT BASIS can God suddenly love mankind when man is without merit in God's eyes?"

  "God throughout history gave endless descriptions of the worthlessness of humanity ("what is mortal man that you keep him in mind?)."

  you will not surely die...

  God doesn't like dead people...

  genesis 3:7...and they sewed fig leaves together andmade themselves coverings...

  genesis 3:21...also for adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them...

  love michelle

  p.s.** Now the Spirit expressly says that in the latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. 1 Tim 4:1

  **For they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Rev 16:14

  **And all who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Rev 13:8

  **And he cried mightily with a loud voice , saying, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a habitation of demons, a prision for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird!" Rev 18:2
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  Terry

  As for why he loves man in your inital post on this thread you said 'there is no rational or just basis for the love of man or mercy'. When has love ever been considered rational. We as humans love because we love..........it often has little to do with being rational.

  We X because we X is hardly an explanation, now, is it?

  It would more honest to say, "I don't know why I do X".

  Let's look at love from the reverse angle, shall we?

  Do we hate because we have reasons?

  If someone is cruel, unjust, duplicitous and dishonest with us or those close to us, wouldn't that be reason enough to hate?

  It would provide a basis for the strong emotion which violates our personal values of what is kind, fair, straight forward and true.

  LOVE is the strongest emotion stemming from the strongest values.

  HATE is the strongest emotion stemming from the violation of our strongest values.

  It begins and it ends with VALUES.

  If we don't understand that we possess VALUES (or, at least what those values are) it is easy to be confused as to why we love or we hate.

  But, that doesn't make love IRRATIONAL.

  What is irrational is not possessing reasons, facts or basis for what we do.

  It isn't the same thing as being unaware. Unaware leads to ignorance.

  God is not unaware nor ignorant.

  God has reasons for his love and hate based on his values.

  Who would deny God has values?

  All I'm asking is the rational basis for God placing the HIGHEST POSSIBLE VALUE (love) on humans when his very same values have condemned man to death. Man violates God's values. All through scripture we see time after time the anger and vengence of God when man violates those values. God is never shy about what his values are or why man DESERVES the anger and vengence.

  I repeat:

  "For God so loved the world...."

  WHY?
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  BurnTheShips

  WHY?

  Because he is.

  Why is reality real?

  You ask the reason of the reason, the end of the end, the principle of the principle.

  That's it. Love does not need a reason. If it did it was not pure.

  God is love, if he did not love he would not be God.

  Burn
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  Terry

  here's an interesting definition of agnosticism from wiki

  Enlightenment philosopher David Hume contended that meaningful statements about the universe are always qualified by some degree of doubt. [4] The fallibility of human beings means that they cannot obtain absolute certainty except in trivial cases where a statement is true by definition (as in, "all bachelors are unmarried" or "all triangles have three angles"). All rational statements that assert a factual claim about the universe that begin "I believe that ...." are simply shorthand for, "Based on my knowledge, understanding, and interpretation of the prevailing evidence, I tentatively believe that...." For instance, when one says, "I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald shot John F. Kennedy," one is not asserting an absolute truth but a tentative belief based on interpretation of the assembled evidence. Even though one may set an alarm clock prior to the following day, believing that the sun will rise the next day, that belief is tentative, tempered by a small but finite degree of doubt (the sun might be destroyed; the earth might be shattered in collision with a rogue asteroid or that person might die and will never see the sun rise.) ," "infinite in intellect and will and in every perfection" [5] but, the agnostic would assert, these terms only underscore the inadequacy of our mental equipment to understand so vast, ephemeral and elusive a concept.

  Many mainstream believers in the West embrace an agnostic creed. As noted above, for instance, Roman Catholic dogma about the nature of God contains many strictures of agnosticism. An agnostic who believes in God despairs of ever fully comprehending what it is in which he believes. But some believing agnostics assert that that very absurdity strengthens their belief rather than weakens it.[6]

  does this describe how you view things Terry? just curous.

  Actually, it does.

  God was my constant companion all through childhood, young adulthood and several years afterward.

  I absorbed "God" into my subconscious before I was an intellectual identity capable of skepticism.

  I was taught that God was the highest of all possible values.

  That emotional core remains to this day.

  What is entirely missing is any connective rational basis for a world view in which God makes any kind of sense which corroborates either scripture or philosophy.

  I once possessed a ready-made (JW) world view that made sense and seemed airtight and logical.

  Once that was exposed to objective scrutiny it vanished.

  You see, for me to believe is for me to deny my own mind and identity UNLESS I have reasons for belief. That "something" has to make sense to me in the way putting my pants and going to work makes sense.

  I'm actually horrified by irrational thinking now because I see that is what I was doing for so many wasted years. I cannot afford to trade one set of illogical beliefs for another and waste the rest of my diminishing years.

  It isn't too much to ask of those who strongly believe or who are absolutely convinced of God's mercy and salvation that they provide the BASIS of that to me. Is it?

  Or, to put it another way...

  Why bother telling humanity anything at all (with revelation, scripture or inspiration) if it is unnecessary beyond credulity and blind belief in the first place?

  The Holy books mankind adulates are chock full o' claims, descriptions, basis for belief and rationales for the actions of the Supreme Being(s). Why, if "knowing" is unnecessary to believing?

  I repeat: IT IS NOT ASKING TO MUCH THAT ONE'S BELIEFS AND FAITH BE RATIONAL, is it?

  Belief without a rational basis is mere superstition.

  That is my evaluation of the religion is see being perpetrated in the world. Naive superstition often parading as though it is based on something substantial or factual.