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

by Terry 384 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Perry

  I was in China on business a few years ago and at my hotel were a number of couples who were staying there and were adopting Chinese babies. I struck up a conversation with one of the men and to my surprise he told me that this was their third trip and their third baby to adopt!

  Being single, and estranged from my JW family, and thus and not really understanding familial love, I asked him a simple question, "Why do you keep doing it?".

  Without hesitation he stated that his first two daughters brought he and his wife so much joy, that they "just had to get another one".

  Apparently, the man no longer saw the available babies as someone elses children, he saw them as potentially his own. I could've sat there and argued with the man about his rationale much the same as Terry questions God's motives. I just couldn't be that much of a jerk to the nice man though.

  I hope this helps.
• 

  Meeting Junkie No More

  Ok, I'll add my 2 cents to this debate. I too struggled with questions like these. They all disappeared for me after I realized that the Bible absolutely CANNOT be taken literally... the entire collection is metaphor and myth but encapsulates a very basic truth.

  One of the best books in my opinion you can read on this topic is "The Bible and the Psyche" - Individuation Symbolism in the Old Testament by Edward F. Edinger. All of the stories in the Bible revolve around consciousness, the knowing and being known which belong to the phenomenon of consciousness. How else to believe that a God would 'choose' only one nation? Similarly, the sacrificial nature of the Jewish religion is a relationship between the ego and the Self...carried over into the New Testament. Redemption is a metaphor for the Self desperately needing the ego to know it. I am very poor at explaining this type of thing, but the book is a real eye-opener and makes all of this much easier to swallow...I could never accept that God would have purposedly 'sacrificed' his only begotten Son to 'redeem' mankind, but as metaphor, it makes sense.

  The book of John was the latest of the Gospels to be written and I don't think I need to set out again that much of it was espousing already established 'Church' quasi-orthodoxy vis-a-vis those who did not believe Christ as being a real human person...this just nailed it down, so to speak.

  I am not as eloquent as many here, hope you understand my ramblings...oh, and definitely READ THAT BOOK!
• 

  Terry

  The only resurrection that most people are going to get is one to stand trial and face the vast amount of incriminating evidence that will be presented against them

  Oops! That means there is a basis for God's Judgement and Justice!

  Evidence needs to be presented before God allows judgement? That means God has basis for judgement based on values.

  I ask of you again: We know what God's basis for judgement against man is.

  WHAT IS THE BASIS FOR "God so loved the world..."?
• 

  R.Crusoe

  Perry,

  How many generations have lived and died since your saviour did?

  So is it essential, in a perfect justice, for each living person to come to know this saviour in their lifetimes as part of the divine purpose??

  You and I know that not only 1 but millions have lived their whole human existence void of such knowldege - yet if even the sparrows do not fall without gods knowing dont you think those peoples would be under his watchful love? Which proves god does not require all humanity to have knowldege of this saviour and so it is inessential for any afterlife! There is no divinely perfected plane we can easily perceive before us!

  Therefore I vouch that any love will be from within and spirit is born from there no matter if all religion on Earth were absent your knowledge!

  Nature is enough and in fact all we have!

  Everything else is the construct of countless generations both accurate and flawed collections of ideas mixed up in a confusion to the soul.
• 

  quietlyleaving

  Terry you have honesty and integrity - I salute you
• 

  Terry

  Terry loathes the stupidity of people who support the deity he questions. His 'questions' have long since been satisfied for himself; he now seeks to inspire others to the same loathing of the vast majority of human minds that he experiences. I see that too. Is Terry still turning in a timeslip? I got an unsolicited message today from an atheist on this board explaining why they proslytize so stridently.

  You guys have over active imaginations!

  You are presenting a Straw Man Terry to rail against so you won't have to give a simple answer to my simple question.

  I can't loathe God, unconvinced as I am by exactly who or what God is. I'm more troubled by the inconsistency between the superlative descriptions of God and the irrational demonstrations which nullify.

  I need a rational reason for investing any more of my self in belief, faith or worship.

  Or, to put it another way...

  I demonstrated in the early part of my life that I'll go the full distance in worship of the God I know and love by putting myself out there and even risking my life for my beliefs and principles. Else I would never have pioneered or spent years in prison.

  My demonstration of my solidarity is a matter of public record.

  I'm not trifling with fuzzy feelings. I'm a genuine player.

  I was stunned to discover that the basis for my rational conception of Jehovah was based on misrepresentation.

  I won't fall for that again. (Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.)

  I don't hate. I ask.

  The answers certainly aren't coming from you, now--are they?

  I only hear you misrepresenting me when you can't know me at all.

  I think you are troubled by my questions simply because they go to the very core of your faith. It forces you to examine WHY you think, act and believe as you do and you cannot justify it in simple words of reason.

  This is my guess. I'm willing to be wrong.

  But, so far, you've given me nothing of substance except your ad hominem and fallacious straw men.

  Back to you....
• 

  BurnTheShips

  But, so far, you've given me nothing of substance except your ad hominem and fallacious straw men.

  Back to you....

  That's because you are ignoring the rest of the comment.........
• 

  Meeting Junkie No More

  Terry, I think your question makes perfect sense. And everyone finds answers that work FOR HIM OR HER. Their answer may or may not satisfy you, but in the end, you have to make peace with yourself.

  After a lot of Bible reading and trying to come to grips with the wildly divergent 'God' being portrayed, I came to realize that God is wholeness of our being, bringing the two opposing forces into equilibrium...so maybe God so loving the world was the opposite pole to his condemnatory nature revealed at the beginning - making the creation whole...and that is what each of our own lives are all about too, no?
• 

  R.Crusoe

  BurntheShips,

  Not sure I know what you're points are?

  Unless you state them how can I?

  All organised faiths down the centuries have mobilised millions to slaughter one another - much like governments, in pursuit of control over what systems of governance prevail and also to preserve whatever culture they were accidentally born into!

  Rarely will you see examples of a Muslim for example - travelling abroad to seek Christ and lead his armies!

  So it appears to me that history proves circumstantial events are far greater realities than any divinity!

  Whoever god may be is not 'bottled' like a genie in any religion!

  If you dont see that then maybe hold a prism up to your minds eye!
• 

  glenster

  It won't be easy to come up with anything new imagining different things for
  the main characters with something so old and deliberated about by so many. I
  saw a movie with the idea, as a twist at the end, that God was the Devil. The
  twist included that people were praying for the 2nd coming (through a portal,
  like in The Sentinel), and they realized at the end that they'd done all they
  could to set the Devil free, etc. Mark Twain played with the idea near the end
  of his life, too.

  You could look at the book of Job as showing people to deliberate on both
  sides of the prerogative coin, with one side Job and the other the Devil, a long
  time ago. To favor the positive side includes the regard of a presentation of
  just the negative side of the court case as a half done job at the deliberation.

  A couple of things to consider in playing with the main characters:

  Is God still the creator/provider/sustainer one, who didn't have to give
  anyone life so any He gave is a gift He didn't have to give? Then Job still has
  a case for the positive side of God's prerogative, and the Devil, seen as a
  contesting lawyer in a court case (as in Judaism), will still play the negative
  side to the hilt.

  Is the Devil the creator/provider one? Then the negative side of God's prer-
  ogative (we all die, etc.) shifts to him, so you can't make him the all nice side of
  the prerogative.

  It's neither? It's like deciding which idol you like better and not the con-
  cept of creator/sustainer and prerogative, etc.

  In any event, the God concept and the positive and negative sides of the case
  don't go away for the sake of a purview about the negative.