(October 3, 2016 at 4:31 pm)Aroura Wrote: Hi Lighthouse.
So, the only choice humans are given is to love God or to suffer eternal punsihment. Do you feel those are very equal options?
As to your analogy, if I had 5 children, I think it is pretty extreme to assume that they will either be murderers or saviors. Perhaps some of them will chose not to follow in my footsteps, and perhaps even become estranged from me for one reason or another, but they will still be good, decent people. Perhaps those that chose to suck up to me will secretly be serial killers. You analogy makes no sense to me, at all. It is very black and white. It seems that you see people as either good which means those that love God, or evil which is those that do not.
Our job as parents is to raise children that will go be productive members of society independent of their parents. If my children do not love me back, nor cling to me forever, I would not send them to eternal punishment. How is that part loving? My love for my child is unconditional. Any punishment I do give them will fit the crime, and have the intent of making them better in the long run. Eternal punishment, by definition, cannot make a person better, as you cannot learn from it and maybe then come back to god. It's eternal.
The god you describe demands love in return for his kindnesses, and if it is not received, punishes. Please explain to me how a God that cannot even do what a human mother can do, can be called a God of Love?
He does not demand love. He does not punish. It is simply if you love him you spend eternity with him if you do not love him you go to the only place where he is not. Perhaps it was a bad analogy. How about one about marriage. Would you want an arranged marriage or one created out of love. He does not force us to love him because that wouldn't actually be him loving us now would it.
