A discussion around family table.

[Godscreated]

God is not forcing me to love Him it's my choice it's what I want to do.

So, you don't do it because you are expected to? You love/idolize him to such an extent that you capitalize pronouns referring to him. What's with that silly stuff? The bible constantly orders you to love him, sometimes using different words like worship, praise, into yer heart, or whatever. One of your sacred commandments is an order to not love other gods because your god wants it all to himself, even admits he's jealous. If you don't love god, you're a sinner in his eyes. I mean what the fuck? The whole bible is one big love/obey god-fest.

Answer to the underlined Respect. Worship and praise are forms of respect and are not a requirement it's what true believers want to do. Yes, you are right He does say He is a jealous God. He is not jealous of other gods because there are none, He is jealous for us, He knows people will make up other gods (false idols,money,careers,other people and on and on it goes) and He knows the harm that will bring into ones life His jealousy is for our well being. You need to see the Bible for its true purpose and that will stay beyond you until you decide to seek the truth it holds.

And how do you 'choose' to love? You either feel the emotion love, or you don't. If you have chosen to feel it, and then intentionally try and feel it resulting in kind of feeling it, then you have just done the faith version of love. Way to taint what should be a nice and true emotion for yourself. Rather than really feel and enjoy it and find it awesome for just being what it is, it's a taste of god's goodness tossed as a crumb to unworthy you, who couldn't possibly feel such a thing without his mercy and magnificence. Do I have that right? Is it something like that?

Answer to the underlined NO, your understanding of love is limited to the English definition of love. The Greeks have many words for love which helps to show the real power of love. Gods love for us and our love for Him in the Greek is agape. In the Greek there are words for love of a friend, for family, for your mate in marriage, for places and things and ect. Please understand I'm not saying you do not know what real love is I'm saying that there are many different kinds of love and the love God has for you is beyond your understanding because you have rejected His love by rejecting Him. I don't know if you are married or not but I can tell you from experience that after 30 years of marriage that feel good love you mentioned doesn't feel the same it grows much deeper and becomes a love of partnership, sacrifice, devotion, need, comfort, understanding, trust, desire, helping, giving, taking and ect. this is a love built in relationship. The love of God is like this it's built in a personal relationship and you have no hope of understanding this love until you enter a true relationship with Him.

Godschild Wrote:

I do go out living life in and with love and I try to live a good moral life and not because I'm commanded to I do this I do this to show others what God has done in and for my life.

That's sad. Your motivation for being good is to thank god and tout the worship and obeying his commands. Being good for the sake of being good is much more authentic and purely motivated by goodness and true morality. The goodness inspired by religions however, are motivated by the believers being convinced that god wants them to do this or that, and that goodness means whatever god says it means. For a believer, the warm and fuzzy feeling from being good is probably the nice being-approved-of feeling, where god loves you for being so obedient.

What is sad about being thankful for Gods goodness to me. My love and respect for God is my motivation.
I know what He can do for others if they will only allow Him to work in their lives. IMO what is really sad is those who do not experience Gods love because they reject Him. You mentioned being good for the sake of being good that it's authentic and motivated by goodness and morality. I've never seen that, one would have to be omniscient a perfect being and that leaves the human race out so what you described could only be accomplished by God. God loves everyone regardless of their obedience to Him and what's so wrong about feeling good when you do something good for others.

Godschild Wrote:

I try to do the things I should in thanks to God for redeeming this unworthy person.

Why are you assuming you are starting from some default 'unworthy' position? That's pretty fucking pathetic. They have convinced you that any bad feelings you have inside you, can be cured with god/belief/love rather than actually looking into what has really caused you to feel bad. You can walk with that crutch all your life, or you can fix your leg and not need it after that.

Compared to the righteous God that's everyones default position. There's nothing pathetic about understanding who you are in relation to God an omniscient,omnipotent and omnipresent being. Who are they and who says I feel bad, I did not compare myself to you or any one else just God and when I saw who and what He is then I knew my unworthiness. You have no need for crutches when you are walking with God.

Godschild wrote: There's no way I can deny Gods love for me because His love cost Him a very high price.

Really? What high price? Do you mean when god pretended to be a human and died in a way that was less painful than many humans have experienced when injured or dying? Didn't your god already know what pain was, since he invented pain and dying? Seriously, what high price do you think your god had to pay?

God did not invent or create pain. Pain is a result of sin as is death and that is the price my God had to pay. He suffered a horrible death of pain but the greatest pain He suffered was the burden of sin He had to bear that was not His. My sin, your sin, everyones sin became as His sin, the perfect unblimished God who created all things good and perfect. Look at it this way what if you were imprisoned for a crime that someone else committed, suffering for someones sin, being punished for someones misdeed. Tell me would you not feel the pain of injustice would you not be paying a high price.

Godschild wrote: I know you do not understand this because you have chosen to disbelieve, that is a privilege God has given us, but your disbelief can not and will not change the fact that God is real.

Belief is not a choice, except when one convinces oneself to believe before evidence (and even after no evidence appears), and believing in that way is called faith. Faith is not true belief, it is an induced state of convincing oneself, self delusion to the point where one actually does kind of believe it. They must then battle 'doubts' whenever their mind naturally, and healthily, questions anything regarding it. True belief/disbelief just simply happens. If your god were real, and made himself known to me, I wouldn't have the choice about believing. I simply would believe, since he would be shown as real and not just in my mind. The choice would then be whether to try and follow his hideous laws. If your god were real, and if it mattered to him that I believe he existed, he would show that he existed in a way that can't be denied. Unless he is stupid or sadistic, that is. Is your god too stupid to be able to prove to everyone he's even there? Is he so mean that he would set up a difficult to believe situation that guarantees some to fail, for which he then tortures the failees?

Answer to the underlined: nice to see you understand freewill. No choice just a puppet is that appealing to you because that's the way it would be if God revealed Himself to us as you would have Him do. Personally I like having a choice, I found it to be hard, until I came to know Him and understand what He sacrificed for me. You know what, my belief in Him releases me from being a puppet. God did not setup a situation for failure, He's given us a choice to live with Him or without Him. Sin brings the punishment not God I do not understand why people have such a hard time with this truth.

Godschild wrote:Why is it you believe God would be forcing one to believe in Him, just because He gives us choices does not constitute force.

When the so called 'choice' is to believe or be punished, it is not really a choice, is it? He's not just warning you and saving you, you know. He's the one who decided you should be tortured forever. He's driving the truck he's telling you to step out of the way from. He's lighting the fucking match and locking you in the building and then telling you under what conditions he'll let you out. At least acknowledge that you are being coerced bigtime. Oh yeah, you can't think about that or you'll be punished. Never mind, I don't want to get you in trouble.

Your wrong God does not torture. Your choice determines your eternal life, you choose to repent "Heaven," you choose to live a life in sin "Hell". It's up to you, your decision not Gods. I see no coercion I've made my decision to follow Christ.