Question for those who believe in the Biblical God

This is not a flame or meant to be flippant.

Serious question in seek of a serious answer. Please, if your answer is based just on "faith", I will not accept it as a legitimate answer. "I don't know" is an acceptable answer.

If a God created the universe, why would he want you to serve or worship him? Why wouldn't he want you to enjoy your life without living for his glory (which is already self-evident if he exists)? And why would he want you to be with him for eternity (if you "choose" to believe in him using faith) or not want you to be with him (if you use your faculties and decide that faith is not warranted)?

P.S. I promise not to even respond to your replies, so this won't turn into a flame war on my end. I just want to gain insight into how you rationalize these questions.

[RJT]

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If a God created the universe, …

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This can only be based on faith. There is no other way to start. Of course, it is not fact.

I have a serious question, too: Do you understand what I just wrote above?

If one can’t get past the possibility of a God - everything else is a waste of time. From your other posts it seems that this is not open for discussion. If it isn’t for you then why belabor the issue.

If you do accept the possibility of a God creator, then your other questions can be answered (well, after one clears up the errors in your assumptions.)

If you still want the rest answer let me know. I’ll respond.

p.s. If you can’t get past a possibility of a God creator - it doesn’t have to be the one who did it in seven days - then would you mind answering why you can’t?

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p.s. If you can’t get past a possibility of a God creator - it doesn’t have to be the one who did it in seven days - then would you mind answering why you can’t?

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I never said any such thing - although I've said there is no objective evidence for it, and I dispute the concept of the day-to-day God as described in the Bible. So I accept theres a possibility for a supreme being, but fail to see how the rest easily follows.

[NLSoldier]

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If a God created the universe, why would he want you to serve or worship him?

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whe the [censored] wouldnt he? if I created a world and put a bunch of little n00bs on it i would want them to worship me for sure!

[RJT]

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I never said any such thing

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I did not say you said any such thing. I said this:

“If one can’t get past the possibility of a God…”

followed by this

“If you do accept the possibility of a God creator…”

The reason I brought the issue up in the first place was because you said this:

“A "god" created the universe.

He sent his "son" to save us from our "sins."

If we have "faith" in this "god" we will have "eternal" life.

These are but a few of the "details" that trouble me. Are they so easily resolved?”

So, I also said this:

“If one can’t get past the possibility of a God - everything else is a waste of time…” before I wasted any time responding.

Now that you said this:

“…So I accept there’s a possibility for a supreme being, but fail to see how the rest easily follows.”

I will respond to your post. But, right now I have to attend a social function (Euphemism for "a few drinks with a for a few friends and a buddy,who finally got through his divorce proceeding after almost four years, yeah four years - the Judge was a real…) for a few hours. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Jeff V]

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If a God created the universe, why would he want you to serve or worship him? Why wouldn't he want you to enjoy your life without living for his glory (which is already self-evident if he exists)?

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These two can go hand in hand.(worship & enjoy your life) It's not a slave/ master relationship, more like a Father & son. We can go to God and treat Him like our pappa or daddy. He also deserves our respect,unending grattitude, and praise. Because of His grace, and no other reason He's made it easy to have all the rewards of heaven. On our own merits we all deserve much less.

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And why would he want you to be with him for eternity (if you "choose" to believe in him using faith) or not want you to be with him (if you use your faculties and decide that faith is not warranted)?

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When we use our free will to love God it makes Him happy, kinda like when someone looks at you and you know that you're loved. If you have to spend eternity somewhere why would you not want to spend it with Him if you believe the above?

All that being said some people believe in God because they need to "believe" in something. I don't think these people have a relationship with God though, which kind of makes the whole thing seem shallow to some.(I think this is where alot of skeptics lump believers into) I know i used to think it was extremely ridiculous, phony, weak etc.

Some people believe because they don't like the idea that we're billion year old, grown up bacteria, aimlessly floating in space- a giant cosmic accident that puts our 86.5 years in and that's it.

I think alot of people believe because it's intuitive that this is not all there is to life. That we have a purpose in this universe, and we don't just rot when we die. Some go to God, others to budda, muhammad, heavens gate cult or whatever.

BTW feel free to respond.

Jeff

[Siegmund]

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If a God created the universe, why would he want you to serve or worship him? Why wouldn't he want you to enjoy your life without living for his glory (which is already self-evident if he exists)? And why would he want you to be with him for eternity (if you "choose" to believe in him using faith) or not want you to be with him (if you use your faculties and decide that faith is not warranted)?


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Here's one possible basis.

Genesis 1:27, "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him."

We know from our own life-experiences that it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling inside when our achievements are recognized and praised by others. Each of us has certain people in our lives we wish we could have at our sides forever - usually people with whom we spend a lot of time, share common interests and views. Each of us has certain people in our lives we'd prefer never to see again - usually people who have slighted us or had some violent disagreement with us.

There are plenty of specific instructions in the Bible about particular commandments he gave, some of them with reasons, some of them just common sense, some of them with no explanation beyond "I said so." But all of these got added one at a time in response to people straying from the path. In the beginning there were no rules except not eating from the tree, and God came and walked in the garden and had a daily chat with his newly created friends to see how they were doing - until one day they hid from him instead of chatting.

You can argue the specific demands for particular kinds of worship are all artificial in a sense, not God's original intentions for mankind, not what he originally told us to do.

But it you believe in those 3 universal aspects of human nature I named - as far as I can tell they are sentiments shared by almost everyone in a wide array of cultures for a long time! - you might reasonably say, "How is it that everyone shares these common ideals? Adam and Eve must have had them and passed them on to all mankind. Why did they feel this way? Because they were made that way. And since they were made in God's image - it's logical to conclude that this the image of God's mind."

Disclaimer. I am not claiming to be a believer in the Biblical God. I was raised around parents who made sure I studied the Bible, and I was raised to think. The result was perhaps not what my parents or other believers would wish for.

[David Sklansky]

"whe the [censored] wouldnt he? if I created a world and put a bunch of little n00bs on it i would want them to worship me for sure!"

But if I did it ingeniously, using methods that in some cases educated people could understand, I would disdain worship from people who made no attempt to learn more about those methods.

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On our own merits we all deserve much less.

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See, I don't get this. How can we "deserve" less when he created us? How can you create something from nothing and then judge the thing as "undeserving" or bad or flawed or whatever on its own merit?

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When we use our free will to love God it makes Him happy, kinda like when someone looks at you and you know that you're loved.

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This makes no sense to me either. How can I feel happy that the thing I whipped up from nothing "loves" me, when I am the one who implanted its sense of right/wrong and its intellect and its environment, etc? Would you feel "happy" if a computer program you wrote printed "I love you" on your screen? I know you could say "free will" differentiates us from a computer program, but the program for our free will (whther that be our "heart" or "mind" or whatever) was programmed by God, not by us.

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I think alot of people believe because it's intuitive that this is not all there is to life. That we have a purpose in this universe, and we don't just rot when we die. Some go to God, others to budda, muhammad, heavens gate cult or whatever.

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But the fact that people "need" purpose doesn't legitimize their beliefs as to what the purpose is.


Thanks for your thoughtful reply, BTW.

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Each of us has certain people in our lives we'd prefer never to see again - usually people who have slighted us or had some violent disagreement with us.

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The difference, in my mind, is that I didn't create those people who slight me, and if I did create them, then I think the error would be on my part not theirs.