If God is infinitely important, then why is fanaticism bad?

[robwar]

If life is the ultimate gift of God, then why can we give it up (especially why can we give it up in favor of God)?

Again, if God is so important, then the most homage should be given to him, so we should crawl around as a sign of respect instead of walking.

And to another post, if God is so important, then the real question is why shouldn’t we be slaves? For slaves are unimportant people who serve the interests of the important people.

Unless somehow having these things is a means to God, and a necessary means to God, then there would be no reason IMO to think them important at all (and this even applies to the importance of mankind itself ).

Here is my paradox: whatever is important is preferred to something else. Now religious stuff per se seems (to any believer) to be the most important things (the substance of God, churches, doctrines, evangelical counsels, etc.). So why would we choose and prefer our health to going to mass, or civil order to correct doctrines, or (to be logical in a swiftian manner) why would we even want to exist since God is infinitely important implying that he must be infinitely beloved which of course, would preclude any other choice?

I am really not sure where you are getting the analogy between God is so important that we must be slaves. That really is a rather sad view of God. It is rather unclear how you even come up with the thinking you have seem to string together? They don’t fit. Christ example is that He gave up His life for us. We are important to God. He created us. Jesus example was he washed the feet of his disciples even though He is the Son of God.
If we want to know what God is like look at the example of Jesus. You seems to be badly confused, I will pray for you.

 

[Cristiano]

That is, if God is so important then why is life, health, wealth, etc. even important at all? For if God was so important wouldn’t we crawl on our bellies in Church, or wouldn’t we not except people from the Sabbath on account of their sicknesses? If God was so important, then wouldn’t he insist on being literally always obeyed w/ instant punishment for any offense? And yet, we don’t see that non-believers are constantly struck by lightning .

I think that God is infinitely important and thus fanaticism is good.

Is fanaticism based on what Scriptures, Tradition, and disciplines say a good one? Of course just look at what Jesus and the saints did. How do we do that? Through orthodoxy and continuous study of the Church teachings.

Are other forms of fanaticism, not based on the true teachings of the Church, good ones? Probably not and thus a person must be very careful on how to be a fanatic.

Usually the true catholic fanatics are willing to sacrifice themselves like nothing but I highly doubt that they would sacrifice someone else. Thus we have to be really careful on how we are fanatics, we can easily end up doing a lot of hurtful things in the name of something that is not true.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I think that God is infinitely important and thus fanaticism is good.

Is fanaticism based on what Scriptures, Tradition, and disciplines say a good one? Of course just look at what Jesus and the saints did. How do we do that? Through orthodoxy and continuous study of the Church teachings.

Are other forms of fanaticism, not based on the true teachings of the Church, good ones? Probably not and thus a person must be very careful on how to be a fanatic.

Usually the true catholic fanatics are willing to sacrifice themselves like nothing but I highly doubt that they would sacrifice someone else. Thus we have to be really careful on how we are fanatics, we can easily end up doing a lot of hurtful things in the name of something that is not true.

We need a definition of fanatic for all to benefit from this topic.

 

[snarflemike]

That is, if God is so important then why is life, health, wealth, etc. even important at all?

Because this is the situation God has placed us in. It is a situation where we can find God in all our pleasures, in all our efforts, in every moment we live. God reveals himself to us in this world.

For if God was so important wouldn’t we crawl on our bellies in Church, or wouldn’t we not except people from the Sabbath on account of their sicknesses?

Would you demand that of one you love?

If God was so important, then wouldn’t he insist on being literally always obeyed w/ instant punishment for any offense? And yet, we don’t see that non-believers are constantly struck by lightning .

You confuse the concepts of obedience and punishment with God’s true purpose, which is to lead us, with our cooperation, into perfect holiness, the state we were made for. And that goes for those non-believers too, in ways that are known only to him.

Your God is a scary God.

 

[Qoeleth]

That is, if God is so important then why is life, health, wealth, etc. even important at all? For if God was so important wouldn’t we crawl on our bellies in Church, or wouldn’t we not except people from the Sabbath on account of their sicknesses? If God was so important, then wouldn’t he insist on being literally always obeyed w/ instant punishment for any offense? And yet, we don’t see that non-believers are constantly struck by lightning .

Well, fanaticism, as such, is not always bad. The kind of fantacisim that makes people diligently follow the Gospel commandments is very good.

But being judgmental is bad. In fact, it is contrary to the Gospel commandments. As to why sinner are not punished by lightning, fistly, it is God alone who know and judges the heart. Secondly, in the parable of the wheat and the darnel, God, in His wisdom, leaves judgment to Judgment Day.

For us Christians, we must show mercy. “Those who show mercy will not have mercy shown them”, as St. James said.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

That is, if God is so important then why is life, health, wealth, etc. even important at all? For if God was so important wouldn’t we crawl on our bellies in Church, or wouldn’t we not except people from the Sabbath on account of their sicknesses? If God was so important, then wouldn’t he insist on being literally always obeyed w/ instant punishment for any offense? And yet, we don’t see that non-believers are constantly struck by lightning .

Did you ever think of getting a hobby that put more physical activity in your life? You really do need to get out of all this introspection. And please start reading Thomistic philosophers, you are getting pretty far out, you need something to put your feet on the ground.

 

[fhansen]

That is, if God is so important then why is life, health, wealth, etc. even important at all? For if God was so important wouldn’t we crawl on our bellies in Church, or wouldn’t we not except people from the Sabbath on account of their sicknesses? If God was so important, then wouldn’t he insist on being literally always obeyed w/ instant punishment for any offense? And yet, we don’t see that non-believers are constantly struck by lightning .

Our faith teaches us that God, by valuing man’s freedom, has allowed evil to coexist with good since the Fall of man. He’s determined that He won’t violate man’s will, but desires to draw us into free alignment with His perfect will. The Atonement where man is reconciled with God is the crucial part of this plan, where God’s existence, trustworthiness, love, and power over life and death are blatantly demonstrated to an unbelieving world.

And He’s patient and kind with this world, knowing our hardness of heart, the Potter molding us, as we willingly become increasingly malleable. We don’t change-or become perfectly just-(justified) all at once. Perfect justice for man means to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. Then we will prostrate ourselves before Him as we should, having learned of His true value for ourselves.

 

[Bill_7154]

God is love and Justice. He wants a relationship with us not just a blind obedience with an instant punishment if we don’t. God makes the sun to shine on the just and unjust. Because you might not see non-believers struck by lightening doesn’t mean God is not working on them or calling them etc. God calls us friends, He laid His life down for us.

This post speak to me personally because, although I was a believer (with periods of doubt) I was living in sin for many, many years. I was choosing sin as an unhealthy way of coping with a troubling past. I see now that God was always there, and I know he was there because there were many months and even periods of years where I turned to God for help and I received help.

However, I was not living as I was truely supposed to live as a Catholic. God never turned his back on me. He was there, waiting for me to invite him into my life, my heart, and my soul. If God struck down all sinners, would we all not be dead? And it took a period of time living in darkness before I was willing to open my heart, mind, body, spirit, and soul to invite him into my life. And when I did I noticed pretty much immediate and significant relief from a huge ammount of suffering I was carrying with me for years.

I went to confession for the first time in 17 years recently. I had a lot of sins to confess. Including the breaking of commandments. The closeness I felt to God in the confessional, the experience of sharing my sins and confessing them to the Priest was overwhelming. I felt so comforted it was amazing. I felt an immediate bond with that Priest, I knew deep down in my soul I was doing the right thing for the first time in many years and through that confession and my prayers in the days and weeks afterwards I felt burdens in the form of intense anxiety I carried with me every moment of every day for years lessen sooo much it was amazing. I lived with intense anxiety for decades. I never thought it would be possible to have that lessened even close to the degree it was lessened.

At one point I was on 5 different medications prescribed by a psychiatrist for PTSD and Depression. I am now on one medication and doing much better than I was with the psychiatrist and 5 medications. Now I have God and Jesus who I know love me and were always there with me, but I had to choose to invite them into my heart and soul.

Life is a struggle. It has been a much greater struggle for me than most that grow up in this country due to the way I was raised. I have known more than my share of sufferng. But now that I have choosen to open my heart and sould to God and Jesus I have the most perfect means of sharing and lessening that suffering and my own moment to moment experiences show me that my faith is saving me. I am truely blessed for opening my heart and soul to God and Jesus and hope and pray that others can find what I have found. It’s also a blessing that now I feel comfortable talking with others about the power of having God and Jesus in one’s life and when I do I experience a mutual benefit, a connection with that other human being, the joy is doubled, the suffering is lessened times two.

Just this morning I was talking with a person who was suffering greatly. He mentioned God at one point and when I shared with him my belief, my faith, and encouraged him to continue to turn to God for help I saw a change in his facial expression, a change in his emotional state. His grief lessened. And I experienced how God is helping others who turn to him for help just like he is helping me.

I am blessed, despite all of the negative things that have happened to me, despite all the negative things I have done in my life I am blessed. And I know in my heart and soul that I am safe in the arms of God who was always there loving me, just waiting for me to love him back.

 

[fakename]

I am really not sure where you are getting the analogy between God is so important that we must be slaves. That really is a rather sad view of God. It is rather unclear how you even come up with the thinking you have seem to string together? They don’t fit. Christ example is that He gave up His life for us. We are important to God. He created us. Jesus example was he washed the feet of his disciples even though He is the Son of God.
If we want to know what God is like look at the example of Jesus. You seems to be badly confused, I will pray for you.

My ideas follow from the very definition of “important”, for important things are those things which are preferred above others. So the most and infinitely important thing is preferred to all other things absolutely.

Unless of course somehow God is not the most important thing. Or perhaps unless somehow man is important too. But of two things, the infinite swallows up the finite so how can man be important if God is infinitely important?

And around we go

 

[fakename]

We need a definition of fanatic for all to benefit from this topic.

A fanatic is someone who believes that they must always destroy everything that is not God for the glory of God.

 

[StrawberryJam]

A fanatic is someone who believes that they must always destroy everything that is not God for the glory of God.

Your definition of God is what?

Isn’t everyone connected to him?

To Destroy everything that is not God is destroying all humankind and the universe as we know it.

 

[fakename]

Your definition of God is what?

Isn’t everyone connected to him?

To Destroy everything that is not God is destroying all humankind and the universe as we know it.

certainly people are not connected to God in a pantheistic sense.

And our moral connection w/God doesn’t mean he can’t destroy us. Plus it seems rather to put the cart before the horse to bring this point up, as if to say that we are too important to be destroyed. You’ll have to prove that one, since God routinely destroys people anyway.

 

[fakename]

Your definition of God is what?

Isn’t everyone connected to him?

To Destroy everything that is not God is destroying all humankind and the universe as we know it.

certainly people are not connected to God in a pantheistic sense.

And our moral connection w/God doesn’t mean he can’t destroy us. Plus it seems rather to put the cart before the horse to bring this (what I guess is your point) point up, as if to say that we are too important to be destroyed. You’ll have to prove that one, since God routinely destroys people anyway.

 

[StrawberryJam]

certainly people are not connected to God in a pantheistic sense.

And our moral connection w/God doesn’t mean he can’t destroy us. Plus it seems rather to put the cart before the horse to bring this (what I guess is your point) point up, as if to say that we are too important to be destroyed. You’ll have to prove that one, since God routinely destroys people anyway.

You managed to get a double post in somehow.

I think you misunderstand me. I absolutely do not mean that we as humans are too important. That is more of a christian argument, not mine.

 

[fisherman_carl]

That is, if God is so important then why is life, health, wealth, etc. even important at all? For if God was so important wouldn’t we crawl on our bellies in Church, or wouldn’t we not except people from the Sabbath on account of their sicknesses? If God was so important, then wouldn’t he insist on being literally always obeyed w/ instant punishment for any offense? And yet, we don’t see that non-believers are constantly struck by lightning .

Because fanaticism is not love. If you read what love is you discover that fanaticism without love is nothing.

" If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

• 1 Cor 13

 

[The_Reginator]

And to another post, if God is so important, then the real question is** why shouldn’t we be slaves? For slaves are unimportant people who serve the interests of the important people.**

Unless somehow having these things is a means to God, and a necessary means to God, then there would be no reason IMO to think them important at all (and this even applies to the importance of mankind itself ).

God has created us to be very important.

• He made us in His image.
• He gave us free will so we can choose to obey and love Him or not to.
• When our first parents sinned He promised to send a saviour (Genesis 3:15).
• The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word of God, did not simply appear on earth in human form. God protected Mary from original sin so that the Holy Spirit could fertilize one of her ova with Jesus, and therefore Jesus was completely without sin. Imagine that – God prepared a human girl to be His earthly mother. God thinks so highly of us that He accepts a human being as His Mother. Not a foster mother but a biological mother.
• Jesus suffered and died for us. God thinks so highly of us that He took our sins upon His sinless self and allowed Himself to be mocked and killed.
• God thinks so highly of us that he raised Jesus from the dead and He appeared in His resurrected and glorified human body to His disciples. Having instructed the disciples and prepared them for the institution of the Church He ascended into heaven – body and soul.
• We are so important to God that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity sits at the right hand of God the Father with a human body!
• The importance of all men and women is further proved by the fact that Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven. God then crowned Mary, a human being, as the Queen of Heaven. We are more than mere slaves.
• Remember this: Jesus initially spoke of us as servants. Later we are called His friends. Finally, he declares that He is our Brother. God is ‘wholly other’, but through Jesus, He is also our brother.
• God comes to us all the time. We receive His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity at each Mass.
• The Third Person of the Holy Trinity has not only visited us throughout time, He also came into mere mortals on the day of Pentecost. He enters each one of us at Baptism and Confirmation.

We must always glorify and adore God. He is far different than us. He is perfect, all loving, all knowing, all merciful, and also just.
Therefore we strive to be perfect, just as God is perfect. In that way we are fanatics. But never think of yourself as a mere slave.

Dominus tecum, Reg.

 

[fakename]

You managed to get a double post in somehow.

I think you misunderstand me. I absolutely do not mean that we as humans are too important. That is more of a christian argument, not mine.

What do you mean then?

 

[fakename]

God has created us to be very important.

• He made us in His image.
• He gave us free will so we can choose to obey and love Him or not to.
• When our first parents sinned He promised to send a saviour (Genesis 3:15).
• The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Word of God, did not simply appear on earth in human form. God protected Mary from original sin so that the Holy Spirit could fertilize one of her ova with Jesus, and therefore Jesus was completely without sin. Imagine that – God prepared a human girl to be His earthly mother. God thinks so highly of us that He accepts a human being as His Mother. Not a foster mother but a biological mother.
• Jesus suffered and died for us. God thinks so highly of us that He took our sins upon His sinless self and allowed Himself to be mocked and killed.
• God thinks so highly of us that he raised Jesus from the dead and He appeared in His resurrected and glorified human body to His disciples. Having instructed the disciples and prepared them for the institution of the Church He ascended into heaven – body and soul.
• We are so important to God that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity sits at the right hand of God the Father with a human body!
• The importance of all men and women is further proved by the fact that Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven. God then crowned Mary, a human being, as the Queen of Heaven. We are more than mere slaves.
• Remember this: Jesus initially spoke of us as servants. Later we are called His friends. Finally, he declares that He is our Brother. God is ‘wholly other’, but through Jesus, He is also our brother.
• God comes to us all the time. We receive His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity at each Mass.
• The Third Person of the Holy Trinity has not only visited us throughout time, He also came into mere mortals on the day of Pentecost. He enters each one of us at Baptism and Confirmation.

We must always glorify and adore God. He is far different than us. He is perfect, all loving, all knowing, all merciful, and also just.
Therefore we strive to be perfect, just as God is perfect. In that way we are fanatics. But never think of yourself as a mere slave.

Dominus tecum, Reg.

In what way is man important though? Man may need other men to get to God, which is a good answer to my question but the real gist of my present question is that if man may be compared to God as an object to an object maker, then what is the object that the object maker should provide for it?

 

[fakename]

Because fanaticism is not love. If you read what love is you discover that fanaticism without love is nothing.

" If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

• 1 Cor 13

I’m just saying that when you love one thing you dislike the opposite. Now since one loves God in the utmost, one dislikes not-God and what is not-God is all of creation.

 

[tabycat]

Because God doesn’t want slaves

Slaves are not usful to God because they have do what He says to do, not by their free will.