Is God a kind, loving God or a mean, vengeful God?

[OneSheep]

All I can tell you is I have tried my darnedest to have a good relationship with God and I am pathetically unhappy with my life. I see people all around me who are happy - with or without God - and I’m not one of them.

Prove to me that God doesn’t hate me.

Hey Lost,
From one sheep to another, I hear you. You are not happy.

Peace be with you. Baa.

 

[Ignatius]

All I can tell you is I have tried my darnedest to have a good relationship with God and I am pathetically unhappy with my life. I see people all around me who are happy - with or without God - and I’m not one of them.

Prove to me that God doesn’t hate me.

Are you getting any kind of psychological help? If not, have you considered it?

God bless you.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

Are you getting any kind of psychological help? If not, have you considered it?

God bless you.

I was and I had a great shrink, but my job situation prevents me from going now. New company policies no longer allow for flexibility in one work schedule to get the time off I need to go.

 

[Tom_Baum]

Heaven is “nothing”?

Which one voluntarily choses by ignoring the sign posts and effectively driving off the road into the abyss.

Jesus “won” the “keys” to the “abyss”, the netherworld, by His work on the cross and will use these keys in due time, God’s Time.

Didn’t Jesus tell us the “mission” of His Church when He said, “… and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against It”?

 

[Tom_Baum]

Only Fundamentalists interpret every text in the Old Testament literally. It is an indisputable fact that the blood-stained history of humanity is the result of the hatred, neglect and indifference of many of our ancestors towards others:

.
Matthew 25:31-46:

It follows that the harm we do to others is done to Jesus:

“Jesus will be in agony until the end of the world, we must not sleep during that time.”

• Pascal

Doesn’t it also follow that the good we do to others is done to Jesus?

Doesn’t it also follow that most likely ALL of us do both harm and good to others, that none do only good or only harm?

 

[truetofaith]

Basically, God is saying “Believe in me or else!” It’s a threat. As one might say in Psychology 101, it is all negative reinforcement and no positive reinforcement.

You get nothing for following him, but you get unimaginable punishment for not following him.

You’re trying to understand God from what you learned in Psychology 101 :hypno:

 

[Ignatius]

RBushlow;12456748:

Truth is Good, Falsehood is bad. Even worse, worshiping what is False is very bad. Also hating God is bad. Helping people see the error of their ways and bringing them to a knowledge of the Truth is very beneficial for them. That is not mean, that is looking out for the ultimate good of those people who have gotten off track.

Basically, God is saying “Believe in me or else!” It’s a threat. As one might say in Psychology 101, it is all negative reinforcement and no positive reinforcement.

You get nothing for following him, but you get unimaginable punishment for not following him.

No, God is giving you signposts to avoid going over a cliff. He’s telling us what will happen if we ignore the signs.

If you follow Him, you get eternal joy and happiness.

 

[tonyrey]

Doesn’t it also follow that the good we do to others is done to Jesus?

Doesn’t it also follow that most likely ALL of us do both harm and good to others, that none do only good or only harm?

Of course! Except for the saints who not harm themselves or others deliberately.

 

[tonyrey]

All I can tell you is I have tried my darnedest to have a good relationship with God and I am pathetically unhappy with my life. I see people all around me who are happy - with or without God - and I’m not one of them.

Prove to me that God doesn’t hate me.

The saints suffered and experienced “the dark night of the soul” but they prayed for faith and courage - and showed how tough they could be (and inspire us with their example). If they could overcome their problems so can we! God doesn’t hate you any more then He hated them. Even though you’re unhappy you still have much to be grateful for and you can get help if you ask for it. The very fact that you’re posting on this forum is proof that you’re not isolated without any means of contacting others. Count your blessings and be more positive!

 

[Tom_Baum]

Of course! Except for the saints who not harm themselves or others deliberately.

This is an absurd statement and any saint, I would think, would be the first to tell you that they, themself, was not only not perfect but quite far from perfect.

It does no good, as a matter of fact I believe it does great harm, to dehumanize those that have been declared saints and pretend that they are so above us mere mortals that there is no way that any of us could possible go to the “good place”.

So are you saying that “the saints” did not need Jesus’s work on the cross done for them since they did NO WRONG?

 

[Tom_Baum]

“You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,” -Exodus 20:5

He sounds mean to me.

I have thought quite a bit about quite a bit and some of what is spoken of about God in the OT is, to say the least, quite harsh and I can not see how any person that thinks about it could come to any other conclusion.

I don’t know if you have seen me say this before but I believe that God gave up His Omni’s in the Incarnation and I believe that not only was God-Incarnate completely helpless like every other human being at birth, and for quite a bit afterwards, and this reality put God-Incarnate completely at the mercy of those around Him to protect HIm, even at a “moment’s notice”.

I believe that this could very well be one of the reasons that God is, to put it mildly, depicted as very strict and harsh in the OT since God-Incarnate would have needed total “protective type” custody to protect Him and total love to nurture Him.

In other words, any “second-guessing” of those around God-Incarnate could have meant that God-Incarnate might not have been around long enough to do what He became One of us to do.

Where it says that “Jesus became like us in ALL ways except sin”, I happen to believe that and I can’t speak for anyone else but I am DEFINITELY NOT Omniscient, Omnipotent or Omnipresent and any human being that would have any and/or all of these qualities would definitely not be like me in “all ways except sin”.

 

[Tom_Baum]

All I can tell you is I have tried my darnedest to have a good relationship with God and I am pathetically unhappy with my life. I see people all around me who are happy - with or without God - and I’m not one of them.

Prove to me that God doesn’t hate me.

I could be wrong but I think that the number of people that are happy or happy with their life is a lot smaller than mere appearances would suggest.

I can not “prove” to you nor can anyone else “prove” to you that God either hates or loves you, at least that is my opinion.

I also can not “prove” to you that God is NOT a loving God even tho I believe this to be true.

I believe that there is a difference, a big difference, between God being a loving God and God being a Being of Love.

I also believe that no human being can possibly understand God being a Being of Love, I know that I don’t understand it and the only reason that I can say it is because I have met God the Father and in that meeting, I came to the realization that God, indeed, is a Being of Love.

I have a “job” that God chose me to do and I am trying to do it even tho I do NOT know just how to do it.

If I was to say that I am “happy”, I would be, to put it mildly, a liar.

I have a great deal of respect for what Mother Theresa did, in all aspects of her work, and from what I have heard since she died, I would say that Mother Theresa was not “happy” but, thank God, she somehow was able to hang in there.

Mother Theresa was/is not the only one, by far, that finds this world to be quite different from those that go around with “rose-colored glasses” on.

There is a lot of good in the world but, to say the least, it is NOT perfect.

To me the world is quite a sad place and if one were to honestly open their eyes to the world, not just their back yards so to speak, I don’t know how they could see it differently.

I have said this before and I repeat it, I can NOT see how any thinking person could believe that any one of their fellow human beings could go to hell for ever and ever and ever and ever and… and think that this is something to be thankful for, this is absolutely disgusting to me.

Being chastised, being punished is one thing but going to a “horror” beyond human understanding for ever and ever and…, is, in my opinion, being worse than any human being could possibly be since human being’s horrible treatment of their fellow human beings does have an “end” to it.

If God is even remotely like what some seem to think and, sad to say, some even seem to be rooting for than I hope, pray, beg and beseech God to completely and utterly destroy me, to unexist me.

Those that say that it is better to exist in hell than to go out of existence do NOT have a clue.

 

[PRmerger]

.I have said this before and I repeat it, I can NOT see how any thinking person could believe that any one of their fellow human beings could go to hell for ever and ever and ever and ever and… and think that this is something to be thankful for, this is absolutely disgusting to me.

But there has to be a place for those who find God abhorrent.

God would not impose upon them His Beatific Vision if they find it so repugnant.

So God simply says: have it your way. Stay away. For eternity.

 

[Randy_Carson]

I have thought quite a bit about quite a bit and some of what is spoken of about God in the OT is, to say the least, quite harsh and I can not see how any person that thinks about it could come to any other conclusion.

I don’t know if you have seen me say this before but I believe that God gave up His Omni’s in the Incarnation and I believe that not only was God-Incarnate completely helpless like every other human being at birth, and for quite a bit afterwards, and this reality put God-Incarnate completely at the mercy of those around Him to protect HIm, even at a “moment’s notice”.

I believe that this could very well be one of the reasons that God is, to put it mildly, depicted as very strict and harsh in the OT since God-Incarnate would have needed total “protective type” custody to protect Him and total love to nurture Him.

In other words, any “second-guessing” of those around God-Incarnate could have meant that God-Incarnate might not have been around long enough to do what He became One of us to do.

Where it says that “Jesus became like us in ALL ways except sin”, I happen to believe that and I can’t speak for anyone else but I am DEFINITELY NOT Omniscient, Omnipotent or Omnipresent and any human being that would have any and/or all of these qualities would definitely not be like me in “all ways except sin”.

Tom-

Would you be willing to do some reading?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[tonyrey]

Those that say that it is better to exist in hell than to go out of existence do NOT have a clue.

You underestimate the extent to which people enjoy having total independence and absolute power - even if it is only over themselves! If hell didn’t have any compensations it wouldn’t exist…

 

[tonyrey]

This is an absurd statement and any saint, I would think, would be the first to tell you that they, themself, was not only not perfect but quite far from perfect.

It does no good, as a matter of fact I believe it does great harm, to dehumanize those that have been declared saints and pretend that they are so above us mere mortals that there is no way that any of us could possible go to the “good place”.

So are you saying that “the saints” did not need Jesus’s work on the cross done for them since they did NO WRONG?

You are misinterpreting my words - and implying that the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross hasn’t enabled the saints to fulfil the precept of Jesus to become perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. For God all things are possible…

 

[Tom_Baum]

But there has to be a place for those who find God abhorrent.

God would not impose upon them His Beatific Vision if they find it so repugnant.

So God simply says: have it your way. Stay away. For eternity.

As far as, “But there has to be a place for those who find God abhorrent.”.

Is it that someone finds “God abhorrent” or could it be that someone finds either their own and/or someone else’s “conception” of God abhorrent?

As far as, “God would not impose upon them His Beatific Vision if they find it so repugnant.”

This sure seems to be pulled out of thin air by you and/or others, since how could one find the Beatific Vision “so repugnant” if they never had it?

Then you wrote, “So God simply says: have it your way. Stay away. For eternity.”

Who knows, maybe God actually cares for those He created and in God’s Plan, which God has had since before creation, God came up with a “way” that so many think God incapable of coming up with.

 

[PRmerger]

As far as, “But there has to be a place for those who find God abhorrent.”.

Is it that someone finds “God abhorrent” or could it be that someone finds either their own and/or someone else’s “conception” of God abhorrent?

Well, all we have is our image of God, yeah?

As far as, “God would not impose upon them His Beatific Vision if they find it so repugnant.”

This sure seems to be pulled out of thin air by you and/or others, since how could one find the Beatific Vision “so repugnant” if they never had it?

It is no more pulled out of thin air than your views about God are, Tom.

And the Beatific Vision is given to us in glimpses and hints all throughout our lives. It is present in nature. It is present in others. It is present in our love. It is absolutely present in the Church, and in the Divine Liturgy, and in the Sacraments.

Then you wrote, “So God simply says: have it your way. Stay away. For eternity.”

Who knows, maybe God actually cares for those He created and in God’s Plan, which God has had since before creation,

Absolutely. God cares infinitely for those He created. You are absolutely very Catholic when you say that!

God came up with a “way” that so many think God incapable of coming up with.

I don’t know what this means. What is this “way”?

 

[PRmerger]

As far as, “But there has to be a place for those who find God abhorrent.”.

Is it that someone finds “God abhorrent” or could it be that someone finds either their own and/or someone else’s “conception” of God abhorrent?

As far as, “God would not impose upon them His Beatific Vision if they find it so repugnant.”

This sure seems to be pulled out of thin air by you and/or others, since how could one find the Beatific Vision “so repugnant” if they never had it?

Then you wrote, “So God simply says: have it your way. Stay away. For eternity.”

Who knows, maybe God actually cares for those He created and in God’s Plan, which God has had since before creation, God came up with a “way” that so many think God incapable of coming up with.

Best pithy and logical response to the above, by Peter Kreeft:

“Hell follows from two other doctrines: heaven and free will. If there is a heaven, there can be a not-heaven. And if there is free will, we can act on it and abuse it. Those who deny hell must also deny either heaven (as does Western secularism) or free will (as does Eastern pantheism).”
Hell by Peter Kreeft

 

[Tom_Baum]

You underestimate the extent to which people enjoy having total independence and absolute power - even if it is only over themselves! If hell didn’t have any compensations it wouldn’t exist…

As I said, “Those that say that it is better to exist in hell than to go out of existence do NOT have a clue.”

I have experience both hell and spiritual death and you do not have a clue what hell is or what it is for.

Jesus went to everyone’s hell, because everyone’s hell is different because everyone custom-builds their own hell.

When it says that Jesus “Paid the ransom”, or words to that effect, do you think these are meaningless words?

Jesus did not only go to the “abode of the good dead”.