Yes or No -- what's your intuition?

I have a simple question I would like anyone to answer who feels inclined to share with others their feelings on this matter.

A couple of qualifications, though, please, to guide how you answer:
I want to know what your first instinctive feeling is in answer to this, not what you've been told, not what you think you are supposed to think, not what any church or religious faction presents as their answer, and not even what you think the bible says. Just answer what your heart wants to say before your brain takes over. A simple A. or B. will do--no need to expound on the why's and wherefore's.

Which statement best fits how you feel?

A. Is God about love, mercy, and living?
B. Or is He about hate, anger, and capital punishment?

Originally posted by queenannie38
Which statement best fits how you feel?

A. Is God about love, mercy, and living?
B. Or is He about hate, anger, and capital punishment?

If I had to choose one of the two, I would choose A, however if the question was not multiple choice I would answer with, God is.

Love, and hate are two sides of the same coin. You cannot have one without the other. Giving God human like emotions and traits is just trying to personify the label "God", which I see no reason to do...

[edit on 17/10/2005 by AkashicWanderer]

God is about love, and He is about mercy. Yet with mercy and love comes anger. Think about it. Parents love their children (typically) with all their hearts. They're willing to take a bullet for the chance that their child will excel at life. At the same time, though, their children as they're being raised, do not have the experience the parents do. As that child goes to stick their finger in a socket, the response from the parent appears very angry if they care about the child. The child would probably be yelled at and spanked to save them from the greater injury of electrocution. Does the parent hate their child at that point? Absolutely not! If the kid keeps doing it, there may be genuine anger there because of the child's continued rebellion, though the child has no idea the true danger he or she faces.

Like parents dealing with their children, God is dealing with us. We are ignorant of the true implications of many of our actions. Yet God knows because He both created us and has seen the same actions being done through history by other people. He has seen the self-destructive behaviors that we do, not even realizing how much damage we are doing to ourselves. As a result, He can be a God of Wrath while still being a God of love, mercy and grace. Since He really loves us, He wants us to learn to shy away from danger. Sometimes it may feel like He hates us for what He allows in our lives, but He is doing it through mercy and love.

Like we display anger and wrath towards our children to protect them from themselves, so, too, does God.

A, without a doubt.

Going along with your actual question, my first thought is A--even in the worst of times, it could still be that God is up there saying (and yes, with a deep southern-redneck twang) "I only beat you cuz I love you."

However...

I agree with AkashicWanderer regarding the personification of God. I think any higher power there may be is so far beyond us that there's no way we could conceive what "emotions" they may have, if any. I also think it's a bit presumptuous and arrogant to think we're so important that we're worth His/Her/It's love, anger, mercy, or hate. I have yet to see anything so special about human kind that makes us worth the attention of a higher power yet. But that's a different rant for a different thread...

instinct tells me the answer is both as they are opposites and we must have opposites or nothing would make sense.

A. If there is a thing called God, it is related to Love, or it is Love.

A

I think man is like God we mock god in everything we do. For me I am mostly happy, goofy and very laid back with what I like to think of a deep mind. I have amazing passion to create things. I feel this is right to me and I hope God is just like me as I am just like him! make sense?

If he is as pissed as some people make him/her/it/us/u out to be than I am screwed big time!

Queenannie38,
Which statement best fits how you feel?
A. Is God about love, mercy, and living?
B. Or is He about hate, anger, and capital punishment?

Queen, you take the cake with this loaded question. That’s like asking a man at a domestic violence call, “So, Mr. Jones, do you always hit your wife or is this the first time?”

God is:
Love
Mercy
Just
Holy
Pure
Passionate
Omniscient
All Powerful

You wrongly assume that a loving God cannot also be a Just God.
You wrongly assume that a merciful God cannot also be a Holy God.
You wrongly assume that a Holy God can tolerate sin in His presence.

You have no concept of the true depth of your sin and how repulsive it is to a Just, Pure and Holy God. You think that He will take you as you are and in this misjudgment you are terribly wrong. God will not take you as you are, your sin stinks to Him and your pride is an abomination to Him. He has however made a way for you to be made right in His eyes but you refuse to accept it.

You think God is Burger King and you get to have it your way!


A True Christian
In These Last Days,

James

Damn he made me! I was in a Jewish book store and there was a Rabbi there and he informed me of the 600 and some odd sins they go by! So in your eyes I am created imperfect to fight my way to heaven. There is no logic none! Think about it. Ok what about the kid down in the slum that was raised by a crack whore mother and a drunk dad that use to beat both of them. When he commits sin is it his fault? How can he find the right way if he was raised that way. The faith system is good but there is a logic system to. Just like you have Republicans and Democrats far left, far right but whats in the middle!

I donnu maybe I'm ignorant and missing the picture or I am satan myself.

So I ask does man not evolve and does god not evolve or man evolve to be like god?

You wrongly assume that a loving God cannot also be a Just God.
You wrongly assume that a merciful God cannot also be a Holy God.
You wrongly assume that a Holy God can tolerate sin in His presence.

You have no concept of the true depth of your sin and how repulsive it is to a Just, Pure and Holy God. You think that He will take you as you are and in this misjudgment you are terribly wrong. God will not take you as you are, your sin stinks to Him and your pride is an abomination to Him. He has however made a way for you to be made right in His eyes but you refuse to accept it.

You think God is Burger King and you get to have it your way!


A True Christian
In These Last Days,

James

Originally posted by Machine
You wrongly assume that a loving God cannot also be a Just God.
You wrongly assume that a merciful God cannot also be a Holy God.
You wrongly assume that a Holy God can tolerate sin in His presence.

You have no concept of the true depth of your sin and how repulsive it is to a Just, Pure and Holy God. You think that He will take you as you are and in this misjudgment you are terribly wrong. God will not take you as you are, your sin stinks to Him and your pride is an abomination to Him. He has however made a way for you to be made right in His eyes but you refuse to accept it.
You think God is Burger King and you get to have it your way!
A True Christian
In These Last Days,
James

In other words, Machine chooses B...

Originally posted by Machine

Queenannie38,
Which statement best fits how you feel?
A. Is God about love, mercy, and living?
B. Or is He about hate, anger, and capital punishment?

Queen, you take the cake with this loaded question. That’s like asking a man at a domestic violence call, “So, Mr. Jones, do you always hit your wife or is this the first time?”

You've compared god to a wife basher.. does this mean you think a husband can be justified in hitting his wife sometimes just as a god is justified in sometimes smiting his creation in vengence? Your analogy doesn't make any sense.. either your god is wise, enlightened and has no need for primitive human emotions like anger.. or he is petti.

[edit on 18-10-2005 by riley]

Based on the multiple choice answers allowed and assuming that God actually exists I would have to say B.
From what the Bible says about God I find him not to be loving caring God. The flood for instance.



G

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
In other words, Machine chooses B...

I would suspect Machine agrees more with my stance. You can love even when feeling anger, as I stated above. I would also agree with Machine that the question is loaded. You are given three distinctive traits in each answer. The first two are anthesises, true, but the other two are not. How is anger the opposite of mercy? How is capital punishment the opposite of living?

I would propose that mercy without anger is merciless. Anger shows that you care. If someone you hate, also known as not caring a flying whip for, just walks into traffic, you'll feel nothing. So what, good riddance if they die, big deal if they live. If you care for that person, you're going to feel anger at them for doing something so stupid, and jeopardizing the person you love. If they didn't know better, that chastisement that would follow would be merciful, because you would be trying to prevent them from making the same mistake again.

In the case of capitol punishment and living, who is being referred to? Let's say I choose not to kill someone for a heinous crime, and instead lock him or her up with other criminals. Then they kill again within the confines of the jail. Apparently the more recluse criminal's life is more important than their victims? Personally, I'm against capitol punishment, but that doesn't make the question any less loaded.

Can someone be loving and just? Parents all over play that role, as I described in my first post on this thread. Can a parent be merciful and angry at the same time? Most parents don't, when they have to spank their children, hit them with all their strength. They just hit them hard enough to let them know that what they did was wrong, delivering small physical stimuli to the words. That's merciful while at the same time just.

riley, what leads you to believe anger is primitive?

Originally posted by Machine
Queen, you take the cake with this loaded question. That’s like asking a man at a domestic violence call, “So, Mr. Jones, do you always hit your wife or is this the first time?”

It's not like that at all, it is actually like asking a 3rd party their opinion of this man based on a multiple choice answer.

You wrongly assume that a loving God cannot also be a Just God.
You wrongly assume that a merciful God cannot also be a Holy God.
You wrongly assume that a Holy God can tolerate sin in His presence.

Actually queenannie did not assume anything with her question. She just asked a question and was interested in which answer you would choose.

You're assuming that queenannie assumed all these things, which through examination of her first post can be negated. That leaves you as the only one assuming anything.

You have no concept of the true depth of your sin and how repulsive it is to a Just, Pure and Holy God.

Assuming again I see....

You think that He will take you as you are and in this misjudgment you are terribly wrong.

The assuming continues....

God will not take you as you are, your sin stinks to Him and your pride is an abomination to Him.

This is even going further than assuming. You are now taking the role of supreme judge of the universe, and are stating the prerequisites for God taking queenannie.

You think God is Burger King and you get to have it your way!

One last assumption....



[edit on 18/10/2005 by AkashicWanderer]

Originally posted by junglejake

Originally posted by Ambient Sound
In other words, Machine chooses B...

I would propose that mercy without anger is merciless. Anger shows that you care. If someone you hate, also known as not caring a flying whip for, just walks into traffic, you'll feel nothing. So what, good riddance if they die, big deal if they live.

Not so.

If you care for that person, you're going to feel anger at them for doing something so stupid, and jeopardizing the person you love. If they didn't know better, that chastisement that would follow would be merciful, because you would be trying to prevent them from making the same mistake again.

Yes but that is anger at them because they avoided death.. someone murdering someone as punnishment for 'sinning' is not caring about them.. 'thalt shalt not kill' is meant to be the worst sin of all.. yet god has [hypathetically] commited his own gravest sin on those who have commited lesser sins.

riley, what leads you to believe anger is primitive?

Primitive as in primate.. mortal. Anger manifests when someone is attacking or defending.. someone wants something the other has.. the other doesn't want to give it up. The 'parent' analogy is not adequate. A parent would not murder their child for walking into traffic. Chastisement is a protective instinct so the child knows not to do it again, they might yell at them but they don't beat the crap out of them as that would defeat the purpose of protecting them in the first place. When a kid stuffs up parents don't seek vengence on them over it [kids don't know any better]. When the human species stuffs up however god [being immune to all human weaknesses..] should be wise enough to understand 'his children' don't know any better but he apparently wants vengence [a deadly sin] instead. Sounds like parents are more enlightened.

[edit on 18-10-2005 by riley]

Can't answer A or B...... I'm starting to think there is no such thing as "good or evil" there just IS....... Good and Evil is everyones personal opinion. Whats good to me could be evil to you..... But in response to the " A or B" question, aren't all things good supposed to be gods work, and all things evil the devils work?

Originally posted by SHHCAGO
Can't answer A or B...... I'm starting to think there is no such thing as "good or evil" there just IS

Yes!

When we stop mentally judging, and labelling everything, we can finally really see it. We lift the veil of subjectiveness that we add with our thoughts.


[edit on 18/10/2005 by AkashicWanderer]

If I believe there is no such thing as good or evil, then i can understand (please do not take this the wrong way) rape or killing the same way i can understand falling in love, or retuning someones lost wallet

[edit on 18-10-2005 by SHHCAGO]