Why worship a "god" that threatens you?

[OpiatefortheMasses]

I'm reasonably sure that to extort something from someone else would constitute a sin of some kind according to most Christians but why is it OK when the very religion itself employs it? Most of the Christians I've talked to over the years would describe their "god" as fair, just, loving etc. but extortion (among other things) really strikes me as cruel and manipulative. Is this a "god" that's truly worthy of a person's worship or adoration?

[JoeyKnothead]

God threatens people?

I don't think so...

God just tells us the truth about whether we are damned or part of HIS sinful church which needs to become holy so that HE can fulfill the sentence of damnation against our eternal enemies...

that's all.

If you chose to be HIS eternal enemy then too bad for you. No threat - just the truth of your damnation.

If you are one of HIS sinful elect who rebelled against this justified damnation of our eternal enemies, then get with the program ! to be free of them!

Peace to all,

Ted

That's some mighty fine preaching you got going on there.

Lacking substantiation for any of it, I'll not toss my coin in the plate.

[Chase200mph]

I haven't read all of the posts, so this may have been mentioned. However, a couple of analogous questions would be why honor a government or parent that threatens you? One must of course be clear on what constitutes a threat. However, isn't it the role governements and parents to set limits on one's behavior and prosecute violators of, or at least warn of the consequences of violating, those limits?

I don’t think so, it is the role of society to set up a government to uphold the values of that society.

[OpiatefortheMasses]

I haven't read all of the posts, so this may have been mentioned. However, a couple of analogous questions would be why honor a government or parent that threatens you? One must of course be clear on what constitutes a threat. However, isn't it the role governements and parents to set limits on one's behavior and prosecute violators of, or at least warn of the consequences of violating, those limits?

Well in the context of the discussion a threat would be "An expression of an intention to inflict pain, injury, evil, or punishment." (TheFreeDictionary). I would say hell is quite a threat and a rather steep one for something as simple as doubting the claims of a particular religion. If you were to compare this to government that would be like giving someone the death penalty for jaywalking or littering. When you also take into account original sin and salvation where also manipulated by "god" hell definitely becomes a threat and one that I don't think we entirely deserve whether we believe or not. When you break it down it just becomes extortion.

[Chase200mph]

God threatens people?

I don't think so...

God just tells us the truth about whether we are damned or part of HIS sinful church which needs to become holy so that HE can fulfill the sentence of damnation against our eternal enemies...

that's all.

If you chose to be HIS eternal enemy then too bad for you. No threat - just the truth of your damnation.

If you are one of HIS sinful elect who rebelled against this justified damnation of our eternal enemies, then get with the program ! to be free of them!

Peace to all,

Ted

Yes, we get it, god hate blacks, Jews, Indians and amputees…

[I Wear White Socks]

Another option is God could have forseen which humans would 'choose' him and which wouldn't, and only allow the 'good' ones to be conceived and born. Thus they would still have 'free will', if that's so important to God, and there's nothing in the Bible to say that that was his reason for allowing sin, yet it would avoid the 'necessity' of hell and of punishments in this life. All the people he selected to be conceived and born could end up in heaven, a win win situation.

Yes, that could have been another conceivable plan/outcome, if a hypothetical god of perfect goodness actually existed. Thanks.

[I Wear White Socks]

The biblical narrative reads like a story about a vice cop who set up an addict to buy drugs, except the drug den was a garden and the illegal substance was forbidden fruit. The entrance of sin into the world is the result of a sting operation. The snake was planted there by bible-god as an undercover dealer. In the real world, everybody realizes that luring people into situations where they are liable to break the law, show themselves to be criminals, then get busted and punished for being what they are....is entrapment.

Thousands of years and billions of dead sinners later, bible-god finally gets around to sending jesus into the protection racket trading fire insurance for obedience. That's extortion.

From then on, it's a life-long treadmill of repeated sinning, confessing & repenting before the judge, hoping to make your calling and election sure, but not really being able to verify your get-out-of-jail-free card until after death. That's probation.

[Goat]

God threatens people?

I don't think so...

God just tells us the truth about whether we are damned or part of HIS sinful church which needs to become holy so that HE can fulfill the sentence of damnation against our eternal enemies...

that's all.

If you chose to be HIS eternal enemy then too bad for you. No threat - just the truth of your damnation.

If you are one of HIS sinful elect who rebelled against this justified damnation of our eternal enemies, then get with the program ! to be free of them!

Peace to all,

Ted

By golly by Gosh, this doesn't sound like just 'telling the truth'. This sounds like an out and out threat to me. It is the truth when a bully tells a wimp at the school yard 'Give your lunch money, or I'll beat you up'. That doesn't mean it is any less extortion.

Of course, to have a much more accurate analogy it would be if some bully told some kid 'give me your money , or my big brother will beat you up', and you don't know if he has a big brother or not, and the big brother never has come around. The bully does talk a big game, but the brother is conspicuously absent.

[Clownboat]

...

Well, in your scenario you really haven't extorted me but you're not an all-powerful being in control of every aspect of the scenario. In the bible "god" is the one that created and controls every aspect of the scenario. "God" created hell, sin and the "path to salvation" so the options were deliberately limited by him. In the scenario you illustrated it's only comparable if you created it entirely and had the ability to control the outcome. Also, it's demonstrable that a person can die falling off a 500 foot cliff whereas telling someone they'll go to hell for not seeking "salvation" isn't.

You guys have found the holes in ordinary Christian theology and are quite correct in your summations...except you may be wrong because the theology with the holes is wrong and they don't exist.

It is the ol' straw man again but the man believes in himself!!

I was once asked how could GOD tell us the truth about damnaton without coercing our free will (ie in your words, without threatening us)?

Since I get fussed for pretending to know the mind and words of GOD before our earthly existance, I told a little story to illustrate how it could happen. Plus I think better in stories than I do in logic class.

A man was walking along when he came to a fork in the path. As he stood contemplating his choice, he heard a voice from above him, "Just a bit down the left hand path is a tiger waiting for someone to come along."

Somewhat taken aback he looked up and saw an ordinary looking fellow sitting in a small platform in a nearby tree.

"Honest," said the man. "I can see it from here. But don't worry, it's not coming this way.""

Said the traveller, "I guess I'll go down the right hand path then" and gathered up his stuff.

"Ahhh said the man in the tree, "there is a price to pay for my help. You must tell everyone you meet that I saved you from a tiger and you must send them all to me to become my disciples and you yourself must also return to be my disciple."

Now the traveller was caught by surprise. It seemed to him that the man in the tree was only trying to use him to gain followers and increase his status. He was affronted that the guy would try to take advantage of him like that and said so.

He also demanded proof the tiger was there without going down the path himself.

"No proof," said the tree guy. 'You'll just have to take my word for it. As for using you, I save your life but you refuse me anything?"

"But what if I promise to do as you asked and turn right but the tiger kills me anyway?"

"Ahhh," was the reply, "I have a wonderful power and since I can see the tiger very well, I can assure you that the tiger will never kill you, even if you turn back and go down the left hand path. Give me your promise to be my loyal disciple and you are under my protection forever."

"Sounds pretty magical to me," said the traveller. "Show me proof of this power of yours."

"No can do," was the answer, "you must choose without proof by faith and go the way your heart leads you."

While the traveller dithers between a good promise from an ordinary man, to be under magical protection forever that on the surface seems to be selfish and self serving on the part of the man in the tree

and the dire warning of death by tiger which is to be obviously avoided but on the surface looked like an empty threat to manipulate him,

let's look a this dynamic from the point of view that everything the man in the tree said was true.

Therefore there was a tiger but in the abstract, without proof, the traveller was not afraid of it but could contemplate 'death by tiger' intellectually as a possiblility without fear.

Also, the magical promise to be under protection from death forever was almost too good to be true though it seemed so self angrandizing of the most ordinary man in the tree. Without proof either of the tiger or the magic there was no impetus compelling him to believe either way, though he now understood the real truth of the situation and the real consequences.

If the traveller was the type of man to disbelieve that any ordinary person could have access to magic he himself did not posses, well, how might he choose?

If he realized he hated anyone to raise himself up over him, then how might he choose?

If rather he was prudent and thought, "well once I get the promise I can do what I want," or if he thought "sure, the promise IS a small price to pay to possibly avoid death forever," how might he choose?

And so, from his own heart, knowing the consequences but without proof and therefore without coercion because there was no proof 'death by tiger' might be immanent, the traveller made his choice.

Man in tree = God

tree = He claims to be above us but looks ordinary

traveller = all spirits created in the image of God

the promise = the choice to join in loving communion with God and His church forever once we are taught how

and the tiger = the choice to rebel against God's invitation

death by tiger = eternal separation from the source of all love, sometimes called eternal hell

See, it's not so hard for me to concieve of a good and bad choice with the consequences known but since it is without proof, no compelling persuasion either of threat or of promise need sway us.

And if I can think of this little scenario off the top of my head, how much more so could God provide us with a true free will choice in which the full knowledge of the consequences would never disturb our self guiding heart or our self created future. Knowledge of hell fire but without the threatening fear suggested by some.

Of course I think this happened in Christian creation terms in the spirit world before we came to earth.

God, while hiding His divine nature, offered us an invitation to join His church and we learned in full and perfect detail the consequences of accepting (election and the gospel promise) and rebelling (becoming His eternal enemis who will be damned).

But no proof was offered, so we were free to talk it over, decide if we trusted this God who looked the same as everyone else or if He was a liar, a false god with no power and whose love was no better than what we already had.

Since the scriptures are clear that we are born on earth as sinners and cannot choose good, it is obvious this happened before we are born and we became sinners then. Therefore any argment against it using earthly experience as a proof it didn't happen that way, is suspect.

Peace to all, Ted

You're forgetting that there are thousands of religions (men sitting in trees giving advice) out there.

Include a thousand different men sitting in trees and it would improve your analogy. How can the traveler even know which guy in the tree to listen to?

[ttruscott]

...

So if I held a gun to your head and told you "worship me or else I shoot" I'm not in any way threatening you but rather just telling you the "truth"?

A gun to the head would be a coercion of my will.

God wants people who can love and engage HIM in holy communion. Love, holiness and worship are all products of a free will only. If there was any coercion at all, no love could be felt or shared.

BUT,
IF I told you that your choice was to worship me or your rejection would be to create evil for which you would be judged,

without offering any proof that I was GOD, or that I had any power at all and without showing any "gun" or threat except my words,

just how shivering scared would you be?

Not too much, I don't think:
1. He has not proven he has the power to damn or to bless.
2. He has not proven that his love is greater than our own.
3. He has not proven himself to be our creator and therefore worthy of extra worship.

You would be completely free to do what you wanted, accept HIS line or reject it.

And that is why I believe that is what happened; it is too perfect to ignore.

Peace, Ted

[Metatron]

...

So if I held a gun to your head and told you "worship me or else I shoot" I'm not in any way threatening you but rather just telling you the "truth"?

A gun to the head would be a coercion of my will.

God wants people who can love and engage HIM in holy communion. Love, holiness and worship are all products of a free will only. If there was any coercion at all, no love could be felt or shared.

BUT,
IF I told you that your choice was to worship me or your rejection would be to create evil for which you would be judged,

without offering any proof that I was GOD, or that I had any power at all and without showing any "gun" or threat except my words,

just how shivering scared would you be?

Not too much, I don't think:
1. He has not proven he has the power to damn or to bless.
2. He has not proven that his love is greater than our own.
3. He has not proven himself to be our creator and therefore worthy of extra worship.

You would be completely free to do what you wanted, accept HIS line or reject it.

And that is why I believe that is what happened; it is too perfect to ignore.

Peace, Ted

In the above scenario, God has given man literally no reason to believe him. And on the basis of a completely uninformed and unmotivated choice rest mans salvation or eternal damnation? God would have to be completely off his rocker to setup a universe this way.