There is nothing ( including being embarrased of or denying me) that my children could do to make me want to see them suffer or in some way pay for my pain from their actions. If this is true about all human parents then how can any human believe in a god whos's love is below the human parental standards of love? Who has the higher moral standard humans or the biblical god? Also as a parent should you ever wish your child to be subjective to you forever or would you wish your child to surpass you. Would you so fear for the survival of your child without you that you would encourage and or demand that that child learn and experience life for itself or would you insist that your child live under your watchful eye forever and die with you. This is no different than a supposed heavenly father. If one such being exist it would perfere you to risk all seaking a better or at least experienced life. This heavenly father would not care if you did not love him back he would only are that you loved and enjoyed your life.
Even being there felt that I do not understand how people can worship and pray for this imagionary father to come and destroy the life that they have and know. I do not understand why this life is so unloved. Why is it so bad to feel pain and death. Why is beauty only labeled to what is pleasing. Without death and pain life cannot exist or grow these should be loved for that if nothing else.
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I too used to think the way you do, but time has taught me many people regardless of religion affiliation simply do not love their children the way you or I would and putting their children before their own beliefs desires is not apparently a universal trait.
For a while I had a girlfriend with a child that was not mine. During this time my parental instinct kicked in I was very protective and i wanted the best for them like you it did not matter if they loved me back to me the job was simple do what I could to give them the best life had to offer and give them a safe environment to learn in, this way they could grow into themselves. This way they would have their own mind capable of making their own decisions while knowing enough to make their own priorities and act accordingly. Helping them get what they wanted was more important to me than them getting what I wanted for them.
This Instinct that came over me was impressive and struck me with awe. For a while I thought this must be what happens to everyone who becomes a father. But as I said time taught me otherwise, Living where I do I see people who let their unattended infants wander into the streets sometimes while they are incapacitated or otherwise distracted by the vices (drugs) that occupy their every thought. Other times I have seen people who try to control their children's life to the point where the children don't really have them some do this for safety or out of fear of loneliness some do it for other reasons like religion and some people are just outright controlling. And still many more parents just don't care one way or the other. Time taught me what I was too young and naive to see at the time, some people just don't have their children's interest at heart and lack the natural instinct some are apparently born with.
I am not a theist or anything like that, but what I ma saying is a father figure does not necessarily a good father figure. However to answer a few of your questions, what your saying is not true of all human parents but if it were a standard it could be argued that a gods standards are either higher or lower than those of his creations in many ways. Parents all the time wish their children to be subjective to them fore ever but as a good in my opinion parent, it should not matter if your kid surpasses you either however you should do what is in you power to provide the best chance possible for them to do so if they so desire. Selfish parents do as you say and so fear for the survival of their children that they often hang onto them for as long as they can eventually in the cases of healthy children it is best to eventually let them go. What I am getting at is everyone's situation is different it would be hard to determine if a god were to exist what its particular situation would be, especially when you consider an all-knowing god which would probably be privy to some information we did not know or understand.
All said though I can see such a god leaving us to our own devices to survive or die and live in the worlds of our creation for better or for worse no matter the circumstance, and really think of it all as more to ad to the experience. In cases like for example like the Christian god who would not have us judge each other, I can't picture a god with such a desire to be one who would judge anyone but himself.
Admirable thoughts, to be sure. I wish that parents like you would have more children so that these kinds of feelings would spread :)
Unfortunately, some parents love their children with the same appalling slant that theists see in the Father. they want unending worship and admiration, and once it's lost (no one is perfect, part of growing up is realizing that your parents are just people too) they are quick to forsake you completely unless you repent and agree to blindly love them once more.
Personally, I would never have children for vanity's sake, but I'm constantly shocked by how many people do.
Very well said g. Thank you for bringing me back to thinking.
"This heavenly father would not care if you did not love him back he would only are that you loved and enjoyed your life."
If only this really existed in religions, the world might be a better place as everyone wouldn't be trying to push their beliefs and rules on others, instead, they would just live their lives and be happy.
Yep, precisely. My point was that this doesn't even happen here on earth with human fathers, unfortunately. And as above so below...
You didnt mention the point that leviticus tells parents to kill their child for cursing them.
Parents vary between child abuse and love i suppose god could be any point on that wavelength.
I once thought maybe god just started the universe with physical laws and moved to the next.
The ultimate aim to see which laws were best to create the most stable life filled universe.
The bible portrays god as infallible but even if he were omnipotent hed have to experiment surely.
Leviticus says a *lot* of things. I don't see how most people would be able to maintain their belief after reading about all the crimes that they are obligated to commit in response to various trivial "wrongdoings"
Oh they say leviticus is irrelevant jeasus changed all that. They somehow (and i cant understand) seem to think because its stopped it never happened.
You're right. Something I realize as an atheist that I never thought about as a christian is that if God is truly unchanging, then his standards dont change either. If all that immoral, absurd stuff in the old testament was acceptable, he wouldnt change his mind about it. If he thought it was okay then, he thinks it's okay now. How can you believe in a changing covenant if you believe in an eternally unchanging God?
Good point about unchanging that means hes still the same psychotic mass murderer who 'caused the flood'. Check my the flood post i go into detail of what it would likely have been like if it actually happened.
It's really hard to understand how come a loving god act such way to his children, the bible seemed written vigorously by different authors without realizing that the stories did not coincide with the description of a merciful god.