Many of the people who say that they know What God Wants are killing us. It is not lack of knowing What God Wants that is hurting us, it is thinking that we know without a doubt. Therein lies real danger.
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Over the next half year of Sundays, from June until Christmas, I am going to be posting excerpts here from the book What God Wants, and commenting upon them. I invite you to comment upon them as well, in the space provided below. Then, I will comment on your comments. And you can comment on mine. It is time, I think, that we had a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion of this important topic. It is time for all of humanity to have this discussion. Because humanity's beliefs about God, and about what God wants, are driving the engine of the human experience.
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Last week in this space I said that humanity does not understand What God Wants.
This Sunday I say, consider this: If humanity does understand What God Wants, and if the present world situation is the best that humanity can do after all these years with that information, how much hope can there be for a brighter tomorrow?
If we really know everything that it is truly important to know about God--and if all that has been revealed, all that has been taught, all that has been said and sung about God has brought humanity to this, then what good has all of it been?
Yet if there is something new for us to learn, something more for us to understand about God, then it's still possible for the human condition to change. Hope returns. Not hope for something better in the Hereafter, when life as we've known it on the earth has been destroyed, but hope for something better right here right now, before everything has been destroyed.
That hope cannot be realized, however, until some very important questions are asked and answered.
Is it true that humanity is utterly stubborn, completely unwilling and absolutely unable to overcome its most primitive instincts? Or is it possible that there is still some teaching left to be done, some data still missing, some important aspect of God and Life still not understood?
Could it be that the problem is not with the receivers of the information, but with the information itself?
Could it be that humanity's understanding of God and of Life is not so much "wrong" as it is simply incomplete?
Finally, is it time for humanity to throw open the door to inquiry about God in a new way?
For far too long the world's discussion about God has been moving in only one direction, led in the main by those who say that we understand all there is that's really important for us to understand about God, and who assert that humanity's problems are not caused by human beings who fail to understand, but by human beings who fail to act on their understanding.
This is a popular notion, but it's a misconception. Just the opposite has been true. It has been people who did act on what they understood about God who have caused many of our biggest problems.
These are people who thought they knew What God Wants.
It's people who thought they knew What God Wants who created the 200 years of the Christian Crusades and the horrors of the Inquisition, seeking to win the world for Christianity.
It's people who thought they knew What God Wants who told armies of Muslims to send marauders far and wide to conquer every land and culture and bring it under the Nation of Islam.
It's people who thought they knew What God Wants who called themselves the Chosen People and reclaimed land they declared to be originally their own, ignoring the fact that history had caused it to be inhabited for thousands of years by others, and telling those others to now leave portions of that land, and to live when and how they are told to live, as second class citizens without equal rights in their own home.
It's people who thought they knew What God Wants who hanged men and women in town squares, and burned others at the stake, holding up the Good Book and declaring them to be witches.
It's people who thought they knew What God Wants who passed laws making it illegal for humans of differing races to marry, or for consenting adults to engage in certain sexual practices.
It's people who thought they knew What God Wants who created cultural prohibitions forbidding people to sing or dance, draw pictures of any person, or play music of any kind except sacred songs.
It's people who thought they knew What God Wants who said that it was not okay to even utter or write the name of G-D--but that it was okay to kill in G-D's name.
Is all of this really What God Wants?
Are you sure?
It is important to be sure, because we are not talking about a small thing here.
(This series of excepts from What God Wants continues in this space next Sunday.)
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Over the next half year of Sundays, from June until Christmas, I am going to be posting excerpts here from the book What God Wants, and commenting upon them. I invite you to comment upon them as well, in the space provided below. Then, I will comment on your comments. And you can comment on mine. It is time, I think, that we had a wide-ranging and in-depth discussion of this important topic. It is time for all of humanity to have this discussion. Because humanity's beliefs about God, and about what God wants, are driving the engine of the human experience.
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Interesting comment. On what revelation(s) are you basing your opinion? What happens if you die and found out you were wrong? As for myself, I like to have a faith that is not based on supposition and hoping like heck I'm right. My faith is based on evidence that is supportable and real, and I have assurances that I will be taken care of when I leave this world. I like that kind of security! I don't have to hope I'm right, or hope that whatever being is sitting there accepts what I've done with my life and that he/she/it deems it "good enough."
God does want things from us. In His Word He lets us know that He wants us to be holy as He is holy, and that He wants our lives to be marked by righteousness, which means right living. Right living according to His standards, not our own. He wants us to love, worship, and praise Him, and to love others and put their needs above our own. James puts it this way in his epistle, "Religion that God accepts as faultless and pure is this; that you take care of widows and orphans in their distress, and keep yourself from being polluted by the world."
That is what God wants from us.
God bless, and have a great day!
Chief1989
What God wants... This issue contradicts itself. A perfect God, in want? God wants nothing. Or He isn't perfect. Our varying ideas on what God is and what he wants is often the source of conflict among us. It also gives rise to Atheism. Come to think of it. All our post here assume that there's a God. I would like to hear one who says there isn't any. For all we know, he might negate only the God who we generally recognize! In that sense, many of us here may be considered Atheists.
Chief1989 is comfortable with his Bible. That's what he wants. Some of us are Lutherans, Catholics, Sunnis, Buddhists, LDS, etc. We are comfortable with it. That's what we want. Some of us are searching. Search. That's what we want. Now here's the killer question: What does God want? The Catholics will say, He wants us to be Catholics. The Muslims will say, He wants us to be Muslims. Etc. Etc. With whom will God side?
I think the more logical question would be, What does man want? Sorry. I used the word because man embraces woman! Or should it be the other way around? What do we want? We better be clear with what we want because what we want for ourselves is what God wants for us! I think.
So God creates man, but the critical question in your mind is what does the created want, because the creator will want that for him? That is an absurd assumption, an illogical statement.
What if I want to rule the world with absolute power and authority, and I am willing to step on anyone who gets in my way, and I will ruthlessly purge anyone who doesn't like it. Is that what God would really want from me?
A perfect God would want perfection, not nothing. When God created the heavens and the earth, he proclaimed it to be good. When he created man, he said be fruitful and multiply, and you will tend the garden and have dominion over the plants and beasts. That seems to be wanting something, does it not? Here, I put you in this beautiful place, now take care of it, have babies, and spread out. That does not seem like wanting nothing.
What does God want, you ask? He told Abraham to walk before him and be blameless. That's something. He told Moses to go to the base of the holy mountain and worship him there. He told Jonah to go evangelize the Ninevhites. He was, and is, always telling people to go, baptize, make disciples, spread the gospel, live in unity and peace with one another, etc etc etc. He doesn't say to become a Catholic, or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or an Atheist. He tells us to repent and call on his name, and to believe in the name of the son he sent to save us.
Robert
Robert or Turk 182,
Here's more "absurdities" and "illogical statements" which I hope will help make my point a bit clearer. Creation is nothing but man's creation. There never was any creation. There's only one Universe as we know it, including the ones we're not even aware of. Bible folklore tells as of a God who created earth and and lighted it with a big and some smaller lamps. When Galileo and Copernicus told us it isn't so they ran into trouble with guardians of the Bible. Now we know better. No matter how our telescopes advance, we see no end to the billions of galaxies that add up to the ones we already know.
There's hardly a group of people or tribe that didn't create a god of one form or the other. The people then, as now, were in a dark on so many things so they came up with gods whom they attributes such powers that will, basically, protect them from the fearful unknown. In the same manner, the Hebrews created a god in the OT that serve them well in their fight for survival against numerous enemies that surround them. It was eventually "adopted" by many nations, each adding their own ingredient or embellishments that soon made itself unrecognizable even by the original creators. One of these additions is Jesus of the NT, perhaps to make the god of the OT more palatable. Soon however, this Jesus appeared differently in as many forms to the various sects that compose Christianity.
Martin Luther thought at first that the Bible being the word of God would be understood and interpreted the way he did by anyone who has read it. So he translated the Books in German and distributed as much copies of it as he could. He was in for a disappointment. No 2 persons interpreted it alike, much less as he did. This gave rise to evangelists who had to prove first that they were chosen messengers of God before being able to present their ideas based of the Book. Yet no sensible evangelist would dare venture into passages that run counter with what they say. And the Bible is full of such contradictions! Bloody inter-sect conflicts were modern day occurrences.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the world other set of ideas are catching fire. Islam is one. Such were the followers of this religion that it's clash with Christianity were often bloody and mortal. Some people who posts here claim that Islam is tolerant of other religions. Maybe he is. But it is a reality that in some Muslim countries people get into serious trouble for being caught in possession of a Bible. Inter-sect rivalry is no less deadly.
A wise guy summed it all up. Religions does not make people better. It's people who make religions better, or at least keep them in check.
I hope this blog serves the purpose. You see Robert or Turk, we aren't brothers and sisters under the fatherhood of God. We are one. This is why he wants for us what we want for ourselves. Only a culture of separation would want to subdue and dominate others.
Ah, Tax, you use the age old defense of the uninformed - "The Bible is full of contradictions!"
Could you point some of those out to me, please?
Thanks!
Robert
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