Is the God of Creation the same god as the God of Judgment?

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   jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years ago

   I get the impression that people who claim to be christian are primarily concerned with God of Judgment, hence the belief in the forgiving nature of Jesus Christ.  Fear of that Judgment drives most of christian beliefs and actions.
   
   There are indeed some christian people who have a deep concern for the world around them, and they try to look after this world which they claim is the work of that God of Creation. Yet i would suggest the majority of christian people do not give very much consideration to protecting and preserving this physical world.  Commercialism can often take precedence over conservation.
   
   If you strongly disagree with my suggestion here, please tell me how you, as a christian person, work diligently at taking care of the environment and ecosystems around you.

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      Cgenaeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      We store our treasures on high.  This crap is goin ta hell in a handbasket!
      Fear of judgment is what drives men to deny God. It makes sense.
      I throws my garbage away!
      As did my forefathers. Lol.
      Take a shower whenever I feel.
      Oh!!! I keeps my grocery bags.

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   moonfrothposted 9 years ago

   JONNY -- You know the deep respect I have for your humanity, compassion, and openness about these gnarly questions.  I do tire, however, of the inevitable quagmire that awaits. 'I believe and you don't and you're doomed'.....'I do't believe and you're an idiot for worshipping a figment of the imagination'.   VERY few Christians will answer your direct question--as a Christian, what do you DO to protect the ecosystem?
   
   Actually, my good friend, you're guilty of a little untypical haziness in asking the question itself.  Working from the preamble about God as Creator or Judge, I would think the question should be:
   
   "As a Christian who believes your God of Creation made the physical world, do you honour Him by actively caring for the integrity of the environment and ecosystems which He placed around you?" 
   
   I don't mean to be presumptuous--just seems a more accurate phrasing of what you're trying to get at.  And having said all that, I now have to bow out.  I'm an Atheist, so I don't meet the basic criterion of a commenter.

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      jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Thank Moonfroth, that does indeed express it in a much better way.  Perhaps now my question will get some feedback.
      
      I too claim to be atheist.   Yet, when considering all the magnificent wonder of our world, I can't get away from contemplating the possibility of some unfathomable entity that has caused every phenomenon to come about.
      
      It's the intricacy and complexity of living bodies, whether they be of a bacterium, slime mold, ant, honey bee, the flight of a tiny bird through a thick forest, the automatic regrowth of a finger nail when you think you have "lost it."  Or the delicate fluid and saline balance that keeps our brains working all our lives, on a knife edge of existence.....  something connects us all in an integrated cycle of life and I cannot conceive pure chance as being the cause.   This is the awe that keeps me and my brain alive.
      
      Thanks for your feedback.

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         wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Which is more "unfathomable"?  The unfathomable universe or a vastly more complicated and intricate god that could create it with the snap of a finger?

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            jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            I have no idea.   No idea what such an entity would be like, what it's form would be, whether it would have fingers to "snap," or whether it exists at all.   
            
            If that entity (can't think of any other term to use in speaking of "it") is infinite, unmeasurable, then neither you nor I can ever see it, hear it, etc.   For me it's sufficient to perceive the effects of that entity, the manifestations, in the world of which I am conscious. 
            
            You don't need a religious belief in order to just be aware of your existence.  You can sit on a seat, looking out over a wonderful landscape; you can lie in bed dreaming of your favourite picnic spot; you peer down into a microscope and study nerve cells, or E.coli; you can enjoy art works; you can set up a statue of a woman and worship her. You can incorporate everything and anything into your life so as to really experience this existence.  The world is at your fingertips, just don't belittle or limit the world to ONLY what you perceive.   It's infinitely greater than that.
            
            Please forgive my ramblings....

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               wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               Fully agree that there is more to the universe than what we can perceive.  Not "infinite", but a great deal.
               
               But to think an entity made it all...well, it's easy enough to say, and even give a name ("God" in English), but as soon as we just scratch the surface of that concept it becomes instantly beyond whatever we could imagine - we can't get a grip on our own universe, let alone the entity that made it and IT'S "universe".  And that, seems to me, makes it a fruitless conjecture.

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                  jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Ok, Wilderness, yes a "fruitless gesture."  But then poetry can convey a feeling.  Theatre can paint a believable picture.  Doodling is a fruitless gesture.  In so many ways "play" is just a way of doing it without any apparent ulterior motive.
                  I suggest playing with the concept of a Creator is simply a good exercise for the mind....only to be resolved as far as any one of us wishes to take it.  Even then it's very personal, and I can respect it provided no one tries to shove it down my throat.

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                     wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Feelings, believable pictures and doodlings are a poor way to discover truth and fact. 
                     
                     "Only to be resolved as far as any one of us wishes to take it" - but the large majority of the religious claim to have taken it to the end; to KNOW their god (whichever one it is) exists and did this or that and said this or that.  And that is, of course, beyond any limits we can take the concept.
                     
                     I WILL say, however, that "fruitless gesture" is overstated and I should not have used it.  Religion provides a great deal of joy, happiness and relief to millions of people - it is not "fruitless" at all.  What IS fruitless is to try and convince the non-believer that the spiritual imaginings are, in fact, truth for we can never know the truth of a creating entity that cannot be detected and does not interact with this universe in any detectable manner.

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                     moonfrothposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     Wittgenstein contended that an entire philosophy could be fully developed, comprised of nothing but jokes.  A sense of humour connects us with incongruities at a profound level that defies rational analysis.  And what, when you get right down to it, is any successful philosophical system but a connection of hitherto discrete incongruities?  The laws of physics have ALWAYS been Laws, for heaven's sake!  No one 'invented' the law of buoyancy--but it took Heraclitus watching his leg float in the bath for it to be Discovered'.  No one invented gravity--but it took the  falling apple for Newton to 'Discover' it.  Poetry--great poetry, not silly Hallmark rhymes--is arguably the ultimate Discoverer of Truth because resolving incongruities is poetry's JOB.  I suspect Plato knew (or intuited) this great truth, and eschewed poetry because it would not lend itself to rational analysis.  Ironically, Plato's most memorable 'proof'' of the world of Ideal Forms is presented as an ALLEGORY---a Poetic form.  Well, there you are--no one said great minds had t be consistent.  How boring would THAT be?

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                        jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        Maybe the
                        Ideal Form
                        Of Poetic Licence
                        Would be as
                        As a great
                        Licentious
                        Poet
                        
                        Sorry about that  Moonfroth ...I awoke to a ping from my mobile and it's 3.30am and my mind has gone a bit dreamy!

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            jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            A further thought, Wilderness.... an idea that might be worth considering (only theoretical, I am not pushing it as something to be accepted):
            
            Just supposing there was a force (again call it what you like) right at the beginning, at the moment of the Big Bang let's say for argument's sake.  That force set the whole "creation" into being, gave it the first shove.  A bit like me beginning with a tiny fist-ful of snow, packing it together and setting it rolling down hill.  The resulting snowball is immediately out of my hands.  No longer can I direct it or influence its growth or pathway. 
            
            If that were how things of our Universe started, then you and I are the result of that first shove.  We are the manifestation of everything that happened before.  We collectively are that energy which begat us.  Also, we are ultimately responsible for what we do with it now.  And those who come after us will be intimately influenced by what we bequeath to them.
            
            Onerous task we have taken on, eh?

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               Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               The highest good is that which is for the sake of self and something else. It is not only good to take care nature's world, it is good for ourselves to take care of nature's world.
               For example. My kids, their friends and I used to go up to the mountains near where I live. There were rock cliffs the boys could jump off into 6 ft. deep portion of a stream that ran along the side of the mountain. The place is called Delta Flats. Well, we would go to Delta Flats often during the summer and it was a blast: picnicking, hiking, lounging in the stream against rocks and boulders and swimming in the deeper sections of the long meandering stream. We enjoyed our excursions for about two summers… But suddenly more and more people caught on and pretty soon trash started building up. One person after one person left their crap, their baby's diapers, their bottles, their beer cans. At first we would actually bring trash bags and clean it up. But eventually it became too disgusting. In so doing my kids learned respect and care of the land. They learned the effects of negligence and carelessness: slobishness.
               
               At this point in time, one must have a day permit from the forestry dept. to visit Delta Flats.
               So, now it is clean.
               Now, no one goes.

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                  jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  Spot on.  How sad that so many of us can be in the midst of beauty and plenty, yet ignore it, abuse it, waste it, squander it - even deny it and deprive others.

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                     wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     All too true.  But on the positive side, I often camp in undeveloped areas and more and more see people packing out trash they have picked up.  I've even seen people climb all over others for leaving trash behind.  So it isn't all bad, and perhaps is even improving.

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               wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               The concept is possible, but one I dismiss.  And I dismiss it because it negates the idea of free will - something that I value very highly.  After all, if all the conditions of the snowball and the hill it's rolling down were known the exact composition and actions of the snowball would also be know at every given moment.
               
               I also take exception to the idea that we are the energy that begat us; we are instead a collection of that energy and everything that has happened since, whether energy, matter or something else.  We have gone far beyond being simply that first push (mostly because of free will and indeterminate causation in this universe).

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                  jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  This is the sort of discussion I have been hoping for.  In this instant I go along with most of what you have said, but we don't have to agree - just open minds to other ways of thinking.

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                     wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                     But if those other ways of thinking produce only idle mental activity, with no possible goal or result in sight, why do them?  Wouldn't we be better off pursuing the unified field theory or something that might actually yield a result?  Plus, of course, there are millions of people unwilling to put the effort into actual thought and will instead latch onto whatever we might produce that fits with what they wish to believe.

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                        jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                        ....why do them?  You could ask why doodle?  Most of us do it, in one form or another.  Mostly it's unpreventable.  It tends to be only idle mental activity, conveyed to the fingers or whatever to dissipate that mental energy.  Must every thought process have a definite, logical, outcome?  For the individual that wishes that, yes.  For the person who is comfortable in the Just-Being, probably no.  Is this not where the Free Will you have spoken about comes into play?
                        
                        ....that might actually yield a result?   I love to search for meaning, for results, to understand the how and the why and the wherefore.  Other contributors in other hubs and discussions have shown the same.  You, Wilderness, seem to also.  Granted, our human species seems to have advanced because of this inquisitiveness.   
                        
                        But have the idle doodlers held us back?  I don't think so, over all.  Even the mind needs to rest now and then.   
                        
                        For me, it's more of a need to understand where people (including myself) are coming from and the reasons for belief or unbelief, that matter more than anything else.   If a person finds it imperative to hang onto a treasured belief in something, no matter how ridiculous or illogical it might appear to others, it's not the belief I need to understand, it's the person believing.   Through this, we might get some progress.  Arguing incessantly about the beliefs gets us no where useful, as these threads have consistently shown us.

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                           wildernessposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                           I stand corrected.  Mental games are indeed valuable and we do all indulge in them.  I will say, though, that the religious game is a particularly dangerous one.
                           
                           To search for truth, results and the hows and whys is great.  To search for a meaning that, by definition, is only meaning to the entity, is wasteful as we go into in knowing there is no answer for us. 
                           
                           Agree totally with your last paragraph.  I've seen several "reasons" for belief, and it does help considerably to understand those reasons.  They vary from person to person and give an insight to inside them, to how they think and what they want.  Their fears and their desires.  It is indeed useful to understand.

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                  Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years agoin reply to this

                  I completely agree.
                  (!)

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      Cgenaeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Is there a scripture that requests respect and care of the land?
      I have been of the mind that the earth takes care of itself. I hear all the noise about earth preservation but the earth has been preserving itself for a million gazillion eons, let Rad tell it... I couldn't do enough to damage it.

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         jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         Very predictable, Cgenaea.
         
         I can imagine your conversation with your god upon arriving at the Pearly Gates:
         
         "Ah, God, I'm here at last.   Thanks for waiting up for me.   My time on earth has been so important to me."
         
         "How, Child?  What has been so important to you that you manage to keep me waiting?"
         
         "Oh, God, I've been reading all those scriptures.   Day in and day out.  So much to take in..... and I have been such a good girl!  I really did keep those scriptures held up to everyone on earth.   Many of them are so stupid that they can't see what's good for them.  They could not even be bothered to accept faith in Jesus."
         
         "That was rather a waste of your time, Child.  He forgave you once.  You did not need to keep asking him.  You should have been looking after my flock and the bounteous Earth that I gave you."
         
         "But God, I could not find anything about that in the scriptures, so I didn't think it was important."
         
         "Child, did I not give you a brain to think with and work with?  There is only room for 144,000 of the very best here in my kingdom.  You have failed the grade.  Next ...."

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            Cgenaeaposted 9 years agoin reply to this

            You ARE imaginitive... lol...

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   Kathryn L Hillposted 9 years ago

   "As a Christian who believes your God of Creation made the physical world, do you honour Him by actively caring for the integrity of the environment and ecosystems which He placed around you?"
   
   Do you see that God is expressing himself in all creation?
   The grass is his hair. The trees are his limbs.  Water, fire, air and earth… its all Him at the subatomic level. The Indians prayed to Great Spirit and gave thanks for his bounty. Constant conference with nature was the example the Indians could have given those who barged into their world. As a child I learned about the ways of the Indian and was taught to revere them. When I went to camp, riding horses, walking in the mountains, swimming in the lake, it was easy to imagine I was an indian; walking carefully, listening intently, feeling the wind, reading the brush. Seeing birds fly up in the distance and play on the lake at sunset and hearing the call of coyotes in the distance on moon lit nights fueled my sense of wonder. Contemplating the rocks where indians had formed bowls while grinding acorns under the oak trees and feeling the peace of the constancy of the rhythms of life: night, morning, noon, evening…
   Oh, Johnny C.L., thanks for the topic… where am I.
   In one word …
   the answer, to this day, is:
   Yes.

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      jonnycomelatelyposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Nice to see that we are at last in total agreement, Kathryn, and it took Moonfroths words to get us there.
      He is a poet, too.  No matter that we are both a-theistic.  The Creation exists regardless and we all play our individual part in the Great Tapestry.

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   Cgenaeaposted 9 years ago

   I throws my garbage away! I won!

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