God and religion

[Rigel]

Two important points have still not been answered....

1) Of all the wondrous things that God created in his universe, why would he pick on man alone and demand that only man should worship him? If worship is important to God, why did he not give all his creations the ability to worship?

The short answer is because this is what God designed us and had commanded us to do.

Perhaps God desires worship from mankind because of the different relationship we have with God than with the rest of the creations in this universe. God created man in his own image and since this is the case we have a very special and unique relationship with God that no other creature has. We have a relationship with God like a husband and a wife have a relationship in marriage. This is why frequently throughout the scriptures God refers to the church as "His Bride". You will also see this in the book of revelation as well and throughout other books also in the Old Testament. Worshipping another god or anything else is equivalent to a wife straying and having an affair. Which is why when Israel worshipped other gods, the Lord was very upset and likened them to a prostitute.

There are many truths about marriage that reflect our relationship with God.

If any of us are married and love our wives we want to do our best to protect the relationship we have with them. Perhaps worship is a way that God protects our relationship we have with Him. God loves us and doesn't want our relationship with Him to be tainted or shattered.

Exodus 34:14 "For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:"

2 Corinthians 11:2 "For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ."

Ephesians 5:31-32
"For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church."

Ephesians 5:25 "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."

[mrRee]

Two important points have still not been answered....

I'm not trying to prove something here...just giving a thought..and add some more wrinkles...

1) as far as I concern, not just man, but also all other creations must worship Him...because we as human have mind and lust, we're subject to choose whether to worship Him or not...

God is All-knowing...He already know who'll believe in Him and who'll not...but, if He is All-Knowing all along, why He didn't just put everything in their respective places from the very beginning?(usually, this question will be asked)..but the 'Eternal Fire' dwellers will complain that they didn't have a chance to prove that they didn't belong there if He does so...life is just a mere test...

2) primitive man(as what everyone like to call them) had been given revelation from the God via prophets...as why the religions very contradict from one another, people choose to confuse themselves...they start to add and change the original revelation...instead of worshiping God, they tend to worship their religion...

Assuming there is a god that created the universe, the earth and life on it, including us, humans, why would this God pick up just a single nation (or just several) to reveal himself to, to demand worshiping?

God had revealed Himself to all nations...some nations mentioned in the Sacret Books just for us to take the examples...if every single nations will be stated in the text, then you'll be spending most of your life just to read the history of all nations...

why does he let as fight against each other, why doesn't he reveal himself to all of us so that we know he exists and there is only one God,

the revelation from Him is clear via His prophets...if He revealed Himself(literally), do we gonna believe that?...if prophets that can perform miracles also been deceived by their own people, do you gonna think what I think...it just the matter of Free Choice...

The fact that so many places around the globe god is portraited different (and I'm not refering to physical traits)

I don't think it's different...All-Knowing, Most Powerful, etc are all the same...the only different is with God's name(doesn't matter, it just a name) and the number of God/Gods...

//feeling strange inside...

[Rigel]

If we all are his children, as the Bible and AFAIK the Quran say and probably other sacre text, why does he let as fight against each other, why doesn't he reveal himself to all of us so that we know he exists and there is only one God, a true God (not necesarly as viewed by Christians, Jews, Muslims or others)? Why does he let us labeling eachother as non-believers, why does he let us fight in his name (whether his name is Yehowah, Allah, Brahma, Shiva, or anything else)? It doesn't make too much sense to me. Actually at all. I don't know what such a god has to gain from this.

Here is my question for you Cilu.
Let's say hypothetically speaking that God did do this and He revealed Himself to all of us in clear plain daylight so that there is absolutely no question of all about his deity or existence, would you still want to worship Him? Would you desire to love Him and carry on a relationship with Him? Would you desire to follow and walk with Him every day?

[Rigel]

In case anyone might be interested I thought I'd post some links to some very good faithful teachers of scripture. I have found that these two organizations are very faithful with the Word of God. Sometimes it can be very hard to find good sound Biblical teaching in today's world.

Christian Research Institute
Hank Hanegraaff
www.equip.org

Ligonier Ministries
R.C. Sproul
www.ligonier.org

There are of course several countless other pastors/organizations/churches around the world that teach sound doctrine, but just thought I'd post a few of them I'm very familiar with here.

I consider R.C. Sproul one of finest theological scholars in Christianity today. Some of his work are true gems.

[Rigel]

God wants to have a relationship with us. He wants us to understand and come to a knowledge of Him and His ways. He wants to fellowship with us. We are not going to truly find God unless we start seeking after Him. If we constantly reject Him in our lives He will never reveal Himself to us. Why should He reveal Himself to us if we keep turning away from Him?

Jeremiah 29:13
"And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me withall your heart."

Honest... you will find God if you seek after Him.
God is accessible to any one of us if we will just look to Him and come to Him with a searching heart. I know there are lots of people that have no idea why I can be so dogmatic about the scriptures. To many I must seem very narrow minded/brainwashed, but I'm telling you that God is very very real. From personal experience and from studying the scriptures I know without a doubt that God exists and His Word is true.

Anyone else can also find Him as well. Why not pray to Him and ask Him to reveal Himself to you? Why not start searching for Him instead of rejecting Him?

It's not too late to search for God yet.
But that door of opportunity exists only for a short time.

[Zeb]

We are not going to truly find God unless we start seeking after Him. If we constantly reject Him in our lives He will never reveal Himself to us. Why should He reveal Himself to us if we keep turning away from Him?

he sounds like a bit of a snob to me

[back on a serious note...]
My question to you is - why should we look to him when he keeps turning his back on us? This year alone is enough evidence that this is the case - tsunami, hurricane, war... I could go on.

[and back to the light side again - no Cilu, not that light side ]
And why do we use capital "H" when referring to him? Last time I looked, "he" was not a proper noun

[Pinky98]

My question to you is - why should we look to him when he keeps turning his back on us? This year alone is enough evidence that this is the case - tsunami, hurricane, war... I could go on.

Um, now in all fairness... if you are so convinced that he doesn't exist then I hardly think you can get upset if he doesn't do things the way you want them done!! Although I guess this is kind of a chicken and the egg thing... i.e. who should make the first move.

But that said, bad things do happen to good people. What you want to define as good is relative... but for purposes of this debate consider that bad things happen to christians... Now that I would have thought is a far more interesting question. Heck in the beginnings of the christian church, one could almost say nothing BUT bad things happened to christians.

Right now I am going to bed... so I'm not going into it now... I'm just not up to it. Besides I am sure some one else is more qualified to answer it here. I'll check back later.

And why do we use capital "H" when referring to him? Last time I looked, "he" was not a proper noun

As far as I know (I may be wroung) the capitalisation is simply traditionally used as a sign of respect. But, the capitalisation of God and Lord is because they (the simple nouns "god" and "lord") are being used as proper nouns... so that has a litterary basis.

[Pinky98]

Oh yeah... I got one other question I wanted to ask...

Seriously, a question meant to be answered.
What would it take for you to believe? Obviously supposing there is a God.
Some miracle? God in person? Booming voice for the heavens? A heart to heart chat with the big guy himself? Some apocoliptic event (rivers and seas boiling / fire and brimstone / dogs and cats living peacefully together... sorry bad Ghostbusters quote... sort of)?

I'm just curious.

[Deniz]

Honest... you will find God if you seek after Him.
God is accessible to any one of us if we will just look to Him and come to Him with a searching heart. I know there are lots of people that have no idea why I can be so dogmatic about the scriptures. To many I must seem very narrow minded/brainwashed, but I'm telling you that God is very very real. From personal experience and from studying the scriptures I know without a doubt that God exists and His Word is true.

Anyone else can also find Him as well. Why not pray to Him and ask Him to reveal Himself to you? Why not start searching for Him instead of rejecting Him?

It's not too late to search for God yet.
But that door of opportunity exists only for a short time.

I can testify to the %100 truthfullness of that post.

Many of you knew me since I first joined this forum and I wasn't a Christian. When you search for God & pray in His Son's name miracles happen. But you need to let go of your pride & understand who you are praying to. When you pray you are speaking to the creator of the universe.

Can you personally speak to your countries prime minister? Probably not. Can you reach the most powerful man on earth, the president of the USA? Probably not. But I tell you, you CAN speak directly to the creator of the Heavens & Earth & He is willing to listen to you and genuinely interested in each and every one of us.

Leave the doubts aside, approach Him with respect & a genuine searching heart, and you will see great miracles. Yes Cilu, even you can see things which your scientific mind can not explain away.

Trust me the answers to all the questions above have been asked and answered many times before. The state of the world today is not God's fault, it is mans fault and mans love of sin. God created a perfect world but man chose to sin. This is a fallen world but the good news is you don't have to go down with it.

[Zeb]

What would it take for you to believe?

Tangible proof. It's not hard. Faith is not enough for me.

[Deniz]

Oh yeah... I got one other question I wanted to ask...

Seriously, a question meant to be answered.
What would it take for you to believe? Obviously supposing there is a God.
Some miracle? God in person? Booming voice for the heavens? A heart to heart chat with the big guy himself? Some apocoliptic event (rivers and seas boiling / fire and brimstone / dogs and cats living peacefully together... sorry bad Ghostbusters quote... sort of)?

I'm just curious.

I was a stubborn one so it took me some divine signs. It is different for everyone.

[Deniz]

Tangible proof. It's not hard. Faith is not enough for me.

I'm the same. I took nothing on blind faith untill I knew I wasn't speaking to thin air.

[Rigel]

Trust me the answers to all the questions above have been asked and answered many times before. The state of the world today is not God's fault, it is mans fault and mans love of sin. God created a perfect world but man chose to sin. This is a fallen world but the good news is you don't have to go down with it.

Exactly...
The entire universe has been tainted with sin. Because of this we have all these problems. We have wars, we have violence and wickedness in its various forms. But God will one day balance the books. One day when God creates the new heavens and the new earth everything will be perfect. But until that time happens we are living in a world and universe that has been corrupted with sin.
Nothing will ever be perfect in this universe.


True story... I'm not exagerrating anything here.
One time back when I was in college I took a temp job working for an apartment complex. I was working with another temp guy who was a substitute teacher. He seemed very depressed and I could tell on the look on his face that he wasn't a happy person. One morning I decided to share with him the gospel message. I don't know why or how I thought of the idea, I just felt like I should share with him the good news of Jesus Christ. We sat down and chatted as usual on the first floor of the complex. I was looking for an open door to share with him the Bible and he told me he took a religion class back when he was in college. I used that as a spring board to share with him the scriptures and it's message. We had talked for about 15 minutes or so and he obviously rejected what I had to say about the scriptures. We got up to go and start our work. He took the right hallway and I went straight forward. Later on when I come back to the buckets I see a wet Bible track laid out on one of the buckets with the bold words "Are you ready to meet God?". The subsitute teacher found this Bible track as he was mopping the floors.

We went and sat down to take a break inside the laundry room and I told him "I think God is trying to tell you something". We then got into another debate about the scriptures for quite a while. He never agreed with what I had to say but I'm sure God was drawing Him. I don't know the outcome but I'm sure that a seed had been planted within his heart.
What is the likelihood that such an incident could occur in such fashion? It's highly unlikely.

God is real and at times God works in mysterious ways.
There is a God and He exists.

[Deniz]

Spooky story Rigel.

I have a few even spookier stories that happened to me but I'll spare you all.

Plus I wouldn't want people thinking I'm crazy or I'm the biggest liar or whatever.

[mrRee]

[back on a serious note...]
My question to you is - why should we look to him when he keeps turning his back on us? This year alone is enough evidence that this is the case - tsunami, hurricane, war... I could go on.

it's the other way round...we're the one that always turn our back on Him....see how we treat this world(including the erathlings)....

as for the tsunami, hurricane, I could go on....that was just a test...how we take that, that'll reflect our belief....

war...that's because human choose to war...even in the remote place where no one heard aboud God, they''ll fight each other...because they choose to fight...

again, it's my guess after some readings...don't blame me if I said it wrong...I'm not a cleric...

EDIT: i'm not saying God was selective to reveal Himself....if the man in the remote place ask for Him sincerely, He surely will answer...