In my last post, discussion turned to the question of whether or not we need God. One of my regular contributors, William, posted the following comment, and I felt it deserved its own post:
I am just having problems understanding whether humans “need” a god.
Do humans “need” a father? it may be beneficial if it’s a good father, but we can see many who get along fine who have not had a father, so “need” is the wrong term.
And what if that father is never around, left before you were born, and only left a letter to you explaining (not always in the easiest or most direct of terms) how he expects you to behave and promises that he’ll take care of you and promises to severely punish you for disobedience or for leaving him?
is that a good father? is that a father we need? isn’t it laughable that such a father could even begin to threaten the child for “leaving him” (since the father clearly left the child) not to mention how absurd it is to think that such a father actually does anything to really take care of the child?
I’m having a hard time understanding how we’re ingrained to “need” such a father, or why we’d even call such a father good?
Finding Truth 
If there is a God, I just wish he’d just accept us all, because we all need Him.
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Portal-
“Trust, thats what I struggle with”
Everyone does. 🙂
“I just wish he’d just accept us all, because we all need Him.”
He does.
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then God bless you 🙂 I wish I could subscribe to your reality, but the bible doesn’t say that
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I mean that 🙂
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Peace, Portal.
Blessings on your continued journey, wherever it leads. God knows we all need it 🙂
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its 4:06 Am here, I feel I am wasting my time questioning God, maybe I should just trust
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“its 4:06 Am here”
OMG! I’m nowhere near that dedicated to any discussion 🙂
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Its horrible to lose faith, to lose foundation, and depending to how you see the bible, those people (including me, are already lost). Those who read the passage you know what I mean. I just struggle to trust without direct instruction. and if this is not true, then this has wated my time, my life, those precious moments, because this has been a fixation. I can’t understand how others gleam over this. Maybe they don’t. I just don’t know, my grandparents are gettingolder, I don’t wanmt them to go to hell. I used to evangelise to my Grandmother before she died, I expressed to her the prayer of salvation, I believe she was saved, because if I don’t believe that, thats horrible. God judges best doesn’t He? These are just my honest thoughts.
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This is serious, this is the foundation
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you could do that portal, but how would you decide what to place your trust in? In allah, jehovah/Jesus, Buddah, something else, all of the above…?
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and I again and again stuff up
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even now
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I don’t understand why this isint deadly serious, this is life Jesus says He is the Life. thats it, and i don’t follow Him, I have never followed Him, because Im lazy. I abstain from sin, but in my own effort. If Jesus is the Son of God, this is serious
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Why dont people take this seriously? I dont take it seriously enough by far. Id rather live a life of escape. but really, does anyone? or are we more focused on everything else?
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very true. If the bible is god’s word and jesus is indeed his son, then it is serious indeed. but what if it’s just like all the other religions in the world? a nice try, but not from god…
What does the evidence point to?
I used to pray for guidance on this issue… still do. It only became clearer to me that the bible is not god’s. and old fouled up book makes as much sense a fruit from god, when writing the words on stone would at least have preserved the originals and speaking to each of us directly would do even so much more.
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This is a serious question for some people, some people can’t move, some people are trapped in their doubt. This isin’t a game.
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Portal, sounds like your on the edge of discovery but dont trust your own eyes. be brave and walk through that door. see what you find there.
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if the emphasis is always on us, to trust, to believe, I have done not enough. But I still hope God we’re true. How terrifying it is.
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##### this is not just a point of discussion
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William,
Gehenna was the Valley of Hinom which was located right outside the walls surrounding the city of Jerusalem. It was a place of notoriety to the Jews – the location where they burned their children to the god, Molech and it had become the constantly burning trash heap outside the city … quite stinky.
Here’s a link: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Gehenna
I find it interesting that this dictionary’s first definition is “a place or state of torment or suffering”. Where in the world did they get that??! (Oh, right, the CHURCH! damn) It was just the trash heap outside of Jerusalem. I think when you understand that along with O.T. references to fire (usually cleansing rather than destruction – even in Sodom & Gomorrah’s case, since it is prophesied that they will be restored), then our idea of “hell” becomes silly nonsense used to control people (much like the Pharisees used to do by threatening to put people out of the temple).
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William: “and it also seems like the jew’s notion of hell changed as they became influenced by the Persians and then the greeks.” In fact, the word “hell” is nowhere to be found in the Hebrew bible. All the Jews knew about was sheol. The word itself did not even come into existence until around 725 CE and was an Old English word (hel, helle) used as a reference to the netherworld of the dead. Its core meaning is “to hide, conceal.”
The word the gospel writers used (where they said Jesus talked about hell or hell-fire) was gehenna, from the Greek word geena, which is the equivalent of the Hebrew ge-hinnon (literally: the valley of Hinnom). It was in the valley of Hinnom that King Ahaz made molten images to the pagan god Moloch and then performed the abominable practice of burning his own sons for a sacrifice (King Manasseh did the same.) Eventually, Josiah (a righteous king) abolished these practices and in later years the area became known as the Valley of Slaughter, a burial place for the corpses of those who did evil in god’s sight. When Jesus used the word gehenna, the Jews immediately recognized it as a very bad place, but not the place of “eternal punishment” as it is understood today.
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those who believe, is your faith all different? or do you all have a common belief? Im so tired of being fixated on this, I want truth, and this is all so directly hidden. Why? what is the point? Like I said before this isin’t a game by far
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I wish I could express my frustration at this, why do we treat this as just a point of contention? >>>>>>>>>>>>>
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I know what you mean. If Allah’s true and Muhammad is his true prophet then I’m in bad shape. If thor is real, then he’ll really be after me for making fun of his pretty hair – he has a nice beard though.
if buddah’s real, then no big deal, i’ll just have to go through it all again, but i dont think i’d complain about it.
if zeus is real? And if dracula is real, then I’m in danger too since I discarded my cross long ago.
there could be so much to fear, but there could also be nothing to fear. A lot of people on here like to act like god accepts people soo easily, but that’s not what I ever read in the bible either. There never seemed to be a good measure as to whether you made the cut.
but that’s really beside the point. once you step back and really look at it, it’s no more believable than the greek mythology, and everything starts to make much more sense.
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william, Why did you ask?
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