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How should you follow god?

Out of fear of punishment (hell) 0.05 5.0% [ 1 ]
Out of what you believe is truly righteous? 0.95 95.0% [ 19 ]
Total Votes:[ 20 ]
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Hey ED, it's me again with another question for you as part of my larger study into Christianity. My question for you this time is hypothetical.

What is better, to follow God out of fear of his punishment (hell) or to do what you believe is the real good despite the possibility of going to hell over it.

Let me elaborate on this. The question was asked "What is morality? Are things moral because God said them, or did God say them because they were moral". I believe that God said them because they were moral, as there are certain things that god can say that most of us would never consider moral, mass murder and etc. However, that raises the question of literal interpretations in the Bible. The Bible states clearly that many things are good which we would consider immoral, and vice versa. (Product of the time? Who knows).

Anyways, throughout time there have been people who fought against certain interpretations of the bible for what they believed was the real good. Women got the ability to dress how they want, be active in their churches, and consider themselves equals with men. Slavery became declared an immoral practice that should never be allowed. Mixing of the races is now accepted. Recently, Gay marriage is slowly becoming a thing.

In all these cases, those who did what they believed was right get threatened with death and hell fire for deviating from our current understanding of god and the scriptures. If you don't think a specific way, you are a heretic. However, if they never did this, the Christian world would look significantly different then what we have today. A little more like the Muslims we fight over seas.

So back to my question, what is better? Should you follow god strictly out of the fear of hell, or follow god in what we believe is righteous?

Shirtless Member

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Doing anything out of fear is, in my opinion, highly insincere. If a person were not afraid would they still do the things they were told to do? Not likely or they wouldn't have to be scared into doing them.

Now, I do feel there are exceptions to the rule. Whenever I'm faced with a misbehaving horse, such as the time one charged me to get through the gate I was blocking, fear makes me want to jump out of the way. Which is completely logical. However, fear of my mother, who told me not to let any horses through that gate, made me charge the horse right back and scream bloody murder at him. Now, in hindsight my mother would not have been upset with me for just getting out of the way and letting the horse through, it did outweigh me by over 500 pounds at the time. But I learned that if I act like I'm ten times bigger than the horse and get really mad... They will run away from me nine times out of ten. So sometimes doing an unusual behaviour out of fear can be good.

I do not feel that following a deity out of fear that is ever good. I compare it to staying with an abusive spouse out of fear, which is never a good thing. There can be no truly close relationship, or any trust, when fear is the dominant emotion held by either party. Which is why I flip my s**t when people try to use fear tactics to convert me.

Liberal Friend

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Christians should follow God because they believe in what is right, not because of the fear of hell. The former isn't mental abuse.

Noob

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God believes the former.

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saturnflair2009
Should you follow god strictly out of the fear of hell, or follow god in what we believe is righteous?


No.

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Hypothetically speaking the answer will still be no. Regardless of fear tactics or not. Why should I? God of the bible, if one actually looks at the character of God and not just accept the notion that God is good. God is love bullshit. God not only have to scare his followers with eternal damnation; but also with the abuse of his own powers.

Nothing says love you like punishing every single generation of people after Adam and Eve set God's plan into motion by doing exactly what an omniscient being want them to do in the first place. To eat from the tree so he can have an excuse to brutally punish his children.

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I get joy from following God, and I believe He is righteous, and I do fear eternal hell. Heck, I went in 5th grade to a juvenile detention center on a field trip and threw up.

Which is better? Whatever floats your boat to start believing. God says come as you are. However, you don't really stay as your are as a Christ follower.

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I think you are confused as to what the Bible says. What GOD says is moral, is what's moral. The problem with US trying to say what's moral is we can be deceived. Now orgies aren't moral, but to someone who enjoys them and isn't in a relationship, they would think there is nothing wrong with them. If we don't follow what God says is moral, morality becomes relative

Women were supposed to dress a certain way to show modesty. What is moral about the way women dress now? They expose most of their bodies and don't leave much to the imagination.
Women back then WERE considered equal with men and are considered so in the Bible. We were just supposed to have different roles because we have different perks, unlike today where the gender lines have been blurred.

Slavery was never accepted in the Bible. God's chosen people were held in slavery and freed by Him. What about that makes slavery sound like its good? You have slavery confused with an indentured servant, which means you WILLINGLY work for someone to pay off a loan or to live with them.
The mixing of races was never seen as a bad thing. That is why there were so many different races in the Israelites. And gay marriage IS immoral. Sodomy is NOT sanitary. Also, the laws of nature says if we're all gay, we either die off or have to do it God's way. Homosexuality is LUST. Lust is a sin because lust is immoral.

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Fist of Eden
I think you are confused as to what the Bible says. What GOD says is moral, is what's moral. The problem with US trying to say what's moral is we can be deceived. Now orgies aren't moral, but to someone who enjoys them and isn't in a relationship, they would think there is nothing wrong with them. If we don't follow what God says is moral, morality becomes relative

Declaring a newborn girl twice as impure as a newborn boy - and thus requiring double the priestly barbecue tax and twice the sequestering - is moral. Not having tassels on the end of your clothing is immoral. Banging your brother's widow so that she bears HIS children through your life-juice is a moral obligation. (Punishable either by being slapped by the widow's left shoe, or death if coitus interruptus was also involved.)

But as for this idea that the morality of God is absolute: just a few counterpoints.

He rewarded Abraham's lie (withholding Sarah's status as his wife, while honestly presenting her as his half-sister, so incest is clearly involved) by punishing two foreign kings who believed the lie. Note that this incest is not a problem, but two of Israel's political enemies (the Moabites and Ammonites) are given origin stories that directly involve incest.

He rewarded Jacob's lie by allowing him to use BLASPHEMY to steal Esau's blessing. (What, there's a blessing budget?)

Adulterers are to be put to death, and illegitimate children essentially excommunicated for ten generations. Unless you're the firstborn b*****d child of David and Bathsheba, in which case you die for the crime of being a b*****d, and your parents are "punished" for THEIR crime by... your death, while they get to continue perpetrating the crime for the rest of their lives.

One interracial marriage (Israelite - Moabite) is sufficient grounds for 24000 people (who aren't the interracial couple) to be murdered by a godplague that only relents after a priest murders the couple with a spear; another (same pairing) spawns one of David's parents.

It's also a "moral" system where embracing (rather than being utterly repulsed at!) the idea that an innocent person's death is sufficient punishment for everyone's crimes causes that death to be sufficient punishment; but thinking that such a system is immoral is sufficient grounds for infinite eternal torture for ALL the crimes, including existing.

Noob

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Sugarbeary
I do fear eternal hell.

Why fear what you are liberated from?

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Cosmic Injustice
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I do fear eternal hell.

Why fear what you are liberated from?

As mentioned, I have a *healthy* fear of getting in trouble/going to jail/going to hell.

There are many mentions in the bible of fearing the Lord, and the Lord's wrath.

Sure, fearing hell could be mentioned as a healthy portion of my beliefs that is not the total or even the majority of the reasons I believe, which I mentioned in the snipped quote. But also, not fearing God in general, not just the aspects of heaven/hell leads to a life that does not reflect a belief in God.

Not fearing God gives you liberation from his commands, although Paul's writings in Romans makes it clear that we are all either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness, so you exchange custody.

What argument you are trying to make really opens up the door to a deeper theology than you can handle, as someone with little to no faith and no biblical knowledge except what you have heard from people. And that isn't to attack you, its to say that you might not understand this explanation.

This is John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Supporting John 3:16, Romans 10:9
If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

and Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

but this is Matthew 7:21-23
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

Someone who wouldn't understand bible context or theology would cry out contradiction with these passages. Summarizing the passages, whosoever believes will have salvation, and nothing can separate you from your salvation once you have received salvation, not even asking for it to be removed. But Matthew 7:21-23 makes it abundantly clear that being a Christian or doing works without faith or supposing you had a faith but didn't, these people will not be saved and will go to hell on the judgment.

Not fearing God is a good indication that you may be in the category of 'many' Jesus talks about. The many that went to church, then never went back when they entered college and now blog hateful things about Christians and Christianity on gaia, they never had a faith even if they went to church and sang and prayed or went on mission trips and gave others faith. Having the holy spirit in you convicting you of sins when you commit them and repenting of them to God and thanking Him for dying on the cross, forgiving you of your sins and raising from the dead showing that death has no dominion over him, that is signs of faith. And through that faith your actions and works should show, producing many fruits.

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Fist of Eden
I think you are confused as to what the Bible says. What GOD says is moral, is what's moral. The problem with US trying to say what's moral is we can be deceived. Now orgies aren't moral, but to someone who enjoys them and isn't in a relationship, they would think there is nothing wrong with them. If we don't follow what God says is moral, morality becomes relative


Cool, good to know. When I get out of work today, I guess I better get to my moral duty of changing the topic of this thread to "Men Only" as women are never to teach a man anything about god, but rather ask her husband questions in the privacy of their own home.

While I'm at it, I'll go through my clothes and throw out anything made of more then one fiber. Stop buying my produce at supermarkets as they intermingle their crops. And get to my moral mass murder of local homosexuals, as the bible says their death is upon them. It's such a relief not having to decide morality for myself anymore.

Also, on the "indentured servant" topic. There were plenty of bibical loopholes where you could keep a Hebrew slave in your possession forever. Such as if a slave falls in love and has children with another slave. When his time is up, he can either go free and never see his family again, or have a hole punctured in his ear branding him to be forever property of his "owner". That was only the Hebrew people. The bible allows you to purchase non-hebrew slaves for life and future generations as much as you want in Leviticus. You know, because that's moral.

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saturnflair2009
Fist of Eden
I think you are confused as to what the Bible says. What GOD says is moral, is what's moral. The problem with US trying to say what's moral is we can be deceived. Now orgies aren't moral, but to someone who enjoys them and isn't in a relationship, they would think there is nothing wrong with them. If we don't follow what God says is moral, morality becomes relative


Cool, good to know. When I get out of work today, I guess I better get to my moral duty of changing the topic of this thread to "Men Only" as women are never to teach a man anything about god, but rather ask her husband questions in the privacy of their own home.

While I'm at it, I'll go through my clothes and throw out anything made of more then one fiber. Stop buying my produce at supermarkets as they intermingle their crops. And get to my moral mass murder of local homosexuals, as the bible says their death is upon them. It's such a relief not having to decide morality for myself anymore.

Also, on the "indentured servant" topic. There were plenty of bibical loopholes where you could keep a Hebrew slave in your possession forever. Such as if a slave falls in love and has children with another slave. When his time is up, he can either go free and never see his family again, or have a hole punctured in his ear branding him to be forever property of his "owner". That was only the Hebrew people. The bible allows you to purchase non-hebrew slaves for life and future generations as much as you want in Leviticus. You know, because that's moral.


Irrelevant. The Levitical Laws are for the priestly class - not the every day run-of-the-mill Jews.

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saturnflair2009
Fist of Eden
I think you are confused as to what the Bible says. What GOD says is moral, is what's moral. The problem with US trying to say what's moral is we can be deceived. Now orgies aren't moral, but to someone who enjoys them and isn't in a relationship, they would think there is nothing wrong with them. If we don't follow what God says is moral, morality becomes relative


Cool, good to know. When I get out of work today, I guess I better get to my moral duty of changing the topic of this thread to "Men Only" as women are never to teach a man anything about god, but rather ask her husband questions in the privacy of their own home.

While I'm at it, I'll go through my clothes and throw out anything made of more then one fiber. Stop buying my produce at supermarkets as they intermingle their crops. And get to my moral mass murder of local homosexuals, as the bible says their death is upon them. It's such a relief not having to decide morality for myself anymore.

Also, on the "indentured servant" topic. There were plenty of bibical loopholes where you could keep a Hebrew slave in your possession forever. Such as if a slave falls in love and has children with another slave. When his time is up, he can either go free and never see his family again, or have a hole punctured in his ear branding him to be forever property of his "owner". That was only the Hebrew people. The bible allows you to purchase non-hebrew slaves for life and future generations as much as you want in Leviticus. You know, because that's moral.


Irrelevant. The Levitical Laws are for the priestly class - not the every day run-of-the-mill Jews.

How is it irrelevant when those every day run-of-the-mill Jews were most likely slaves themselves?

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Hikarulawl
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saturnflair2009
Fist of Eden
I think you are confused as to what the Bible says. What GOD says is moral, is what's moral. The problem with US trying to say what's moral is we can be deceived. Now orgies aren't moral, but to someone who enjoys them and isn't in a relationship, they would think there is nothing wrong with them. If we don't follow what God says is moral, morality becomes relative


Cool, good to know. When I get out of work today, I guess I better get to my moral duty of changing the topic of this thread to "Men Only" as women are never to teach a man anything about god, but rather ask her husband questions in the privacy of their own home.

While I'm at it, I'll go through my clothes and throw out anything made of more then one fiber. Stop buying my produce at supermarkets as they intermingle their crops. And get to my moral mass murder of local homosexuals, as the bible says their death is upon them. It's such a relief not having to decide morality for myself anymore.

Also, on the "indentured servant" topic. There were plenty of bibical loopholes where you could keep a Hebrew slave in your possession forever. Such as if a slave falls in love and has children with another slave. When his time is up, he can either go free and never see his family again, or have a hole punctured in his ear branding him to be forever property of his "owner". That was only the Hebrew people. The bible allows you to purchase non-hebrew slaves for life and future generations as much as you want in Leviticus. You know, because that's moral.


Irrelevant. The Levitical Laws are for the priestly class - not the every day run-of-the-mill Jews.

How is it irrelevant when those every day run-of-the-mill Jews were most likely slaves themselves?


Also, the rules and regulations that made women subordinate were mostly in Timothy.

Quote:
A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.

Quote:
But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
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