Why does God get angry?

[Tanstaafl]

That's dead-on, Orangutan!

Or spot-on, as the Brits would say.

 

[Paulhoff]

No matter what you so-called god does, you have an out for it. My father must love me because he beats me so well.

Haven't I wrote this all ready.

Paul

 

[Marc L]

Your right, and He does. God doesn't ever quit loving us, we just blow it by choosing other things over him.
I myself just about 25 months ago learned I have to turn my will over to His will for my life. (On my own I am unable, and I know it.) The blessings are in the obedience to Him, not the willful rebellion.

I'm sorry, his right what?

Here's my question for you: If God loves us that much, why does he impose such harsh punishments? If I treated my daughter the way God treats his children, I'd be put in jail.

Marc

 

[senorpogo]

As the musician Sting wrote in his song years ago, "If I Ever Lose MY Faith In You." You could say I was a lost girl in a lost world, but now I know the truth and won't ever quit believing in the One true God!

Please go push your nonsense to someone else. Your God is a mean old bastard who inflicts unnecessary pain on innocent people. Deal with it.

You base your life on Sting lyrics? Sounds about right.

 

[senorpogo]

Has anybody noticed the similarity between God and abusive partners?

I can't shake the image of a God in a wife-beater with humanity cowering in the corner with a blodied lip and mascara smeared from tears of pain and humiliation.

God: Aww come on baby, you know I love you, You just make me so angry sometimes.

Yes, he's like that one guy who seems to be in every episode of Cops. And his believers are the beaten wife, excusing his behavior as she pleads with the police not to take him to jail.

"He really loves me! He didn't mean it!"
"Ma'am, this is the fourth time we've been out here this month."

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

I'm sorry, his right what?

kathy is cockney. "Your right, and He does" was just a simple typo. The comma is meant to be an apostrophe, and the sentence should read, "Your right 'and He does". Kathy is accusing senorpogo of masturbating the Almighty.

 

[Marc L]

kathy is cockney. "Your right, and He does" was just a simple typo. The comma is meant to be an apostrophe, and the sentence should read, "Your right 'and He does". Kathy is accusing senorpogo of masturbating the Almighty.

Sorry, I'm a self-proclaimed grammarnazi. Even your way, it's still wrong

Marc

 

[n11/n12]

Here's one particular verse that's a little hard for me to swallow:

"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--" Romans 9:22-23

So where does all that "free-will" come in?

 

[RandFan]

Your right, and He does. God doesn't ever quit loving us...

He has a strange way of showing his love. After a trillion years will he still love those he tortures?

As the musician Sting wrote in his song years ago, "If I Ever Lose MY Faith In You."

I think you should listen to the lyrics a little closer.

You could say I was a lost girl in a lost world, but now I know the truth and won't ever quit believing in the One true God!

Yes, we've heard it all before from all kinds of believers. The Muslims won't stop believing in Allah because they found the one true God. They know they have found the truth and therefore they are willing to die for it. The pilots of the planes on 9/11 were professionals and were not poor. They sacrificed their lives for the truth.

Sikhs, Hindus, Pantheists, Pagans, etc., etc. They've all found the truth and therefore they won't stop believing.

I don't trust anyone who claims to have found the truth. I trust those who question it.

 

[Glen.Nogami]

You have got a pretty distorted view of God senorpogo! It's because He loves us He gives us free will. But for any humanbeing to deny the one that created them is just plain foolishness.

I have said this on other threads but maybe it deserves to be said again. How would you feel if your child chose to rebel against you and love the things you hate?

I'd hold all but one of them underwater until they died, then curse and exile the last one, putting him through horrific ordeals in the desert on a whim.

If he were to be gay, I'd burn him. If he were good, I'd crucify him.

And the whole of humanity would praise my name.

 

[Glen.Nogami]

Here's one particular verse that's a little hard for me to swallow:

"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory--" Romans 9:22-23

So where does all that "free-will" come in?

Alright, proven. God just likes to kill stuff. He gets his jollies off of mass murder.

Sodom, Gomorrah, the flood, all of that, it was just God bragging to his celestial buddies. "Whoooo! That blew up REAL good! Hee hee, look at 'em scream!"

 

[Tanstaafl]

I'd hold all but one of them underwater until they died, then curse and exile the last one, putting him through horrific ordeals in the desert on a whim.

If he were to be gay, I'd burn him. If he were good, I'd crucify him.

And the whole of humanity would praise my name.

Awesome post!

 

[kmortis]

Alright, proven. God just likes to kill stuff. He gets his jollies off of mass murder.

Sodom, Gomorrah, the flood, all of that, it was just God bragging to his celestial buddies. "Whoooo! That blew up REAL good! Hee hee, look at 'em scream!"

Why is it that I get the mental image of God et al sitting around the porch, with a jug of 'shine, and the three-legged dog wandering about the car-littered yard when he says that. Although, it'd be in German, cause when God gets serious, he speaks in German.

Ich bin der Dreck unter deiner Felsen
Ich bin dein geheimer Schmut und verlorenes Metalgeld

 

[grayman]

I myself just about 25 months ago learned I have to turn my will over to His will for my life. (On my own I am unable, and I know it.) The blessings are in the obedience to Him, not the willful rebellion.

As the musician Sting wrote in his song years ago, "If I Ever Lose MY Faith In You." You could say I was a lost girl in a lost world, but now I know the truth and won't ever quit believing in the One true God!

So you admit you have a problem with your willpower much the way an alcoholic has to admit he has a problem before he can begin recovery. That I can respect.

You have to resort to a belief in a mythological being in order to achieve this recovery; if it works for you, so be it.

Just do not tell us we need to believe in the same fashion you do. Some of us are able to stand on our own.

When I quit drinking, there was no "higher power" involved. It was just little ol' me and what was left of my brain cells telling me quit or die. So I quit.

So KK, if you ever relapse into whatever behaviour you had before, what will be your excuse? God is testing you? You didn't pray or believe hard enough? It's all part of God's plan? God is really an immature miserable prick akin to a child holding a magnifying glass over an ant hill to watch them suffer? Or will it be an admittance that your God is imaginary and you are weak.

Just asking.

 

[Glen.Nogami]

Well, that clinches it. We've got to write a play. A surrealist work, with Yahweh and a bunch of other gods sitting in a typically redneck situation like the one above, with one difference: It's all in German, and it's set to Wagner. Called Die Weise, die Wahrheit und das Leben (Feel free to correct my German, that was google translate talking.)

I don't know about you all, but I'd pay money to see that.

 

[Anacoluthon64]

The descriptions of the OT god strongly suggest that the authors had a penchant for woo beliefs: they clearly accepted the reality of extra-celestial belligerence.

'Luthon64

 

[Last of the Fraggles]

There is such a thing as righteous anger you know, and God is righteous so why shouldn't He get mad when people have plenty of chances to repent but they don't!

Thanks for all the answers above everybody.

This is the kind of (lack of) thinking I was getting at with the OP.

So many things I want to raise about it:

1) What is 'righteous anger'? Anger is weakness. It generally arises from a lack of control - you are angry because you can't stop something happening or change someone's behaviour. Not much righteous about it... especially when you created/caused the thing that is making you angry.

2) Who said God is righteous? Apart from God of course. Do you take EVERYBODY at their word or only those who are written about by monks?

3) Why shouldn't he get mad??? Because he made us do it! He caused the whole thing. He designed the world exactly so it would happen. If you lock a dog in your living room for a week can you be 'righteously angry' when it pees on the carpet?? He also designed us so we wouldn't repent. Plus he knows we won't cos he wants it that way so why even give us these fake 'chances to repent'?

Do you really believe that God created the Universe just so he could destroy it all and keep the creations that he wanted to keep from the very beginning with him? You do realise that means God created billions of human beings just to destroy them and condemn them to eternity in hell - he knew they would go there the day he created them. Why bother creating them at all?

Why not just create the ones he likes and skip the whole 'Universe' practice run and skip straight to Heaven?

 

[Paulhoff]

Why not just create the ones he likes and skip the whole 'Universe' practice run and skip straight to Heaven?

Geee, that is easy, it wants to prove to us that we are not gods.

Paul



God takes his bat and ball and goes home crying.

 

[kmortis]

Well, that clinches it. We've got to write a play. A surrealist work, with Yahweh and a bunch of other gods sitting in a typically redneck situation like the one above, with one difference: It's all in German, and it's set to Wagner. Called Die Weise, die Wahrheit und das Leben (Feel free to correct my German, that was google translate talking.)

I don't know about you all, but I'd pay money to see that.

I can help you stage it.

We can cast Pete Postlethwaite as God, computer generated images of Herve Villachez as King Fausto of the 8th Trailer Park, Sean Hayes as Gay-briel the questionable neighbor and Ned Beatty as Beelzebubbah.

 

[Marc L]

Thanks for all the answers above everybody.

This is the kind of (lack of) thinking I was getting at with the OP.

So many things I want to raise about it:

1) What is 'righteous anger'? Anger is weakness. It generally arises from a lack of control - you are angry because you can't stop something happening or change someone's behaviour. Not much righteous about it... especially when you created/caused the thing that is making you angry.

Actually, anger itself isn't a weakness-it's simply a reaction to a situation. It's how you handle it that can be a weakness or a strength. That's where "righteous" anger comes in.

If you channel that anger into the right direction (ie, correcting the problem), then it's helpful. It motivates you, gives you extra adrenaline, etc. You see a man beating a woman, and it makes you angry, so you go and stop him. You see corruption in the government, and it makes you angry, so you gather together other concerned citizens and work to stop it. All of those are good channels for anger.

"Bad" anger is when you go out of control and begin attacking. You see a man beating a woman, and it makes you angry, so you go and beat him senseless. You see corruption in the government, and it makes you angry, so you blow up city hall, or murder the corrupt officials. All of those are bad channels for anger.

The anger that the OT god displays, of course, is bad anger. He doesn't like how his creations are behaving, so he wipes them out, brings disease upon them, or tosses them into a lake of fire.

Marc