Is the Christian God's love unconditional?

[Woolmark]

Ok, some questions which have been playing on my mind, I am genuinely interested.

Surely his love is on the condition that you are a) a Christian and b) follow his rules?

Also, if God loves everyone as much as he does, why can't he save everyone by simply appearing to them? If I could save my children by doing this then I would in an instant, rather than turning up at the end and destroying the ones who weren't Christian.

Pride is not a quality to admire. Humility is far better
Gullibility is not the same as faith

Yes, it is. It's the worst kind of gullibility.

Scepticism means to question, and not just to accept what you're told. To make rational judgments based on evidence - to reserve belief when there's no good reason for it. To change your mind when the evidence changes, and be willing to.

You claim this is incompatible with faith? Then faith demands gullibility. Sorry.

I am not particularly proud of being an atheist - no prouder than you are for not believing in Thor or Nessie.

And there's nothing humble at all about believing you've got the ear of God & he's giving you extra special protection from being attacked while allowing babies to to starve to death in their mother's arms.

That ain't "humble".

I believe it is more humble to recognise human fallibility than it is to rely on human reasoning.

I do recognise my fallibility - that's why I use the only power I have to check that I'm not believing rubbish. It's called "reasoning" and it's what keeps us alive & safe.

I rely on it because I have nothing else.

Do you know what "irrational" means? It's what you get when you ignore reason, when you don't rely on "human reasoning".

Faith is irrational.

What I do know gold is that if god is stopping murder or starvation in some cases, it means that in some cases he isn't even though he could. He is choosing to let someone be raped when he could stop it. Would you ever ever not prevent a rape that you could stop? If I told you in detail how I was going to murder my neighbour tonight, told you the times, method and so on, gave you the address, and you didn't even call the cops would that be morally sound?

Oh how very dare I!

Have Faith that is. Well lots of people do...

Golddigger

Fess up. PM me if you like. Are you a Poe?

Can I just remind you capsium that you rely on human reasoning too and rightly so. That incident you described. You locked the door didn't you. You didn't leave it open and say "perhaps it's god's will that I be harmed" and you didn't say "god will protect me". You used your own experience and reasoning and you locked the door.

I'm glad you did. It was the right thing to do.

I didn't say I don't use reasoning. I just don't rely on it exclusively.

You don't think we should rely on our own reasoning? The very reasoning skills god expected you to use to decide that he was good? If god anticipated your morals to work sufficiently to recognise his 'goodness' while you were still an unsaved hell-bound sinner why couldn't we just carry on using them without the need for god to take over?

Yes, lots of people do. 92% of the planet's population, or something like that

You're entitled to your faith, of course you are. But don't get peeved because you talked yourself into a corner & effectively acknowledged that your faith is irrational - that wasn't my fault, was it?

If you're not using your own sense of morality to make decisions, and deferring to something else, you're not being a moral agent, you're abdicating your responsibility for the decision. Isn't that very dangerous.

I'm not peeved. Faith is beyond reasoning by it's very definition. No surprises there.

Reasoning: the power of the mind to think, understand and make judgements logically.

When don't you think, understand and make judgements logically?

When it comes to your faith?

BINGO!

What is a Poe. Or did you mean Pope ?

Do not rely on your own insight, is part of a bible verse.

Why did God bother giving us a brain if he didn't want us to use it? If the only way of being in his gang is to pretend we don't have one?

I'm still responsible head. I have free will, the ability to respond. I make conscious decisions. I just choose to follow Christ. It is not that unusual.

Poe's Law

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not rely on your own insight
In all your ways acknowledge him
And he will make straight your paths

One of my favorite parts of all the bible.
I read it and use it often.

Show me the evidence and I will change my mind.

A very common thought. What evidence would people want though? To see god? To see healing? To see creation? Would you really belive it if you saw theae things? Would you suddenly love it? Be thankful for it?

I just tried to read that HettiePetal but I dont understand what it is trying to say.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not rely on your own insight

Well it would say that wouldn't it. It also says this:

“Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's; it is holy to the Lord. to be given to the guys who are making up reading out the word of god to you.

Lots of people fell for that one too.

"Just sign here.. and here.. and you will be the proud owner of the Brooklyn Bridge"

Gold

Don't worry about it. It basically means that it can sometimes be difficult to tell a sincere believer on the internet from someone whose just pretending because they say the same kind of things.

In other words, I wondered if you were pulling our legs a bit.

sunshine

I don't know what kind of evidence I'd need to see. Some kind of supernatural event that's not explainable by natural events, I suppose.

I've never seen anything supernatural. I've never heard of a single event that simply defied all natural explanation, so I've no idea what a supernatural event would even look like.

But God does, doesn't he? I'd imagine he knows what kind of evidence it would take to convince me & if he's not providing it, then he's deceitful & deliberately hiding from me.

If he thinks I'm going to take the word of people who freely admit that their faith is irrational, then he doesn't know me very well, does he?

Gods love is unconditional because he loves every single one of us and wants us to be saved.
Suffering is a very hard issue to understand but the answer is out there. However people will chose what they choose and it is between themselves and god.

What about creation? The world we live in? The gift of children? The love we can feel and share?