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.

And what form do these revelations take? What makes an account of revelation believable?

It is mostly heart and soul felt an understanding of life. For me it was such an emotional experience I cryed and cryed not because I was sad but because for the first time I truly understood my value and how special I was and of course that god has longed for me to speak to him and he has known me and loved me before I was even born.

To say most Christian is very wrong. Being a christian in itself is to believe the word of god. Just because someone claims they are Christian does not make it true.

Hmmm you're saying the Pope is not a Christian? :)

You see the trouble with what you said there is that most christians - even the ones on mumsnet would say you were wrong because the bible isn't entirely the word of god, but written by men doing their best to understand god. Or some variation on that.

What particularly gives one Christian (you in this case) the authority to lay claim to the word when all those other Christians say otherwise?

Even the pope and the Catholic church - the first and arguably the official church - accept evolution which means they can't believe in a young earth, they can't believe in Adam & Eve and they can't believe in a bible that is 100% factual.

Remember that I'm not saying you can't have your own version. Why not? everyone else does.

The pope is catholic.

The bible is the word of god. Becauae god spoke to man to write his word does not mean it is not. God wrote the bible just used man as his pen.

The holy spirt gives a lot of Christians completely different revelations though. Now why would he do that? How do you know that your revelation is the real revelation and not just one part of your brain speaking to another part as would be the case with the Christians who've got a false revelation maybe? Bear in mind they believe their revelation is a true as you do yours.

What do mean? God shows himself through his word and is in our hearts. What do others say?

Take the issue of homosexuality. It wouldn't appear that many Christians were having revelations about god not actually minding gay relationships 100 years ago. But now days you can't swing a cat in a Christian forum for all the 'god didn't actually mean what it says and actually doesn't mind' revelations. It appears that the holy spirit's revelations track quite well with our general development in terms of human rights. Makes you wonder why he didn't reveal all this from the get go?

head God's revelation's are supported by the Bible and in life experience, for me anyway.

I'm talking about opposing revelations. God wants/doesn't want female bishops. God likes/hates gay marriage.

Yes but no two Christians agree on how to interpret the bible

And life experience can be a very poor method of establishing facts.

How come you have Christians with very different views? Both using the bible as back up.

Yes but no two Christians agree on how to interpret the bible

The Bible is a big book. One that takes a lifetime to understand. There is layer upon layer of meaning within it. Often the meanings join up into a more unified understanding, once more is understood.

And life experience can be a very poor method of establishing facts.

By itself, yes I would totally agree. It is one of the reasons I think having the Bible is so good. It offer more than simple human interpretation of life experiences. So one way I use my knowledge of the Bible is as filter, if you like, to enable me to interpret my life experiences.

So why does the Holy Spirit tell 'Christian A' that homosexuality is wrong, but simultaneously tells 'Christian B' that it's okay? Either it is or it isn't?

Of course he meant what he said. That is whole point of the bible and the view on it towards christians.
When you look at "sin" it is the way to live a healthy meaningful life. God wants us to be frutiful and mulitlpe and from the way we were made by god to mulitlpe and create by nature it would take a man and women.
Just like the eating of blood from an animal.. it was for our health sake, or the having sex during a period again from the risk of disease back in that time.
However all "sin" is "Sin" and the fact that Jesus came down to die for our sins shows us that we are only human and it is human nature to "sin" and we can seek help, guidance and forgiveness for any "sin".
The sin is temptation which everyone has and you can link every command to common sense back then due to the types of disease etc that breaking the sins could put upon ourselves.
In regards to homosexuality that of course is not due to disease or it being "Wrong", it is because it would stop the be frutiful and muliplty that God has asked us to do. And for the purpose of any potential harm we could do to ourselves by having lots of unprotected different sexual partners.
As I have said Jesus came to save us all and with his blood we are decalred "sinners" as it is human nature however he created a way we can be saved.
We also know we should not judge any one as it is not our place, we should be respectful of everyone's life choices that is between themselves and God.

None of us can live our lives according to the Old Testament Law. Homosexuality is against Old Testament Law but so is being disrespectful to your parents or working on the Sabbath. We all sin according to the Law.

This is why we need the Redemption of Christ, which redeems our Spirit and transforms our sin nature. For this redemption to reach our flesh is a process, we are refreshed and grow in our relationship with Christ each day. However we still would be considered sinners according to Old Testament Law. It is our hearts (centre of being) that are changed as we no longer are slaves to sin.

Very well put x

Thanks sunshine.

I can see how some of the laws were about preventing disease, but that would be the case for any early tribe that made a connection between say, eating food that hadn't been stored properly and illness. What I don't see is that it was in anyway divinely inspired. Other cultures of that time would have made similar observations on health etc. For example why couldn't god say why they shouldn't eat dodgy meat. Why not explain bacteria? Why threaten to kill people if they didn't follow the advice? And none of this even begins to explain the barbarism of rape and slavery laws like stoning a woman who doesn't scream during rape.

Let he who is without sin throw the fist stone.
We are not to hurt one another be it physically or emotionally. We are not to judge as it is not our place to do so.

Again common sense as it is for our best that we do not do these things. But let's not forget it is also in our nature to go against these things but Jesus is the path of forgivness.

In regards to meat
Exodus has lots to lead us such as eat not of it raw, roast with fire.
That's of the top of my head but along those lines

We live in a society that has a duty to judge. We have a court system that judges people who hurt others. But thankfully we don't criminalise consenting adults who have sex with other consenting adults regardless. Not anymore anyway. My dad reminded me this afternoon that when he was growing up in UK it was actually still illegal to have homosexual sex.

Again many contemporary cultures had similar rules on food preparation. It isn't specific to Israel.

I was just showing you an answer you ask for in regards to the meat etc.
God tells us not to jugde was all I was saying. I don't think human choices can be compared to what god wants for us you cannot link the two.