So why is my God
better than your god? Ouch. Sounds a little cocky doesn't it?
To begin, it is necessary to explore another avenue of the definition of what
'Love' means. Beyond the simple chemical reactions we normally attribute
to romantic love, are other deeper applications of the term. For instance
another popularly understood use of the term applies to the relationship
between parent and child. Love in this case is anything but romantic
(Woody Allen and Sigmund Freud's views notwithstanding). Love takes on
characteristics such as comforting, protecting, caring for another, nurturing,
supporting, and yes even sacrificing for another becomes a key ingredient in
the definition of true love. All these attributes I just described can
and sometimes do appear in the context of romance, but for purposes of this
example, please try to focus on them purely in the parent-child sense.
Attempting to measure
the depth of one's love for another is often done by how much one does for
another, or how much one gives up for another. If I never give anything
of high value to my children, not time, not affection, not respect, not support
- Do I truly love them? If I granted their every request, and their every
whim was immediately gratified, despite what I believed was truly in their own
best interests - is that considered love? How many people can truly say
they are where they are in this world, without the sacrifice of anyone else in
their lives? We love to toot our own horns about the level of accomplishment
we have made, but when closely examined there are usually others who
contributed if not sacrificed for our success. Most parents spend the
majority of their lives trying to improve the lives of their children.
Most children don't recognize it or appreciate it, until they see it in
themselves as they repeat the cycle with their own kids. Why do we do
this? What it is about love that inspires us to sacrifice our self-interest
for the benefit of another? Simple preservation-of-the-species is not
nearly enough to cover the depths of a mother or father's love for their child,
whether biological or not. Could this be a God-like characteristic that
the author of this Emotion fully understands - and does Himself?
What is the key
difference between the God found in the Bible and other potential suitors: the
level of sacrifice the Bible God does for His errant creations. In the
Bible, God is described as existing in three parts, a Father, a Son, and a Holy
Spirit. All united in purpose, all considered equal in power and
ability. But there does seem to be a pecking order in that God the Father
seems to be what we understand about Father figures - whereas God the Son
appears more personally identifiable to us. Given the unity of thought,
purpose, and intent this should not be, but human nature being what it is, our
perceptions of hierarchy persist.
Picking up where we
left off in a previous section regarding the prologue of our existence, it
turns out that God goes ahead with our creation in spite of the fact that He
has just won a recent war over the number 3 guy in existence (Lucifer, now
renamed Satan). Before we go even one step further, you need to consider
something. God is the author of choice, but as we established He is also
omnipotent and benevolent. So even before we were created, God knew what
choice we would make. Were we predestined
then for failure, quite the opposite. Were we predestined then for
ultimate death and non-existence, again no. It turns out, that even
before our existence, a plan was formed by the Bible God for our redemption
(i.e. the saving of man, from the choice he was likely to make). The plan
consisted of essentially allowing man a second chance after the original choice
he made. That second chance however, would not be cheap, nor would there
be a 3rd, 4th, or 5th chance to change our minds. In order for the even
the second chance to exist, a death had to occur. And only God himself,
in the form of the Son, could make this sacrifice in order to offer man a
second shot at reconciliation with Him, and the Father.
Here is the
fundamental difference between my Bible God and ALL the others: My God
was willing to die Himself for the creatures he made. He loved us SO much
He would sacrifice His Son, the glory of heaven and perfection, and die a
criminal's death, tortured by the very creatures He was here to save.
Where has Mohamed ever offered to literally be tortured and killed in order to
save the infidels who do not believe in him? When did Buddha, ever
sacrifice himself for his followers or the unenlightened? Jim Jones,
Harry Krishna, David Koresh, any current sect leader, do they ever seem to
completely lay down their own lives in order to spare their followers any
pain. The Hindu gods represent all kinds of human emotion, strengths, and
weaknesses, but none do the work of redemption on behalf of their disobedient
followers. You incur these gods anger by noncompliance; they do not
sacrifice themselves to help you see you have other choices.
My God did all this for His enemies. My God did
all this in order that we could 'choose' to become friends again. The
nature of every other religious philosophy holds one thing in common - the
responsibility for the ascendency of man lies in his own lap. Every
religion but one, requires man to achieve his own salvation by his own human
means. Only Christianity recognizes man's true inability to save
himself. And ONLY the Christian God is willing to sacrifice Himself to
the point of death, for creatures who would still not choose to follow
Him. This is the depths to which God is capable of loving, and I believe
it will take an eternity to begin to understand only a little what that means.
Discovering the true
God does not end our difficult questions however, nor should it. But it
does begin to shed some light on the meaning of our lives, of our individual
lives. Discovering the true God puts the existence of evil into context
along with assurances that evil will not be tolerated forever. In a
future next post we will discuss the meaning of the individual, as well as set
aside some myths we cling to that make it hard to reconcile a loving God with
what we see around us.
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