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The Stockholm Syndrome got me wondering -- where is the "loving" part? Give specific examples, please.
Why must you question our loving Heavenly Father for the evil that men do? Why not ask them why they are doing things they shouldn't be doing? What you may not understand is how very forgiving He is... that He loves everyone in spite of how they feel about Him.
Do you know who Nero is? He was responsible for killing many Christians and he endured mental torture in hell for a very long time.
Do you know where he is now? Because he found our Heavenly Father and he prayed for God's Divine Love, he is in the Celestial Heavens. This is what the power of the Greatest Love does.
Nero:
I am here, the spirit of one who lived on earth the life of a wicked man, and a persecutor of the Christians, and a blasphemer of God and everything that was pure and holy; and when I had lived the life to its end and shuffled off the mortal coil and became a spirit, I also became a dweller in the lowest hells where all is darkness and torment, and the abode of devils and everything that tends to make the spirit unhappy and at variance with the loving God.
I introduce myself in this way in order to demonstrate to you the wonderful power of the Divine Love, for now I am an inhabitant of the Celestial Spheres, and know that this Love is not only real, but is capable of making the vilest sinner a partaker and owner of the Divine Essence of the Father.
Sending people to hell for being heavenly loving? What does that mean? Not sure I understand the question. I doubt God sends anyone "to hell" for being loving or for being heavenly, whatever being heavenly would imply.
Now, I said give your own specific example -- please do that.
This is not a good answer from any normal functioning brain perspective: "I kicked my neighbor's dog, and I prayed, and my God forgave me. Therefore my God is a heavenly loving father". Analysis: you lived an immoral, irresponsible, hypocritical life style -- kicking neighbor's dog calls for apology to your neighbor. So, put away that religious crap and do the right thing.
Now, I said give your own specific example -- please do that.
This is not a good answer from any normal functioning brain perspective: "I kicked my neighbor's dog, and I prayed, and my God forgave me. Therefore my God is a heavenly loving father". Analysis: you lived an immoral, irresponsible, hypocritical life style -- kicking neighbor's dog calls for apology to your neighbor. So, put away that religious crap and do the right thing.
A more realistic scenario:
I realize I'm a sinner, seperated from God. I repent & God forgives my sin. I spend the rest of my earthly life serving Him. Heaven awaits me...
I think I see what you mean now, my friend. You are asking why people think it is okay to do bad, ask forgiveness, and go on doing it? Apologies if I've misunderstood.
Thing is, people don't, or at least reasonable people do not. I mean, come on. For one thing, most people do not to outright bad things like kicking their neighbor's dog? Secondly, even if they did, there's such a thing as penance which you are completely ignoring. If someone went to their local priest and confessed they kick a dog on a regular basis for no, if he was sorry, he would be forgiven by God, and then he would do penance -- go apologize to his neighbor and stop hurting the poor animal.
I realize some people hypocrites and that they may keep on doing that, but that doesn't mean that there's something fundamentally wrong with the system of forgiven, that's the fault of the person doing it, my friend!
Balderdash. I can think of many questions that are derogatory.
"Who told you that you had a brain in your head?
"What kind of fool are you?"
"When are you going to die you twisted old pervert?"
"Where did you learn to be such a hateful punk?"
"Why haven't you killed yourself yet?"
Although I guess the main issue is you are saying that a religious person is not seeking amends from those they have wronged, but from God alone and this is not fair.
However I think most religions do, ideally, want you to learn and be a better person who does make amends to those you have wronged. There is also *penance and reflecting on your wrongs. When one of my Dad's friends "Got Saved" (I'm choosing this as it's closer to religion people here mean) he had a list of people he was going to make amends to. Sometimes this was rather comical, as the people no longer cared what he'd done or his efforts to make amend only made things worse, and it didn't really take but still the point wasn't to just continue the same old behaviors.
*Protestantism may not have the sacrament of penance, but they have a notion of repenting.
Religious people call God "heavenly loving father". I want to know what they mean. The answer I got so far: God is forgiving, and that's "loving".
I am an atheist. I do not consider "forgiving" as "loving".
Anything else you consider as "loving"?
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