Dan Carroll writes:
And not just any old God, but an elderly man, with a long white beard, who sounds a bit like James Mason
Are you stealing Eddie Izzard's God for yourself? I don't know how much/how far I can go with a God like that. Even Eddie was doing a caracature, and I don't view God as describable in that way. Well I'll go with it.
I think I am partially on the same page as jar, but not entirely. God can appear picayune if we imagine Him to be concerned with little details, but we are creating His dilemma from our own small view point. If I come along and say that I don't think God cares about anything, I sound like a deist. If I say God cares about some things but not others, I am dangerously close to determining my own course of action based on personal preferences. I am not satisfied with either, so I am left with the option of God caring about 'all' things.
If God exists, and if He automatically knows how humans should live, then there might indeed be a 'right' way to act and a 'wrong' way. We are the ones who are ultimately left to figuring out the right way.
We create rules and morals. We assume God sees them as 'right' because we do. We don't need to worry about a big angry God, just a God who can call the shots as He sees them. Any of us can make a call about what is good or bad, so God could too, without being a special weirdo.
Since I say that I believe that God cares about everything, I will clarify that. He cares about 'how' rather than 'what'. That's not to say I don't believe in some absolute morality, as everyone knows I do
but the forgiveness of God in trivial and great matters alike over-rides His supposed caring about what we do. He cares about motive, not methods.
I won't believe in an OCD God being up-tight because His rules aren't followed to the T. I don't believe that God cares whether we walk into a building once a week at a set time. I DO believe He cares whether I do it, because He knows it is part of my view. And I edited this whole page, because I forgot the important part. The NT is extremely devoted to switching the minds of the people from this OCD GOD concept, where God cares if you are circumscized or un, or whether you eat fish, or don't, or work on the Sabbath, etc. This does not mean that I think all actions are inherently equal, but that God doesn't care about the act as much as the intention.
Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.