Loving or Hateful God?

Lamb

God's Lil Lamb
Community Team
Administrator
Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2015
Messages
31,688
Age
57
Gender
Female
Religious Affiliation
Lutheran
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
Christians will mostly say that God is loving but there are a few that claim God hates and will do violent things. Which camp do you fall under?
 

Josiah

simul justus et peccator
Valued Contributor
Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 12, 2015
Messages
13,729
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Lutheran
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
Love.

God IS love.

Now, there are aspects of my faith that I'll "wiggle" on.... things I'll admit are MY view but maybe others are valid too... but here is one thing where I don't wiggle AT ALL. I don't care WHAT anyone can produce or say or claim or believe: I KNOW this to the very core of my being, everything flows from this, God LOVES me. And everyone else.



.
 

Jason76

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 11, 2019
Messages
465
Age
47
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Unitarian
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Single
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
No
God seems hateful in much of the Old Testament and some of the New. However, we don't know the whole story. Anyway, some say God is hateful simply cause he won't tolerate sin.
 

Prepared

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 4, 2022
Messages
67
Gender
Female
Religious Affiliation
Baptist
Marital Status
Divorced
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
Christians will mostly say that God is loving but there are a few that claim God hates and will do violent things. Which camp do you fall under?
I could never say God is hateful. God hates our actions and it's our actions that condemns us. If he were hateful we wouldn't be given away to redemption salvation.

But I do believe he's jealous, I see it throughout the Old Testament - I do believe he's vengeful, I see it throughout the Old Testament - and I believe that he is wrathful, I see that too throughout the Old Testament. And when these things are displayed from God it is because people just continually reject his way and his way only promotes to love him and to love each other as Jesus broke it down to.

He could just wipe us out and be done with it that shows love and mercy.
 

Stravinsk

Composer and Artist on Flat Earth
Joined
Jan 4, 2016
Messages
4,499
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Deist
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Widow/Widower
I'm not sure why the question is set up to be binary. Can't God be both depending on the person and/or circumstance before Him?

There are numerous passages in the bible that indicate wickedness and wicked persons will be punished. Similarly, "I will avenge, I will repay". How? I don't think the bodies/souls thrown into the lake of fire suffer a sort of living death. Christ clearly said they would be destroyed (Matt 10: 28).

I suspect that unrepentant deeds that hurt others are experienced by the perpetrators -as the victims of those deeds - before they are destroyed. This idea satisfies my sense of justice much more than an eternally burning soul in hell.
 

Albion

Well-known member
Valued Contributor
Joined
Sep 1, 2017
Messages
7,550
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Anglican
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
I'm not sure why the question is set up to be binary. Can't God be both depending on the person and/or circumstance before Him?
That was probably a concession to those people who think that if God is loving, then he must forgive and forget everything evil and everybody doing it, at all times, or else he's not loving.

They are most often the people who post this kind of question for discussion, although that wasn't the case this time.
I suspect that unrepentant deeds that hurt others are experienced by the perpetrators -as the victims of those deeds - before they are destroyed. This idea satisfies my sense of justice much more than an eternally burning soul in hell.
There seem to be a number of unanswered questions about the nature of hell, and also about how to interpret the Bible passages that deal with the subject. But either way, we know that it's something to be avoided, so that is specific enough for me.
 

Nomad

Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2022
Messages
21
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Hindu
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
No
Parents get angry and sometimes punish kids. Do they actually hate their kids? Just like day and night, I think there are also two faces of God.
 

atpollard

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 6, 2017
Messages
2,573
Location
Florida
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Baptist
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
Is God Just or is God Merciful?
Put another way, is God UNJUST or is God UNMERCIFUL?

Since you have made it “one or the other”.
 

atpollard

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 6, 2017
Messages
2,573
Location
Florida
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Baptist
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
When God destroyed all of totally evil humanity to provide Noah and his family a chance to start over, was that an act of love or hate?

When God ordered the evil Canaanites driven from the land promised to Israel so the nation would have a chance to avoid being led into idolatry and suffer the curse of God, was that an act of Love or Hate?
 

Lamb

God's Lil Lamb
Community Team
Administrator
Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2015
Messages
31,688
Age
57
Gender
Female
Religious Affiliation
Lutheran
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
When God destroyed all of totally evil humanity to provide Noah and his family a chance to start over, was that an act of love or hate?

When God ordered the evil Canaanites driven from the land promised to Israel so the nation would have a chance to avoid being led into idolatry and suffer the curse of God, was that an act of Love or Hate?

Now that Christ has died for the sins of the world...what is God doing?
 

atpollard

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 6, 2017
Messages
2,573
Location
Florida
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Baptist
Political Affiliation
Conservative
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
Now that Christ has died for the sins of the world...what is God doing?
Of those He Foreknew: Predestining, Calling, Justifying and Glorifying (Romans 8:28-30)
Of those not yet born: not slow, but Patiently Waiting for all His beloved to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:8-9)
For the sons of perdition: Storing up wrath for the day of wrath (Romans 2:4-11; Romans 9:22)
 

Prepared

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 4, 2022
Messages
67
Gender
Female
Religious Affiliation
Baptist
Marital Status
Divorced
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
Christians will mostly say that God is loving but there are a few that claim God hates and will do violent things. Which camp do you fall under?
God has both of those emotions.

I see his love and his wrath directed at mankind.

I do wonder why Christians of today's world rarely talk of the wrath of God - it's like they put it on the side - while atheist pick it up and run with it.

A man laying with a man as he lays with a woman is an abomination to God. There are six things no seven that God hates that are abominations proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, feet that be swift to run to mischief, heart that divides wicked imaginations, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he lives with discord between brother .

God hates many of the things that man does.
 

Messy

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 18, 2023
Messages
1,553
Gender
Female
Religious Affiliation
Christian
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
God has both of those emotions.

I see his love and his wrath directed at mankind.

I do wonder why Christians of today's world rarely talk of the wrath of God - it's like they put it on the side - while atheist pick it up and run with it.

A man laying with a man as he lays with a woman is an abomination to God. There are six things no seven that God hates that are abominations proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, feet that be swift to run to mischief, heart that divides wicked imaginations, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he lives with discord between brother .

God hates many of the things that man does.
That is not a sweet thing to preach in church. Jesus loves everyone and wants everyone saved and leave out all the unfriendly texts, like Corrie ten Boom's father did when they were small kids.
I once went to a FreeThinker forum with ex christians and atheists and they called me a New Testament sugar christian LOL. I did learn from them. I really believed, before I talked to them, that God was so good and thus naive, like Adam and Eve created in His Image, that He had no clue that Lucifer could be able to sin and only when he sinned against God, God knew good and evil. It could still be true if he sinned before God created the earth, but maybe they're right and He knew, which makes no difference to me, because God is good all the time.
If God would love evil, He would be evil. God hates evil, because He's loving, just not loving unrepentant bozo's.
 

Prepared

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 4, 2022
Messages
67
Gender
Female
Religious Affiliation
Baptist
Marital Status
Divorced
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
That is not a sweet thing to preach in church. Jesus loves everyone and wants everyone saved and leave out all the unfriendly texts, like Corrie ten Boom's father did when they were small kids.
I once went to a FreeThinker forum with ex christians and atheists and they called me a New Testament sugar christian LOL. I did learn from them. I really believed, before I talked to them, that God was so good and thus naive, like Adam and Eve created in His Image, that He had no clue that Lucifer could be able to sin and only when he sinned against God, God knew good and evil. It could still be true if he sinned before God created the earth, but maybe they're right and He knew, which makes no difference to me, because God is good all the time.
If God would love evil, He would be evil. God hates evil, because He's loving, just not loving unrepentant bozo's.
No one said God was evil - the Bible speaks of the things God hates and uses the word hate and abominations.

Very few preachers teach of the wrath of God because they fear that it will scare people away and they want the people to come in hopefully for salvation and not just to have more money in their pockets.

Pastor Arnold Murry of the Shepherd's chapel when he was alive taught about the wrath of God.

Pastor Hagee of Cornerstone Church preaches about the wrath of God.

Maybe you've heard of either of the two. They don't sugar coat.
 

Lees

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 16, 2022
Messages
2,030
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Christian
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
The Bible certainly declares that God both loves and hates. (Mal. 1:2-3) (Rom. 9:13)

Lees
 

Jason_76

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 17, 2023
Messages
48
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Unitarian
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
No
As a Christian Universalist, I think the accusations of a hateful God come from observation of the eternal hell teaching, and honestly would come from observation of a teaching of annihilation also.
 

Odë:hgöd

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 27, 2020
Messages
1,538
Age
80
Gender
Male
Religious Affiliation
Christian
Marital Status
Married
Acceptance of the Trinity & Nicene Creed
Yes
~
I've encountered quite few folks at large who sincerely believe the gentle Jesus of
the New Testament was a radical, i.e. just the opposite of the fire and brimstone
Yahweh in the Old Testament. But not so; Jesus and Yahweh are in perfect
agreement.

John 5:19 . . I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do
only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also
does.

John 6:38 . . I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will
of Him who sent me.

John 8:29 . . The one who sent me is with me; He has not left me alone, for I
always do what pleases Him.

For example; when God inundated the world with Noah's flood killing everybody in
its path, Jesus would've cheered Him on. When God incinerated the entire town of
Sodom-- burning everyone to death including men, women, and children; young
and old alike --Jesus would've cheered Him on. When God slew all the firstborn of
man and beast in Egypt: Jesus would've cheered Him on.


Submitted for moderator approval 02/03/2024 @ 07:11 am Pacific Time
_
 
Top Bottom