What if God was love, and only love?
God could love us. He couldn’t stop a war, but he could love everyone fighting it.
God could love us, but he simply wasn’t capable of feeding the hungry.
God could love us, but he simply hasn’t the power to cure cancer, or to regrow limbs.
God could love us, but he still would not be able to stop hatred.
God could love us, but beyond these unfocused feelings of love he could not influence humanity, or reality, in any other way.
What if all God could do was send us feelings of all-embracing love?
It certainly would not be a nothing. It certainly would not make God a useless entity.
Imagine the old lady, breathing her last breaths, alone, with only her belief to give her comfort. All God could do was send the feelings…the message, you are loved…I love you. Perhaps this would be enough for her to die with a contented smile on her face.
The lonely, the destitute, whatever else their pain, could receive this feeling of overall love, and it just might give them the strength to carry on.
This would be a far, far cry from the all-powerful, all-wise God proposed in the books. We would not be able to blame God for the horrors of the world simply because God would have no control over them…no influence whatsoever. He just existed, and existed as nothing but love.
Despite the famous Epicurus paradox, I still might be willing to call such a being God.
But, alas, I still can’t believe it.
Because why would a god of love only love those who seek the love. Why not send his love to the destitute person, perhaps even the believing person, contemplating suicide? Why is this feeling withheld from the homeless–freezing cold and lonely on the street.
Why isn’t this feeling of love sent to people in a state of rage to at least try to keep them from striking out, from abusing, from killing?
One could come up with possible reasons, but this kind of speculation is the direction in which madness, or apologetics, lie. Far more likely to think that this feeling is entirely self generated: a feeling formed from memory and imagination with a healthy contribution of various endorphins or other brain chemicals or whatnot.
It is a feeling probably familiar to many who believe or who have believed…the feeling of overwhelming love in a religious setting. I can recall this feeling distinctly myself…this powerful, soul-soothing embrace of love by the deity we seek. We imagine the being, we imagine and feel the sensation. It is a beautiful feeling, and probably a feeling, self-generated though it is, that is strong enough to keep people believing and returning to church week after week.
One might argue that it could be an argument against atheism that the loss of our imaginary being to generate this feeling is something that they sacrifice in the name of reason. There could be a point in this. Atheists, however, are still not denied the love of family and of friends, the joy of accomplishment and of sharing and of giving, or the feelings of awe when beholding nature or of contemplating the universe.
Of course, the theist has access to these feelings as well. But atheists, likewise, no longer have the universal fear of judgment, the fear or rejection by the creator of the universe, the fear of eternal torment after death.
Yes, one could say that atheists lose something in their lack of belief, but perhaps it all evens out in the long run.
~ Steve
So I guess the point then is the God can’t be love and ONLY love?
I think the point is that he hypothetically could be, but like anything suggested for anything ever related to a God, there is simply no reason to believe that this is the case. In the case of a God that is nothing but love, I must admit that I feel some sense of disappointment.
I agree with you. I can understand when people say God loves people, but I’ve always felt the concept of God being love a little strange. It almost gives him a quality that similar to the Force from Star Wars. It seems to imply God have no actual presence, no will, he’s not even a being anymore.
Oh hey, it’s you! It’s me Mary! This is a very nice good hearted post btw.
(It’s me, Mary from Tumblr) (hugs)
Reblogged this on Atheist Deist Theist Agnostic.
I really like what you did here. It definitely raises some interesting questions. Being an Atheist it makes me ponder, why would a god like this be worth worshipping?
But great job. I really like this.
A god like this wouldn’t be worth worshiping, which brings to mind the question of what, if anything, IS worth worshiping? I mean, if a god created the universe, sacrificed itself to save me from my sins, and saved my mom from an airplane crash, that would be freaking awesome! But in all honesty nothing in any of that inspires worship in me. I mean, a great big hug, mega accolades, and maybe even bringing him a bear and some cookies would be the most that would it would occur to me to do. Worship would never even begin to cross my mind.
Worship seems to me to do nothing else than stroke the ego of the worshipee. I honestly don’t understand why any being, no matter what the nature, would ever “deserve” worship.
I completely agree. It appears that (at the least the Christian version) God has a very low self-esteem and requires worship to make himself feel better. As you said, it does nothing but stroke his ego. If he could really do all those things (ie saving my mother from an airplane crash) then that would be awesome, but theres nothing to prove that he has done those things. Absolutely no evidence. Its very easy for a Christian just to blurt out, “God did it!” whenever something hard to explain pops up, because they have no proof except “faith” but in reality when they ask us for proof of all these things, they fail to realize the burden of proof is on them…..