“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” – 1 John 4:8 (NIV)
All the Yes points:
- He sent His own Son Jesus Christ to die for all our sins
- God meets all the definitions of love as set out in 1 Corinthians 13
- The Bible clearly states that God is love
- God loves you whether or not you believe in Him
- God will not let you be tested beyond breaking point
- Whether the Bible contains God’s word or not, using it as the single piece of evidence of God’s love makes for a poorly substantiated argument
- God is love
All the No points:
- God has been the pretext for warfare throughout history
- Natural disasters occur at God’s whim
- The Bible is fictional
- God doesn’t actually exist
- God is a Genocidal Nutcase
- Only Words, Another fairy tale
- The definition of God does not necessarily entail that god is love
- 1st John 4:8
- lol impossible God is God
- A book says that
He sent His own Son Jesus Christ to die for all our sins
Yes because…
“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16 (NIV)
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8 (NIV)
All sins have to be atoned for by death, hence all the sacrifices made by the Israelites in the Old Testament. Jesus was the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice, so perfect that it covers all the sins anyone has ever committed. All you have to do is to admit that you, like the rest of mankind, are a sinner, believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose victorious on the third day, and turn from all your sins. It’s the least we can do.
No because…
Do you think highly of someone who will sacrifice their own son? This is especially erroneous since God is supposed to be omnipotent and could, therefore, have ensured our sins were taken care of without anyone having to die at all. Instead, just to make a point, he sent his ‘son’ to be nailed to a tree and left to slowly bleed and dehydrate to death over a period of days. I’m glad my dad doesn’t love me like that.
Your last point is not very christian, Its not enough to believe Jesus is my Lord and Saviour, I need to belong to one of the thousands of various religions, and belong to the right one! Most of which state there’s is their only path to heaven, through them.
God cannot be benevolant (all-loving) as God woud not judge if he were. I am speaking not just in regards to judgement in the after-life but that which is preached from the bible. Jesus taught compassion and spread to word to “love thigh neighbour”. However, we still see how Christianity judges segments of society such as gays, ‘coloureds’ etc. This therefore argues the concept of the inconsistant triad, which argues that the God of classical Theism cannot be omnipotent, benevolant and omni-present. For example, if we take suffering in third-world countries – God can still be omnipotent and omniscient (all powerful & all knowing), but not all loving, otherwise he would have helped those who are suffering. The same can be done with removing one of the other two.
Furthermore, God is not in human form, and therefore cannot be seen in respect to human behaviour or emotion (i.e Love). Love is a human emotion and therefore cannot be assosiated to a non-human entity.
God meets all the definitions of love as set out in 1 Corinthians 13
Yes because…
1 Corinthians 13
1)If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2)If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3)If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4)Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5)It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8)Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
9)For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10)but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
11)When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
12)Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13)And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
(NIV)
The Bible is the Word of God. Do read it for yourself. You have no excuses since the whole Thing is now online and freely so: http://www.biblegateway.com/
Oh absolutely God is self-seeking. Even many Christians do not realise this. As John Piper explains in his book ‘Desiring God’, God must necessarily be selfish. He cannot put anything before Himself because to put anything before Himself would suggest that there is something greater than He. There isn’t.
No because…
You are using the definition of love from the same source that describes God. This is circular. I may as well write a book where I define cats as barking flee-bags and then introduce a character called ‘Fido’ who plays fetch and is a barking flee-bag with floppy ears and then try to persuade you that this is a cat.
Moreover I’m not really sure god does fulfill your criteria, he describes himself as jealous at various points in the bible, he definitely angers easily, and I would also argue that god is, self-seeking, rude, proud and boastful.
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“Who are you? Someone who loves you” – Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Episode VI I can quote scripture too, doesn’t mean love was set out by George Lucas.
The Bible clearly states that God is love
Yes because…
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” – 1 John 4:8 (NIV)
To address your point about defining both love and God… most dictionaries have definitions for both love AND God, and I know that there is more truth in the Word of God than in all the dictionaries combined, because “All Your words are true; all Your righteous laws are eternal.” Psalms 119:160 (NIV)
The Bible is perfect and whole. No external source needed.
No because…
The Bible cannot be used to define love AND God. An external source is needed or else the argument is circular. Wow, so because the Bible state God is love, therefore it is! What a novel idea. “Do or do not, there is no try” – Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Episode V That means you shouldn’t try anything in the world. Star Wars is perfect and whole. No external source needed
God loves you whether or not you believe in Him
Yes because…
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8 (NIV).
Everyone is a sinner (“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” – Romans 3:23 NIV) and we have done nothing to gain His love. Indeed, it is a wonder that God doesn’t hate us all. Yet:
“…He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” – 2Peter 3:9b (NIV)
That includes you, precious people.
No because…
This is utterly contradictory, as you say in a later point that anyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus or God will be ‘tormented day and night in hell’! This is yet another classic example of the contradictions present in the Bible and in many Christian minds.
God will not let you be tested beyond breaking point
Yes because…
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” – 1Corinthians 10:13
It is important to remember, though, that: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:” – James 1:13 (KJV)
No because…
If god is all powerful and willing, then whence cometh evil ?
Whether the Bible contains God’s word or not, using it as the single piece of evidence of God’s love makes for a poorly substantiated argument
Yes because…
To argue that “God is love”, using the Bible as the single piece of evidence is flawed because:
1) it denies other religious beliefs and texts without any empirical evidence that they are not ‘true’.
2) it convieniently overlooks Old Testament examples of God’s retribution and violence against man.
No because…
Did you know that all the Bible that you see nowaday are just another book that was typed and printed by a man? There is not hard evidence that there is a “god”
Everything about god was just written by another human being like us. Do you know why people started to believe in GOD?
It’s because they were weak in the olden days and wanted to hope that there is someone out ther who could help them be free “magically”. But since human wants are unlimited, the believing in God hasn’t stop yet.
God is only for people who are weak to believe in.
To make it clear, for example, if you want something badly and you want to plead someone for it, you pray to him in a hope that a magical thing would happen.
To make it simple, god is just another fairy tale. And people who believe are just like kids who want to believe that there is something magical out there in the world.
God is love
Yes because…
God is Love – he sees us through his son Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 13 says it all. God is all of these things.
No because…
Though if you are to quote these passages from the Bible, it would be assumed that the Bible is indeed 100% correct and has never been altered, doctored or cropped by the many minds of the last two centurys in order to solicitate their own personal agenda and gain. Especially in a less open-minded time period in which going against this “Word of God” was in many places blasphemous behaviour that sought the more violent displays of public persecution and execution.
It can be argued that the “Word of God” in the Bible was much more influencial than the word of written law for the majority of the last 2000 years and therefore a political superweapon.
Perhaps the even older and more reliable source, the Jewish equivalent – the Torah – can shed more light on this as Jews believe that Jesus was just a man given divine status by the Church of Christianity following his death.
God has been the pretext for warfare throughout history
No because…
In reference to the invasion of Iraq George Bush said that God told him to do it. Meanwhile, the Holy Wars of the middle east are conducted in the name of religion. Judaism and Islam are contrasting religions with a common God. But they slaughter the hell out of each other. The Bible itself explicitly condones the rape murder and ethnic cleansing of God’s enemies.
The comment about Bible believing christians being better than Jews or Muslims only illustrates the prejudice involved in faith.
Quoting the opposing argument, “Bush is fallible; the Bible is not.” – May it be wise to point out that over the many centurys the Bible has been around it has been interpreted, doctored and altered by some very intelligent and cunning minds to suite their own agenda for political and personal gain. The Bible is therefore fallible as it is the creation of a very human collective.
Yes because…
Who cares what George Bush did or didn’t say about God. Bush is fallible; the Bible is not. Don’t look to Christians when you can look to the Bible. Nobody is perfect, not even Christians. And we don’t claim to be. Look to God and His Word, which is perfect.
Jews and Muslims don’t believe that God is love. Only Bible-believing Christians do.
“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6 (NIV) Faith in Jesus is the ONLY way to salvation. That is the absolute Truth.
The comment opposite about the Bible explicitly condoning the rape, murder and ethnic cleansing of God’s enemies is false – Jesus bases his ministry around the inovocation to “love your enemy as you love yourself”.
Religion has been used as a pretext for war throughout history, there is no arguing about that. However a pretext is still a pretext – a reason given to justify an action, often one carried out for nefarious motives. The brutal warlords of history would have found other reasons to go to war if there was no religion. Religion is invoked to justify wars because it means so much to people – you can better motivate your soldiers to fight a war by telling them they are doing it for their god than you can by telling them that they are doing it for their country or their race.
Natural disasters occur at God’s whim
No because…
He is all-powerful…..apparently. But cyclones, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis etc…all occur to God’s people. They may be the most God-loving people ever, but he kills them anyway. If that’s love, David Hasslehoff is the Queen.
If God loves His creations and is omnipotent, why would He let them be “spoiled” in the first place.
If He’s all powerful, he should be able to do ANYTHING, including preventing the “spoiling” of His beloved creations.
It’s the Epicurus Argument all over agian.
Yes because…
We live in a fallen world. I don’t need to tell you that. People say lies about you, they scam you, teens rebel, doctors murder babies, etc. When sin entered the world, back in the Garden of Eden, all of creation was spoiled. Hence the earthquakes, cyclones, droughts, flash floods and the rest.But Christians needn’t worry about these things. The worst that can happen to us is that we will die. True Christians have the assurance that they will go to heaven, non-Christians to hell. You heard me right. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other Name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” – Acts 4:12 (KJV)
Jesus is the only way to avoid hell, where people who have not truly put their faith in Christ “will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” – Revelations 20:10c.
You know you have done bad things. Everyone does. But do not be fooled into judging yourself by the world’s standards. For “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,” (James 9:27 NIV), and judgement by a Just and Holy God. One sin and you are in Hell. Our situation was hopeless. BUT, praise God, God sent His own Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins as the perfect “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 NIV)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NIV, emphasis mine)
Hallelujah
The Bible is fictional
No because…
No proof of the Bible actually having a true basis. What is inside it is rubbish.
The bible has over 100 authors and 1000’s of amendments, This is factual. Because the text has been changed it cannot be “Truth”, The bible is a composition of many smaller books selected and compiled selectively and rewritten to suit the needs of the time. For example Pope Greggory wrote the 10 commandments that Moses was meant to have read.
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My niece, 17 years old, wrote a book entitled “The Book”. After reading it from cover to cover I found many shocking stories, fish declaring wars on each other; people being turned into salt (stolen I believe from an older source); warnings, too much cake makes me die a little on the inside; astronomy, the stars are infact the reflections of the eyes of giant cats waiting to pounce on our earth once it is all covered in darkness; and ethics, only ever kill with consent of the animal, that is, any animal which doesnt run away from you.
The prologue of the book was entitled “I am the Truth-Please believe me” and regularly “the book” preached that everything written within it was the essence of truth.
As I said, I read it from cover to cover, took in all of its messages, then fell into a deep sleep, and haven’t thought of it since.
Yes because…
Read the Bible for yourself, cover to cover, and you will agree with me that it is the Word of God and Truth itself. There is nothing false in Him, and nothing false in the Bible.
In response to the counter-argument: firstly, let me say that if you have yet to do what this yes point says, then why argue against it! As it stands, your counter-argument is not really a response, but an assertion – “What is inside it is rubbish”. This seems to me to be exactly the sort of thing you’re accusing the Bible of. Your argument is not backed up! You are stating things without showing where they have come from – have you personally done the research to qualify your statements so that we can take your word they are true? Is it actually possibly to regard any historical documents as ‘true’, such as those you claim disprove the Bible’s claims? To state that there is “no proof of the Bible actually having a true basis” suggests it is possible to prove the truth of things – if there is in fact a way to do this, please let the world know, they’re dying to hear it!
Please substantiate your claims, and if you find you are unable, then I would get on and read the Bible, cover to cover, as the point above says, and perhaps you’ll find some of your questions answered.
God doesn’t actually exist
No because…
God’s existence is becoming increasingly accepted as false. His myth may have been born out of the need of rulers to justify their rule…or some other crazy idea.
We CAN NOT have a debate on the qualities of God until his existence has been proven. Debating the specific characteristics of a hypothetical and potential being is fruitless: it’s like putting a made up man on trial for murder.
Yes because…
“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” – Psalm 14:1a (KJV)
Pray to Him and He will hear you.
God’s existence is becoming increasingly accepted as false.
If the above is right if He dosn’t exist why did Einstien and Stephen Hawking the two greatest scientists of the modern age believe in God
God is a Genocidal Nutcase
No because…
Most of the old testament consists either of God smiting the enemies of the Israelites or smiting the Israelites because they didn’t do what He wanted.
An analogy between that and a disciplining parent is not particularly good because
1. You can’t really improve your behaviour once your entire civilisation has been wiped out by God’s ‘chosen people’
2. Supposedly God made us, he could have got round the need for smiting by programming us to do good. Instead we’re supposed to believe that he programmed us to do bad, so he could drop plagues on us from time to time.
Overall he just seems to have a nasty penchant for ethnic cleansing and gets a right mardy on when people don’t do exactly what he says, if that’s love I’ll pass thankyou very much.
Yes because…
If you think that a loving God isn’t a pink ball of fluff, you are probably wrong. Sometimes, true love hurts. “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” – Proverbs 13:24 (NIV)
God created us and endowed us with freewill. We should choose to believe in God and love Him, but our sinful nature makes us so shortsighted that we prefer the immediate fleeting pleasures of this world to eternal pleasure in Heaven. In the end, the world will always let you down; God never never will.
Only Words, Another fairy tale
No because…
I can’t believe people are actually believing that God loves them just because of some words that were written by a person! Those words are probably not even the same as the one in history. I’m sure it has been edited by some people quite a few times.
God can never be what you call as ” love “. If you think you know know love or you love someone because of god, you are hopeless! Love is a passionate feeling for someone that has grabbed your attention not something that should be printed out million and and edited million times and be called “god”.
God is only for people who are weak to believe in.For example, if you want something badly and you want to plead someone for it, you pray to him in a hope that a magical thing would happen.
To make it simple, god is just another fairy tale. And people who believe are just like kids who want to believe that there is something magical out there in the world.
Yes because…
The definition of God does not necessarily entail that god is love
No because…
God can be defined as the perfect, omnipotent, powerful and knowledgeable being. Love is an emotion albeit a positive one.
If God is everything it follows that God cannot be one thing, i.e. it cannot just be love it must be all things. So to say that God is love is to that God is only love. it is a contradiction. To say that God is love shows that there is not a being that is everything and thus the statement itself proves the non-existence of God. love is a part of God, not God itself. Therefore the claim that god is love is wrong because a contradiction arises. Also a contradiction arises when an atheist states that god is love, if God isn’t then it must follow that God is nothing, i.e. God cannot be love unless God exists however the first paradox occurs again. Therefore the whole statement must be wrong to avoid those two paradoxes.
Yes because…
1st John 4:8
No because…
1st John 4:8 (NJKV) says: He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. well you ask anyone I KNOW LOVE but i dont belive what God says were suppose to do.
Yes because…
lol impossible God is God
No because…
too easy .. god is god and love is love. For a thing it self is a thing in itself .. if something has more then love it is not love initself.. but something with a relation of love…… That is, love is for certain a positive feeling. Some may get a possible feeling of love when thinking of god… but some don’t. Therefore love cannot be a part of god or everyone would get this feeling.. but love is definition in us..
The Fool on the hill…
Yes because…
A book says that
No because…
humans wrote the book.. so humans have expressed that love is love.. humans can lie.. but we must justification to think they would lie… … power and control or fear of only being the ones believing is a very good reason to justify why they would lie over not lying. So we should expect to be a lie.
Yes because…
The Holy Bible has lasted for over centuries, if it was incorrect then surely people would of proved this, but instead evidence of its truth has been arising. Though I do agree with you in a way and I sometimes doubt it too, but you need faith (which is what God tells us to do) and so this is what I have. If you have faith that the word’s in which have been written by real people’s experiences (which includes Jesus as well, and He doesn’t lie to us) then you will start to see even more proof of Him.
“If one will seriously investigate these Biblical evidences, he will find that their claims of divine inspiration (stated over 3,000 times, in various ways) were amply justified. The remarkable evidence of fulfilled prophecy is just one case in point. Hundreds of Bible prophecies have been fulfilled, specifically and meticulously, often long after the prophetic writer had passed away. For example, Daniel the prophet predicted in about 538 BC (Daniel 9:24-27) that Christ would come as Israel’s promised Savior and Prince 483 years after the Persian emperor would give the Jews authority to rebuild Jerusalem, which was then in ruins. This was clearly and definitely fulfilled, hundreds of years later.” (http://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-t003.html )
Love is not passion
Love is motive and action.
“Because I love you and want to be with you, I will marry you.”
“Because I love you child, I will provide for you”
“Because I AM a good and gracious GOD, I will save you”
Correction love should be motive and action, but we have drifted away from God and have fallen into hatred and passion, we have followed our hart as if we know better.However we were wrong our hearts are uncontrollable, and satisfied filled with lust and all sorts of darkness. One day we love the color red the next day we like blue, one day we love this woman the next we are getting a divorce. Look around you, humans should not be defining what love is, we don’t know how to love.
As far as the bible is concerned, the proof is in the pudding, why would men write a book that condemns them? This book claims that everything men does is evil, even the greatest things about us are like filthy rags (meaning menstrual rags). What Israelite man would write to even look at a woman and desire after her is lustful? what Israelite man would write that the issue of lust is not only your eyes but your heart? What Israelite man would write that to divorce a woman is a sin? What Israelite man would go preach to a people group who they hatted and was hatted by?
As far as the genocide goes; you need to understand that you’ve been lied to. GOD is not love, GOD is holy. Because he is holy he is love, because he is holy he is also wrathful against a sinful human race. Most opposition will refer to 1 Samuel 15 when they speak of GOD’s genocide. In the text we read that GOD sent Saul to kill all the Amalekites because of what they did to the Israelite while they were in the desert. This was not about war, this was not about conquering territory. GOD said destroy everything and do not bring anything back, because GOD is holy he cannot let anything sinful just be, for more info read Exodus 17:8-16. (GOD is impassable)
Our Issue
Our issue is not that we do not believe in GOD our issue is that we hate GOD. In hell GOD’s wrath will be present; in Matthew 13:42-43 it is written that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Meaning some will weep, and some even though they are in the presence of GOD (his wrath) they will still hate him and want nothing to do with him.
GOD is love for love is motive and action, love cannot be GOD for love cannot act.
Only GOD can truly love for only GOD is holy.
We would love to hear what you think – please leave a comment!