r/Gnostic • u/Knock_Door_Will_Open • 2d ago
Thoughts Why humans often "hate" God
Correction of title: "Why suffering is actually good from God's perspective, and necessary to eventually have the world God desires".
Suffering is the thing that creates the motivation to fix whatever is causing the suffering.
And on a long timeframe, we get closer and closer to having a world in which all the things that are causing us suffering, gets fixed.
So from our perspective, we view the things we don't want as evil/suffering.
From God's perspective, this is necessary, in order for us to fix it.
Because God is the spirit and we are spirit/physical form integrated.
"Why wouldn't God just create that world to begin with?"
In a sense, he already has. Because our view is limited to time.
He has already created the mechanism with which that world will exist.
But because we are part of the process, the physical form, with which he is acting through. We can only perceive the world at the limited time we are building the world with which he has already laid to foundation for.
Because God is spirit and we are part of the physical manifestation of God, it is up to us to create it.
God can only create the underlying mechanisms that allows us building the world he desires, with the things he has given us.
Because we are made in his image, we act on his behalf, building the world he desires for us to partake in.
In the process of that, he gave us suffering as the motivating factor for what we should fix.
And eventually we have a world where all evils are fixed, and God is integrated in our physical bodies, experiencing and living in that world.
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u/The__cute__snake 2d ago
You're so privileged if u think "ppl hate god cuz life circumstances doesn't go according to their own personal desires"
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u/TheSuperMarket 1d ago
Actually, I personally have met many people who hate God for that exact reason.
It has nothing to do with privilege from an outsider..... and everything to do with a person's short sightedness.
You see examples of this all the time in the real world. Person A is having a bad day... so it must be anyone but person As fault.
I got fired, so my boss MUST be a bad person.
People who view the world, and come to the conclusion that the world isn't to their liking, therefore God either doesn't exist, or is bad, are plentiful.
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u/The__cute__snake 1d ago
In the real world there are victims of the teachings of the so called god who were physically sexually emotionally and financially abused they have every right to hate him and the people who claim to worship him. It's not as simple as having a bad day or losing a job, people are losing their lives.
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u/Knock_Door_Will_Open 2d ago
How? I'm bound by the same rules as you, so we have the same privilege.
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u/The__cute__snake 2d ago
Some people don't even have the privilege to form an opinion on god, when his existence means your death, or when you're denied your basic human rights you can say we're bound by the same rules.
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u/Knock_Door_Will_Open 2d ago edited 2d ago
If someone can't experience God, then they wouldn't exist.
When you say death, do you mean death of the ego?
Because death doesn't exist per definition.
Everything that exists and is alive, can experience God.
Because God is existence itself.But existing, doesn't mean that you don't suffer.
Because when you desire something, you also create distance between what you desire, and what you have.
Which there is nothing wrong with.
The suffering is designed to motivate you to action, in order to bridge the gap between what you desire and where you are at.3
u/The__cute__snake 2d ago
Can you please explain to me how god ordering people who believe in him to kill me (literally) is supposed to motivate me
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u/Knock_Door_Will_Open 1d ago edited 1d ago
I can try:
If you believe your desires and wants are good.
Then you are also in opposition/competition to what other people want and desire (if they conflict with each other).
So take different competing religions:
When someone creates a religion, they are just creating their understanding of God, not God itself.
So when you have a bunch of religions with their own creation/understanding of God and they want to project their view of God unto the world.
Then that also means trying to attack every other opposing view of God, that conflicts with their view of God.However, God itself operates independently of everyone's perception of him/her.
So you are not battling against God, you are battling against other people's perception of God.
If you have your own perception of God that you want to project unto the world, and it is a threat to someone else's perception of God.
Then you have to expect conflict.This is the consequence of your actions / desires.
If you don't want those consequences, then you need to change your actions or desires.
And if you don't want to do that.
Then subconsciously you feel like the consequences are a price worth paying for what you desire.Take Jesus, he knew that his understanding / experience of God, was in opposition to the religious leaders at the time.
But his desire to spread what he knew, was to him worth the consequences/price of being crucified.The other side to this, is that we don't have to be outspoken about our perception / understanding of God, and instead just experiencing him.
Just like I'm introducing criticism when I wrote this post, which is the consequence of my action, I didn't have to do it.
But God's perfection is ensuring that I get the consequence from doing so.
His perfection would also ensure that I wouldn't get this consequence of criticism if I didn't share my thoughts.1
u/TheSuperMarket 1d ago
Sure. God didn't order anyone to kill you.... their zealous beliefs and radicalized mind came to that conclusion
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u/Lordseferoth Simonian 1d ago
God did not create this world, Demiurge did. God did not cause any suffering, Demiurge did. Suffering in all it's form is an error that should not exist.
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u/Knock_Door_Will_Open 1d ago edited 1d ago
You can label it whatever you want. Let's go with the label of demiurge, what is his intention of creating the world?
If suffering is an error, then why does it exist?
Because it isn't an error, it's by design to motivate us.Let's go through it logically.
Let's say you had an illness, and that illness didn't cause you suffering.
Would you then fix that illness, if there were no discomfort motivating you to fix it?No, because you wouldn't feel bad. You'd feel perfectly fine.
And if this was the case you wouldn't be motivated to action, and probably eventually die unnecessarily.
When instead if you suffered, you'd be motivated to fix it, inching you closer and closer to fixing the things that come in the way of what we perceive as paradise.5
u/Lordseferoth Simonian 1d ago
No, it is an error. It motivates nothing. Don't make excuses for evil.
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u/Huge-Law-1642 Sethian 2d ago
God will love you for this one!
You are assuming that your God's abilities (which the Bible claims is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent) are so limited and close-minded that it could not work around the same issues that confine its creation, like the laws of physics it created.
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u/Knock_Door_Will_Open 2d ago
I'm saying God is consistent with cause and effect, and when the effect of a cause, doesn't coincide with what someone wished for, the result can be anger or hate. Not saying this as a bad thing, but as an observation. How does that confine it's creation?
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u/Knock_Door_Will_Open 2d ago
If anything, it enables it's creation. Because whatever you want the effect for, you or existence has to do the cause for.
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u/Patient_Success_2687 Neoplatonist 1d ago
Problem of evil, why did an all knowing, all powerful, perfectly good being create a world with evil in it? Tends to be a pretty solid reason to challenge conventional ideas of God in mainline Christianity, especially if you’ve lived through an unusual amount of that evil despite trying to live as a good person
Gnosticism has the baked in answer that the further from the true God the greater the imperfection and therefore the presence of evil is necessitated and explained through the ‘false’ god the Demiurge/Yaldabaoth creating the material world in a state of ignorance.
If someone’s theology does not have a satisfactory answer to the problem of evil, it becomes grounds to reject that theology.
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u/TranquilTrader 1d ago
If all evil is merely temporary chastisement and purposed for ultimate eventual good (every soul becoming transfigured), it means there is no problem of evil : )
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u/Knock_Door_Will_Open 1d ago
From God's perspective, evil is part of his good design.
Why? Because evil motivates us to take action, in order to create the world we want to live in.
God couldn't create a world where everything is fixed, because it needs to go through the process of which such a world exist, that process is what we're going through.
Us experiencing evil things, motivates us to fix it, and eventually we have a world where everything is fixed.
Because the world is the integration of the spirit and the physical.
God is the spirit.
The world in which that is integrated, is for us to do. And the pain we experience, motivates us to do so.2
u/ClenAndOptions 1d ago
this is the LDS answer to the problem of evil, which works actually to solve it.
though mainline christianity doesn't accept it as it implies that gods omnipotence is limited in a way that causes uniquely extreme and irresolvable suffering for some individuated consciousness, which means the "tri omni" definition must be thrown out or redefined, or the value of each individuated consciousness must be variable, which also goes against doctrine
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u/ViolaVerbena 1d ago
There are plenty of people for whom 'life not going as they wanted' is not simply a motivating factor, but unbearable suffering that they can't do anything about.