Love me or else (Part Two) (Where is it now?)

by David Turell , Sunday, December 23, 2012, 00:29 (4355 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained


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> What does religion have to do with it? If offering reward and punishment is as dealing with a child, then humanity is infantile in the extreme. My point was not that we are any more or less evil, but that we have not matured. -You are right. We have not matured a great deal since those times. But the real point is the maturation of the concept of God, which is why we are on this thread. The God of the Hebrews at face value was threatening to destroy whole cities and whole nations. Granted the Talmudists have found a softening way to interpret the OT. Jesus brought love as the main approach in the NT, but he was preceded by Hillel who was already preaching the same message from the OT so what is being done now from the OT started then. Hillel and Jesus overlapped by a very few years, as Hillel died when Jesus was very young. The Quran approaches God at a distance. He is not so personal and one knows him by his works. Like Karen johnson, I view this pattern of presentation of 
God as a maturing of the way to appreciate God. -And the reward or punishment aspect of religion I find very puerile. the real message, as you know, is you are good for goodness sake, not for fear of punishment. Catholics are allowed a fresh start with confession, and Jews with the 10 days of atonment. This softens the childishness.