The selfishness of God? posted in philosophy...hmmmmm?

Question

The selfishness "of God"?

If Jesus being the "holy begotten son", God himself, then wouldn't his act on the cross been selfish and not selfless? God himself states he is a jealous God, and wants us only for himself. So if he did come to earth as Jesus then dying on the cross was not a selfless act but a selfish one because he wants us to be with him.

* 24 minutes ago

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Additional Details

10 minutes ago

In response to sunflower.....we do have something that God wants and that is ourselves, we are not his entirely, hence the fall from grace when the apple was eaten. We became beings of free will and choice, just godlike and I do know Genesis 3:5 KJV

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

John 10:34 KJV •

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

The little 'g' is implying that we are gods, not Gods possession. We have a choice to return to the maker or not. So his choice is selfish, to get us to return home so to speak.

3 minutes ago

The true meaning of selfishness: caring for one's own interest

The true meaning of selfless:having little or no concern for oneself

Answer 1

I'll agree.

Look at the book of Job. God TORTURES Job just to prove to the DEVIL that he can and that Job will still love him after it all. Then, he gives everything back to Job saying "see, aren't you so thankful now? Look how loving me can pay off." Yes, I paraphrase.

Seriously, that's messed up.

Answer 2

I believe when God's son is brought down to Earth by other men who Know God, as John the Baptist in Jesus's time, he has an ego just like everyone common person does. But he also has a universal ego that encompasses everything in the universe and not only appears like a bird to a bird and a goat to a goat but is actually the form and shares their consciousness. If God said he was a jealous God in the Bible and you believe that, he's saying that on a human level so you can understand, possibly though one of his advents, such as Jesus, but he's trying to make you understand how much He loves you and wants you to come to Him and to forget everything else. Remember Jesus also asked God to forgive the people that murdered Him, how could that possibly be selfish and anything else but unconditional love?

Answer 3

I don't see a contradiction here.  But, religion is at its core, based on selfishness just like all human endeavors.

Answer 4

Very interesting question...

Assuming, for the moment, that God exists, His act of creation, in and of itself, could be considered selfish and, dare I say, arrogant; i.e, "Look how mighty and powerful I am! See all that I've made! Now I'm bored, so I need something to "share" it with. People that will love, worship and obey me above all others."

On to His only begotten Son: He wanted us to come to Him in death, but the gates of Heaven were closed and could only be opened by the sacrifice of His Son (or, really, the sacrifice of Himself). So, selfless in the aspect of sacrifice, selfish in the aspect of He wants back what He made.

Answer 5

I think that if God exists that he is 100% diabolically evil, but I tend to keep this view to myself due to the fact that it is not a popular mindset among the religious who would whole-heartedly condemn my soul to h**l for even considering the prospect.   Yes, I would agree with them that I am going to go to h**l, especially if God is really evil acting in the guise of benevolence and condemns those who seek the Truth (which is beyond God's power) with total sincerity and dedication, regardless of the consequences concerning whether you will receive rewards and know bliss forever or be punished and know torment forever.

For my first argument concerning the evil nature of God, I turn to Genesis concerning God's forbidding man to partake of the Knowledge of Good and Evil on pain of death.  Now, if mankind were at one time subjected to a total ignorance of the ideals of good and evil, how would they be able to confirm whether the deity they were serving was good or evil?  See, a benevolent God would have nothing to hide, and would therefore have no reason to forbid such knowledge from being openly perceived, as it would only confirm the goodness of his nature and strengthen their relationship.  A malevolent God would have everything to gain by keeping this knowledge a total secret so no one could question his dominion over the universe.  Yet, another interesting note of fact is in the events which followed Adam and Eve's consumption of the forbidden fruit and were exiled from the Garden of Eden.  God hid the Tree of Life from them so they could not grow to become immortal and be fully gods themselves, thereby ensuring that no one would be able to rival his throne in the instance that he really was evil and not good.  Again, a good God would have no reason to fear the idea of competition among the ranks of the gods in the case that knowledge of good and evil were easily and clearly perceived, but an evil God would.

Secondly, in my perception, God judges us more as a collective than he does as an individual because it is believed that since Adam and Eve sinned before God all mankind from their bloodline down are natural-born sinners and must therefore die even though children are born innocent and have committed no crime and should not be held accountable for the things their ancestors have done.  The idea of the transmission of the original sin through the generations is like saying that a specific bloodline of living beings should be subjected to the highest capital punishment for an act that their ancestors committed.  Is this justice or the vengeance of a carnal tyrant?

Thirdly, in order for the perception of miracles and magic to exist, one needs to be placating an audience of people who are ignorant of the laws of the universe itself so they do not know the nature of how action A resulted in action B.  Wonder over mystery (which is perceived due to confusion) and miracle (which is perceived due to ignorance) then leads to worship, especially if another uses his own heightened knowledge of the universe to incite terror among those who have no way to logically reason with the alleged powers they are witnessing and demands tribute in return for protection, assistance, and above all, absolute loyalty.  This, then leads God to have a motive in making all men born innocent or ignorant -- without any predetermined knowledge of the universe so they are constantly confused by an unusual mental blindness and are unable to comprehend the level of the powers he wields, of which he is only capable of manifesting due to his personal intense knowledge of the nature of the universe in which he dominates.

Fourthly, in being all-powerful and all-seeing, God has no reason to "test" and "try" mortal men, for he would then therefore have it in his grasp to perceive whatever result his alleged "test" would have on the chosen subject well before he began.  It is moreover that man should be testing God and not the other way around.  Also, in being all-powerful, God has the ability to unblock the unconscious repression of our collective genetic memory so we could better learn from direct example of our history and ancestry, but he doesn't because he wants us to remain ignorant so that we will continue to worship him and not rely upon the nature of the universe itself which is actually beyond him.  Not only that, but if we were not ignorant, we would not be likely to sin because of the innate knowledge of the repercussions every action we make has upon the universe.  No sinning means no punishment.  No punishment means no fear.  No fear means no blind loyalty in hope of being saved from pain.

A quote from Thomas Moore comes to mind concerning the nature of this:

"If you suffer your people to be born into poverty and poor of education, and then punish them for the acts they make in which their first dispensation disposed of them, what more is to be said then that you first create your criminals and then punish them?"

And of course, in God's case this is undeniably true, as all men are indeed a species of innocent children who error out of blindness and ignorance, not out of a true nature of utter evil, as the religious believe.  In this, they are forgivable in my eyes.  We are all blind and lost here.  I weep for this fact.

I could go on and on, really about this because I have thought about it quite extensively in my pursuit of understanding God, which I undertook back in my spiritual/religious days.  And believe me when I say that according to the things I have "seen" in my pursuits I have been literally damned and cursed because I said I would look and not withhold any secrets whether they are said to be sacred or not from my fellow people who have a right to know the Truth concerning the nature of the universe.  In my explorations, it is they who seek the Truth who are damned and we therefore are the soul-less ones because in loving the universe so greatly we have poured ourselves into it entirely, until nothing at all remains...

Answer 6

I wouldn't disagree with you.  However, the God portrayed in the Old Testament is by any measure a selfish, tyrannical, sociopath.  So, that would not surprise me.  Especially when compared to the sunshine and rainbows version portrayed in the new testament.

Answer 7

I guess you would be right. In a sense though, I think it could be both. God isn't selfish though in a bad way. For instance, a child with cancer would be selfish for chemo treatments. Then again it would be a selfless act if the child gave up it's own life so that another child could have this rare chemo treatment and live. You have to remember that Jesus also committed a selfless act. God gave up his own body and blood for us. Seems pretty selfless to me. When we say He is selfish, I don't think we have to say that in a negative way. It is a loving and caring kind of selfishness. I know if I had twelve kids, I would be selfish in that I wouldn't want them to die, but I would want them to live with me. I guess if we put ourselves in His shoes, we would feel the same way as He does about being selfish (loving and caring).