Re: How to love God.

Zen talks describes seeking enlightenment in terms of grasping a
handful of air. When you grasp it it is gone. All the great religions
talk of love for God without thought of recompense. See the
Seven Valleys. Abdul-Baha provides the analogy of the tree that
produces fruit whether anyone picks it or not.

You ask whether it is reasonable to love One who brings good things?
Reason is not an adequate basis for loving God. We can say that it is
not unreasonable to love God - i.e. Kant's reductio ad absurdum, that is
as far as logic and reason take us "until the fire of love burns to ashes
the harvest of reason..."

Cheers,
Tom

So the love of God is dependent upon the attributes we see in God, if this
is the case. Is our love of God dependent upon what He can do for us? On
the flip side, it would certainly be difficult to love the bringer of
misery, sadness, difficulties and afflictions. So is it reasonable to love
He that brings both good and bad?

My personal epiphany came when I was miserable. I knew the promise in the
Tablet of Ahmad and, unable to sleep, I studied the prayer one night. And
now it makes perfect sense to love God and His creation, and it is His
promise in that prayer that brought me around, and began my study into a
perfectly reasonable, non-magical, and rational creation with its undeniable
and loving Creator.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Pope Benedict XVI (fool or bigot ?)
    ... At any rate read the speech. ... It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, ... faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. ... devoted to something that did not exist: God. ...
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  • Re: Reclaiming Atheism
    ... [about quasi-anthropomorphic language about God, ... I said some things about God. ... application of reason. ... If I've misunderstood what you're saying, ...
    (uk.religion.christian)
  • Re: Whats the Problem?
    ... I still haven't seen a good reason. ... I can't imagine what special effects have to do with prophecy. ... People in Biblical times supposedly saw God. ... evolution even when the data points away from them. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Whats the Problem?
    ... I still haven't seen a good reason. ... You are back to employing double standards, Jim. ... tone when people patiently try to explain features of evolution or cosmology. ... And what effect of God can we see, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: What is Blind Faith?
    ... God's, or how anyone who believes in reason is his own god. ... It is the Baha'i Faith, ... spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely ...
    (soc.religion.bahai)