How can you trust a jealous god?

Question

Jealousy is a petty little feeling that petty little people get. It clouds judgement and leads to poor decision-making.
How can you people trust your lives to the hands of something powerful and god-like, yet petty and spiteful?
Stupid system.
Sounds like something pre-historic man made up in a fit of superstition.

married mama - I'll do no such thing - I can only hope I offended your christian sensibility - did you swoon? feel the vapors? Do you declare?

Answer 1

The problem God has with religion, I think, is that he gives his children guidelines to follow that will lead them to greater happiness if they will follow them. Then man steps in and adds his thoughts into the equation and what was once truth becomes distorted into contradictory lies. No, I do not beleive God is a jealous being. I believe Moses, or someone later down the road who was translating and copying Moses work, interpreted it that way. Maybe he wanted people to strive harder and used fear as a tool. Problem is, God is not fear...he is love. Or worse, maybe this person wanted to elevate himself in the eyes of the world and changed doctrine for self-elevation. All the truth you need to know about God will come to you in your heart if you contemplate and meditate about it. You are on the right track as far as your "pre-historic man", just don't go so far to left to believe that God does not exist at all. Just look at all the life on this planet, and all the stars in the sky. It is impossible for this to have happened by accident. "God" will speak to your heart if you let it in. God is not who the preachers want you to believe he is. He doesn't ask you to support a preacher. He wants you to do your part to support the human family. Happy searching.

Answer 2

It is because god is jealous that believers can manipulate him, with prayers, such as "If you give me this I'll really believe in you, I won't even look at another God".
On the other hand ,and more seriously, with no need for any gods, jealousy is apparently a part of this existence, so if we wish to be in harmony with life, we'd better accept that it's as holy as anything else.
The Greek and Roman gods, after whom the Christian god's character has evolved were famous for jealousy. I think this is a good reason to pursue a spiritual path which doesn't depend on such 'beings'
And finally ! Have you noticed how Believers ,so often talk in Capitalised Words,as if the overpowering emphasis on an Emotion, or Belief makes up for the lack of Sense in their Sentences ? There's so much circularity in their arguments that it's hard for a non believer to find any common ground for a conversation.

I just want to say that some of the answers that have appeared as I wrote this are not as described above, but still there's the assumption that there is a 'God'. With that massive assumption made on one side there's no bridge possible.

Answer 3

If you believe like the pantheists do that God is everything and beyond then God includes all emotions, even jealousy. However if you believe God is expressed by the most virtuous aspects of creation then you have a whole entirely different story. In this case God would not be rash, envious, hateful, wrathful, nor jealous. Though western religion does not come across as pantheistic over all, there is a passage in the new Testament that talk about God being all in all, hmmm definitely curious. Whatever the case, Western Religions at times tends to portray God at times as an evil despot, calling for the genocide of entire cultures, enslavement, forced marriages, the cutting off of appendages, the execution of rape victims, etc. This mostly occurs in the Old Testament. What you have to understand is all religion is only mankind’s metaphysical ideas about the spiritual world. You need not only to take it with a pitch of salt, but the whole salt shaker full. Yes, there are some inspired passages here and there. This is simply man by meditating on the subject occasionally tapping into a higher truth. This comes and goes in spurts. At times I’m sure they felt inspired and in their hubris continued to write other things which were, let us say, less than inspired. As spiritual seekers of the truth we need to delineate what is true and what is not. Fortunately God has placed a piece of him/herself into each and every one of us. It is like the needle of a compass always pointing us in the right direction.

Answer 4

Great question! The Bible states continually about the love God has toward His favorite creation-humans. His jealousy is not the child-like type where He gets mad because we don't give Him the attention He wants. This is a type of jealousy where His love is so great for us that He saddened by us not loving Him back. Because of the concern He has for us actually makes Him a very trustworthy God. If He was a god that didn't get jealous or just didn't care about us, THEN we would have an untrustworthy god. In a nutshell, thank you lord for being jealous for us all!

Answer 5

God is not jealous. God has NO need. Jealousy is a human trait ascribed to God by humanity. It is because we believe in the illusions of need, insufficiency, requirement, judgment, condemnation, conditionality, and superiority.

You're right, it would be stupid to trust a jealous God.

That's why the God of my belief is the formless, genderless, omnipresent, eternal energy source which is the process of life itself.

Not a being, or an old guy with a long white beard and flowing robes sitting in a throne in some heaven in outer space somewhere.

Answer 6

Jealousy is only petty in your seriously flawed humanistic viewpoint.

God is jealous because He alone really is legitimately worthy of worship and adoration. Can you name anything else that ought to be worshipped and adored? Is there anything else as high, important, exalted as God? What do you think is more important than the creator of everything?

Jealousy is legitimate. If a man adores a woman who is not his wife, then the wife has every right to be jealous. He ought to adore her alone. That's what he said he'd do in the vows. When he doesn't, he's wrong.

Same with God.

If you don't deserve adoration, then you cry and whine when you don't get it, THAT is petty.

Answer 7

I don't believe there is a god...nor do I doubt the existence of god(s)....it's pretty much petty to argue with believers as it is petty for believers to force feed their religion & beliefs on anyone which is only based on beliefs...
Atheists & believers of whatever religion are all the same in the sense that they believe in something each cannot physically prove or completely debunk the other...
Perhaps,the jealousy(the word itself-as it refers to god)part in which it was written in the book-was really written by a man without any regards to anyones opinion...for one reason or another......
Good Q.btw,if indeed your intention was to stir up the pot....

Answer 8

Sounds like what a petty little god named "Satan" would have you believe about a God that shows more love in his pinky than we do. He is allowing sin to run its course. Just like a parent who tells you that you are grounded and you take the first opportunity to leave the house during that period. He may know, but he lets you do break the grounding knowing that consequences are coming.

Answer 9

Why does the Christian god have so many human feelings ? Because he's man-made ! Man fears the unknown. Man fears death...The Christian god is supposed to be "all loving" and "all powerful" , yet almost 10,000 children in the world die everyday from starvation and related causes....If you had the power to save a childs life, would you just sit there and let her/ him starve to death ?

Answer 10

It seems a bit like your interpretation has gotten mixed up. God made you and granted you free will so you are actually eternally debted to him yet you are allowed to question him and we can believe whatever we want. I think that God has given us too much for us to call him these things. WHen he says he is jealous he is saying this word so we can sort of understand, for his feelings and thoughts are much ore comllex than we can understand. So it is more a mixed feeling of anger and sadness that you believe in someone else besides him. God bless you.