How can God be the universe if god is love?

Sure, you can say that hate/evil is created when people are on a "low-level" of God's love, but what about the rock? The tree? the mountain? Are those things having a love energy?

It seems like God would be PEACE, instead.


But if God is peace, why is death so brutal? Why do few people AND animals learn to be peaceful in any situation?

Originally posted by arpgme
Sure, you can say that hate/evil is created when people are on a "low-level" of God's love, but what about the rock? The tree? the mountain? Are those things having a love energy?

It seems like God would be PEACE, instead.


But if God is peace, why is death so brutal? Why do few people AND animals learn to be peaceful in any situation?

Dear arpgme,

I have been with people as they died, it is not brutal, it may appear so from the outside; but, most pass very peacefully, the last moment is one of acceptance and release. As for God being peace or even love. I disagree. God is a sentient beings same as you and I except with a greater understanding of all of us and more love. The question is either we live and die as if we never existed or we find a solution to the question of eternity and how to not have it become a hell.

reply to post by arpgme


God is everything, love, hate ,good, evil. God is both sides of the coin and the edges. God made all, so god is all.
peace

reply to post by arpgme


Well here is your problem. You're attributing the word God to encapsulate the single thought that holds all this together.

The God of the Bible is merely a higher being, and not necessarily of Love, if you've read the Old Testament.

The actual element holding all these dimensions together is light/love and love/light. Thats where all souls, in every dimension, return to upon transition.

Hebrew God, Greek Gods, Mayan Gods, Sumerian Gods, American Indian Star People, Hindu Gods...the list goes on. They may be separate entities. They may be one and the same, playing one big game of human manipulation.

Above them is the creation. I guess the true 'God'.

reply to post by ZeussusZ


So in other words, God IS peace (acceptance) because you HAVE to have to be EXTREMELY acceptance to let pleasure AND suffer, and good AND evil, and love AND hate, to exist...

The idea that "God is love" has a Biblical origin, and the Bible does not identify God with the universe but identifies him as the Creator of the universe.
As you say, "God is love" and "God is the universe" are not really compatible; they don't belong together.

reply to post by arpgme


No, God is an entity that told people to sacrifice their sons before another entity artificially inseminated Mary and gave that region Jesus (Yeshua, Immanuel, depending on what you're reading). Jesus brought the message of Love and acceptance. Maybe Jesus was a manifestation of The Creation and not the Hebrew God? It would explain a lot.

Muhammed on the other hand.....he sounds more like a manifestation of the Hebrew God. Telling people to be peaceful but if not then cut off their head.

Originally posted by arpgme
But if God is peace, why is death so brutal?

How do you know death is brutal?

How can you make such a statement?

reply to post by arpgme


God is everything. This is something everyone should discover for themselves. Forget the word love and it's definition and context. The love is actually what human's have felt after experiencing the pure energy of the divine within themselves. Few have felt that overwhelming energy, it is described as overwhelming love, devoid of darkness and doubt. This same energy is in EVERY single "thing" you see around you. You can say that this energy or consciousness , which is felt as pure love to humans (among many other mystical descriptions), is expressed in everything around us.

This energy is what everything is made of and held together with.

reply to post by Visitor2012


To me it doesn't feel like love at it. It feels like "everything is gonna be ok", "Allow things to just BE" - in other words it feels like peace!

Some people say love and I don't see how it's love.


Maybe you are right, people just "express" it in that word..

reply to post by Visitor2012


What he said ^^^

Like I mentioned, it is the single thought that holds all this together. Love/Light and Light/Love. It cannot be broken down into a simple description. Buddhists meditate for years on this answer. As Visitor is saying, it needs to be discovered on your own, and you will never really grasp it if you think words can explain it.

It is almost that. Everything exists as it is, there is no right or wrong, no peace or war. It just is.

This life is a lesson, upon many to be learned along your path. Do not think it ends at death though because as you said "everything is going to be OK". Everything gets reconciled. Everything comes full circle. This universe is cyclic.

reply to post by LightAssassin


Like I said, when I meditate, I receive thoughts like "All is well", "Just BE", "Let all things be"


I detach my thoughts, I detach my emotions, and hidden behind them is PEACE. I do not feel love but peace, from this energy.

I can feel the peace of the walls, the peace of the trees, the peace of the grass... I can feel a force but it feels like PEACE and not love.

reply to post by DISRAELI


Zoroastrianism is older than Judaism and Christianity and they believe that God is light/love, so it's not created by them.

reply to post by arpgme


I edited my above post, sorry.

Yes. Those are the answers and you do not need to ask anyone to validate the messages you're getting. Just keep meditating. More answers will come.

Why do you think so much time and money has been spent on developing entertainment for humans? It is also the same reason they use certain frequencies for mobile phone transmissions, radio and electrical transmissions. To create noise to stop us from learning the truth.

reply to post by Th0r


I'm sure he doesn't know whether death is brutal or peaceful. Neither do you nor do I. I don't know if god is love or if it's not. Ninety percent of every war that's ever been fought is because of some made-up, mind control, completely unproven religion. You never hear in the news, "200 killed today when Atheist rebels took heavy shelling from the Agnostic stronghold in the north". No, it's because people don't want to admit that they don't freaking know. Thanks Doug!!!!

reply to post by MrWax11


Religion is not equal to God. For all we know, there can be NO right religion and God can just be an existence that created everything just for an experiment...

reply to post by MrWax11


Welcome to ATS.

Actually Atheists have committed atrocities to religious people. It's inherent Human behaviour that is the problem, not God.

reply to post by arpgme


You're not trusting your own answers. Start with the truth that dwells within your being. Everyone has it. We're all just too preoccupied to hear or see it.

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by DISRAELI

 

Zoroastrianism is older than Judaism and Christianity and they believe that God is light/love, so it's not created by them.

Nevertheless, the Bible is the immediate source of that concept in modern culture.
"God is love" is a statement made in the Bible; the thought entered our culture as an inheritance from knowledge of the Bible, and that, ultimately, is where you got it from.

But coming back to the philosophical point; you suggested- rightly, I think- that identifying God with love is problematic if you also identify God with the universe.
I suggest that you resolve the difficulty by not trying to make both identifications.
"God is love" only works if "God is the universe" is abandoned.

Giving birth is a 'brutal' thing, but look at the end result..... Death is just merely another step in the journey

But I do not equate God and love as being the exact same thing.

We are all God's consciousness 'divided' into smaller human sub-units. God is essentially everyone and everything contianed within the universe. But as everything is still one and the same, there is an attraction to everything else. And this attraction is love. Nothing more nothing less. But this attraction, this love, is what eventually will lead us back to the source. When each separate soul has finally experienced its little part of the puzzle it will follow the path of love, its own in built attraction to everything else, back to the source, and the veil will be lifted.

It is essentially a force, an attraction between everything and everything else. Kinda like gravity on a spiritual level. Love is a process. It is the road we follow to lead us back to the Source.