For those who believe in God,...is he a jerk or nice?

[Rob4Hope]

I think of God as an ideal being, who can be trusted to tell the truth with love. That leaves a lot of room, but it also eliminates whoever wrote D&C 19, 29, or 132, 2nd Nephi 4, or 3rd Nephi 8. Since my mother died, I like to think of her as a guardian angel for me, as she was for much of my life. If God is a jerk, how would one worship him? We might have to negotiate with him or knuckle under to him, but........

....and THAT is exactly the problem. How can you worship him (or it)?

The LDS faith has spent a lot of time talking about the nature of God...his goodness, his mercy, his love,...etc. And yet there is disparity between what they teach and what the historical record, according to them, contains. NOT a good mix...you know?

Suppose, for argument sake, there is this being who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omni-everything-else. You have 2 pretty big choices, among possibly others: worship the thing, or submit because you are gunna get lightening-bolted-fried if you don't. The LDS church pushes that GOD engenders worship because of his nature, his goodness. And then guys like Ezra Taft Benson comes along and gave a talk on pride and says that we can choose to be humble, or God will compel us to be humble.

Hunh?....compel?....sounds like force and lightening-bolt stuff to me....

I can only say this much: the ideal resonates with me. When I encounter character in people that is truly kind and forbearing, patient and loving--well that resonates with me. That is something I admire, even adore in others. If GOD (whatever that is) were consistently, constantly, naturally like that, then I could adore that. But, if he (or it) is something that compels people to submit, he moves right over into the lightening-bolted-jerk side,...and though I may submit because of fear, I am sure as hell not gunna worship him.

[Rob4Hope]

It goes like this (in no particular order and not an exhaustive list):

1. Since God commanded JS to take multiple wives, and threatened Emma with destruction if she didn't accept it, he is a jerk.
2. Since God commanded BY to teach and practice Blood Atonement, he is a jerk.
3. Since God gave license to the Q15 to tell lies, and then holds the average LDS member accountable for their honesty, he has a mixed standard and is a jerk.
4. Since God commanded the ancient Israelites to kill all the babies of the phylistines, he held them accountable for their parent's choices, and children are NOT innocent, so he is a jerk...

I think MerrieMiss nailed it. Here is what I thought when I first read your reasoning above. (Disclaimer: I am a Mormon atheist, meaning I don't believe in the Mormon God.)

1. Joseph Smith really, really wanted to have additional women, so he threatened Emma by using the name of God in vain. JS was a jerk.

He was a jerk. The church smears the lines between JS and god, in a rather cultish manner. JS can't be extricated from god, because if he was, the entire "restoration message" fails. Its insidious, but also part of the poison that did me damage.

2. Brigham Young had extreme power and was an egotistical jerk.

Brigham Young was a murderer in my opinion. He was a tyrant. I feel anger toward him more than other "profits"...

3. Some church authorities lie or reimagine the truth in order to achieve specific aims. Sometimes they are jerks.

How arrogant the Q15 are with their position and justifications for truth. They lie. I speculate, in their minds, they don't think they are. The are above the lie...above the law...above the scriptures....above reproach? I think not.

4. The ancient Israelites were in a society where war and bloodshed bought them land and power. They used the name of God to justify their actions. They were people of their time.

Societies all around invoke the name of God as a justification for their holy and bloody choices. If there is a "god" out there,...who is in fact omniscient and omnipresent, I wonder why he tolerates it. Makes me wonder if he is either omniscient after all, or if he just doesn't give a damn.

[ulmite]

I'm sitting in my favorite chair [...] I look at the dappled light in my yard and I think of my sweet son. I take another sip of coffee.

A beautiful post. You also need to know that my compliments are quite rare.

I will ignore the issue of theodicy here.

For me, I feel empowered to choose the God I believe in. I think that humans project their own selves and experiences upon God, effectively creating God in man's own image. Whether or not God exists, we give God attributes such as omniscience, omnipotence, a human body, a spouse, a gender, a chariot, infinite compassion, perfection, immortality, and many others based on our mortal experiences. I choose to believe that my experiences with God are valid and make God infinitely loving, immortal, and a model to look up to. All examples of God being a jerk can be reduced to God being invoked by a jerk, seeing as people aren't getting turned into pillars of salt these days.

A while back, I was toying with the notion that God is not perfect and is still "progressing", and we have a brief history of his progression over the millennia. Then I got scared by criticizing God, and stopped thinking about it. Now I think God had better be progressing or else God has got to be pretty bored, and the God of the Old Testament was just people's projection of their culture and time onto God.

[wtfluff]

Good question. I don't think of God in terms of gender. If I do say "he", it's in the gender neutral sense. I think we should create a new gender neutral pronoun that isn't​ also used for things.

I like che (long E sound). Che, chey, chem, ches. Who's with me? Let's get a non-gendered pronoun into the lexicon.

I'm in.

Sorry. Couldn't resist...

[Give It Time]

I like che (long E sound). Che, chey, chem, ches. Who's with me? Let's get a non-gendered pronoun into the lexicon.

I'm in.

Sorry. Couldn't resist...

Hmm. I'm having trouble conjugating that one.

[Grace2Daisy]

I think most cultural representations/concepts/descriptions of god reflect who they, the cultures, are. Mormon god is a good representation of mormonism (capitalism, manifest destiny, corporate america, WASP work ethic, even to the idea that he's a man and doesn't need a woman - she's nothing more than a footnote).

I like the idea of god. I don't know if there is one or not, but I like the idea. For quite a while in my transition I held universalist beliefs about god, but now I have more a belief in a power, force, consciousness, I'm not sure what, that exists. It makes me feel good, and it doesn't make god into a thing, but more of a concept. Good or bad isn't part of it.

In the end, literature has taught us most people will travel on this journey of discovery their entire lives, some seeking answers forever and others finding them rather easily. The Rambam says life is like standing on a dark plain on a stormy night. You stand there beaten by the wind, lashed by the rain, hopelessly lost, no idea where you are. And as you stand there in total darkness, at the moment of greatest despair there is a flash of lightning, and in that instant of lightning you see the road clearer than by day — and as you see it, it disappears. The rest of the night is walking through the storm on memory alone of the flash of clarity that you once saw. Some people see more flashes, some people see less, but it is up to you to decide what the lightning unveils.

I struggle with the God of the OT, and I also struggle with the God created by Joseph Smith. What I hold on to is knowing there is happiness in Christ pure teachings of Love, which mirrors the teaching of Buddha. So, I am looking at life through the flashes of light I've seen and hold on to.