Thank you for your comprehensive response.

I have two points to make.

The first point is that it is impossible for anyone to claim with 100% assurance not only God exists but also that Christianity is true. This is why I assumed maybe it is not a bad compromise that at least people follow the commandment of Love. Because we are able to teach them in this regard without going through the whole impossible cycle of proving God and proving Christianity for that matter.

The second point is that, I am aware of Christian's view on the nature of men and the fact they need the grace of God to do be able to Love. That is also similar to Islam's view but on different grounds*. However, the problem is take a Christian nation, United states for example. They don't seem to be any better just because they are Christian. Or That I have not seen a single miracle happening, someone getting healed, or miraculously changing on the inside, something that you can only attribute to God. Again the same things are in Islam but I have never observed such things. So  what am I to make of such observations? Let's say that I need some evidence to prove that it is exactly the case that you are mentioning; That God's intervention is required for a person to be changed and show cases when it happened. However, if we cannot show this, the compromise that I suggested do not have these issues and also people do not need to be worried about the afterlife. Because if I have understood you correctly, "non-believers are not automatically disqualified from salvation".**

*Even within Islam there are people who have sacrificied their lives for the sake of justice. What higher sacrifice can people make? How can you explain their action? They surely did not believe in the role of christ as christians do; They just believed him as a prophet of God who was not cruicified but rather was saved by God from crucification and ascended to heaven.

**"it doesn't matter at all whether or not someone acknowledges God and pursues a relationship with him in this life". That is not something that can be easily attributed to people. If I am person who is trying to have a justified belief, I need to spend a lot of time to reach a point that God indeed exists. It is only at that point that I can ignore or acknowledge God because before that I don't even know if he indeed exists. That is tough bar to pass.


Another note: As with everything that is being misused, take science that is used for unjustified purposes, the same thing is true with religion. Then maybe, we could also avoid the down side of religion as well. Because at least from what I have seen, people usually end up with obsession with insignificant details and rituals and yet not do follow the love commandment.

 

Last edited by nojoum (4/29/2017 8:29 am)

First of all I would like to say that I too come from a Christian perspective and I second all what Alexander wrote.

I would however like to add is that from a Christian perspective God is more concerned with who you are from the inside and what love really means i.e. you could act piously and graciously towards someone and could be the greatest human being who ever lived (according to human standards) but if you do not really love from the inside you have fallen short, 1 Corinthians 13 comes to mind https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+13&version=RSVCE

Add that with the greatest commandment https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A36-40&version=RSVCE that Jesus himself specified, I think you can see the picture. Interestingly Jesus did not reduce the commandment to a single command but to two commands because the natural outworking of one command leads to another. Love your God with all your heart, mind and soul results in loving your neighbour as yourself.

Also most christians I know of might only seem rigid but that is precisely because they love others and want the best for them from an eternity perspective. They do not compromise on some objective truth just because it is something the present age happens to consider "good". 

Last edited by Jason (4/29/2017 10:30 am)

I think before going further with the discussion I need to clarify one point. My questions are asked on two levels; one that is a personal question and one that is on a global scale for the entire humanity. In answering I will try to clearly separate these two parts.

Alexander wrote:

Well, sure. But a Christian doesn't need to claim that they can prove that God exists or that Christianity is true. The notion that the way to a relationship with God is one of purely philosophical arguments is, from a Christian perspective, simply false, and on the flip side a rational conviction of the fact "God exists" or "Christian teaching is true" does not necessarily lead to the kind of relationship God wants. (See the letter of James, for example).

On the personal level, I think I don’t need exact justification for God’s existence or the truthiness of Christian teaching because It is so complex and difficult. I also agree with you that pursuing philosophical arguments might cause hindrance in knowing God on a personal level.
 
However, on the global scale, it is extremely difficult to convert everyone to Christianity or any other religion for that matter. Also, as you have noted, not everyone who identifies himself as a Christian is a true Christian. So, let us consider another scenario, in which leaders of every major religion, put the emphasize on the Love commandment and value the goodness of a person based on how much Love he/she has for others. Moreover, they also put much less emphasize on specific teachings of religion in regard of the conception of God and the relationship with him. Furthermore, assume (just for the sake of argument) that, as a result of this we have a world where we have less conflicts and people are more loving. Does the improvement in human relationships justify abandoning God? If not why?
 
Now you might want to say, it is impossible with God’s grace for people to Love one another perfectly.

Alexander wrote:

Not "to love" - to love perfectly, as we are loved by God, and to avoid sin. The operative idea here is that unless your life is properly ordered, you will inevitably screw up, and it can't be so ordered without that relationship to God.
As for the idea that the US is a Christian nation... well, maybe as a Brit I am biased but I don't find the claim convincing, unless you only mean that a lot of people in the US would check the box "Christian" if asked about their religious beliefs. A country that ended up with Donald Trump as its leader can't have been overwhelmingly informed by a Christian spirit, to say the least.

But there are two points to add. First, improvement of human life does not require perfect love. You can have gradual changes in human life by small and gradual changes on the inside. Secondly, I need evidence to see indeed only through having personal relationship with God, one is able to improve (even a small change). That is why I mentioned a Nation such as USA as a failing example (again if you ask these people they will say they are true Christians). Then, do we have any other example showing the indispensability of Christianity in improving moral character?

nojoum wrote:

Back to the discussion on the personal level, I would like to thank Jason for his perfect response which is right on the spot.

Jason wrote:

Add that with the greatest commandment https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+22%3A36-40&version=RSVCE that Jesus himself specified, I think you can see the picture. Interestingly Jesus did not reduce the commandment to a single command but to two commands because the natural outworking of one command leads to another. Love your God with all your heart, mind and soul results in loving your neighbour as yourself.

From what I have heard on Christianity a major focus is on having love for another. As Jesus also mentions, these two laws are the sum of all law and prophets. Now again I have seen something very similar thing in studying the life of a person from Islamic world (Shams Tabrizi, A Sufi which I deeply admire and praise). In his life he puts great emphasize for Loving one another. He even says that to worship God is let go of all the self (Giving up all you have, even your life). He also makes the same objections that Jesus had for Pharisees, for the religious teachers and judges of his time. As with first Commandment of Jesus with respect to God, there is also one strange point regarding this man. He rarely accepts pupils and the strange part is the test that people should pass in order to become his pupil. The test is you must be willing to give up everything that you have. So for example, he would ask rich people to give up entirely their wealth. There was one rich person who actually gave up all he had and Shams in return gave all his wealth back to him and accepted him as his pupil. Now that is where my wonder and bafflement lies. What is there to teach the man who is willing to give his life? Did Shams want to teach him about God? What is so great about God that he made such tests for his pupils?* Or what Is it that Christ is asking? How can you love God? Is it not so that the only possible way to love God, is to love other human beings? What secret is lying here that I do not understand.


* I hope my tone regarding God does not offend you. I can to some degree understand the love that you have for God as Chrisitians. If it were not for the sake of honesty and desperateness to know the answers, I would been much more tactful and considerate with my words.

First of all, please do not worry about your tone and offending me, these are great questions. Secondly, I would like to say that I have great respect for some of the Sufi saints such as Rumi whose quotations I love. Having said that however, I cannot say why Shams did what he did since I am not familiar with him or his writings (I could speculate but that would be just that).

In terms of Christ however, first of all if you read the passage where he talks to the rich man https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19%3A16-30&version=RSVCE he is referring him to give all his riches to the poor and then follow him. The point here is not to gain a disciple or even benefit the poor but to highlight to the rich man how much attachment he had in his heart for his riches. These attachments then take center stage in our heart, where God should be. God is more concerned with who you are in the deepest part of your heart than any good you can do or perform. But who can then know Him without any attachments in their hearts? Interestingly, Jesus says here that what is impossible for man is possible for God, which leads us to the fact that we can only be redeemed through God Himself rather than ANYTHING we could do (even giving up all our riches), which is what Christ accomplished on the cross.

I think you are missing the fact that God is not only Loving but also Merciful, a Great Judge and the Most Holy and the only one worthy of worship. That means we need to be holy to even be in His presence and only way to do that is through Christ (please do not see this as an attempt to undermine other religions etc, that is NOT my intention). Even if you love every human being with all your heart you still fall short of God since that does not make you holy. So no, you cannot get to God if you only love human beings. What Christians believe is that we are redeemed through the cross of Jesus Christ to God which makes us holy and love God and that in turn makes us love our neighbours as ourselves. There is no secret there to knowing God and having a relationship with Him, the death of Christ on the cross makes it available for all as long as you have faith and freely believe in it.

I would echo what Jason and Alexander said.  Love God is the first commandment and love your neighbor is the second.

Ultimately, we are for God as the ground and source of all things.  He is the center of the whole, the ultimate purpose behind all purposes, the Good itself.  So asking, "what is the point of loving God?" is a little like asking "What is the point of the point?"

I will also say that I am highly skeptical of claims that the world is made "a better place" by this or that initiative.  Human beings are very complicated and pushing on one place has unforeseen ramifications in another place.  It may appear at first that it is obvious that the would would be made a better place if we just emphasized "love one another," but I have watched as other teachings which seem to be obviously good have deeply negative consequences.  I suspect that detaching the teaching that we are to love one another from any teaching about a relationship with God, the forgiveness of Christ, the necessity of loving others in a particular way rather than whatever we feel like etc. will actually make the world a worse place.

For example, suppose that I am a pastor who teaches love love love every Sunday and nothing else.  Now suppose that I have a member of my congregation who tries really hard to do this but has various old habits and selfish pieces of his psychology.  Ultimately, he becomes extremely frustrated in his inability to love well.  Has my teaching helped?  I'm doubtful.  In fact, I've been to congregations that do more or less what you are suggesting and I think they were far less loving places than the places I have been that preach orthodox Christianity.

If you want some unsolicited advice, I think the attempt to have a relationship with God on your own is extremely difficult if not impossible.  Seek out the best priest or pastor you can find and become a faithful member of a religious community.  Ongoing relationship with God requires the sacraments received within the community of the faithful.