Is it possible for a person to believe in a deity, but despise that deity at the same time?

People curse their God all the time when really bad things happen to them or someone close to them dies a sudden untimely death.

Isn’t that what the devil is all about?

@stanleybmanly Most Christians (from what I’ve seen) tend to not believe in the Devil as a “God” but more of a fallen angel. If Christians were to accept Satan as another God, they would no longer be monotheists.

No no. I meant the devil’s view of God. Though I guess old nick doesn’t qualify as a person. Maybe he should be since all accounts attribute him just loaded with personality.

@stanleybmanly Oh I see what your saying now. Yes technically in the case of Lucifer hating Yahweh would be an example of that.

But I was mostly talking about an average theist.

You aren’t allowed to admit to yourself that you despise God. You know, the old lessons ie. Job, mysterious ways, etc.

@stanleybmanly “You aren’t allowed to admit to yourself that you despise God.

Under whose rules? Who says you aren’t allowed?

@stanleybmanly Well you’d be surprised by the amount of rebellious religious persons out there.

What is impossible is to despise a deity you don’t believe in.

I was disgusted with my former God long before I stopped believing in him.

@flutherother Well yes of course, you would have to have faith in a deity in the first place.

What kind of a question is this? Of course it is possible, and done all the time. Read some Dante. So why are you asking this question?

I just thought it would be an interesting question to ask and I was curious to what people’s opinion on this topic was.

A lot of believers put a lot of focus on obedience into the application of their faith. So to me its interesting to see how this concept would fit with persons of that mindset.

I don’t see why not. At least temporarily I would think many people hate God when something very traumatic happens.

Ah.

Well, it seems to me it happens all the time, at least in Christianity. In fact, the whole devil / Satan theme seems to me to be along those lines.

As a kid and teen, I didn’t believe in the Christian god, but I considered that if there were such a thing, I’d be extremely disapproving. Later I upgraded my understanding of what it’s all about.

Ancient Greek and Roman stories have various types of stories about railing against the gods and/or fate, or getting on the wrong sides of particular gods, or competing with them. Variations on that make up a lot of the themes of Greco-Roman myth and drama. However, I would say they tended to get more of the metaphorical meaning of the relationship than modern people do.

That is, the rise of “rational/scientific” materialist literal thinking, and its perceived conflicts with Biblical literalists and other religious and spiritual thinking, seems to have degraded many people’s relationship to religious and spiritual subjects. We tend to take these things literally instead of metaphorically, which seems to me a huge mistake. Myth and religion and spiritual traditions are not really about some literal cartoon super-beings, nor about actual timelines, the way science and history are. They’re metaphors about what it is to be human, and they’re full of practical wisdom, if you relate to them appropriately. Not as literal stories or beings to believe in. Not as rulebooks. Not as guides for who to hate. Not as clubs or secret societies. But as ways to learn how it makes sense to relate to being alive, and a part of the world.

With the understanding that god and pantheons are metaphors for the whole universe and everything that happens in it, and certain aspects of it, or of the human experience, and not people, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to disbelieve in them, or to hate them. It’s hard, if you realize that Poseidon in about the power and life of the ocean, to disbelieve in it, unless you’ve never seen the ocean and think the ocean is invented. You can sort of hate Poseidon, if you’ve always had bad times at the sea, but it’s slightly silly, and with a metaphorical understanding, not really personal. You just dislike the sea. Ok.

A lot have said about hating God when bad things happen. How about this: someone who wants so much to believe that there is no God, but can’t really prove it because they have no solid evidence, or there are things happen in their life that seem to prove otherwise. They become torn between “there’s no God” and “there’s a God”. And when bad things happen, they turn to God asking for help. They don’t exactly like the idea of praying for God, but at least it gives them strength.

No.

Yes.

How can such a question be answered? Who’s making the rules for deities or how people think?

It’s called misotheism.

@CWOTUS, there are no rules for deities. It’s up to the individual to decide.

@NerdyKeith There are “rules” for deities. The Bible is very explicit in this regard. Deuteronomy 13 says if you worship other Gods you will be summarily put to death.

@Cruiser That’s not the kind of rule he’s talking about. Go back and look at the context.

@zenvelo “Under whose rules?” The rules of the religion itself. I’m talking now about the only real reference point I have, Catholicism. If you posit the purpose and point of the religion to be the “salvation of one’s soul”, not much imagination is necessary to see the inconsistencies involved with achieving this through or while despising God.

@SavoirFaire You lost me…what “kind of rules” are you talking about?

@Cruiser When @NerdyKeith said “there are no rules for deities,” it was in response to this post by @CWOTUS. So what he was saying is that there are no logical limitations on the ways it is possible to think about deities. Then you came in on this post and brought up rules supposedly made up by a deity about how we ought to think about deities other than Him. These are two different kinds of rules, so your answer doesn’t really respond to what @NerdyKeith said. I was just pointing out that you had misunderstood the conversation.

@stanleybmanly Yet, as a Catholic myself, studying a Franciscan view point critical of many in the Church, the point is not “the salvation of the soul”; the aim of the Divine is awakening one to God’s love which is in everything.

To the extent that a person has not grown past an elementary level of understanding of a belief, where one is still considering religion as a set of rules, then the emotional reaction to a negative event can result in belief in a Deity and also despising that Deity.

Oh I’m not denying that people react to events with an emotional outburst of anger at the God deigned responsible for everything. What I am saying is that there is no rational method of accommodating this anger as a long term tenet consistent with the supposed “rewards” of belief. As for the rewards inherent with “evolving” beyond the fixed and rigid rules of a religion, we both know the consequences for those eager to propagate such “enlightenment”. It’s the great wrestling match involved with the temporal requirements of a supposedly spiritual enterprise.

@SavoirFaire I do not think I misunderstood @NerdyKeith statement as he was very clear in what he stated “there are no rules for deities” I simply offered that certain religions do specify “rules” for their Deities and in how “Deuteronomy 13 says if you worship other Gods you will be summarily put to death”....sounds like a rule to me especially when it is enforced by death to those who attempt to skirt said rule.

@Cruiser,
There are “rules” within your particular religion. The point is we don’t all share that belief. I’m a deist and therefore do not believe in the bible or your concept of a God.

When one is having a philosophical discussion about deities in a more general sense, it is required to take into account more than one concept. Your belief in God is not the only one in existence.

The context in which I was using “there are not rules of deities” is in reference to what constitutes a deity and what criteria one users to define a deity. There is no one set in stone ultimate definition or concept of deities at all. Therefore there are no rules for deities. You might believe that your particular faith in God is the one true God; many of us don’t share that belief.

@Cruiser Well, @NerdyKeith has now said the same thing I just said. So even if you don’t want to take my word for it, you might considering taking his. It’s his question, after all.