You know this - how ?Whitedragon wrote: 1. What is God?
God is the person/force, (most likely intelligent), that created/set the universe in motion {to evolve}.
Your holy text source? If all of them, how do you reconcile the conflicting accounts - Without cherry-picking?2. "What does it want?"
The more accurate question would be, what it wants for you.
Holy texts, are full of what God wants and I will not repeat it here. In short, God whats your soul/mind to be safe and secure. He also wants a relationship with you - he doesn't want you to be alone or separated from divinity.
If not all of them, which one?
If somebody wants a relationship with me, they would do better to introduce themselves than to send anonymous threatening letters.
How does it affect me? If I do not perceive or feel or experience a presence,3. How does it affect me?
It affects you in every conceivable way, since he/she is the force/entity behind creation, you have in everything to do with God all day.
cannot tell whether it's he, she or it, intelligent or not, a person or an entity or merely a force, how can I devise an appropriate response?
What kind of relationship am I expected to form with gravity or photosynthesis?
According to that description, I'm reacting appropriately, simply by existing.
The text is holy, truthful and accurate .... but maybe not literal... my choice.... ?4.a. Who sacrificed what?
It is our choice if we want to take the story of Christ literal.
OK, I've made it.
Had to? Why?Bear in mind that God's holiness has been isolated and pure from the very beginning of time, and he had to tarnish himself, that unblemished existence,
How can a pure god make an impure universe? Why would he want to? Was there something that god didn't make?
Did he make hell? Was it his idea? Is it a good idea?
Why did we need that sacrifice? I didn't ask for it.(3b) for us all, or those who would accept it
Stop comparing various sacrifices, and tell me, just once, Who demanded a sacrifice? What for?
If the bible is your source of information - as it must be for the Jesus story - then you know what the word "sacrifice" means, as used in that book. There are plenty of precepts, prescriptions and examples of sacrifice in the scriptures, before the Jesus story.
Who demands such a sacrifice? To whom is it offered? By whom whom is it offered?
We didn't say that.Remember how we said God's presents retracted from earth the further man fell from grace into sin.
You may have said that, I can't recall.
What I said was that the religious establishment pushed their concept of god farther away, and made it less familiar, less human and comprehensible, as knowledge of the real world expanded, and as the religious tenets were faced with internal contradiction and secular challenges.
Wouldn't it be more cost-effective for him not to reject us in the first place? Or just forgive -- whatever?This sacrifice, is God returning to us, despite the impurity of the earth, sacrificing his holiness to be with us and save us from complete rejection and isolation by him.
Which opens the question: Who invented sin? Was that a good idea?
But it was god who condemned man to a harsh existence.Another example of the sacrifice I'd like to put out there, is a mother, sacrificing herself as a prostitute to feed her children and when they find out about her sacrifice later, they reject her.
The mother in your instance is helpless against the outside threats against her children. This could not apply to an all-powerful god.
-- Updated October 28th, 2017, 8:21 pm to add the following --
Just to add, because you don't seem very clear on what I'm asking:
Who demanded a sacrifice? What for?
If the bible is your source of information - as it must be for the Jesus story - then you know what the word "sacrifice" means, as used in that book:
A mortal man offends a god, or wants to ask a favour from a god.
The god says: That will cost you a ram and two doves.
The man kills a ram and two doves.
The god forgives his sin, or grants his wish.
There are plenty of examples of sacrifice in the scriptures, before the Jesus story. So:
God is ticked off about a sin committed by men, and will forgive them, if something pure is killed by men to appease him.
A man who is pure in spirit is killed by other men who are not.
God is satisfied and forgives them.
God offering himself as a sacrifice to himself to appease himself....
seems like a long walk off a short pier.