Agnostic.com

56 10

What does it mean when men say they are god-fearing men? I have no clue because isn't god based on a gentle creature accepting & forgiveness of all they do? So why god-fearing? I don't understand that at all. They are scared of god? WTF? What am I missing besides their belief?

K9Kohle789 8 July 24
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

56 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

It's an old term but "god fearing" means you are a believer and you know god could do bad things to you. Anyone remember the old Merle Haggard song where he sings "momma used to pray my crops would fail?" This is the religious momma praying for her god not to let this son who has strayed prosper in any way. This is Christians for you. Myself, I just pass off the saying by asking "why are so many people afraid of god?" My stepdad used to say I was "going to split hell wide open." I thought Jesus did that.

10

Often they are looking for ‘god fearing’ women, which, means women willing to be subservient to them as god intended. Fuck that shit!

6

I just figured it meant they feared being sent to hell. 🤷♀️

5

Religion is set up to strike fear in your heart if you misbehave in any way, o, btw, send money

5

If believers are to "fear" God, wouldn't that make God the equivalent of a terrorist?

5

The Old Testament talks about god the father. The New Testament talks about Jesus the son. The son is supposed to be the gentle, merciful and forgiving. The father is misogynistic, murderous, genocidal, vain and highly vengeful. The way the Old Testament describes him he should be indeed feared.

Yet, there are also some NT things that show that Jesus isn't much better.

@gsiamne I would love to make a note of them. Do you have chapter and verse handy?

@dare2dream
How about this one: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. - Luke 19:27

@gsiamne That's one of my favorites! 😀

@dare2dream, sounds like an evil God to me.

5

My understanding is the gentle God is the modern sales pitch. Just like modern fairytales are made nicer so people will still tell them. They used to be horrible.

It means they think they are better than you.

MsAl Level 8 July 24, 2019
5

LOL The never changing old testament god is an vengeful bastard.

This video about love will help shed light.

4

It means they are unfortunately brainwashed nitwits.

4

abrahamic religions rely on fear to control. they are taught fear from childhood.

4

It means they are stupid but you can trust them. They will be honest because they think god is watching and will punish them if they are bad.

4

Having been brought up in a religious household, I learned that xstians are taught to fear their god for being omnipotent and seeing all their 'sins.' They're then expected to ask for forgiveness and do penance by attempting to live a 'sin-free life,' usually by giving up material goods and helping others, often by attempting to convert them to xstianity. That's the basic meaning of 'god-fearing': that their god can see everything so they need to live their lives in fear of that and/or make up for their mistakes.

As a happy atheist these days, I recognize all that fear is complete b.s. and one of the reasons I chose to step away from religion.

As to what each individual religious person means when they use the term 'god-fearing,' I can't exactly say. I've always assumed they mean pretty much what I wrote in my first paragraph. But you'd have to ask the individual yourself to understand what it means to them. It may mean something different to every xstian. Since I don't like talking much to religious people, though, I have no interest in asking myself. If someone uses the words 'god-fearing' in a conversation with me, I usually walk away.

4

Used to claim a righteous status covering up their bad behavior

bobwjr Level 10 July 24, 2019
4

Have you read that Bible of theirs? Their god is anything but gentle and forgiving.

Deb57 Level 8 July 24, 2019

bible of theirs'..who do you mean?

Theirs = those god fearing men. Or anybody else that claims the book as valid instruction.

4

Just look at it as a great big red flag, and haul ass in the opposite direction.
They are believers, and therefore deliberately delusional.
Definitely NOT relationship material.

4

The Abrahamic God (and/or it's followers) can, will and does fuck you up, at least according to their book, so keep that in mind.

3

The Bible also says in Exodus and it is part of the second commandment "God is a jealous God" but in later Biblical language we are told that jealousy is a sin. Go figure - it is all double talk that can change at any moment so that the Christian always has the correct answer. I don't even think about it any more as it is just a huge Halloween Corn Maze of verbiage.

Genocidal incestuous misogynistic anti-scientific fictional fake calendar lies for the alleged geebush jeehobah yhwh ghostholes and alleged vaginal virgin Miriam birthing alleged baby gawd in dirty donkey stable on every December 25th crock of shittim wood

3

Gentle creature? He is a vindictive, patriarchal Mafia don. In the same book that he gives mankind the Ten Commandments, including "Thou shall not kill", he orders he murder of hundreds of rivals. Read the whole book, you'll see.

3

What are you missing? How 'bout all that Old Testament stuff. Devil and Big G messing with Job, "Hey, Abe! Kill yer kid! JK, Rofl...", the BS flood, Sodom and Gamora... Yeah that jackass is a ton of jokes with the only virtue of being fictitious.

3

It means every time I go to Las Vegas, that Jesus dude is watching me every move, looking over my shoulder.

ml58n2 Level 7 July 24, 2019
3

It probably means that they have succumbed to the indoctrination regarding "Hell".

3

"God-fearing" is equivalent to "seriously delusional."

mischl Level 8 July 24, 2019
3

I asked a woman who was devout why they needed to fear god and and she had no response

lerlo Level 8 July 24, 2019
2

It is like being in an abusive relationship. In this case, god is good, loving and perfect. Sending humans all the love beams of sunlight and grace we can soak up. Mess up....bam....smacks you in the face with wrathful punishment that can only be dealt from someone who knows and loves you best.
But really god fearing just means they are hedging their bets with god just in case there is something better beyond this mortal coil.

2

Christians are taught a weird combination of fear and love for god based on several scriptures. Old Testament god ruled more by fear and New Testament Jesus preached love. So they arrived at this weird cognitive dissonance between fear and love as if it were possible to do both. I suppose it is possible to both fear and love things like forces of nature, which god was invented to explain, but no conscious individual can be both feared and truly loved. He’s just a dictator scaring everyone into pretending at that point. Or you’re just expected to be his dog.

2

I looked it up; god-fearing means "earnestly religious"

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:378755
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.