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Strong arguments??? Like which? And here we will return to what a book written in the third century says.
But when I left, I then see religion for what it truly is. You see how religion is set up to trap you in. You see the flaws and how things don't add up. So what I'm saying is that I truly think (tell me if I'm wrong and how), you can't honestly see religion for what it is unless you stop believing it. And it makes sense because if you don't lwt religion controlcthe way you think, then there are no set things you have to think/believe that would influence your thoughts.
-REPLY: Stu K. Thank you for your thoughts! I cant be sure if you've made a good decision based on just what you wrote though. You see, you have not stated what is wrong/flawed or any evidence to prove the Christian system to be illogical. You have only stated that you believe it to be so and that this is a result of you leaving the belief system.
However, simply leaving a belief system/way of thinking doesn't disprove that it was false. If anything, the most scientific thing to do (and I'm assuming that being athiest you adhere to that method of thinking; sorry if this isn't you) would be to test your hypothesis "Christianity doesn't make sense" against the best arguments out there. If the other arguments do not logically hold up (according to objective logic and not subjective feelings alone) then you would have more of a sufficient basis to logically make the claims that you are asserting.
One way to prove my point is this: let's say I were in middle school learning algebra and it started to not make sense. Because of this, I lost faith in algebra and decided to quit. After quitting I make the assertion that algebra is false. I know from experience because after leaving I saw the flaws in it and the places where it did not make sense.
I'd assume in reply you would say: 1) just because you quit doesn't mean that algebra is false, 2) where are the flaws that make algebra a false system 3) have you tested your hypothesis logically?
I am not saying that there are not reasons not to believe, and I'm sure there may have been some hard things that have happened in your life (mine too!) to doubt the existence of God. I'm not even sure if I'll ever know how hard it was for you. Sorry about that. But I do know that in order make your assertion that in the scientific method you would at least have to follow the above steps, which hasn't yet been stated in your comments. If you have please let me know and we can discuss them!
What a fantastic reply, thank you very much! You're right that I haven't done my part correctly, so I'll start with this.
2 Kings 2:23-24 talks about God sending bears to kill some kids because they called a man bald. That's 100% contradictory to where he says in Matthew 25:46 that he loves everyone. Something like this, there simply is no answer. It leads to one of two things. A) He is real, but he is not who he says he is and is a horrible, mean, unjust god who nobody in their right minds would want to follow. or B) He isn't real. (Unless there are other options besides this that I can't think of). I'm gonna go with B, as such contradictory behavior from an omnipotent god that exists doesn't sound right. Sure, option A could be true, but I think option B is borderline common sense.
Now if you're religious, your first thought most likely wouldn't be to take this and examine it, but rather say something along the lines of "he has a reason for it" because if you think it's wrong, hellfire for you forever. Hence my point that you cannot truly be open minded. I would say very few have the ability to actually take it and think "hmm, this doesn't seem right.." and question it.
Looking forward to your reply :)
The God character of the Old Testament was simply the series of men who ruled the various empires that controlled the Middle Eastern area in ancient times. Some were less crazy than others but they were all nuts. In the case of 2 Kings 2:23-24 Elijah was the emperor's ambassador and the locals disrespected him. So he sicced the guards on them and they killed the protesters. That's been normal human behavior for thousands of years. By substituting bears for human guards the writer added an element of the supernatural to the story in order to improve Elijah's status. It's a common story-telling device. If you noticed it made you remember the story.
Also, where the hell did they find bears and a forest in the freaking desert?
And yes, that's another very good point https://youtu.be/-b5aW08ivHU
That's a good question. In ancient times (as well as now) there were in fact bears in the Middle East.
Bear: Bible Animals - Resources for Ancient Biblical Studies
http://www.bible-history.com/links.php?cat=41&sub=818&cat_name=Bible+Ani...
Syrian brown bear - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_brown_bear
Wiki says that the bear is extinct in Israel and in Syria (I wonder why) but that it might still exist in Lebanon.
Don't forget the cypress forests of Lebanon.
Cedrus libani - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedrus_libani
Where do you think the Persian Emperor Xerxes got the wood to build his armada that invaded Greece in 480 B.C.? Do you think the Persians lugged those ships across the Middle East on their backs?
I apologize, for my lack of knowledge is kicking in, but I'm so confused as you and I think one or two other people on this forum post are saying "this was written by humans" or "this was written as a fairy tale" or "this was written only to show a point, but didn't happen" and is incredibly frustrating. Please give me an overview, what was written supposedly for story-telling-to-get-a-point-across-purposes and what is the "actual word of God". I also think God would have made it much clearer what he did say and what he didn't. That's another point towards him misguiding people.
Stu. K.,
There are no actual words of God.
The writers claim that the Bible is true because the writers claim that they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write that what they wrote is true.
2 Peter 1:19-21 (MSG) = "19-21 We couldn’t be more sure of what we saw and heard—God’s glory, God’s voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You’ll do well to keep focusing on it. It’s the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts. The main thing to keep in mind here is that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private opinion. And why? Because it’s not something concocted in the human heart. Prophecy resulted when the Holy Spirit prompted men and women to speak God’s Word."
2 Maccabees 15:38 (CEB) = "If the story was told effectively, this is what I wanted. But if it was told in a poor and mediocre fashion, this was the best I could do."
What if I wrote a couple of Bible verses and said the Holy Ghost inspired me to? And I "couldn't be more sure of what I saw".
All you have to do is write a new Bible version and claim that you were inspired by the Holy Spirit as it says in 2 Peter 1:21. Get it published, start a new denomination, do a radio and tv campaign, bribe other preachers to push your new doctrine, and sell the story. People will believe it.
The Holy Spirit just told me to write a verse in a book that God hates everybody and heaven is a lie to fool everybody just for fun. Why will you follow him now?
Stu. K.,
As it says in 2 Thessalonians 2:11 (CEV) = "So God will make sure that they are fooled into believing a lie."
People will believe anything, regardless of what it is. It doesn't matter if it's true or if it's a lie. You can think of countless examples of that.
Did you just openly admit God misleads people? What the fuck.
Stu. K.
Thanks for your honest engagement! I think your humility in engagement helps me to be more humble as well!
Now lets take a look at your example.
God sends bears to kill some kids because they call a man bald
vs.
God loves everyone.
The answer is going to be in two main places "man" in the first statement and "love" in the second.
We'll go in reverse order.
1. Love
I have found a common fallacy that is popular in current times which is what I am dubbing the "Benevolent Father Fallacy". This is the fallacy that states that the only attribute of God is love and that the only action a loving being can take is acceptance toward all. I do not know you but I'm going to make an assumption that may or may not be true: I think you are a nice and loving person. I make this claim on the basis of your raising a brow against the God of the Bible just killing off some innocent kids. In spite of this, I would suspect that if you were around in the 1940's or 50's you would have agreed to the war on Hitler and possibly even joined up to fight. Though you are a nice person you would have applied or agreed to apply lethal force against those who were doing a horrible injustice. If a human who is imperfectly loving and imperfectly just can make such a decision which you and I would deem as right on the basis of their imperfect attributes then certainly God who is perfect in his attributes can also make a decision to administer lethal punishment to actions are are so evil that they warrant it.
This brings us to our second point:
2. Man
Was the actions of the children in the Old Testament so evil that it warranted death?
If you and I insult each other on this thread there is very little consequence. If you insult your friend to his face there is very little consequence. Leaving it at this, there does seem to be contradiction in Gods actions until you consider the following. Its not that a man was insulted but who that man was.
If you insult your friend to his face, there is very little consequence. If you insult your boss to their face, or a police officer, because of who they are and who they represent there would potentially rightfully be a consequence. In some cultures if you insulted a King of a country you would warrent the death penalty because of what the title of King represents. If John doe from Russia punched two people: one Billy a farmer from texas and the second The President of the US, we would both be upset that an american was hit but hitting the president would infuriate us more because the President represents America. This person would face heavier consequence. Now if imperfect man can utilize this logic then certainly a perfect being can as well.
In your example you stated that they simply made fun of a man; however, they didn't just make fun of any man. They made fun of an Old Testament Prophet Elisha. That was an EXTREMELY serious offense. While a king represents a country, a prophet in the OT era represented God Himself. And to insult this person was to level a charge against the Almighty Himself. Next is the joke itself. This article done by a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary dives a bit deeper into it [https://carm.org/why-did-god-kill-42-lads-merely-saying-elisha-was-bald] But essentially this was not just a light hearted joke that was extremely disrespectful during a time when God applied lethal punishment to breakers of his law against a person who represented Him directly. An earthly king would not put up with such disrespect and therefore I think it logical that although God is loving that he is also just and at that instance did not put up with such an action against himself.
I agree that is a hard lesson but not an illogical one given the facts.
I look forward to your reply.
Hello, and thank you for your response.
I just can't agree with you on both of your points, which I shall say below.
1) First, we need to remember that God is supposed to be all knowing, future-seeing, and knows what's best for everybody, smarter than all us and can control us. He has the power to do whatever. And I cannot stress that part enough, as it ties in with my points. Now with that being said, he could have very easily changed Hitlers' mind to be a nice and loving being. Or he could have prevented it in a peaceful way where nobody would have been injured. But instead, he did nothing. Now yes, I and many others would agree to the war, but that's because we are humans and we cannot control others. Yes, you're right many would agree to the war, as that's the only way for us humans. I think we can all agree that if us humans had the power of God, we would do what we could to stop the war with no violence at all. I could think of a couple way's I could, if I had the power of a God.
2) I don't quite think you're right here either because both you and I know that if either of us were a God (who remember, is an all knowing, future-seeing, perfect being), a few different things ARE possible to fix the situation, without killing them. Again, teaching them to love instead of hate or changing their mind to love (unless you can't, because you're not omnipotent) to list one. Another point I must make is when you said "An earthly king would not put up with such disrespect and therefore I think it logical that although God is loving that he is also just and at that instance did not put up with such an action against himself." Well what is wrong with that is if you had a kid, whom you made, and they disrespected you and your husband/wife very badly, is it still ok then to kill your kid? I hope you say no to that.
The main point I am trying to make is that when you have unlimited power and knowledge of everything of the future, there are tons of ways you could fix problems, help people, and prevent evil before somebody even thinks about doing something bad. but God is not using those. Instead, he doesn't do anything or kills people.
Great reply. I am coming to understand your points better.
All knowing vs. Free will.
To your first point yes God holds the attributes that you have mentioned; however, your last attribution of potential (i.e. he CAN control us) is a crucial one. Just because he can doesn't mean he does so at least not completely. God has designed a world where human beings have enough free will either to choose him and the right path or to reject him and not choose his path. He did so that those who truly want to be with him will choose to do so out of their own free will. He has lovingly given us the freedom of this choice. However, the unfortunate downside to this option means that you will have people like Hitler who choose to do the wrong thing. That does not invalidate God's goodness but rather is some ways affirms it. Its a message to the world that we truly do have free will to choose him or not. On the other hand God does not evil completely have its way. Otherwise this world would be completely out of control either. He is restraining evil to a point that doesn't harm free will but also gives us the chance to choose him.
If God completely controlled us we wouldn't have free will and therefore could not truly choose him.
The next and more major point is something that is hard for even Christians to deal with. There is a difference between saying God is contradicting himself and therefore is not real and God is contradicting what I think he should do and is therefore not real. The later is a fallacy, though again its a hard one. If God truly contradicted himself I could see how we could all drop the Christian thing and walk away, but just because God doesn't do what we want him to or how we want him to do things doesn't negate his existence. This is because we are judging him by our understanding of justice/love/etc. Since we are imperfect we are bound to judge incorrectly I have proven that in the Benevolent Father Fallacy. Therefore, in other matters we also will inevitably judge him incorrectly.
This is a can of worms because one could say "you'll always say that when God makes sense and when he makes a contradiction. this is like a God of the gaps argument; when God doesn't make sense say he's mysterious and stuff and that solves everything what balony. this is not intellectually honest." However, I would say that it is rational given the attributes of God and the attributes of man to have faith that God is still God even when he doesn't make sense. I'll give you this example. When I was younger and my dad would go shopping and we went down the candy section at check out (every parents worse nightmare) I would ask my father for candy. Sometimes he'd say yes but many times he'd say no. as a 5 year old this did not make sense to me. My dad said over and over "I love you" if he loved me and has the trait of love and it is within his power to fulfill my desire, which he should do if he loves me, then why doesn't he give me the candy? It wasn't till I got older that I learned of cavities and diseases caused by high sugar intake which were avoided because of the wisdom of my earthly father. looking back I would say to my 5 year old self "have faith that your father knows more than you and is doing this because he loves you though you can not recognize it. you'll understand in time" The thing about this example is that the child by way of recognition of the intellectual difference between his father as an adult and himself as a child can very rationally put faith in the attributes of his father (i.e. love and wisdom) without being intellectually dishonest. And if the boy said "you don't love me because you are not making sense to me" both you and I would have a talk to that young child.
I offer this same appeal to you: God is much greater than we are - vastly greater in difference than a 3 year old is to an adult of any age. Though I am not saying that you should drop your questions (that may be answered in time) I am saying that greater than your question is the intellectual honesty that if God holds these attributes then no matter what is happening he is actually doing these things for the good of those who are his sons and daughters.
This doesn't mean we don't question and bring this to God. To be honest even I have struggles with this concept because of its implications. I saw this video by a non believer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ciu7_cOhg) and I resonated (partially) with it because I have had similar passionate anger toward the things God allows in this world like David did in the psalms (though in this video Mr. Fry thinks we are not responsible for the evil that has happened in this world when our sin is what caused it so we are responsible but the emotion in the video many Christians also have had).
You see the example you brought up was of God killing guilty Children but a better example to wrestle with and that I am still wrestling with is the story of Job. Job was actually a righteous man and God put him through a trial. The answer to this riddle is an extremely hard pill to swallow but I will provide a video that summarizes the book and the answer to this riddle as well. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GswSg2ohqmA)
I look forward to your response. I know this is really a hard subject. At least it is for me but it is as the very heart of scripture.
So let me get this strait.. (If I can?)
The perfect, all knowing, all powerful god created earth and all the heavens. (So many problems with that statement I could write many books on it, but that would be to go off topic of this particular reply.)
He created this earth for man, man is special because they are created in "god's image." He then he creates morality (for apparently no reason as it does nothing,) drops down some odd "rules" in the form of ten commandments. He does a bunch of experimentation and odd stuff like garden of eden. He then picks a very specific area of all of earth (about 5 percent of the surface area and population at the time) where god performs a bunch of miracles/wrath for a very narrow slice of time in years, then stops performing all major miracles/acts of god. None of which he left any evidence behind for us to verify the miracles with.
You stated:
"God has designed a world where human beings have enough free will either to choose him and the right path or to reject him and not choose his path. He did so that those who truly want to be with him will choose to do so out of their own free will."
Of course, if you do not believe in this particular god, (as a vast majority of everyone who has lived or is currently living.) You will not get to spend an eternity in paradise. And is some christian denominations/interpretations you instead get to spend an eternity in hell.
So god created all this as some sort of weird test, where giving us free will and zero testable evidence, (because "god must remain hidden,") ..except of course all those lucky SoB's that lived at the time he performed these supposed, huge, undeniable, miracles or wrath's that made his existence undeniable. Get the test wrong, and you spend an eternity in hell*, get it right and you spend an eternity in paradise. *depending on your particular church's belief system.
Why does god have such a strange test that was supposedly much easier for people to "pass" back when god performed all kinds of "acts of god"? Because: "god works in mysterious ways" or "god has a plan" or "you can not know the perfect god and why he does things."
How about a much more reasonable and simple explanation, not full of contradictions, (Occam's Razor,) that this god of yours does not exist.
---------------2nd point-------------
This god character does truly contradict himself, all the time. This is obvious to us atheist that has studied the bible at all. Just because you wrap yourself in the warm blanket of denial does not mean that these obvious and powerful contradictions do not exist, they just do not exist to you because you blinded yourself to them.
Your father knew best, to not let you have all the candy you want when you were 5 years old. Has your father ever been wrong? Of course he has, that's a dumb question. Why is it such an impossible leap for you to think this supposedly "heavenly father" has never gotten something wrong? Oh, because a book told you he is all knowing and all powerful and all good. Why does that book say that? Because they have to deal with absolutes when it comes to god's power and authority. If there was just a small chance this god got something wrong, a crack is opened up to the rational thinking mind, if god was wrong about x, what about y? What about this entire book that is supposedly "gods word?"
I strongly agree with you that if there was this timeless, all powerful all knowing god, he would be much, MUCH! greater than we are. Much greater than the difference a 3 year old has to a highly educated adult. Unlike what you think, this is actually powerful evidence pointing towards why your god is ridiculous. Why would this all powerful timeless being do everything he did. Bored? Does a timeless being get bored? Time should be meaningless to a god like that.
Maybe this is a really hard subject for you because, for this "scripture" to work you need to constantly try to twist yourself and words into pretzels to make it all "work." When all evidence, all logic and reasoning points to the fact that your god, as the various bibles depict it is utterly ridiculous, insane and without merit.
"None of which he left any evidence behind for us to verify the miracles with."
-Are you sure about this?
Secondly the point of the earthly father wasn't that he was flawed or that he could make a mistake, rather it is this. No matter what attributes God has and who this God is, do you think that we would ever fully comprehend his actions if as a five year old I cannot fully comprehend the actions of someone 20-30 years older than I am?
Forget the Christian God or any God for that matter. Just take a person and give them the divine attributes of perfectly good, omniscience, and omnipotence. Just those three attrributes. Lets make this person you. Do you think that I would ever fully agree with your actions? You show me a god who's actions I fully understand and I'll show you a god who is actually a man.
Of course this rational could prove any god real and shut down any rational case against actions which are contradictory from any God. I'm not advocating for this. Rather I"m simply saying that if you are looking for a God you can fully explain and fully understand (like many atheist I've spoken to but not all) then you are not really looking for God you are looking for yourself in another entity. That we have to be careful of. We should question God. Abraham did. He said to God to his face "will not the judge of all the earth do right?" When God was about to wipe out a population which may contain innocent people. This was not just to Abraham and he cried out to God. David cried out to God "will you forget me forever?!" God's presence had seemingly left David and if God loved him he thought this to be illogical and so he questioned God. Job questioned God and many others with many other examples. God has show through scriputre that it is ok to question and exercise rational thought in relationship with him. Even the angels question God in scriputre. God created us with a rational mind and allows and encourages us to use it. However, if we expect for God to make complete sense I believe we are disregarding my 5year old to father example and I believe this is not using the rational mind properly. We should expect that somewhere God is not going to make sense. What that balance is going to be between what we know, can know, should seek to know, and should be ok with not knowing, I do not know at the moment. That might be a good dialoge to have. However, at the end of the day we are going to be faced with our limited finiteness and God's infinite nature. This has always been the test between God and man. Even from the beggining God placed man in the garden and said do not eat of this fruit. He didn't explain why he made the rule (he did explain the consequence) and that was it. That was all that man had. Essentially the test is this: though you do not know everything, can you trust me that in my attributes and consequential actions I am who I say I am? This fundamental question is going to be found throughout all of scripture for it runs to the core of scripture and throughout all of humanity. This fundamental question is posed even to you today. I again want to reiterate that i'm not arguing against rational thought and challenge. I only bring this up to you know because I see this pattern in many atheists and I would like to address it now as it is appropriate. It is rational to believe in God even when his actions are seemingly contradictory to his attributes. We are enabled and welcome to question those actions but our abiding response logically should be that if God attributes are something I believe in then there is an explanation that God may show me given time. This is the message of Job. And that is the message I present to you. I will engage in your other objections shortly but this is the most pertinent concept. I will not argue that I can completely rationalize God. If I could he wouldn't be God. I simply state that it is rational to believe in him even when in some cases we will inevitably run against our finite rationality.
I apologize I cannot do a full reply at this time. I will revisit when I can.
I am sure about no miracle evidence left behind. I looked at a bunch of various "God is real" websites and they all started to repeat themselves real fast. This was even before I was fully atheist. I went looking for evidence of god. Found none in any religion that did not require you to take a "big" leap of faith.
I certainly do not know everything, but I do know all the major religions are falling all over themselves trying to look for undeniable evidence their god is real, if their was real evidence of one of god's miracles or wrath's we would of heard about it by now, we would have heard about it 1000 times over. By the particular religion, and by the science community. It would be the biggest news story of all time. It would make trump coverage look miniscule in comparison.
Your rational about man <<<*1000^1000*1000!(factorial)<<< a timeless all powerful all good god. I agree with the premises but not your conclusion at all. It is an interesting thought exercise/argument, but one I will have to get back to sometime tomorrow.
whatisthetruth,
I call BULLSHIT on free will.
I imagine hell being a lot worse than a bullet to the head but for debate sake lets equate hell with holding a gun to your head.
god says my beautiful children I want to give u paradise for eternity with tons of virgins. land of milk and honey. yada yada yada...
please be my child and believe. just one thing. if you don't accept this gift I'm gonna blow your brains out aka hell and such. whatcha think? I see milk and honey as a better offer. you do too right?
JamieB
1. Free will equals being able to choose from at least one of two options.
-When someone is holding you at gunpoint you still have free will. Its not free in the sense of without consequence but it still is free in the sense that your mind is not being controled toward one outcome or the other where if you wanted to say no you couldn't. The free will given from scripture seems to suggest (according to my knowledge at this point) that you have at least the freedom to choose God or not. That indeed is free will regardless of the consequence.
Secondly, Paradise (which doesn't include virgins in scripture that may be Islam) is paradise beause God is there. Imagine you had a King and within the walls of his kingdom there was nothing but peace. But the second you stepped outside that kingdom there was killing and violence of every kind. The king says you can only stay in my kingdom if you want to be with me. You don't have to want to be with me but if you do not want me then you'll have to leave my kingdom. You say: alright I don't want you and I decide to leave. If he said "no you stay" that would be against your free will. But in respect of your decision after giving you ample time to do so he says ok then depart from me as you have willed it. Could you call the king evil because he respected your wishes? You can choose to reject God. But the issue is if you reject God and decide to be on your own you are deciding to be with out God... if God is goodness itself then outside of God is evil. If God is life then you have chosen to dwell in death. Essentially you are deciding to dwell outside the kingdom. What are you advocating for rather? It sounds like you're saying I want to not be with you king and be your enemy but live in your land? I want to hate you but benefit from who you are?
That's like saying I want to not be married to someone but enjoy the tax privileges
or I want to live in a country as its enemy and wishing it weren't there but benefit from it
or I don't want to be married to you but give me half of your house that you own and I don't own..
None of these scenarios are rational in an earthly sense how much more in a heavenly sense.
Lastly how does that make God evil? If I tell a guest in my home you can either respect me but if you steal from me or try to harm me or any of my other guests and you do not want to obey my rules (in essence you don't love but hate me) then get out of my house, how does this make me a bad person? You would do the same wouldn't you?
Your definition of free will is not the definition of what scripture defines as free will. I'm sorry I didn't clarify before I used the term. I should have.
whatistruth,
You may have me on the definition of free will, but the point I was attempting to make is that for most said people they would choose not to be shot in the head or go to the hell that your God created. Its just a really mean thing for an all loving god to do. Reminds me of we god asked Abraham to kill his son as a sacrifice to him. You say love god as your father would you kill your son for him. If my mom asked me to kill one of my children to show her I loved her I would never speak to her again! Yes that makes God evil in my view:)
JamieB
Thank you for your comments.
I'm honestly confused at a particular point that you can clarify so I can understand. I'm going to give a list of scenarios where I need you to show me how the person is evil:
1. A man finds a cure for death and says: you can either take it or die eventually. Its free. Please explain how this is evil.
2. Your in a desert and you come by a man and his well. He says: you can either drink this. I FREELY give it to you. or go on your way and eventually die. How is this man evil.
3. A man has a son. He wants to give the son his inheritence if he loves him he says: I own much land and property just say you love me if its true and I'll freely give it to you if not you will not get MY property. How is the man evil?
4. God owns everything. He wants to freely give it all to you and love you. However, since he is the standard of good and righteousness and every other good thing he simply wants you to swear allegience to him. In essence he wants you to desire that you love your neighbor and do no harm to him and are a good person and a just person, in wanting him you want these things. In return for your allegience he wants to Freely give you an existance with him. How is God evil?
If I'm not mistaken the only thing I can think of in what you would say would be that God CREATED us with ONLY THESE TWO options and that is what makes it evil. Am I right?
But the thing is logically there are no other options. Theres no way for God to make a middle ground becuase He is all there is. So there are only two options either good or evil.
What would be evil would be if God created us and said theres only two options hell and hell.
If God had not provided heaven or choice to choose it then I could understand a God is evil argument. But otherwise I'm really confused how does giving you a FREE option which HE HIMSELF paid for evil? That's where I'm confused. Its free...
Its like America offering free College tuition all we have to do is sign a paper. Instead one person says "your evil for making it so that we have to sign a paper! EVILLL!!!!"
Its like a woman saying to a man "ill give you all of my heart if you just marry me" but the man says "your evil for not giving me everything now and forcing me to commit myself to you!!! EVILLLL!!!
I'm just confused on how it makes God evil. You don't have to work for it and Heaven is not a bad place.... AND ITS FREEEEEE to you. Thats like me working 5 years and purchasing you a car and saying here its yours all you have to do is take the key or you wont have the car... and you saying YOUR EVILLLLL!!!
I'm really confused. I'm sure I've missed something so please help me. The other scenarios we can address but what is pertinent now is how does this one in particular make God evil.
Ok I guess Ill explain it this way because I don't care to re-look up all the verses that say god created evil and and the evil genocidal murders he perpetrated in the Bible. Honestly, compared to the amount of murders god not only commissioned but also did himself, satan was a lightweight. Free gift you say. For the normal kind liberal christian its probably pretty easy. go to church on Sunday and come preach on these forums. There are many types of christians and interpretations of the Bible. Some people murder others for god some deprived others of human rights and some waste their limited beautiful days on this earth focusing on a life that will never be. Its not free for these types of christians. maybe you are a liberal easy going christian and I fine with that. go on love god. But heres my choice: to be free from the constraints of religion.
JamieB
Thanks for your response!
I get how you would believe God to be evil because of your other points in the last thread and the one listed here. Lets say there was a murderer. John Doe
John Doe
1. Murdered Jane doe
2. Murdered Billy
3. Stole a car
4. Bought his mom a house.
I'm not saying to ignore 1-3 but I'm trying to understand how 4 makes him a bad person. The other three are something to talk about but 4 should be off the table as an evil action. That's my question. Of the things listed:
1. God being a murderer
2. God restricting human rights
3. etc
4. God providing a free gift to live in paradise
How does 4 make God bad alone? Again I'm not negating the other's but I'm trying to see why 4 specifically is bad. It can be colored bad because of 1-3 but it itself isn't bad so that's why I'm having an issue when someone says 4 is bad alone. Though I guess it seems like your going with the 4 is colored because of 1-3. that makes sense and we'd have to discuss now 1-3 but I just want to make clear that 4 alone is not itself evil. If it is please explain because that is where I'm confused.
I hate to receive gifts. For many reasons. I don't want to be indebted to someone being one of them. I would be burdened with guilt so its not something for me that would be a delightful gift
Im slightly stubborn. your not really convincing me of gods sweet gift
Thank you for your reply,
That is fine if you do not like gifts. That is your preference and as you stated you have your reasons. However,
If a child came up to you with a lolipop and tried to give it to you as a gift, would you call them evil?
And also still how does number for make God evil?
We can state that it doesn't but numbers 1-3 do. I'm not saying there isn't accusation there for you to feel the way you do. I'm just hoping we can wipe this one off the table given the logic of it.
We'll work on the other part after this point is resolved because it is an important one.
Thank you for being honest by the way.
If somebody murderes two people and steals a car, its impossible that they don't have something wrong with them regardless if they buy their mom a house. Also yes, I will agree to disagree on that while subject of free will lol.
Stu K.
I agree that there is something wrong with them because of 1-3. This is because 1-3 applied to anyone anywhere would make that person bad. This is true even if you applied 1 alone, 2 alone, or 3 alone. But 4 alone does not establish this. The only way to establish that a person is bad with 4 being the case is to add on 1/2/3 or combinations of the three. That's my point. Please bring up the killing societies and other things you guys brought up and we'll discuss them I'm just trying to point out that this number 4 is not a fair additive to the mix if your are trying to show an evil God because by itself it isn't a bad action if anything its a good one.
and which while subject on free will lol?
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