The snake doesn't use the word 'wise' ─ śāḵal "to be prudent, be circumspect, wisely understand, prosper" ─ that's attributed to Eve in the story (Genesis 3:6).
The snake says instead, 'knowing good and evil' (Genesis 3:5).
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EVE! Legendary heroine of Humanity!
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The snake says instead, 'knowing good and evil' (Genesis 3:5).
Strengthen Thy Brethren
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I think you have a false idea about the nature and character of God. I think the source of this is twofold—which you’ve pointed out: 1) the portrayal of God in the Old Testament, and 2) The problem of pain.
First, the people in the Old Testament were not as morally advanced as we are today so we cannot judge them by our standards. Hence God’s interactions with them are a reflection of their moral state, not His. They didn’t value human life or human rights as we do, so it would not have been prepared to live God’s higher law. Take Roman civilization for example. It was considered very advanced for its time, yet they did things that we consider barbaric, such as feeding people to lions. I don’t think that they could’ve handled the laws that Jesus gave, that’s why they were given the 10 Commandments (instead of the more advanced laws that Christ gave). Also, because the Old Testament has come down through so many generations, there may have been things lost in translation or misinterpreted.
Secondly, the problem of pain (CS Lewis wrote a whole book on the subject of the same title) essentially asserts that “If God was a loving caring God, why would He allow such terrible suffering to happen?” I get this. Genocide is horrible…along with a whole list of atrocities caused by man’s inhumanity to man. And then there’s the pain and suffering that comes seemingly randomly: disease, mental illness, acts of nature, accidents,…the list goes on. But what would happen if God stepped in and allowed those things to happen only to people that deserved it? We would be compelled to be good, not because we loved God and wanted to keep his commandments, but because we didn’t want bad things to happen to us. That would take away 1) The opportunity for those challenges to strengthen us and make us better people, and 2) The true freedom of choice to choose to have faith in God and live accordingly--thereby proving to God our faithfulness.
God wants us to know His true character: “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3) To know God’s true character, He asks us to keep His commandments: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” (John 7:17) As we keep His commandments, we draw closer to God, and feel in a very real way His love for not only us, but for the entire human race—bringing us both joy and peace: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” (John 15:10-11) “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
So much of suffering seems so unfair, and we probably won’t understand reasons for it until we get to the other side. But seeing the suffering of others also gives us the opportunity to do what we can to alleviate it, to demonstrate that we are Christians—that we do believe that the two greatest laws are to love God, and to love our neighbors.
Before we get to those two, there's a threshold problem of what real thing God is (as distinct from a being wholly conceptual / imaginary).
Strengthen Thy Brethren
New Member
The question of whether God does or does not exist is likely one that will not be proved by logic until He physically shows Himself once again—what one man accepts as evidence of God’s existence can be widely debated by others.
Fortunately God does not ask us to blindly believe in Him without evidence. If we want to know He exists, we can ask in sincere prayer and receive an answer: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” (James 1:5-6)
If we want to know what God is like, we can study the life of His Son: “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?”
If we want to know what God is like (physically), we can look to what people who’ve seen Him have said: “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost could not dwell in us.” (Doctrine & Covenants 130:22) The ideology that God is only a spirit emerged in the second century—after the death of the original apostles, and came as a result of the merging of Christian doctrine with Greek philosophy.
Thank you.
But first, I'm familiar with all five versions of Jesus in the NT, and frankly, the stories all have major problems if offered as history.
And second, if God is not real then God exists only as a concept / thing imagined in each individual brain; and that fits with all the evidence eg as I mentioned in the OP God being described only in terms of qualities that are imaginary.
So my focus in this thread is to find a real God ─ and a description of that real God sufficient for us to determine whether any real candidate is God or not.
(A related question is, what is "godness", the real quality a real god would have and a real superscientist who could create universes, raise the dead, travel in time &c would lack. I haven't found any answer to that either.)