Is god evil

[setarcos]

Well, 3000+ years and God's children haven't figured it out?

When I said processed properly yet I meant that the processing can only be done with the unfolding of history. It is believed that there are those whom God has shown his favor upon which understand these things more fully but in time it is believed it will be made clear to all. It is not for us to judge the timing of complete understanding given by God. God is under no obligation to humans to act according to their wishes. Somethings are given as mysteries to be contemplated and meditated upon.

Well God shouldn't have made the myth so complicated.

Complicated? God shouldn't have this, God shouldn't have that...God is God and you are you. What makes you think the created should have the right to tell the creator what it should or shouldn't have done? What makes you so confident in your abilities that you believe you even have the capability of knowing the better from the given?

I suggest there's not a lot to understand. It's a story written as a form of creativity that aims to give humans some perspective in their place in a small universe. None of it is factual.

You just previously stated that the myth is too complicated? And yet now there's not a lot to understand? It is a story. A story about creation. A story we are all living. I think your confusing/equating the merely factual with the entirety of the truth in reality. If I gave you a proverb or an aphorism am I giving you facts? Am I giving you truth? How does the truth in these things compare with the hard facts of reality? Are they the same?

Many years ago people thought the Bible was factiual and true, yet today we understand it is a creative set of stories

I think many years ago people saw truth in the bible as a fact. Both today and many years ago we still have the same groupings of peoples adhering to particular beliefs. Nothing has changed in the nature of humanities relationship to scripture. Some misinterpret, some interpret through the lens of their own personal experiences, and some deliberately misinterpret in order to promote personal agendas. And some as I've said are given God’s grace to see clearly and hear accurately. But throughout all these diverse perspectives the gest of Gods story and Christ’s importance is uniform, coherent, steadfast, and capable of being understood by those who diligently and truthfully seek its message. While the devil lurks in the details to ensnare all who enter its dark depths God is sitting on a hill in the sun for all to see speaking for all to hear clearly what is necessarily needed to be heard for our own good.

by people who were not writing history.

I think you’re wrong here. The majority of the bible was written as history and was meant as a historical record. Time and time again discoveries have been made which verify much of the bibles historicity. The people existed. The places existed. Some of the events....eh, unbelievers would take with a large helping heap of salt so to speak.

We hear thunder, we have a natural explanation. We see floods, and it's nature, not God's wrath. We see a rainbow and it's how light refracts in water vapor. Earthquakes, birth defects, locusts, droughts, skin diseases, etc. are not evidence of God any more.

I think many modern scholars have given ancient mankind far less credit than they are due and have pushed a narrative which presents these ancient peoples as naïve imbeciles which labeled any aspect of nature which was not understood as emanating from some unseen supernatural being. These "theories" are based on sporadic and few case studies of what these ancient peoples actually believed and thought about nature. I believe the archeological sciences are starting to uncover more and more evidence of surprisingly sophisticated thinking in ancient man...generally speaking. My point being that concerning these things...modern humans are not that far removed from our ancient ancestors behaviors towards these things. Some promoted supernatural sources, some snickered at such things. It has always been thus. God has been with humanity from the beginning and from the beginning God or gods have been denied by humanity.

So critical thinkers, and everyone else, doesn't assume a God exists any more due to education, and for those who aren't guided by social norms and conform to religious beliefs, like Catholicism, they might be skeptical of religious beliefs and claims.

We still have very important "critical thinkers" in all areas of endeavor by humans - scientists, philosophers, politicians, professors, and you name it - who believe in an existent God or some form of the supernatural. As a matter of fact some critical thinkers say that the more educated you are the harder it is to escape a consideration of an existent God or “intelligent designer” in an ironic dose of reality.


Just because the loudest mouths in the media like Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennet, and others get more air time doesn't mean that other big thinkers don't exist that take the opposite view. Einstein believed in intelligent creation. Him and the other early formulators of Quantum theory like Max Planck believed, Schrodinger, Maxwell, Pasteur, Faraday, Heisenberg, etc. all believed. All deep thinkers. It’s not the progression of our knowledge which determines whether or not we believe in God or a god. Some are lead to conclude God others are lead to conclude otherwise. Either way both groups are thinking about God.


I don't know that we can think our way to a conclusion about God. I think the conception is distilled within all of us. Some hear, others do not or choose not to.

Even as a kid I was very suspicious of religious claims

That is good. The bible says to test the spirits. It says not to believe everything that you’re told, to not follow blindly but be prepared to have reason for your faith and to supplement that faith with reason. Funny how most people's complaints about Christianity and the bible were precluded by it millennia ago.

So more and more the default isn;t that a God exists, and that is a good evolution of society.

I think that we're all born with some innate sense that something greater than ourselves exists. But that sense is beaten out of most people to their detriment. I think belief in God is a stabilizing factor. It’s a demonstrable fact that more people have died from the misdeeds of those who were/are non-believers than believers could ever hope to match. Unfortunately that fact has been overshadowed for many people by the perpetuation of the myth of how many people have actually died for or because of religious belief. We’re talking thousands in comparison to millions. That's an order of magnitude larger. Even the radical efforts of the twisted version of Islam that promotes killing infidels or whatnot pales in comparison to the past and current evils committed by wars having little to nothing to do with religion. In the final analysis of things...we will all be religious in the end times. That is we will all believe in something without proof and it will cost us in one way or another.

 

[setarcos]

There are many different opinions, so no one seems to know much of anything. So that's bad for theists who want to argue that a God exists.

Arguing that God exists and arguing about the nature and essence of that God are two different things. There are potent reasons for believing in an intelligently designed universe for instance which infers a Godlike being as the designer. The essence or nature of God is immensely and imperfectly understood though.


We simply may not have the capacity to ever understand it.

Given by society, and believers readily accept it without thinking.

This too is a myth. People are often in disagreement with the society they are born into. You may have a devout Christian and a devout atheist within the same family living under the same roof having been exposed to the same experiences.

you create a confusion and lack clarity, and in this you revel in mystery.

Seems you wish I could give you a readily understood straight answer. I cannot. Except that in some things the only clear answer is that we have mysteries that must remain mysteries until they are not. Just like with science. When that time comes...only God knows. In the meantime realize that scripture was meant to be contemplated whose meaning must be actively pursued. We shouldn't be like couch potatoes expecting the bread to come to us. We must get up off our butts and actively pursue our sustenance.

It's mental theater. And I think believers can't find their way out of the murky haze they have created because they can't see the walls that show it's a prison.

My friend, life IS a mental theater. And a mystery I might add. Whether you are a believer or not we both have to endure those simple facts. We are all living in a "murky haze"...believer and non-believer. What the individual believes that haze conceals is up to them....and God perhaps.


Just know that for every one bit of knowledge humanity gains it also gains 2 bits of further questions about reality. The haze is as present as it ever was and it’s not because of religion.

Then God is corrut and untrustworthy.

God does what it says it will do. How is this untrustworthy? What do you mean by corrupt? By definition God cannot do what it says it will not do nor say it will not do that which it does. This is because the Christian Gods active will and its realized action are inseparable in reality.

The Bible needs instructions. There is none.

Sure there are. You can instruct yourself or have yourself instructed on the cultures the bible speaks about, the languages spoken, the meaning of certain words, etc. In other words you must actively pursue instruction. It’s there. And if you are a believer the theory is that you'll be assisted in your sincerity by the Holy Spirit. The important parts are pretty plain for all who are sincere to see and they are meant to be discussed and contemplated in congregation.

No wonder there are about 44 sects of Christianity,

Probably more....I'd imagine there are some that claim to be Christian but are not in essence. Wolves among the sheep, false prophets and all that...it’s all in the bible.

It's a confused religion that offers anything to anyone like a huge buffet, but without any coherent core truth. Blame Constantine, I guess.

Christianity is not confused....many Christians probably are though. The majority of the differences are in the details which are not essential to salvation. The core truths though are believed by all Christian denominations. That is...there is only one God, Jesus Christ is his only begotten son, born of a virgin, he was the embodiment of truth on earth about God's will, willingly sacrificed himself on the cross in order to save mankind, rose from the dead, and will return again, that is personally and presently interact with the world as its sole ruler from that point on eternally. And willing acceptance of Jesus the Christ as your lord and personal savior. Is common to all Christian denominations. In other words have faith in what he said and that its essence was transmitted with fidelity for you to understand.

no one comes to a rational, factual conclusion that a god exists,

Um...yeah...they actually do. Do you realize that the modern scientific method that is used to come to rational conclusions about observed phenomena came directly out of religious studies? That's right, our modern scientific methods had its beginnings in religion. Specifically the Christian religion. Like I said...rationalization is a component of scripture. It’s spoken of in scripture and encouraged by scripture.

If millions believe they saw X and X is not a fcatual thing

I’m sure you just missed the obvious here but I'll point it out to you anyway...X hasn't been proven to not be factual. As a matter of fact in many cases X is proven to be more and more plausible as a true supernatural event. That is an event not subject to physical laws.

We know humans will conform to false ideas for the sake of belonging. Look up the Asch experiments. Look up the Milgram experiments. Both demonstrate humans will believe untrue things.

The sake of belonging within select groups and settings they currently find themselves subject to usually to avoid the stress of being isolated within a group. That does not fit experiences by individuals whereby the experience itself isolates that individual in some manner as something others criticize or chastise. Nor does it fit where individual’s experiences are simultaneously backed up by independent verification from various scientific instruments such as radar, camera footage, or other measuring devices. Those social experiments are usually carefully concocted and unrealistic versions of reality. What they show is that given the right conditions of coercion and enforcement an individual or individuals can be made to conform to an action not a belief. Now beliefs can be swayed especially when the truth is so tentatively unobvious to the person that it could go either way though.

To dismiss the experience of an already isolated experiencer with unproven and unrealistic speculation only does further insult to an already traumatized individual.

Do you believe in the magic of Hindu gods? If not, why not? Could it be that you have not been exposed to Hindu beliefs? Yes.

I have been exposed to Hindu beliefs. I've read about and listened to its adherents talk about Hinduism. As much I'm sure as those Hindi's have heard about Christianity. Here's another myth that been perpetuated for some reason. That once born into a culture and its belief system your incapable of choosing to belief anything else. That's simply not true. If it were we wouldn't have former (pick your religion) becoming new converts into (pick your religion). Yet we do have that happen. Quite often as a matter of fact. How we rationalize our belief systems is a bit more complicated than our original cultural experiences.

Why don't Hindus take the Eucharist? Because it is not part of their religious tradition and new generations don't learn about, or value, it.

Hindus don't take the eucharist because they are Hindus. However former Hindus which become Christian I suspect probably do take the eucharist.

Actually, if you believe what scripture says then its quite in line with people in the "latter" days valuing less and less what doesn't give them immediate personal gratification. We should expect to see the Christian population start to recede as well since "many will fall away" as it says.

you seem to have some idea that religious belief is not what it seems at face value from a science perspective.

? You've got this completely backwards. Religious belief may be just what it seems while scientific perspective may not.

Keep learning, unless you are afraid of what you will find.

Well thank you, I'll try. Anyone who isn't afraid in some sense of what they may find or not find is about as advanced as an apathetic amoeba.

The prison of religion belief is a metaphor, and it means that people are exposed to religious ideas most of their lives, and invest a lot of time, and at some point it defines the ego. To challenge the religious ideas means to challenge the ego, and if that happens it could mean the religious ideas collapse, and then the ego collapes. Then who is the self but an empty void? This is why religious identity has the be defended, and it renders it a prison the self can't escape.

You seem to have a very narrow view of what religion is. Every single normal human adheres to some form of religion. Even an atheist. Science is a religious framework which was birthed from religion. Buddhism is a religion. Anyone with a world viewpoint is religious and necessarily so.

Religious ideas are challenged all the time. And yet the ego survives. That's how we have paradigm shifts in science for instance. That's how we have evolving in religious understanding. The self survives when the perceived prison doesn't. Yet the self being a finite self is its own prison from which it cannot escape except through its own annihilation or a divine surrogate. This is why I disagree with Buddhism. If Buddhism teaches the elimination of our prisons through annihilation of the self, which is one of the only ways, then nothing is left of the self which would have escaped its prison. It is self defeating and self delusion of the highest order which does not conform to reality. Life does not teach us to ignore the realities of living but rather the realities of living teaches us what it is to have life.

 

[setarcos]

if you made a poisoned pie then yes. Why make a poisoned pie and then tell me not to eat it? That seems psychotic.

I think we stray from my point here but there are foods that need time and process to become edible. Eating them too soon or if not properly prepared will likely end up making you very ill or die.
If I baked a poisonous pie and didn't tell you or even worse encouraged you to eat it, that would be psychotic. But to continue, the dang pie is something which, once eaten by the creature will elevate it to a higher level of existence. It will no longer be merely a lowly creature but an "enlightened" one. Unfortunately the instinct of the lowly creature is to eat the pie when it wants to eat the pie. To get past that the creature must accept two things at least. Trust in the baker and desire to become enlightened.

 

[setarcos]

You did not create the cliff.

Your splitting hairs. With todays modern equipment I could whack of the side of a hill and make quite a decent cliff to jump off.
Next you'll ask....well why did you create the cliff since it's now a hazard? I did it in order to benefit you and yours somehow....explanations all the way down but you haven't the lifespan nor intelligence to comprehend....so lets get passed that one shall we.

Depends on which Christian you talk to.

Your quite right, indeed it does. Yet all human endeavors and disciplines are rife with its own mistaken disciples. That does not mean truth does not reside there and cannot be found. There are those who promote the faith wisely and those who fail miserably. I'd say if you are sincere in your search you would be able to discern the wheat from the chaff.

So what really happened?

I don't know...I wasn't there. The truth the bible is imparting though is that man put its trust in something other than its creator. This cost mankind. The rest of the show is all about rectifying that cost.
Now if you want to get into the nitty gritty of ruminating, speculating, and philosophizing about the details I think that would take us volumes of text and googles of hours. So many have gone sooo deep into it you'd probably benefit from a good theological text to start with concerning the archetypes and analogies and historicity and unifying themes found throughout scripture.

 

[Brian2]

Why should Eve believe God?

I don't know what Eve know about God being the creator of all things etc.Why should Eve believe a serpent?

 

[ppp]

I don't know what Eve know about God being the creator of all things etc.Why should Eve believe a serpent?

Dunno. It's just pretty much a gamble either way. A couple of strangers tell you stuff. Why believe either of them?

 

[Brian2]

Dunno. It's just pretty much a gamble either way. A couple of strangers tell you stuff. Why believe either of them?

Actually when I think about it, I would say that God was not a stranger to Eve and that she would have known that God made her as a mate for Adam.
Eve had no reason to distrust anyone, she was innocent and would have accepted a lift from a stranger.
So the serpent misguided her and after that she started considering the fruit and what she saw as it's qualities and then she ate it and gave some to Adam who had not been tricked but ate it also anyway.

Genesis 3:4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.5"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."6When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

 

[dybmh]

Eve had no reason to distrust anyone, she was innocent and would have accepted a lift from a stranger

yes, but also note that in the story, the serpent claims to know what God knows.

4 And the serpent said to the woman, "You will surely not die.
5 For God knows that on the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil."

From Eve's perspective, the serpent has more knowledge than she does, if the serpent knows what God knows. This encourages her to believe what the serpent says.

 

[ppp]

Actually when I think about it, I would say that God was not a stranger to Eve and that she would have known that God made her as a mate for Adam.

I think you overstate when you say "known". What you mean is that she was told stuff. Told stuff by God and told stuff by the Serpent. She had no good reason to choose God over the Serpent other than he was the first supernatural being that she encountered.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..She had no good reason to choose God over the Serpent..

Oh, I think she did..
Just like Almighty God had told her, everything was going very well until that point.
Wasn't that enough?

It seems that it never is .. mankind always want more .. but end up getting "more than they bargain for".

 

[ppp]

Oh, I think she did..
Just like Almighty God had told her, everything was going very well until that point.
Wasn't that enough?

This was not a response to what I said. This was just a soapbox.

 

[Wildswanderer]

From what I see being said...
'in the beginning adam and eve would never die, suffer, etc if they did not eat the forbidden fruit. Instead of controlling them god gave them freewill to let them choose for themselves.

They knew the consequences yet chose(that free will thing) to eat the forbidden fruit. So from then on they experienced suffering, death, etc. because of the choice they made.

Was god evil or fair since they were allowed choices, not forced one way or the other?

If I lay an apple on the table and tell you don't eat that or you will die,, but you choose to eat it anyway and die..
Is that my fault? Does that make me evil? Or did you die by your own hand and choices?

Obviously, it was your own fault.

 

[ppp]

Obviously, it was your own fault.

If I hypothetically put a loaded gun in a room of kids and tell them not to touch it. Do I bear any responsibility when one of them injures them self or or others?

I think I do. But y'all seem to think otherwise.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If I hypothetically put a loaded gun in a room of kids and tell them not to touch it. Do I bear any responsibility when one of them injures them self or or others?

This argument crops up time and time again.
Almighty God takes responsibility for all.

Does that mean that we have no responsibility for our actions? No !

 

[ppp]

This argument crops up time and time again.
Almighty God takes responsibility for all.

I suspect that is a practically meaningless sentence.

Does this purported god acknowledge that irrespective of his human accomplicies, every assault and healing, murder and support, rape and consent, theft and charity, deceit and candor was planned, intended and executed by that god himself?

What form does this taking of responsibility take?

 

[muhammad_isa]

What form does this taking of responsibility take?

Absolutely everything !
He gives life, and takes life.
He is the Knower of all.

Our knowledge is insignificant compared to the Almighty.
Whether we take responsibility, or not, it makes no difference to God. He has no needs. What we do is for or against our own souls.

 

[ppp]

Absolutely everything !
He gives life, and takes life.
He is the Knower of all.

I didnt ask what he takes responsiblity for. I asked, What form does this taking of responsibility take?

 

[idea]

Or did you die by your own hand and choices?

An uneducated, ill-informed choice is not a choice.

 

[muhammad_isa]

I didnt ask what he takes responsiblity for. I asked, What form does this taking of responsibility take?

You miss the point.

You treat the subject as if God was a person like you or I.
That's not true.
God is responsible for all we see. It would not exist without Him.
He is the Best of All Judges.
It is not possible for God to be irresponsible. He is Holy, Pure.

I know it might sound as though I speak about a person..
..He etc. .. but it is not so .. it is merely use of language.

 

[ppp]

You miss the point.

I asked a question about a statement that you made.

Almighty God takes responsibility for all.

What form does this taking of responsibility take?

If you had a different point, then you should not have said what you did.
Do you wish to retract your statement?