Why does my God allow children to die? Is he evil?

[blueman]

that doesn't make it so.

You're right, but there has to be a central truth and foundation that underscores our purpose in life. Reflect on the central themes of Scripture:

(1) Creation was good
(2) Man was provided free will and stewardship over creation
(3) Evil present (God provided angelic beings with free will as well)
(4)Man disobeyed and creation and the earth was cursed (fallen world)
(5) God provided a way for redemption through grace and this was fully manifested in Jesus Christ
(6) Through salvation, we have an eternal relationship with God and will be united with Him one day.

(7) Rejection of God's gift of salvation results in condemnation and eternal separation.

When we are truly honest with our inner man (soul), we begin to realize there is more to this life than what we see and that a void exists. God has made a way to fill that void through Christ and restore us back to Him.

 

[idav]

Faith plays a key role as well.

We dont need faith to say the world has always been like this. Any existing paradise is what takes faith.

 

[Mycroft]

(1) Creation was good.

So good he tried to have it all exterminated.

When we are truly honest with our inner man (soul), we begin to realize there is more to this life than what we see and that a void exists. God has made a way to fill that void through Christ and restore us back to Him.

Prove it.

 

[blueman]

So good he tried to have it all exterminated.

Prove it.

You prove it invalid. Your the skeptic.

 

[blueman]

We dont need faith to say the world has always been like this. Any existing paradise is what takes faith.

Everyone has faith in something (self, world system or other belief system). The question is How firm is the foundation you base your faith in?

 

[blueman]

So good he tried to have it all exterminated.

Prove it.

It was good, but with free will, man blew it. God's justification and sovereignty in judging humanity does not need to be explained to us.

 

[idav]

Everyone has faith in something (self, world system or other belief system). The question is How firm is the foundation you base your faith in?

To that question about factual fall not being real, about as firm as I know the earth is 4 billion years old. Unless there is some time dilation I haddened considered.

 

[Draupadi]

Whether this world is good or bad, the Scriptures mostly say that bad things happen to evil people. But that's not always the case. Even the Scriptures say that God has always intervened for the good people. It no longer happens. And I still can't fathom why can't an omnipotent God protect the innocent and His followers from the evil minds of His creations? If it is to teach us goodness via bad things then He has certainly failed with this tactic.

 

[blueman]

To that question about factual fall not being real, about as firm as I know the earth is 4 billion years old. Unless there is some time dilation I haddened considered.

Just pay attention to the evidence all around you rather than trying to contend how old the earth is. If you do not believe we the live in a fallen and deprived world, the evidence disputes it.

 

[blueman]

Whether this world is good or bad, the Scriptures mostly say that bad things happen to evil people. But that's not always the case. Even the Scriptures say that God has always intervened for the good people. It no longer happens. And I still can't fathom why can't an omnipotent God protect the innocent and His followers from the evil minds of His creations? If it is to teach us goodness via bad things then He has certainly failed with this tactic.

Did bad things happen to the apostles. Did bad things happen to David?, Moses?, The prophets? Jesus? Were Christians burned in the coliseum or fed to wild beasts? In a fallen world, bad things happen to people, good or bad.

 

[Draupadi]

OK but a humane God should at least protect the innocents. But He doesn't so I disagree with the OP that God is good.

 

[Nakosis]

OK but a humane God should at least protect the innocents. But He doesn't so I disagree with the OP that God is good.

I think it obvious that if there is a God, then God does not directly interfere.

People believe that prayer and rituals might cause God to intervene. I suppose because of some old tribal stories of God intervening in the past.

There is no evidence of God intervene except these tribal stories if you want to consider that evidence. We can do good, we can do evil. We never needed God for that. God is evil because God doesn't intervene.

 

[Mycroft]

I think it obvious that if there is a God,

If it were obvious, there wouldn't be atheists.

 

[CG Didymus]

There is nothing in Mormon doctrine which, when properly understood, is inconsistent with the Bible, and the LDS understanding of God is probably more biblical than traditional Christianity's. For instance, there is nowhere in the Bible where God is described as a three-in-one essence which fills the universe.

Is there a God? Even if there is one, who is he? Everyone defines him differently. Doesn't that make God relative and subjective? But your point is very important, most Christians define him as a trinity. You don't. Jews don't. Muslims don't. Baha'is don't. Yet, they all say they are talking about the same God. So what is so real about him? No one is talking about exactly the same being.

If, to the fundie Christians, all the rest of you are wrong, then you are all following a false, made up religion, yet... all those religious movements are believed and followed. For the believers, they can be "proved" by using Scripture and "logic". But most important, all of them work and have changed peoples lives, if followed and believed in. They all have spiritual laws and morals that are claimed to be from God.

So, even if Joseph Smith completely made up Mormonism, it works. It has provided an alternative to other religions that touch some people. Is it the only way? Is it phoney? It's all how you believe it. It works for you, so it's true enough. Just like other versions of Christianity are true for those believers. But, imo, it's just as possible that all of them have very human origins. Smart, philosophical, spiritual people could have easily come up with what they thought was the best moral code for their society... and then proclaimed, "It came from God ".

Just like one of my favorite religions, the Baha'i Faith. Did God reveal it to the prophet of the Baha'i Faith? If not, then people can and do make up religions and the moral codes and rules that go with them. If he is from God, then Christianity and all the other religions are merely part of a progression of spiritual and religious teaching that is always being changed and updated. So, again, religion, and its moral, are ever changing.

Is God evil? Not the new improved definitions of who he is. The Biblical God was not one to be messed with. But he did, intervene and "save" his people several times. Like didn't he send some seagulls to solve a problem for the Mormons?

 

[CG Didymus]

OK but a humane God should at least protect the innocents. But He doesn't so I disagree with the OP that God is good.

You know that pretty sad. Most parents, even amongst animals, does all they can to protect and teach their young. I asked one of those Christians if he and I build a robot, and wanted it to serve and love us, but programmed it to have the choice to disobey, why would we be surprised when it did disobey? And then, why would we curse and punish it? And then, the good ones, that did obey, why would we sit by and let them suffer? I agree with you.

I believe there is something of a spiritual reality, but I don't believe it is properly described by Christians. In fact, I wouldn't a little bit of the karma and reincarnation concepts from India. But who knows what is the real truth? Except, of course, the Christians, they know because the way they wrote and interpret the Bible, mainly their part the NT, it makes everything perfectly clear. Yet, they still disagree with each other? Hmmm?

 

[serp777]

Either God doesn't care like the deists would claim, or God is malevolent, or God doesn't exist.

In the first case, God would create the universe out of something similar to curiosity and let it all play out. He would be above the petty concerns of good and evil that humans have arbitrarily defined. Thus he would be neither good nor evil, but he would simply be a force like gravity.

In the second case, God does care. He created all of us with intention. Given his infinite power and knowledge, God knew what was going to happen to us when he created us in the first place. He knew about all the sins and immeasurable pain humans would have to endure, and he was totally ok with this. In fact, he designed the universe to inflict the extent of human suffering and pain since he knew the outcome . Then, even though God knew everything that was going to happen, which he designed, he still gets mad about the humans who commit the sins he allowed, even though he knew about them before they occurred. This God is the most confusing and least likely. This God would seem like he has an appetite for sadism, conflict, and misery. To add insult to injury, this God allegedly gave us free will, even though everything was already determined through some plan, thus making free will completely meaningless.

In the third case it's a non issue.

 

[blueman]

OK but a humane God should at least protect the innocents. But He doesn't so I disagree with the OP that God is good.

In God's view as a just and holy God, there is no one innocent because of sin. I believe God bestows grace on the young and immature, people with mental retardation, etc. To those who are mentally mature and capable of accepting the truth, there is no excuse.

 

[JM2C]

So you answer to the suffering of children is that it's okay to do nothing because it's their own country's fault in the first place?

I’m sorry, I thought we are talking about God’s absolute morality against human moral standards.

Yes! People are helping these children, but "Corruption is a major part of the problem in Somalia," said Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group. "This drought did not come out of nowhere, but the (Somali) government did not do anything to prepare for it. Instead they spent all their time fighting each other."
Unless they help themselves first by not killing each other otherwise, there is nothing anyone could do. You see the side of human moral standard here.
They are killing each other because they believe each one has moral values in it.

 

[serp777]

In God's view as a just and holy God, there is no one innocent because of sin. I believe God bestows grace on the young and immature, people with mental retardation, etc. To those who are mentally mature and capable of accepting the truth, there is no excuse.

"I believe God bestows grace on the young and immature, people with mental retardation"

Why? They are all sinners too just like everyone else.

Did God also bestow grace on murdering psychopaths, which whom have a deficiency in the empathy section of their brain? Or was that just for the moral lulz/dramatic ambiguity?

Also how can God be just if he invented sin just so humans could sin, when he knew ahead of time that they were going to sin? What definition of justice is that? Genesis justice? That's like the ultimate entrapment scenario of all time.

And then he decided to save and bestow grace on some apes (although not the conscious neanderthals or other sentient ape species) in bronze age palestine, by sending himself down to Earth, to sacrifice himself to himself, in order to forgive us from himself, in order to save us from himself.

How does anyone believe this stuff?

 

[JM2C]

In my own research I have found that the Books of Mormon and Abraham and the Doctrine and Covenants are far too contradictory to the bible for a Mormon to be able to use the bible authoritatively from his own religious perspective. They don't believe in god, or jesus, or the bible, they believe in Joseph Smith and nothing more.

So you believe in the bible, and God, and the Lord Jesus Christ