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

[JM2C]

The flaw is that the Lion of Judah sometimes pounces on His INNOCENT creatures. Simple.

No one is “INNOCENT” “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” -Romans 3:23

 

[1robin]

The flaw is that the Lion of Judah sometimes pounces on His INNOCENT creatures. Simple.

Exactly who is this innocent person? Who is without sin? We humans never created a life, yet we decide to take the most innocent of lives that ever existed before they draw their first breath for convenience sake. We kill lives in the womb for the mistakes we made on an industrial scale. We cannot place that life in heaven. We cannot preserve it's soul in absolute peace and love. Yet we do so based anyway based on a right that does not even exist without God and which the guilty deprive the innocent of, in the process. To top off this moral insanity that same race condemns God who did create that life, and who can place it in eternal contentment. How does anything get more hypocritical and abjectly absurd than that?

 

[1robin]

When we drive down the freeway do we want freewill for ourselves and others, or do we want everyone to obey the same set of rules, almost like we were robots. When someone breaks those rules, they get a ticket or they hit somebody. In grade school what does the teacher want? A class full of quiet, attentive kids or a class full of kids gone wild? You were or are a military man. How much individuality did you have at boot camp?

Of course we want freewill. I want the man who veered into my lane to be able to freely chose to get back in his own and not be some robot who has no choice but to obey faulty programming. Freewill does not even hint that it has the ability to do anything possible. Freewill is just as free even when it can't make square circles. Laws and rules have nothing to do with freewill. They are what should be done but do not mandate it be done themselves. Even with rules the man on the freeway is just as free as the man who obeys or denies moral laws. Your analogy is wanting. I work in a field where much debate goes on about whether minds or chips are best suited for combat roles. Even with no pilot in the plane we always have a mind in the loop because freewill is preferable to algorithms concerning the most profound issue there are. Again your analogy falls short because love is God's goal not mandated and chosen obedience. God and your analogy have nothing to do with each other. However God has rules, traffic has rules. God hold us responsible just as laws partially do. As a military man I was taught to constantly judge orders and methods using my mind and to always consider the mind primary. That was not always the case. For thousand of years blind obedience to tactics usually at least one war too old got hundreds of millions killed for no reason. Today at least in the US we have finally learned and give complete tactical command to the guy on the ground. A captain of a ship can disobey the president lawfully. He might later be found wrong and punished but he still has the absolute right to act on his own judgment, just as God does with us. If you review full metal jackets a famous quote has the Gunny saying. "The core does not want robots". God's purpose for the universe was too allow free creature to freely love him in response to his love and decide to spent eternity it that relationship. The purpose the Navy had for building the fleets was to detour or kill the enemy but even they stressed over and over personal real time decision making. They trained is to a fine state but knew very wee no battle plans survives first contact with the enemy and then you must have good leadership on the fly and full of improvisation. Now you would have to answer for those decisions when the battle was over the same as you God demand at the great throne judgment. Many of the worst commanders in the military could not adapt and were only comfortable in a battle as it was laid out in the middle and they almost never occur. I won't bore you with the story but one such Navy Chief came closer to killing me while actually reading a book about an evolution when no Iraqi had ever even shot in my direction in two wars. He was called away and i never saw him again, he was transferred to supply or administration. Almost every great historical commander in history for Caesar to Alexander to Napoleon to Robert E Lee disdained battle by the manual. I could go on about military history forever; so I guess I need to give you a break.

And salvation, was it in Judaism as it is in many Protestant Christianity? If not, then why not? It seems like he expected the Hebrews to obey his command like, well, like robots. If they didn't what happened? Zapped, stoned, put to the sword? That sounds a lot like "irresistible coercion." Of course it didn't work.

Yes it was though many Jews disagree. They were judged by faith in a future messiah just as we are on our faith in a past messiah. He did expect them to obey but not in any way shape or form like a robot but like a free human being who using his judgement recognized the superiority of God's moral demands, versus his own. And no, not in 99.9% of cases there was an instant zap. There was correction, counselling, object lessons, but eventually there was an account that must be reckoned between us and God. Judgement day. God even held his own people back trying to work with the child sacrificing Canaanites until it says "their cup of iniquity was finally full". In my experience I always feel like I get less rewards than I deserve but again far less punishment than I deserve as well.

I do like the Christian idea of personal salvation, but since no Christian ever will or can follow and obey the will of God, then doesn't that show that there's something wrong with us? Something in our nature. Something that is in us and part of us that makes us follow our own way? No matter how much we want to love God. And, no matter how much we say we love God. But, in the end, our actions show something else. How do you live with yourself knowing that each day you will fall short of following God's will? Do you feel guilty? After a while, do you just ignore it and do the best you can at "appearing" on the outside, as being a good Christian?

Your right it is in us, but it was not created by God in us. BY the choices we make sin becomes a seed, and when actualized begins to germinate until it is as much a part of us as breathing and it's unnatural feeling have been gotten used to. The bible says we very early on singe our moral nerves and become desensitized to sin. The psychological equivalence of that would be the neural path ways we slowly burn into out brain that became stronger with every use. I live with myself by not living through myself. I am me but I live through Christ. That puts everything where it should be. Instead of fixing my eyes on the problem, I concentrate of the solution. Doing this makes what he did become more precious every day. Let me give you a verse or two that you might say Paul wrote just for C.G. Didymus:

Struggling with Sin
…14For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.…

Of course this is only part of the time. People like Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, and Luther show us that we can be obedient even among the most trying circumstances once we have Christ in our heart and faithfully follow him.

Your post was a very good tie in there with Christian doctrine. It need several more pages of detail to flesh out but it's a start.

I can't do it. I can't live the lie of pretending to be a Christian when, in fact, I do enjoy doing things that aren't "Christian". That I enjoy doing things that if I asked myself "Would Jesus do this?" The answer would be "No." In other words, isn't a "good" Christian like a spiritual "robot" for Jesus?

No one I know think that what made them a Christian was their merit. God said heaven is not a matter of work, SO THAT NO MAN MAY BOAST. If you think like that then you have messed up the harmony i hinted at where a humble Christian admits he didn't earn heaven and never could but instead places faith in God, which in turn is honor a worship towards God instead of themselves. It is the cure for the age old disease "of only think on ourselves".

I do not know exactly how it happened (I am sure the Catholics had a lot to do with it) but to to the layperson Christianity became some strange caricature of Christianity and lost it's most meaningful parts. An example is the idea that if we just do our best and try hard God will let us in. Will never happen because you can't earn a free gift, and even if you could you would have reason to boast of your great accomplishment. Salvation is recognizing the truth of it and our need for it and looking to the only one who could acquire it at the expense of his only son, and then instantly be granted the Holy Spirit to live in your heart from that moment on (who promises to never leave nor forsake you, Mothers give unbelievable love to their children but even they can't do that) as the guarantor of your future redemption into heaven.

You keep bringing up meaningful issues like this and in a few months you may have a sound understanding of what it means to become a Christian.

 

[Ingledsva]

No one is “INNOCENT” “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” -Romans 3:23

And that is very obvious BULL!


Babies are obviously innocent!



*

 

[1robin]

And that is very obvious BULL!


Babies are obviously innocent!



*

No, babies are the most self centered beings in the universe. They sin constantly but God does not hold them accountable because they lack the knowledge concerning sin. Once again I notice that the race who complains when God takes back to heaven that which he created, even though we kill them in the womb for our sins without being able to know what happens to them. We don't care, they are in our way and must go, and so is God. However God is not so obliging as to die on command.

 

[Ingledsva]

No, babies are the most self centered beings in the universe. They sin constantly but God does not hold them accountable because they lack the knowledge concerning sin. Once again I notice that the race who complains when God takes back to heaven that which he created, even though we kill them in the womb for our sins without being able to know what happens to them. We don't care, they are in our way and must go, and so is God. However God is not so obliging as to die on command.

O!M!G!


Babies are as they are in order to survive.


They are not in any sense of the word sinning!


At this point I am so happy I got out of Christianity, and don't have to be embarrassed by your words!


I can just be angry by such illogical crap!


*

 

[Draupadi]

No one is “INNOCENT” “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” -Romans 3:23

Then we should all die .

 

[Draupadi]

Exactly who is this innocent person? Who is without sin? We humans never created a life, yet we decide to take the most innocent of lives that ever existed before they draw their first breath for convenience sake. We kill lives in the womb for the mistakes we made on an industrial scale. We cannot place that life in heaven. We cannot preserve it's soul in absolute peace and love. Yet we do so based anyway based on a right that does not even exist without God and which the guilty deprive the innocent of, in the process. To top off this moral insanity that same race condemns God who did create that life, and who can place it in eternal contentment. How does anything get more hypocritical and abjectly absurd than that?

You forget we are talking about God here and not the humans, WHOM GOD CAN CONTROL.

 

[1robin]

O!M!G!


Babies are as they are in order to survive.


They are not in any sense of the word sinning!


At this point I am so happy I got out of Christianity, and don't have to be embarrassed by your words!


I can just be angry by such illogical crap!


*

One of the greatest virtues possible is selflessness. We give the acts medals, build museums for them, write songs about them, and make timeless plays about the events to stir later generations to do the same. Babies take what they want from whoever they want, whenever they want and can, even if violence and lying is required (depending on age). Moral facts do not change but a mind can know a babies is not sufficiently equipped to properly understand what immorality and why it is to not be acted upon. They are by any possible definition - guilty, but God who overrides everything declares them legally innocent and they are not judged eternally for these acts until they reach a certain age where they do have the capacity to properly chose.

It is Humans not God that kill them (without any known future justice taking place for them) by the millions, for our own mistakes and self centeredness before they ever got a chance to do a wrong thing or any other thing, and that same wicked race feels it is capable of judging a God who did not do these things. You truly can't make that stuff of. Only a genuine moral system's bankruptcy can produce it.

 

[JM2C]

Then we should all die

Yes! No one can escape the physical death, the good and the evil will die ‘cause no one is immortal.


Ro 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death;” [for the evil] but the gift of God is eternal life [for the good] through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

[JM2C]

And that is very obvious BULL!
Babies are obviously innocent!
*

No! Babies are not “INNOCENT” at all, but do you know where God takes them when they die?
No one knows, ‘cause only God can know this.

Ro 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Ro 9:14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

“Is there unrighteousness with God” For hating Esau without a cause, and loving Jacob? No!

Ro 9:15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Ro 9:16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

So, do you think God did not have mercy and compassion to those babies that died, even though they are not “INNOCENT” like Jacob whom God have loved over Esau?


Nakosis understood it very well:

Man neither has the knowledge nor authority to question God's morality.

Children do die. We may not understand the morality nor see the justice in this fact. This is because of our own ignorance, not because God is immoral.

Only God knows what happened to those babies.

You constantly complained on things you don’t have any knowledge at all.

 

[JM2C]

O!M!G!
Babies are as they are in order to survive.
They are not in any sense of the word sinning!

You opinion, a mere human, over God’s word?

 

[JM2C]

At this point I am so happy I got out of Christianity, and don't have to be embarrassed by your words!
I can just be angry by such illogical crap!
*

You are an apostate and always looking for someone to blame. Blame yourself for being an apostate and not God.

 

[1robin]

Then we should all die .

We all will.

 

[1robin]

You forget we are talking about God here and not the humans, WHOM GOD CAN CONTROL.

So you want to be a robot and have God push buttons forcing you to do what he wants without you choosing to agree or not. Glad he is running things instead of you and does not want unwilling slaves. God wants love not robots. You do not want a partner who is a robot, what would a kiss mean if they had no choice when you pushed the kiss button. Marry an ipod if you want but leave God out of it. He created this universe to allow freely given love, this necessitates freewill, that necessitates the ability to chose wrong, choosing wrong creates suffering. God ultimately does away with suffering eternally but it's temporary existence is perfectly consistent with having a good God. We are going to have tornados wither way, the only thing your doing is rejecting the only possible ultimate hope of restoration. I can have hope in the future given God, I can account for both the level of good and evil in the world. I know why it exists. I know who's at fault. I know how to fight against it. You see a mass murder and without God the best you can offer is "Oh well" or blame the God you don't think exists. One question: if God desired suffering why is it absent in heaven and why is every other verse a plea from him not to do what causes it?

 

[adi2d]

So you want to be a robot and have God push buttons forcing you to do what he wants without you choosing to agree or not. Glad he is running things instead of you and does not want unwilling slaves. God wants love not robots. You do not want a partner who is a robot, what would a kiss mean if they had no choice when you pushed the kiss button. Marry an ipod if you want but leave God out of it. He created this universe to allow freely given love, this necessitates freewill, that necessitates the ability to chose wrong, choosing wrong creates suffering. God ultimately does away with suffering eternally but it's temporary existence is perfectly consistent with having a good God. We are going to have tornados wither way, the only thing your doing is rejecting the only possible ultimate hope of restoration. I can have hope in the future given God, I can account for both the level of good and evil in the world. I know why it exists. I know who's at fault. I know how to fight against it. You see a mass murder and without God the best you can offer is "Oh well" or blame the God you don't think exists. One question: if God desired suffering why is it absent in heaven and why is every other verse a plea from him not to do what causes it?

The idea that freewill demands suffering has always bugged me. God would know who would not turn to Him could stop that person from being born. All people born would have there free will and there would be much less suffering. I'm not saying He should have done this but we would have a better world with our free will.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

No! Babies are not “INNOCENT” at all, but do you know where God takes them when they die?
No one knows, ‘cause only God can know this.

Ro 9:13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
Ro 9:14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

“Is there unrighteousness with God” For hating Esau without a cause, and loving Jacob? No!

Ro 9:15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
Ro 9:16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

So, do you think God did not have mercy and compassion to those babies that died, even though they are not “INNOCENT” like Jacob whom God have loved over Esau?


Nakosis understood it very well:


Only God knows what happened to those babies.

You constantly complained on things you don’t have any knowledge at all.

Please define innocent or explain what sin are babies guilty of. I know we are born with a sin nature but the sin nature itself is not a sinful act. Why should they be held accountable for anything at that stage of life. If babies are just as guilty as Hitler I find that troubling.

 

[1robin]

The idea that freewill demands suffering has always bugged me. God would know who would not turn to Him could stop that person from being born. All people born would have there free will and there would be much less suffering. I'm not saying He should have done this but we would have a better world with our free will.

I stated that a little incorrectly. I should have said freewill mandates the potential for suffering. I guess it is possible we all could have chosen not to rebel and no suffering would have developed. God is the source of all good and initially supervised the universe with the intention of preventing suffering. However having freewill made rebellion possible. Rebellion is the rejection of God, rejection of God is the rejection of good, we act in evil ways and added to God's no longer supervising natural to prevent suffering yields suffering.

Trying to imagine what knowing the future means and entails makes my head hurt and little can be known about infinites in a finite mind. What I have learned however is that knowing what a person will choose does not have any effect on his decision. Men were granted a lifetime to choose God or deny him. God's knowing what they would choose did not force the decision and it was still made freely. God can do anything but many times choses to act through covenants or arrangement's. One of these was a man's time in which to chose or deny God. God would not deprive him of that even if he knew he would choose wrongly. It is a mistake to graft human wishes on God's purposes. God did not intend to make a universe without the possibility of suffering, he wanted to make one with each life having time and freedom to chose. You and I may not like some of the results of that purpose but no standard exists by which to show it was wrong or in any way makes God non-existent. However you will notice that even this ends and the ultimate eternal purpose is put into effect eventually. Rebels who did not create their lives but abused what God had created for them have that life taken back. Those who used it correctly have their lives rectified and as a perfected for eternity. I can find no injustice in this. In the end we get exactly what we chose. Life with God or no life and no God because God is life, rejecting him is rejecting it.

 

[1robin]

Please define innocent or explain what sin are babies guilty of. I know we are born with a sin nature but the sin nature itself is not a sinful act. Why should they be held accountable for anything at that stage of life. If babies are just as guilty as Hitler I find that troubling.

Just in my experience in day care in a small southern town. I have heard adolescents threaten even their siblings will killing them, I have seen them steal food from each other, set up rival factions among themselves, covet others property, rebel against authority, be completely callous towards suffering, condemn the good and glorify the evil, and construct small nuclear explosive devices. Ok that last one was only a joke but the old saying children can be cruel is only the tip of the ice burg. Even before we can speak we are taking things, only interested in our wants, and will do anything imaginable to gratify them. Of course babies are cute and cuddly and not responsible to complex moral codes they are not equipped to understand but that does not mean they are morally good.

 

[Imaginary_Friends]

So you have asked, where is the comfort in that? Why do religious peoples comfort families of these tragedies with this premise of a God in control? Well let me ask you Atheists would you attempt to comfort these mothers with your precept that there is no God? No heaven and no hell? That their children are reduced to dust as they came? That the man who murdered them who took his life is also Dust and there is no justice for them either? Both parties cease to exist, one guilty, one innocent, both have the same fate in the end.

Or could it be more comforting that a God in control is with their babies now, that they know no suffering,feel no pain have no more tears and the man that took their life will be punished by a Just and perfect God. Where is the evil in my premise and the lack of evil in yours? I find evil in evildoing going unpunished.I find evil in a life given for no purpose but to die and cease to exist.
What say you?

So the main premise on why you are a Christian is for Justice and a good after-life story? Firstly, Christianity is one of the few religions without justice. All the murderer of your babies has to do is ask for forgiveness and accept Jesus on his death bed and will live in eternal bliss with his victim. So no justice there.

Secondly, does Christianity really have the best after-life story in regards to comfort? I would imagine you wouldn't be able to do things in heaven that are sins in life and I like those things. Personally I like the Viking afterlife story. You get to drink with friends everyday, fight, have sex with warrior women and wake up the next day, everyday, with no hangover. Ha top that!

Think about that for comfort. Say my cousin Joe dies. What do I say to his loved ones. " Well Joe is in heaven remaining celibate" or "Joe is having a blast drinking with his friends, forever" .... "Good for Joe!" "Yeah"

Is God (Yahweh) evil, yes. Your always going to arrive at this moral wall when you believe in a monotheistic religion since there is only one supreme entity to take the wrap for the bad stuff.