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

[1robin]

Let's jump ahead and talk about the recent past. Let's talk about segregation. When I was a kid in California, not in the South, in the 50's and 60's, Blacks lived on their side of town, Hispanics on their side, and even Asians were lumped together and kept in their area. Even churches were mostly segregated. Was it a liberal thing or a conservative thing to break down the "race" barriers? Was it a Christian thing?

It is a natural desire to wish to be with people that have the most in common with us. I do not see it as evil or bad but it can be inconvenient at times. The conservative Lincoln freed them and contrary to what the media in modern times will say but is a fact is that republicans were always the ones who broke down the racial barriers. Just look through the legislation record. I think in the south the Democratic Party had a whites only clause in its platform for many years. Regardless with God you have the foundation to destroy racism. The equality of man. Get rid of God and you have Darwin's survival of the favored race garbage. The political dichotomy is a distant second to the spiritual one.

Martin Luther King was a minister, but what about the KKK? Were some of them Christian? I don't know where you were in the 60's but sex, drugs and rock and roll played apart in breaking down the Black/White barriers. I won't talk about the sex and drug part here, but in music, when young white kids were going crazy over the British rock groups, like the Rollling Stones and the Beatles, they were giving credit to the Black artists that inspired them. Was John Lennon and Mick Jagger Christian?
Yes, I think we need to go here. It ties in well with Lady B's OP.

I will not argue that many things had an effect on the issue but without God they were acting contrary to their world view. However they all acted under presuppositions that only have justification with a God. There is no equality or sanctity without God. The Jim crow laws were created by democrats. Both Martin Luther King Jr and Fredrick Douglass were republicans. Even modern day democrats are only using money to buy votes. Democrats spend other peoples money which makes minorities dependant and is dressed in sheep's clothing. Republicans offer a hand up not a hand out and that sheep is dressed in wolves clothing by the media.

Is God evil? Yes, if he was the inspiration for the European invasion and their "manifest destiny" to take over the land.

1. There is no manifest destiny verse.
2. However even if there were, would it have been morally wrong to introduce the religion of God, the civility of European politics (in comparison anyway), medicine, economic theory, trade activity, education, and stability of a European nation to a land where the population occupies less than 1% of the land area, and developed almost none of it, is composed of a thousand tribes many of which have never known a time without war, practices human sacrifice at times, lives in utter ignorance, occupies land they only recently killed their own kind for, has no medical or scientific knowledge to speak of, and had a life span 1/3 lower than the Europeans which many times offered them more money than they could count for land worthless to them. In fact if God exists then these peoples souls may have benefited infinitely from these actions. So if the Biblical God exists he was perfectly benevolent in subduing hell bent savages and forcing good things on them, if he does not exist then he can not be called evil can he? In fact evil does not even exist without God. This exact same motive has been usurped by tyrants many times and should not be confused with actions that God is actually responsible for.

But how is it that a good God, a just God let several generations of native people live and die without knowing Jesus? So let's talk about these native people. Since you are a Cherokee, let me ask you, who were the "civilized" tribes? Didn't they have a constitution or something? Weren't they at peace with the Colonists? Then you say it was a "gang" land here? Not like peaceful Christianized Europe where everyone loved their neighbor. Then you say "Custer's" Sioux? Have you read Black Elk Speaks? It's a good book, but it makes the settlers look like the "gang" members.

Eastern Indians were more advanced and civil than the classic horse tribes. Both Europeans and the eastern Indians committed atrocities on each other. One tribe may welcome colonists and the other kill and eat them. The truth is there was land enough for all but man being man even screwed that up. I am only rebuffing the claim that the evil whites ruthlessly subdued the peaceful and wise Indians. Both were wrong but I believe the Indians more so. No I have no read that book. I rarely read or watch anything unless both sides are represented and I have read a wealth of those type things. It is almost always the same case. The Indians first did something horrible but small scale, the white's over react mainly because they were better equipped and capable, the Indians cry foul and bushwhack women and children that had nothing to do with anything. There are exceptions but this is the rule.

Which Christianity? Catholic or Protestant? Either way there are problems of being "blood thirsty"--witch hunts, Inquisitions, and Crusades.

Agreed but as their actions are not Biblically justified that has nothing to do with God.

Then disease? What about the plague? Why didn't the Bible tell Europeans about germs and viruses? An oversight? "Take me to England"? Hmmm, the English never acted like blood thirsty idiots? Did you see the movie Gandhi? And then you say that Sitting Bull didn't honor the deal he made? I don't know, but I thought Native people respected the land and believed it must be shared and couldn't be owned or sold for money? Or is that the romanticized version? But to think that the Europeans made an "infinitely" better use of the land? Then should the United States take over all third world countries and put the land to better use? Should we make them an offer they better not refuse, an offer to assimilate or die. Or, maybe we are doing that but in more covert ways. I don't know, but I hear rumors. So what do you think 1robin?

That is a lot of claims in one paragraph.
1. The Bible knew about germ theory thousands of years before even the secular scientists and doctors killed millions with their ignorance of disease and sanitation. I defend the Bible not Europeans.
2. Of course all races have acted unjustly.
3. The native people killed their cousins and stole their land, declared it sacred, and then whined when the whites did the same thing because they were better at it. They made up religious claims as needed unlike the Hebrews who recorded their despicable failures as well as their successes.
4. The right to conquer is a tricky one. I will not attempt to straighten out something so large and crooked. I will only say the Europeans claim to the US was just a valid or more so than the majority of Indian’s claims.
5. If this was 1950 I would say the world would have been better off if we had taken it over though I would have never have suggested it. However since we have rejected God as a nation and are marching towards moral insanity, the subversion of freedom, and political economic suicide that is no longer true. The Indians, Germans, Italians, and Japanese did not offer money for land, they offered nothing for it but death and then took it. They did not rebuild what they were forced to destroy only we did.

I always find it remarkable how the dismissal of God results in a person’s being forced into moral cul-de-sacs where wrong must be declared to be right to justify anything. Killing babies is no longer a scourge of evil it is now a sacred right. The Indians are not the disease ridden killers of their neighbors they are noble heroes. Christianity is no longer producing scientific, medical, industrial, and political break through and the only justification for moral justice it is now the enemy of all those things. It is necessary to deny reality and substitute a false one to make all this stuff function. I do not even know of a motivation for the effort besides a spiritual one.

 

[1robin]

I'd like to see this "data".

I was in a hurry but here is some stuff even from a critical site.

A. Young People

• 1. For 15 years before 1963 pregnancies in girls ages 15 through 19 years had been no more than 15 per thousand After 1963 pregnancies increased 187% in the next 15 years.

2. For younger girls, ages 10 to 14 years, pregnancies since 1963 are up 553%.
3. Before 1963 sexually transmitted diseases among students were 400 per 100,000. Since 1963, they were up 226% in the next 12 years.

B. The Family

• 1. Before 1963 divorce rates had been declining for 15 years. After 1963 divorces increased 300% each year for the next 15 years.

2. Since 1963 unmarried people living together is up 353%
3. Since 1963 single parent families are up 140%.
4. Since 1963 single parent families with children are up 160%.

C. Education

• 1. The educational standard of measure has been the SAT scores. SAT scores had been steady for many years before 1963. From 1963 they rapidly declined for 18 consecutive years, even though the same test has been used since 1941.

2. In 1974-75 the rate of decline of the SAT scores decreased, even though they continued to decline. That was when there was an explosion of private religious schools. There were only 1000 Christian schools in 1965. Between 1974 to 1984 they increased to 32,000.

• • a. That could have an impact if the private schools had higher SAT scores. In checking with the SAT Board it was found that indeed the SAT scores for private schools were nearly 100 points higher than public schools.

b. In fact the scores were at the point where the public schools had been before their decline started in 1963 when prayer and Bible reading/ instruction was removed from the schools.
c. The scores in the public schools were still declining.
3. Of the nation's top academic scholars, three times as many come from private religious schools, which operate on one-third the funds as do the public schools.
What Happened When the Praying Stopped — The Forerunner
The effect of removing School Prayer
http://www.whatyouknowmightnotbeso.com/graphs.html

Isn't it the same people praying in churches as praying in schools?

Did you reply to something else. I do not understand this.

Secular organizations do generally feel a responsibility to give evidence-based explanations for the things they study, yes.

No they feel the need to rule out for arbitrary reasons things that are not politically correct and then make do with what is left. It is a cause and effect problem. If your prejudice requires the dismissal of the cause your effects will be attributed to insufficient but semi-relayed causes. IOW if God or the rejection of him by modern moral schizophrenics is the cause they would not be allowed to consider it. It is double standards and convenience not logic. Dark matter, multiverses, and violations of abiogenesis cannot be detected yet they are adopted as a cause. All are faith based, include them all or reject them all. If atheists and secular moralists can't be right they could at least be consistent.

From my perspective, you're arguing based on the post hoc fallacy, but haven't actually demonstrated that your correlation is a real thing.

To prove a correlation would require much time and space. I think the correlation to accurate to allow dismissal of the cause I gave. Only the extent could be challenged. What is the correlating proof for the scientific hypothesis I gave above.

Wait - isn't suicide itself a sin?

I think so even though the Bible is not exhaustive on the issue. So? He knew of the remedy to the problem of our sinful nature (Jesus died for all sin including suicide). The other side acts like the problem does not exist and there for no remedy is needed and so killing babies as birth control is no longer wrong, it is a sacred right.

No, it's more like saying that firearms safety training will reduce accidental firearm injuries and fatalities.

If guns were not handled by teen agers there would be no gun violence. If sex is resisted instead of codified, justified, and persuaded by immoral moralists there would be less babies born to babies or worse killed for others sins.

No, murder is intentional killing of a human being except in certain extenuating situations (war, self defense, etc.), none of which apply to God.

No Biblically at least murder is unjustified homicide. Homicide is justified killing and manslaughter is unjustified but unintentional killing. How in the world do you feel qualified to dictate what does and does not apply to God? I believe in him but gave that futile reasoning up as impossible. Continued below:

 

[1robin]

When we're talking about an omnipotent being who would have had an infinite number of non-fatal ways of stopping that from happening, yes, it would have been.

I understand the claims that this is convenient but it is no less true. We do not have the capacity to examine God's motives. The Bible says he is only obligated to act consistent with his revelation. You may of course reject him but to judge him is just meaningless. This one is an example. It may very well be that the destruction of the Canaanites was the most effective way of dealing with these people. It certainly is not beyond his sovereignty. He creates our soul and if we use it to defy him and wreck his purposes he takes it back or destroys it. That is not pleasant but it isn't irrational. This was one bad example for your side. The rebellious Hebrews never fully obeyed God and the Canaanites troubled them to no end for a very long time. They used to raid year after year at harvest time and caused massive famines. If God exists he was using the Hebrews to reveal himself through. He needed them to be a morally superior and unique culture so when Jesus came his influence and effect would be enhanced by this. The Canaanites and the occasional Hebrew liaisons with them retarded this effort and therefore in my view many people were not saved because Jesus revelation was handicapped to some extent. In summary:
1. We can't meaningfully judge a mind that knows everything.
2. His ways and purpose are not defined by ours.
3. Even if wrong that does not make it not true.
4. If God exists his actions were extremely benevolent. You must posit all revelation if God is posited. You can't leave out purpose and context for effect.
5. If he does not then what are we discussing.

And what's your excuse for this?
2 Samuel 12:13-19

1. David was needed for Israel's cohesion.
2. The son never had to endure the miseries that this veil of tears provides. He went to heaven without the need to suffer the pains of the misery of the times.
3. It might have been the most effective way to achieve a purpose. If you have kids and actually love them you know that taking the easy way out and not punishing them (harshly at times) is the greatest injustice a parent can do. God was Israel’s father.
4. If God exists the child is in heaven or will be.
5. If he does not then what are we discussing. See #4 above.
6. Saying God did something that in your infinitely insufficient reason was wrong does not mean God does not exist. By the way to insinuate God acted in an evil way means you need to justify the existence of actual evil and God is necessary for that.
7. Modern Godless morality is currently killing babies in millions per year. By all means let's reject God who killed a Baby (for an actual reason) that he created in the first place so we can make rooom for the right to kill millions of them for selfish reasons.

Perhaps the childs father's words will show the true light this should be viewed in. Surely he would be the most resentfull of this act.

David now penned the 51st Psalm, in which, though he had been assured that his sin was pardoned, he prays earnestly for pardon, and greatly laments his sin. He was willing to bear the shame of it, to have it ever before him, to be continually upbraided with it. God gives us leave to be earnest with him in prayer for particular blessings, from trust in his power and general mercy, though we have no particular promise to build upon. David patiently submitted to the will of God in the death of one child, and God made up the loss to his advantage, in the birth of another. The way to have creature comforts continued or restored, or the loss made up some other way, is cheerfully to resign them to God. God, by his grace, particularly owned and favoured that son, and ordered him to be called Jedidiah, Beloved of the Lord. Our prayers for our children are graciously and as fully answered when some of them die in their infancy, for they are well taken care of, and when others live, "beloved of the Lord."
http://www.christnotes.org/commentary.php?b=10&c=12&com=mhc

This argument of yours fails if you see any intrinsic value in human beings whatsoever. Do you?

Of course I do, God is the only foundation for that belief. Without him we are biological anomalies that have no intrinsic worth or value.

Or is the only reason you see human life as something not disposable the fact that you think your God has told you that he'll punish you if you kill?

No I reject the atheistic Stalin’s views. He dismissed God as many do and thereby destroyed the only foundation for equality, sanctity, and dignity of human life. Perhaps you can prove that Murder is actually wrong and not merely socially taboo or an arbitrary preference without God. Good luck.

 

[Warren Clark]

My explanation for this has always been that God created the universe, but gave people free will. This free will can cause evil people to do evil things, and god does not come down and intervene when say 13 children die. There are murders deaths and atrocities committed everyday throughout the world. People have their own free will, which we take for granted. As the question for why would a good god let evil things happen? It is exactly that. In the religious sense, the death of an innocent is not necessarily an evil thing. They are taken from their families and cause grief for others in their life, but they are in a better place now.

This was brought out many times by Atheists and agnostics, I would like to discuss it with you in a rational and respectful manner. My disclaimer is I am a true 5 point Calvinist and If that is offensive to you,You are free to close the thread now. If I may suggest , we leave out all slander against My God in the process of this discussion, slander being pre-defined as name calling as If he were real and present.Questioning scriptures depiction of God however you interpret is allowed. Example: Is God evil? Fair enough?

Here is my premise,
this is my belief based upon my scriptures.
God not only allows children to die, He has pre-ordained them to die. Hard for us to fathom, granted, but True nevertheless in Scripture. If we say he did not cause it and only allowed it to happen then God would be reacting to free will of man to accomplish their own destruction, thus putting too much power in men and essentially tying God's hands. God ordained for this latest tragedy for his own purposes, we cannot know them, we are not our creator, so The bible tells us we must accept that their is a divine plan and God is in control completely.

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?

Personally, I think it is sad that a god that is all powerful and omnipotent can't make an alternate resolution so that innocent children wouldn't have to die.

Mind you there is no free will that can affect cancer. It will take a child with out so much as a thought of hunger. It just consumes without thought. Why then would god allow such a distasteful way to go for a child.
Surely there are more pleasant ways to kill a child rather than by cancer or HIV/AIDS

 

[CG Didymus]

It is a natural desire to wish to be with people that have the most in common with us.

You and the others here have the most in common with me. I'm seeking, questioning and looking for answers. The Conservative, Fundamental Christian answer is not one of my favorites.

1. There is no manifest destiny verse.
2. However even if there were, would it have been morally wrong to introduce the religion of God, the civility of European politics (in comparison anyway), medicine, economic theory, trade activity, education, and stability of a European nation to a land where the population occupies less than 1% of the land area, and developed almost none of it...

I would not doubt that early Americans used the Bible to justify "manifest destiny". Because several Christian groups think they are the ones that have the "fundamentals" correct, then any one of them could justify forcing their Christian beliefs on the ignorant "heathens"--Maybe a Calvinist, maybe a Methodist or maybe a Catholic? But which one of them is the true religion of God? Are the others then justified to reconquer the natives and convert them to their religion?

But even some European Christians don't have it right--especially the liberal ones. Are liberal Christians even saved? You can't answer "yes" for all of them, because at some point their doctrines aren't "Biblical" enough. So do you have a moral obligation to get them to believe correctly? If you believe Jesus is the only hope for humanity, then yes you do. God wants you to. So then it's a small step to justify that you try and convert any Christian that doesn't believe like you.

What if some back hills liberal Christian owns twenty acres of land but isn't doing anything with it? You should convert him and take his land shouldn't you? What about the natives in Brazil right now? We should convert them and chop down the trees and mine the minerals and dam the rivers and put in strip malls with McDonald's and Home Depots and Churches. Or how about the Hopi's? They have their own religion. That's not right. Some of them still grow corn. What is that all about? Get them modernized. It's for their own good.

Or, maybe it's not. Maybe we've taken a step back. Maybe we've looked at our past and have seen a few errors in our methods. Sure, things are "advanced", but things are worse in some ways also. Christianity has never been perfect. What Democrats do isn't perfect. And yes, even Ronald Reagan wasn't perfect. And, our explanations of who God is aren't perfect either. Christians will and have fought other Christians--like savages.

What is the Christian God doing? Supposedly, he is going to make it to where there is no more evil. Why does he need it now? I'm sorry, but it sounds like a game, an experiment. Why did he place natives here that didn't know who he really was? Are you telling me that they knew nothing about the true and living God? Why didn't he want to reveal himself to them? He would rather have the Europeans come over and conquer them and then force them to go to school to learn about God? Whatever, it sounds evil and cruel to me.

 

[no-body]

Both were wrong but I believe the Indians more so.

Holy crap. You've got a lot of balls dude.

 

[kjw47]

Personally, I think it is sad that a god that is all powerful and omnipotent can't make an alternate resolution so that innocent children wouldn't have to die.

Mind you there is no free will that can affect cancer. It will take a child with out so much as a thought of hunger. It just consumes without thought. Why then would god allow such a distasteful way to go for a child.
Surely there are more pleasant ways to kill a child rather than by cancer or HIV/AIDS

The situation in this world is very sad. But God who created all things knows exactly what he is doing and why, it may be hard for a mortal to find understanding, but we cannot see what God can see or know what he knows.

 

[1robin]

Personally, I think it is sad that a god that is all powerful and omnipotent can't make an alternate resolution so that innocent children wouldn't have to die.

I can of course sympathize as a human being with severe limitations. However you must first adopt a universal moral standard by which to condemn God that only exists if he does. It may be that we are the reason that death is necessary. We will not learn without a lesson that drastic. There are countless examples of this. In fact I bet that even the hardest atheist might open up the window of his closed mind and let in a little light at a funeral if nowhere else.

Mind you there is no free will that can affect cancer. It is a fact that tragedy makes people concern themselves with theology instead of the latest shoe's or fads.

To stop cancer requires capability not will. Will means freedom to think it does not mean freedom to throw the moon into Venus. That makes no sense and i do not believe that perfect free will always exists but that is the general rule.

It will take a child without so much as a thought of hunger.

Yeah, yeah I can't stop a dump truck by thinking it so God does not exist. Is that actually the argument you are making?

It just consumes without thought. Why then would god allow such a distasteful way to go for a child.

He didn't. He created a perfect world that he sustained perfectly. We said no thanks we got this kind of like what you are doing here. So he said ok guys you got it. Nature was no longer sustained and maintained for our flourishing but was released to uncaring natural law you love so much.

Surely there are more pleasant ways to kill a child rather than by cancer or HIV/AIDS

Are you actually saying that either a creation meets your arbitrary yet optimal standards or it has no creator? That is one bizarre argument. In fact if you are nothing but atoms in motion that has been selected only for survival why do you trust anything coming out of that biological computer to accurately reflect truth? How do you posit evil without morality that requires a God to be evil in the first place? Even the murder of a child is not evil without God it is only socially un-fashionable, or not preferred by a certain group of smart primates. The Bible is the most comprehensive explanation of evil and predicts it more thoroughly than any scientific dogma yet you consider that evidence against God. Hallelujah where is the Tylenol. (What movie is that from?)

 

[1robin]

Holy crap. You've got a lot of balls dude.

I am an Indian so I can make those statements. I am like that guy on seignfeld that Jerry was convinced had converted to Judaism for the jokes. Just kidding. I am politically incorrect not brave. What I said has endless evidence, but can be challenged of course. If you will back up in the thread where I gave some facts you might see why I said this.

 

[no-body]

I am an Indian so I can make those statements. I am like that guy on seignfeld that Jerry was convinced had converted to Judaism for the jokes. Just kidding. I am politically incorrect not brave.

A lot of white people call themselves Cherokee are you actually part of a tribe or do you have like 10% ancestry when one of your relatives raped a native american?

What I said has endless evidence, but can be challenged of course. If you will back up in the thread where I gave some facts you might see why I said this.

"But they did it to!" is not much of an argument, Native Americans where human and made mistakes like everyone else. Especially when your supposedly God driven superior civilized people brought torture, destruction and pillaging to an art form that shocked the "savages"

 

[1robin]

You and the others here have the most in common with me. I'm seeking, questioning and looking for answers. The Conservative, Fundamental Christian answer is not one of my favorites.

Well then we do not have that in common at least.

I would not doubt that early Americans used the Bible to justify "manifest destiny". Because several Christian groups think they are the ones that have the "fundamentals" correct, then any one of them could justify forcing their Christian beliefs on the ignorant "heathens"--Maybe a Calvinist, maybe a Methodist or maybe a Catholic? But which one of them is the true religion of God? Are the others then justified to reconquer the natives and convert them to their religion?

I am sure some did. I do not believe in or defend the actions of man. I defend God and the Bible and neither one authorized manifest destiny although it would have been a benevolent command if it had.

But even some European Christians don't have it right--especially the liberal ones. Are liberal Christians even saved? You can't answer "yes" for all of them, because at some point their doctrines aren't "Biblical" enough. So do you have a moral obligation to get them to believe correctly? If you believe Jesus is the only hope for humanity, then yes you do. God wants you to. So then it's a small step to justify that you try and convert any Christian that doesn't believe like you.

The only thing necessary to get to heaven is to be born again through faith in Christ. The rest is mere commentary but very important commentary but not for salvation. We are all going to get there in spite of ourselves or not at all. I can get as technical as you desire concerning salvation if you wish or is this an attempt to divide and conquer.

What if some back hills liberal Christian owns twenty acres of land but isn't doing anything with it? You should convert him and take his land shouldn't you?

I should tell him truth as I know it and leave his land alone. Are you somehow claiming I used the Bible to justify what the whites did in the US. I made a secular case that they were as justified as the Indian’s as to claims of land. I never said God told them they could take it. If you wish to argue with that then the Bible is irrelevant.

What about the natives in Brazil right now? We should convert them and chop down the trees and mine the minerals and dam the rivers and put in strip malls with McDonald's and Home Depots and Churches. Or how about the Hopi's? They have their own religion. That's not right. Some of them still grow corn. What is that all about? Get them modernized. It's for their own good.

See the above. I would argue (I think) that Cortez’s and Pizarro or whoever invaded Peru were justified Biblically to stop the human sacrifices of 20,000 plus on some days. They were not justified in killing Aztecs or Incas for gold. They did both very very well. What do strip malls and restaurants have to do with religion? You have some clarity and context issues.

Or, maybe it's not. Maybe we've taken a step back. Maybe we've looked at our past and have seen a few errors in our methods. Sure, things are "advanced", but things are worse in some ways also. Christianity has never been perfect. What Democrats do isn't perfect. And yes, even Ronald Reagan wasn't perfect. And, our explanations of who God is aren't perfect either. Christians will and have fought other Christians--like savages.

Yes Christians are just as fallible as anyone. That is not news. We however admit our faults and seek forgiveness and restitution. I believe the Christian US unique in history in our rebuilding the countries that attacked us after they forced us to destroy them and at least offering the Indians medicine, education, and gobs of money for land. The atheists of history just took it for the most part.

What is the Christian God doing?

He apparently is ******* you off and decreeing strip malls be built everywhere.

Supposedly, he is going to make it to where there is no more evil. Why does he need it now? I'm sorry, but it sounds like a game, an experiment. Why did he place natives here that didn't know who he really was?

He didn't, their ancestors denied God and moved across Asia and the land bridge connecting it to Alaska killing and robbing along the way.

Are you telling me that they knew nothing about the true and living God?

Nope, God only requires a proper response to what revelation people have. I do not think worshiping snakes, practicing witch craft, and drinking blood counts however.

Why didn't he want to reveal himself to them?

When I am promoted to God I will tell you. You do not take advantage of the answers you have what good would more do? Didn't work out well for job either but at least he learned the lesson.

He would rather have the Europeans come over and conquer them and then force them to go to school to learn about God? Whatever, it sounds evil and cruel to me.

What you describe sounds evil to me as well (not to mention incoherent and non-historical). Thank God it is not a description of God.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I understand the claims that this is convenient but it is no less true. We do not have the capacity to examine God's motives.

Sure we do - I just did.

The Bible says he is only obligated to act consistent with his revelation.

The Bible also says that humanity has knowledge of good and evil.

You may of course reject him but to judge him is just meaningless. This one is an example.

This goes back to what I told Terrywoodenpic: "God may be immoral but he doesn't care" does not equal "God is moral."

It may very well be that the destruction of the Canaanites was the most effective way of dealing with these people.

We're talking about an all-powerful God. Any omnipotent being worth his salt would have an infinite number of ways to achieve his objective perfectly. All of them would be "the most effective way". When God chose between them, it would have been for reasons other than efficacy, since they would all be equally effective.

It certainly is not beyond his sovereignty. He creates our soul and if we use it to defy him and wreck his purposes he takes it back or destroys it. That is not pleasant but it isn't irrational. This was one bad example for your side. The rebellious Hebrews never fully obeyed God and the Canaanites troubled them to no end for a very long time.

Has there been any people in the history of the world that "fully obeyed God"?

They used to raid year after year at harvest time and caused massive famines. If God exists he was using the Hebrews to reveal himself through. He needed them to be a morally superior and unique culture so when Jesus came his influence and effect would be enhanced by this. The Canaanites and the occasional Hebrew liaisons with them retarded this effort and therefore in my view many people were not saved because Jesus revelation was handicapped to some extent.

So the Canaanites thwarted (to some extent) the will of Almighty God? How would this be possible?

In summary:
1. We can't meaningfully judge a mind that knows everything.
2. His ways and purpose are not defined by ours.

IOW, "it's not evil if God does it." This is the moral relativism that I talked about earlier.

3. Even if wrong that does not make it not true.

I don't know what this sentence means.

4. If God exists his actions were extremely benevolent. You must posit all revelation if God is posited. You can't leave out purpose and context for effect.

What revelation am I ignoring?

5. If he does not then what are we discussing.

Hypotheticals. The internal consistency of a set of ideas.

1. David was needed for Israel's cohesion.

IOW, God was incapable of carrying out his will without the help of a mortal human being? Strange.

2. The son never had to endure the miseries that this veil of tears provides. He went to heaven without the need to suffer the pains of the misery of the times.

IOW, if we murder an infant, we're doing the child a favour by saving him a lifetime of suffering? Interesting.

3. It might have been the most effective way to achieve a purpose. If you have kids and actually love them you know that taking the easy way out and not punishing them (harshly at times) is the greatest injustice a parent can do. God was Israel’s father.

Are you a parent? Have you ever had to torture one of the neighbourhood kids to teach your own child an important lesson?

And what exactly do you mean by "effective"? An omnipotent being would be capable of completely achieving whatever goals he had chosen by countless different ways, so it's not a matter of picking the one that best achieved his objectives... because they would have all done this perfectly.

The only way I can make sense of the term in this context is as something like "convenient"... I think you're saying God tortured the child because it that was the most convenient way to achieve his goals. IOW, God couldn't be bothered to choose a course of action that didn't involve making a child suffer.

4. If God exists the child is in heaven or will be.
5. If he does not then what are we discussing. See #4 above.

This applies to infant victims of human murderers, right? If it excuses God, it excuses Ashley Yates, for instance, doesn't it?

Also, would the child not have gone to Heaven if he simply died quickly without suffering? What did being tortured for a week get him?

6. Saying God did something that in your infinitely insufficient reason was wrong does not mean God does not exist. By the way to insinuate God acted in an evil way means you need to justify the existence of actual evil and God is necessary for that.

I'm not arguing that God doesn't exist; I'm arguing about the character of God if he did exist.

And I disagree that God is necessary for the existence of evil.

7. Modern Godless morality is currently killing babies in millions per year. By all means let's reject God who killed a Baby (for an actual reason) that he created in the first place so we can make rooom for the right to kill millions of them for selfish reasons.

Now you're just ranting.

Perhaps the childs father's words will show the true light this should be viewed in. Surely he would be the most resentfull of this act.

Since he's not portrayed as being angry with the torturer and murderer of his child, apparently not.

Of course I do, God is the only foundation for that belief. Without him we are biological anomalies that have no intrinsic worth or value.

If you believe that our worth depends on God, then you do not believe that our worth is intrinsic.

No I reject the atheistic Stalin’s views. He dismissed God as many do and thereby destroyed the only foundation for equality, sanctity, and dignity of human life. Perhaps you can prove that Murder is actually wrong and not merely socially taboo or an arbitrary preference without God. Good luck.

And perhaps you could give a real answer to my question.

 

[CG Didymus]

...is this an attempt to divide and conquer.

Christians divided themselves. If they can't agree on the "truth" how am I supposed to know which "Christian" has it right?

I made a secular case that they were as justified as the Indian’s as to claims of land. I never said God told them they could take it.

Seriously? How many European countries went around the world and laid claim to land already inhabited and made them into "colonies"? A secular case? I don't know for sure, but I'll bet Columbus claimed the land for God and Spain.

What do strip malls and restaurants have to do with religion? You have some clarity and context issues.

What? You can't read my mind? You said the Europeans brought civilization to the "new world". "Civilization" does have an ugly back side to it.

Yes Christians are just as fallible as anyone. That is not news. We however admit our faults and seek forgiveness and restitution.

Yet so few act fallible. Where is the humble, loving Christian?

...at least offering the Indians medicine, education, and gobs of money for land.

I heard a story about blankets infested with small pox and taking children away to boarding schools, but gobs of money? Maybe now at the casinos.

The atheists of history just took it for the most part.

So The Church never "just" took land or money from the people?

He apparently is ******* you off and decreeing strip malls be built everywhere.

He does ******* me off sometimes. I'm giving him the benefit of my doubting. Regardless of how messed up his people made the world and how little they truly live up to his standards, yet, in spite of all this, I don't know, he might be exactly how Christians say he is. If so, will there be strip malls in heaven?

He didn't, their ancestors denied God and moved across Asia and the land bridge connecting it to Alaska killing and robbing along the way.

The Hebrews were warriors. The Christian Crusaders were warriors. Who hasn't killed and robbed? Native people had religion, so they didn't deny your God, they had their own version of God. They were probably listening, though, why didn't your God tell them the truth? Or maybe he did. Don't the Mormons say Jesus paid them a visit?

You do not take advantage of the answers you have what good would more do?

What answers do I have? A Baptist answer? A Catholic answer? A Pentecostal answer? A Presbyterian answer? A Jehovah Witness answer? Or a Jewish answer that says that all of you have it wrong?

What you describe sounds evil to me as well (not to mention incoherent and non-historical). Thank God it is not a description of God.

You might be the one that's right. What is your answer? What's your description of God? I don't see one definitive Christian answer. Christianity looks like it is continually re-interpreting itself. God is the same yesterday, today and forever? Christians keep changing who he is. Christians keep changing who they are--One day a Catholic another day a Baptist and so on. Unfortunately, it makes Christians seem "incoherent and non-historical". But back to the OP, bad things happen--Why? This world is full of pain and suffering--Why? You have an explanation, we sinned. We're all no good and evil. We need to turn to God and believe in his Son Jesus, but we can't because we're too evil and no good. We love the darkness and sinning way too much. So God keep torturing, I mean "letting" us suffer his wrath until we learn, but we can't learn because we're too evil. It's sad that he let's bad things happen to believers also. It makes it look like he doesn't care, or worse, that he's evil.

 

[Ingledsva]

1. The early Hebrew tribes also had child sacrifice.

Source please. Child sacrifice is strictly forbidden in the Bible. In fact one of its greatest lessons is Abraham being stopped by God from killing his child. It was as emphatic and unmistakable statement about the issue. Yes he asked him to do it as a test and because he could not deliver the lesson unless it occurred. He made it plain however that he would provide the sacrifice and to not harm children for religious reasons. He also did this because his descendants were to exist in the midst of barbaric heathens that practiced it. So even if true it has no impact on God or the Bible. I do not defend or place my faith in man.

LOL! The Bible itself says they did it. There are also scholarly works out on this subject.

Eze 20:26 And - I - polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD.

Eze 23:37 … and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.

2Ki 16:3 But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire,…
Jewish Ritual Murder, a Historical Investigation, by Hellmut Schramm, Ph.D

THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF THE BELOVED SON - The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity Jon D. Levenson

No the Hebrew were trying to get through the land. They offered to pay and guaranteed not to harm anyone yet they were harassed and harassed until God gave up and allowed them to attack. In fact it says several times that God had previously attempted to get those tribes to repent and quit killing children, drinking literal blood, and worshiping false God's and they refused so he destroyed them to prevent them from contaminating his people however yes, through disobedience his people suffered terribly at times.

You need to reread those passages!

Ok, every time I mention morality I hope this will not be necessary and even qualify my statements most times yet I am always disappointed by atheists using the appeal to sympathy to win a word fight. An atheist can act just as morally as anyone can. The difference he cannot justify or ground it in atheism. Without the transcendent a moral idea is not moral it is a preference. You may say do not murder, but that is only an opinion or preference and does not make murder actually wrong. Without God we are biological machines, we have no more worth that a cow or a potato. When you kill and eat these things you are actually engaged in species not morality. You have just decided you are more valuable than corn and therefore kill it yet, there is nothing morally consistent about that. When a cannibal eats his cousin, on your view he has acted unfashionably and against a social taboo but not actually done anything evil. In fact unless you can show that evil and good exist as absolute categories of truth morality based in atheism alone is untenable. Yet you can apprehend God's requirements through your God given conscience the same as I can and may in fact be more obedient.

This is bull and the reasons have already been pointed out to you. What we call "morality" is learned. Morality is subjective.

Those headhunters are not evil in their setting. Jews killed their own people for not attending the Temple, had sex slaves, etc.

*

 

[Ingledsva]

The idea that there is no morality without God/religion, is wrong, period!

Quite the argumentation. This is the equivalent to a 12 year olds nuhhhh - uhhhh. See if you can answer my question above and then we can discuss it further.

LOL! Since when is stating a FACT - "nuhhhh-nuhhh?

Whatever meaning you find in a Godless universe only exists or is relevant for a cosmic blink of time and ends in heat death. To me that is little better than nothing. Without God everything is ultimately futile and transitory and leads to the exact same end. If you are satisfied with that and desire no more than that is your right.

This is just YOUR opinion.

Hitler was raised Christian and used Christianity to raise his Christian nation to kill the Jews whom he reminded them killed their Jesus!

Man this stuff gets old. This argument is so flawed it needs to be numbered.

1. Hitler was never a Christian. He did dabble around with the Catholic Church as an adult (what he did as a child is irrelevant) for the sole reason he wanted the influence the church had in Europe and in an effort to clothe his political desires with divine validity.
2. As soon as the Church rebuffed him he turned on them with a vengeance. There are volumes of writings concerning his hatred of God and the church.

Everything I said is absolutely correct. As an adult if he was Christian, or not. is beside the point. He was raised in a Christian home, attended a Christian school, and used Christianity to raise his Christian nation to atrocities.

3. None of the evil acts he is famous for are justified in the Bible so his actions are no reflection on it or God.

4. He wrote and spoke about racism as it was derived from a pseudo Darwinism.
In fact his actions are consistent with a realistic view of what survival tactics and race superiority in evolution actually mean. Even Dawkin's agreed with this. He said that within evolution who can say whatever what he did was actually wrong?
5. Without the Christian nation's foundation for the justification for stopping him even though it cost 50 million lives saved the world from Godless tyranny.
6. How would you have justified stopping him? Mam you need to send your only three sons to stop Hitler from acting against social norms we arbitrarily made up but which are only relative and were derived by the exact same methods as Hitler's were. He however reached a different conclusion and so 30% of Germany must die. Now give us your sons. I for one would want a more solid foundation that Hitler was actually wrong to risk the lives of people I loved instead of acting morally out of fashion.
Who can argue with such scholarship?

The nations he attacked fought him. The USA was going to stay out of the fight.

LOL! It is the same for the religious, and non-religious.

Not even a little bit. My morality came from the timeless nature of a morally perfect God. It does not contain (hypothetically at least) any of the opinions of its adherents (so qualifies as an objective standard). Without God we simply make up rules that govern stuff we prefer or not but that is not a moral judgment it is a preference and it is composed one hundred percent of opinion of its adherents. So it is subjective, based on nothing absolute, and therefore is not moral. There is not even an argument for why I ought to do anything, including obeying the morality invented by people who reject God. If you say I am not to oppose abortion, the little kids argument on the playground is enough to counter that "Oh yeah, who says".

It is thoughtless and stupid to say people are immoral - just because they don't believe in your God!

How did those religious people justify murdering babies? Or how about KILLING those that didn't attend the temple on Sabbath?

The same way people do so today by the millions I imagine. At least with God it is possible to show that murdering babies as a form of birth control is immoral. In fact eugenics and euthenasia is consistent with a Godless primate built for survival. Get rid of God and murder is now called a sacred right. Nice moral progress.

Let me get this right! It is not OK to abort cells/fetal tissue that is not birthed, (which the Hebrew allowed by the way) - but it is fine for "God's people to murder live infants? To smash their heads against rocks? And you are saying we that don't believe in this people's God - are immoral?

You will have to give me the verse. I have read things about this before and it is not what you think or should I say want to think, but I will need to know what it is specifically you are addressing. BTW the NT forbids anything like this.

LOL! Killing live babies - is killing live babies!!!

1Sa 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ***.

Deuteronomy 13:13-16 kill everyone in the city.

You must kill those who worship another god. Exodus 22:20

KILL, KILL, KILL

Kill any friends or family that worship a god that is different than your own. Deuteronomy 13:6-10

Kill all the inhabitants of any city where you find people that worship differently than you. Deuteronomy 13:12-16

Kill everyone who has religious views that are different than your own. Deuteronomy 17:2-7

Kill anyone who refuses to listen to a priest. Deuteronomy 17:12-13

Kill any false prophets. Deuteronomy 18:20

*

 

[1robin]

Sure we do - I just did.

Nope, you made a very speculative guess based on a system you simply invented and assumed true. If you know the future and every fact even possible then how in the world can I (who can't) watch what you do and declare it right or wrong? That is absurd. An ant can't determine whether Newton got calculus correct or not.
1. God must exist to provide the moral frame work in order for you to call him evil in the first place.
2. If he does not exist then you are a biological computer whose moral pronouncements are opinions and preferences and have no moral dimension and should not be trusted anyway.

The Bible also says that humanity has knowledge of good and evil

. Yes, if God exists we can apprehend many aspects of good and evil but not all. We may think that a new cure for cancer is morally good when in fact if we were God we might know that it will cause another disease far worse in the future.

This goes back to what I told Terrywoodenpic: "God may be immoral but he doesn't care" does not equal "God is moral."

That makes very little sense to me. It is almost incoherent. So you believe God exists you just do not like him, correct?

We're talking about an all-powerful God. Any omnipotent being worth his salt would have an infinite number of ways to achieve his objective perfectly. All of them would be "the most effective way". When God chose between them, it would have been for reasons other than efficacy, since they would all be equally effective.

Now this is logically incoherent. There is only one best way. God can't make logical impossibilities like round squares or that stupid heavy rock thing. He can't make a less efficient thing the most efficient because it would require changing it to do so and it would no longer be what it was.

Has there been any people in the history of the world that "fully obeyed God"?

Christ, others got close but he is the only one I am aware of. I thought the extent of disobedience an obvious point in my statement.

So the Canaanites thwarted (to some extent) the will of Almighty God? How would this be possible?

How can freewill exist if this was not possible? If I cannot chose to betray him then I do not have freewill. You are confusing capability with will. He can stop anything he wishes yet allowing it many times is consistent with his purpose. He did not intend to create robots or annihilate everyone the instant they plot against him. His plan was to allow his son to be murdered and even called Peter Satan because he tried to stop it. You are doing the same thing in a way here.

IOW, "it's not evil if God does it." This is the moral relativism that I talked about earlier.

Actually divine command theory is sound but I do not like it and was not commenting on it. I said whatever he does is derived from a mind that has infinite information and one that contains a vanishingly small amount of info. It is insufficient to judge God. You may believe God acted immorally if you wish but you have no idea if that was true. Besides we must have a God to be evil to begin with. proving him moral is another conversation.

I don't know what this sentence means.

I meant that even if you could know (and you can't) that God punishing Israel for worshiping false God's was wrong it would still be true. God exists and did so.

What revelation am I ignoring?

In the context of the Canaanites you left out.
1. The God of the Bible must exist to be evil.
2. The Canaanites were a despicable group of heathens that burned children alive and walled them up in foundations alive for their Gods. They repeatedly attacked the Hebrews at harvest time and there by starved thousands to death.
3. God had attempted for some time prior to this to get them to repent and change. They refused.
4. The nation God was building would usher in the savior.
5. He wished that nation to be very moral and unique so the impact of the savior would be profound.
6. The fact Israel left the Canaanites around meant the Israelites married Canaanites and wound up worshiping their God's. That meant that the impact of Christ was lessened and cost many many souls.
7. Given those facts and his purpose God was perfectly justified in his actions.

Hypotheticals. The internal consistency of a set of ideas.

If you posit God and his revelation his actions are consistent. if you posit God or a different God and leave out revelation or change what it says for effect and further dismiss clarification from scholars you are making meaningless conclusions. Leave it as intended and consistency is maintained.
Continued below:

 

[1robin]

IOW, God was incapable of carrying out his will without the help of a mortal human being? Strange.

Your just arbitrarily deciding what God should or should not do is a waste of our time. God chooses to act the way he wishes. His actions here us as its focus. That means that he must allow us to be us. Our limitations must be allowed to limit at times. His purpose was not to create automatons or to step in and force every issue or decision. His manipulation is very rare. This goes back to the fall. In the beginning he did maintain everything perfectly with the exception he gave us a choice to obey about one issue. People from you side have whined and complained God was to authoritarian at that time. We chose wrong as we still constantly do today and he left nature to act along line of natural law as a sign of our separation from him. Now you are saying he is too remote. What is this heads you win tails God loses. Sounds just the same as Adam/Eve's discussions with Mr. no shoulders.

IOW, if we murder an infant, we're doing the child a favor by saving him a lifetime of suffering? Interesting.

No, because we are not God. We did not create the child and we have no right to take what we did not create. We also may think he will go to heaven but not being God can't be absolutely sure. God is sure. Your side is killing babies before they are born as some type of sacred right by the millions. You may or may not believe in abortion but your sides of things are the ones that support it. Complaining that God has no right to take back what he made yet people have the right to take millions of them is schizophrenic. I never said it was right because he went to heaven. I said he suffered no loss and therefor your claims of injustice are meaningless.

Are you a parent? Have you ever had to torture one of the neighborhood kids to teach your own child an important lesson?

Being that I am not God the example is meaningless. However we lock up (torture in a way) and even kill millions of people to teach the rest of us a lesson. We applaud and reward with medals and museum people who are drafted and are killed in a war to save us, In fact one person suffering for the good of others is the most benevolent act we know of. Again the unbelieving side kills babies by the million for no lesson and for no fault outside their own. There is no moral high ground on your side to argue from. You can't even prove that torturing a child is actually wrong. You either assume it is or smuggle in morality founded on the transcendent and attempt to use it to condemn the transcendent.

And what exactly do you mean by "effective"? An omnipotent being would be capable of completely achieving whatever goals he had chosen by countless different ways, so it's not a matter of picking the one that best achieved his objectives... because they would have all done this perfectly.

I will no longer entertain what a non-omnipotent being believes about an omnipotent one. It is meaningless.

The only way I can make sense of the term in this context is as something like "convenient"... I think you're saying God tortured the child because it that was the most convenient way to achieve his goals. IOW, God couldn't be bothered to choose a course of action that didn't involve making a child suffer.

I am saying we do not have the capacity to determine what God could or could not do. nor what he should or should not do. Let me put it this way he was doing what he did for our sake. He wished to produce a result in us. He wanted David and Israel to come to grips with the fact they had both failed miserably. Would God producing a ping pong table do it? What about making the moon melt? No he had only a certain range of options consistent with us and his purpose to implement. He chose that one that after a short stretch of misery took a kid straight to heaven and BTW it worked. This avoided future punishment and made Israel's influence stronger and guaranteed Christ would reach thousands more people.

This applies to infant victims of human murderers, right? If it excuses God, it excuses Ashley Yates, for instance, doesn't it?

Saying that anything that applies to the creator of the universe also applies to a corrupt speck of dust in that universe is absurd.

Also, would the child not have gone to Heaven if he simply died quickly without suffering? What did being tortured for a week get him?

I always find it funny how unbelievers never use the verse themselves but transform them into the worst possible form they can. Declare they violate a moral code that only exists if God does and would not bind God anyway and condemn a being that have no capability to comprehend fully. Yes the child was sick for a bit. His son hung on a cross for hours, his apostles lived a lifetime of suffering, and his church has been persecuted by the most powerful empires on Earth yet it only made the faith stronger. The child was guaranteed an eternity of bliss for a short time of suffering (BTW many Christian's have felt privileged to suffer for God the way Christ did) at the hands of the being that made him and you call foul. I would give everything I own if it would guarantee the exact same conditions for me and feel honored.

I'm not arguing that God doesn't exist; I'm arguing about the character of God if he did exist.

Then pick your worst accusation and let's concentrate on it. With the exception of the children that teased the prophet. (I have no answer to that one). All others have been sufficiently justified if God exists.

And I disagree that God is necessary for the existence of evil.

Does not help. Evil can't possibly exist without the transcendent.

Now you're just ranting.

No I am stating absolute facts and attributing them to their actual source. It is Christians who always oppose abortion and atheists, humanists, materialists who support it in general. Shoot the messenger if you wish because the message can't be.

Since he's not portrayed as being angry with the torturer and murderer of his child, apparently not.

Exactly, the one human most able to correctly judge God's actions (not perfectly able but most able) and the one that suffered the greatest loss did not accuse God of being some immoral monster. If the one most qualified to do so didn't then one of the least qualified (you) has no impact. Let me add something here I should have long ago. We all suffer a lifetime of misery and eventually die based on a judgment from God. Why is the suffering of one child so important in that context? None of it would be if we simply obeyed. We cause the suffering of others by our actions as well.

If you believe that our worth depends on God, then you do not believe that our worth is intrinsic.

It is intrinsic because God is. God is not a subjective being he is more objectively real and integral than the universe.

And perhaps you could give a real answer to my question.

I can't find the question. Please slim this thing down to a single claim of God's acting immoral and we can use it to settle the whole issue but not the children and the bald prophet (I gave up on that one).

 

[1robin]

Christians divided themselves. If they can't agree on the "truth" how am I supposed to know which "Christian" has it right?

The same way you decide which scientist is right, or which company offers the best product, or which doctor to go to. By using your God given reason to evaluate revelation. There is virtually nothing at all and absolutely nothing as complex as the Bible that has perfect agreement. By your methods we should give up on science, medicine, history, and the future, turn out the lights and go to sleep because there is not perfect agreement. Newton would be ashamed and calculus would have never existed.

Seriously? How many European countries went around the world and laid claim to land already inhabited and made them into "colonies"? A secular case? I don't know for sure, but I'll bet Columbus claimed the land for God and Spain.

You are not getting it and I am starting to think it is intentional. Most of these poor little Indians were living on land they had taken by killing other Indians a few years prior to the White's doing the same thing. The Sioux for example wiped out at least 4 other tribes and simply took their land in the upper Midwest. They did not offer any money, they did not ask them to allow them access to it as the Whites did, they rode in and killed everything and everybody. In the southern Midwest fighting horse culture Indians like the Apache's, black foot, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, etc mostly migrated out of Canada and killed every peaceful agricultural Indian tribe they met and took their land. They had no more right to the land and took it with greater violence and less attempts a peaceful negotiation than the White's. Of course this is complicated but I am making general sweeping claims for time's sake.

What? You can't read my mind? You said the Europeans brought civilization to the "new world". "Civilization" does have an ugly back side to it.

Of course it was not perfect but the aggregate was a net positive to a very large extent.

Yet so few act fallible. Where is the humble, loving Christian?

This is almost incoherent. There are hundreds of hospitals and billions in charity from those people you are looking for. Plus about a thousand other good causes that exist because of faith. When a disaster happens is it the Christians west, the Islamic near east, or the atheistic Far East that is first on the scene with the most help?

I heard a story about blankets infested with small pox and taking children away to boarding schools, but gobs of money? Maybe now at the casinos.

Europeans were immune to small pox but many had it. Whatever they touched had small pox on it but it was unintentional. Indians were not immune and yes millions died but as far as I know it was unintentional and so not evil just unfortunate. I am sure some people have tried to make it look intentional but there is little evidence for it and it happened everywhere the Europeans went in the new world. Yes they took children to boarding schools to teach them to construct hospitals, read, grow many crops, and understand economics etc…. It had a bad side as well but the results can't be argued with. The Indians today are infinitely better off because Whites came here.

So The Church never "just" took land or money from the people?

I am sure they did, in fact I know they did and even started many wars. I do not worship or defend the Church I worship and defend God and defend the Bible. The Church is full of fallible idiots like me. It has many high points and many low points. It has brought food and water to millions and killed thousands.

He does ******* me off sometimes. I'm giving him the benefit of my doubting.

Questions about strip malls are not doubts they are meaningless.

I don't know, he might be exactly how Christians say he is. If so, will there be strip malls in heaven?

If you find strip malls in the Bible I will answer the silly question.

The Hebrews were warriors.

Less than 10% were part time soldiers until Saul made a standing army and then only about 5% were permanent. So what all societies have soldiers or they do not remain societies for long.

The Christian Crusaders were warriors.

The Crusaders were rich nobles who bought a knight hood and went to the Holy land to stop the Muslims from killing pilgrims. They were sent by the Pope to take back the Holy Lands and weaken his eastern rival. Unfortunately they went nuts and killed everything and stole everything along the way. In many case Saladin acted much more benevolent than them. Most were not Christians. Sewing a cross to your chest is not salvation and does not make you a Christian.

Who hasn't killed and robbed?

We are all sinners?

Native people had religion, so they didn't deny your God, they had their own version of God.

Then by definition they denied my God. All concepts of God are not valid. In fact using philosophy it is easy to show that one God alone is more probable than many.

Don't the Mormons say Jesus paid them a visit?

I like Mormons yet their faith is incompatible with Christianity. Two claims to absolute truth that are contradictory can't possibly both be true. If you will investigate Joseph Smith and his revelations which one is true is obvious. Or they could both be wrong but evidence is against that.

What answers do I have? A Baptist answer? A Catholic answer? A Pentecostal answer? A Presbyterian answer? A Jehovah Witness answer? Or a Jewish answer that says that all of you have it wrong?

Then just give up on everything because almost nothing is agreed to by everyone 100%. This is an excuse not a reason. BTW all of them except Judaism believe the same crucial thing. Faith in Christ is what gets us to heaven. The rest is commentary.

You might be the one that's right. What is your answer? What's your description of God? I don't see one definitive Christian answer.

This is absurd and the feigned sincerity is wearing thin. There are a million sites where the classic protestant concept of God is explained and it is 95% identical to the Catholic description. However that is not what I recommend. Simply get a Bible and read it. It is not complicated. I will not attempt to fully explain an infinite being but to show you I have no reluctance to supply what I believe you may ask any specific question about what God is you wish and I will answer. We can start with omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, perfectly moral (he is morality, see divine command theory), non-material in essence, outside of time, and outside of space.

Christianity looks like it is continually re-interpreting itself.

No we use the same text we have always had. That is Christianity not the departure from it.

God is the same yesterday, today and forever? Christians keep changing who he is.

Nope, though some may try. I do not care what Christians say. I care what the Bible says.

Christians keep changing who they are--One day a Catholic another day a Baptist and so on. Unfortunately, it makes Christians seem "incoherent and non-historical". But back to the OP, bad things happen--Why? This world is full of pain and suffering--Why? You have an explanation, we sinned. We're all no good and evil. We need to turn to God and believe in his Son Jesus, but we can't because we're too evil and no good.

But we can because of his goodness.

We love the darkness and sinning way too much. So God keep torturing, I mean "letting" us suffer his wrath until we learn, but we can't learn because we're too evil. It's sad that he lets bad things happen to believers also. It makes it look like he doesn't care, or worse, that he's evil.

Your argumentation isn't a reflection of reality or Biblical theology. It is a rant. You set up scenarios that justify hopelessness then declare that you can't win. I hope you never become an Army General. There are billions of people who claim to have accomplished what God requires and experienced him directly. No other religion even makes this offer or demand of every single believer. You might not can pass the test you invented but billions have passed God's. I have and nothing you have said is an accurate reflection or commentary on it and your complaints are not arguments.

 

[1robin]

LOL! Since when is stating a FACT - "nuhhhh-nuhhh?

There was no fact. There was an assumption which philosophers will tell you is a logical absurdity. Without God morality is a preference only, and actually would be specieism and have no moral dimension at all. It would just be a rule that was derived by opinion and does not correspond to any higher truth. I will give you a chance though. Prove either murder is actually evil without a transcendent standard (God). Or heck show that evil actually exists at all as a category of truth? Most atheistic philosophers just concede that morality is opinion based and quite arbitrary compared to a universal morality. That sucks but at least it is honest. Dawkins said that on evolution who is to say that what Hitler did was actually wrong, as well as saying that on naturalism there is no good, no evil, just indifference. That is quite depressing but honest as well. Good luck. At least he had the courage of his convictions.

This is just YOUR opinion.

Even if opinion it is consistent with every known fact of reality and does not even have theoretical exceptions.

Everything I said is absolutely correct. As an adult if he was Christian, or not. is beside the point. He was raised in a Christian home, attended a Christian school, and used Christianity to raise his Christian nation to atrocities.

Even if a Christian which he denied and railed against constantly unless he needed God to justify something it still would not matter. His actions were inconsistent and in fact contradictory to the Bible. They were however consistent with nature "red in tooth and claw" and "the favored races" of evolution.

The nations he attacked fought him. The USA was going to stay out of the fight.

We had just come out of another European war and were tired of helping to save the world however the persuasive argument of his violations of objective morality eventually appealed to our Christian based belief in actual wrong and right. This is the worst argument possible you made here. Unless a nation acts perfectly or optimally as defined by your arbitrary standards they are condemned.

It is thoughtless and stupid to say people are immoral - just because they don't believe in your God!

That is exactly why I did not say that. This is too consistent to be non-spiritual. Countless Christian philosophers, moralists, theologians, and apologists go out of their way to point out that we do not in any way claim that atheists can't be moral, or that they can't recognize moral values. Yet every single atheist ignores that and makes the same dishonest appeal to sympathy by claiming we said atheists are immoral. What we all say is an atheist may be as moral as anyone he just can't justify that morality on atheism, and he can't. These cheap theatrics are meaningless. On atheism you are a biological computing anomaly that has no more value than the thousands of bugs you kill a year nor has any reason to think the whirring of atoms in his head arrives at any truth, not even reality. I have heard many materialists and determinists say our perception of reality is an illusion.

Let me get this right! It is not OK to abort cells/fetal tissue that is not birthed, (which the Hebrew allowed by the way) - but it is fine for "God's people to murder live infants? To smash their heads against rocks? And you are saying we that don't believe in this people's God - are immoral?

I never said any of this neither did the Bible. The Bible does not authorize abortion for birth control (atheists claim it as a sacred right), You have no way of classifying a pre-birth baby as cells and one second after birth as a person. That is absurd. What the Hebrews did many times was not authorized by God and they suffered for it. The same appeal to false sympathy above won't work any better here.

LOL! Killing live babies - is killing live babies!!!
1Sa 15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ***.
Deuteronomy 13:13-16 kill everyone in the city.

Are you saying it is more moral to leave a culture alive that walls live children up in walls for luck or burns them alive for false God's and who God knows will constantly attack his people and starve them by raiding at harvest time every year (BTW history shows they did in fact do all this because the Hebrews did not obey). Also they would subvert the fallible Hebrews which would in turn lessen the impact of Christ which would lessen the souls that would be saved by millions. By all means let's leave the Hitler's, Stalin's, Canaanites, and Hittites alone so their evil may be allowed to consume everything and everyone in misery, keep the light of revelation under the oppression of Satan's minions and declare a baby as cells (I can show the insanity of arbitrarily defining life to begin at some point if needed) so we may kill them at will. When we stop evil and save the world people build museums when God does it atheists hate him for it. Not to mention the kids went to heaven and only the accountable suffered for their sins eternally.

You must kill those who worship another god. Exodus 22:20

That was given to a specific culture for a limited time to keep them from being led to the evil practiced by their neighbors for which you condemn God. Yet you will do biological gymnastics to allow you to killion millions of babies for convenience. The moral schizophrenia in this argument is appalling.

KILL, KILL, KILL

Verse please, or is that the mantra of the abortion crowd.

Kill any friends or family that worship a god that is different than your own. Deuteronomy 13:6-10

Same thing as above.

Kill all the inhabitants of any city where you find people that worship differently than you. Deuteronomy 13:12-16

Given that God knew the moral status of the cultures contained within this mandate.

Kill everyone who has religious views that are different than your own. Deuteronomy 17:2-7

Kill anyone who refuses to listen to a priest. Deuteronomy 17:12-13
Kill any false prophets. Deuteronomy 18:20
*

This is the same argument and it is boring. The counter position must be punish no one except God and his people, and allow evil to overcome good. Unless we desire to do that evil and then justify it by any means necessary even though evil has no meaning without the God that you insist is evil and does not exist. Never oppose infanticide (actually enshrine it as a right but never kill a convicted muderer), tyranny, injustice, witchcraft, false religions that cut the hearts out of 20,000 people on a good day or make demands for submission or death in general and for all times instead of against evil cultures for specific limited times. Only oppose God and his people for the simple act of judging evil as evil. The only thing necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing (or for irrational people to define good as evil and vice versa). That is exactly what was predicted as an indication of the moral insanity that will reign in the last days and is exactly what you are doing.

 

[Tbone]

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

Only you can answer why your God does that.