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

[Copernicus]

Since the question of whether the New Testament condoned slavery has become a subtopic in this thread, I thought it worth publishing a link to the religioustolerance.org page on this subject. It contains more and lengthier citations than Inglesdeva, and they directly support her take on the NT. It also mentions Paul's action of returning the slave Onesimus to the master that he had fled, Philemon. The author(s) of the page argued that Paul's action was contrary to Mosaic law (Deuteronomy 23:15-16), which suggests that escaped slaves ought not to be returned to former masters.

The page also cites Ephesians 6:5-9 as a favorite of slave-owning Christians:

Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."

 

[Warren Clark]

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.

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.
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.
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?

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.
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?)

I think logic escapes you guys.
There is a "loving" and "merciful" "all powerful", etc. and he allows children to die... for what ever reason.
I might be mortal, but there is still a moral issue here, mortal or immortal.

 

[1robin]

I think logic escapes you guys.
There is a "loving" and "merciful" "all powerful", etc. and he allows children to die... for what ever reason.
I might be mortal, but there is still a moral issue here, mortal or immortal.

I had originally planned to give a long an exhaustive "dissertation" on the problem of evil but to do so in enough detail to give it justice would take more time than I have available but in my conclusion to your statements "Warren Clark" I will give an extreme brief point concerning the official theologian response on this issue.

I have only limited time currently so this response will be used to answer Copernicus, Ingledsva, and Warren Clark.

The argument currently is that God has promoted slavery and killed people and therefor is evil. I will give a series of reasons why this is invalid.

1. The timing of this post is very Ironic. I had bought a DVD on Martin Luther King and had it playing as I read your posts. You claim God is evil because he desired slavery. However God was the central hope for slaves themselves and for the 300,000 people who marched with King on Washington. They demanded equality and justified it by the merits of God, not by evolution, not by humanism, and certainly not in the name of science. God gives the ONLY framework by which slavery can be overcome in principle. He alone has the power to make the equality of man, the sanctity of human life, and the dignity of man concepts rooted in something greater than social fashions or opinion. That is why he has been used more than any other source to challenge slavery. If God was evil and loved slavery the fact the slaves valued him more than anything else would make less sense than your accusations.

2. If, the person who calls God evil for putting out a light he himself lit from a universe he himself created, thinks about what his own kind has done he will find this the most hypocritical statement possible. The entirety of human nature is littered with taking lives by the millions because they are a different color, have land we want, live under a king we hate, or their grandfathers wronged our grandfathers. Etc... The hypocrisy of this reminds me of a story. In WW2 Germany there was a concentration camp commanding officer. He literally killed Jews on an industrial scale every day. He was not forced to, he chose to. After a hard day of killing he went home and could not find his dog. His wife said the dog got run over and killed and the driver had not stopped. She later found that her husband had shot himself and had left a note that said he could not live in a world where a person cold kill someones dog and not even bother to stop.

3. This same hypocrisy can be shown in a much more applicable way. Most of the Bible contains commands and revelation in an indirect manner. God's primary revelation was through Christ. It was the most pure and most revealing way God ever communicated his character to us. Christ never enslaved anything, he never harmed anything, he never condemned anything, he lived a life or servitude and peace. We apparently his moral judge killed him for it, and have had the moral insanity to turn around and call him evil.

4. Being that God is absolutely perfect and hates the rebellion we apparently cherish so much. He would be consistent with justice and spiritual legality in his rights to kill us all. We have made a right out of defiance, have preyed on our fellow man, and have finally made the right sacred to kill innocent babies by the millions for our sins and then we call him evil. It is a wonder he has no tired of our diabolical horridness and ended this sad tale long ago.

5. The majority of the 300,000 Christians that died to free the slaves were Christians. The first blow struck in that struggle was by John Brown (a Christian) and the man who wrote the emancipation proclamation was a Christian. Irony indeed for the people who follow a God you say loves slavery themselves hated it for reasons they gave faith credit for.

6. It is a strange thing indeed for a few people to claim that the concept most universally associated with goodness and love is termed evil. Is the aggregate opinion of man on God through the ages all wrong and your minority atheist version right instead?

7. You say God is evil because he killed a child. Since we kill them by the millions we hardly have a place to stand to say it. We all live in a justly deserved condemned state. God would be acting in a perfectly just way to kill us all. He gives life is it beyond his sovereignty or only your comfort zone if he takes it back. You may claim "but he requires us not to murder". We do it anyway but the prohibition against taking life is for two reasons, we did not create it and we have an imperfect ability to see if it is justified (except in some cases). God has neither problem.

8. It is claimed that evil is inconsistent with God. Is it? I was in the military for 9 years and there was a saying everyone has heard. There are no atheists in fox holes. This is of course a generalization but the lesson for us is that when put in dangerous and terrible environments we all start to think on God. It appears that without being exposed to the misery and deprivation our fallen state merits we would never turn to God. The same way a child will do what he wants until it costs more than he can bear. This story has a million parallels. A soldier at Iwo Jima had been given a NT when he shipped he was scared and had been reading it. He said he felt God presence in the landing craft on the way to shore. He said the door up front was being smacked by .50 cal rounds constantly and he knew when it dropped they were all dead. They had taken hundreds of rounds in a constant stream but the second the door dropped it stopped and he lived. Yet that God is evil.

9.It is a mistake to think God who has said he would be consistent with his revelation has an infinite amount of options in dealing with us. If he voluntarily limits his actions to be what is available when acting in concert with a very finite entity his options are limited. It could be argued that he selected the least amount of suffering that would produce the greatest amount of good concerning David's child. Also keep in mind it was no blood thirsty God in search of what damage he could cause. It was David's sin that made any of this necessary.

10. If you were to interview the people on Earth who claim to have experienced God it is quite reasonable to assume 99.9% would claim God is God. I claim to have experienced God on a few occasions and I would testify in court it was an experience of a greater love, peace, and contentment I had never thought possible.

That is enough stories and meandering points. In this next post I will give more technical and precise reasons to claim the line of reasoning that God is evil as invalid.
Hopefully it will end this.
Continued below:

 

[1robin]

Here are some more technical, legal, theological or philosophical reasons to condemn the claim that God is evil.

1. It has been claimed God is evil. Then why are you or anyone alive to claim that. The few examples you have given that are ambiguous or just wrong to begin with must be balanced against the endless accounts of the unmerited favor God has shown a corrupt mankind. Every second we live is proof that God's love trumps his requirement of justice. He is a judge who continuously issues stays of execution. If he was evil and is capable of doing what he wishes why is it that does not kill us by the millions? Why are not all of us in some cosmic torture chamber somewhere? No hell is not an eternal torment. It is separation from God and eventually the same annihilation that will happen in your view anyway. Why is love, actual meaning, actual purpose, dignity, equality, and true morality etc....only rooted in the absolute with him? Without him you atheists have left us as only biological anomalies destined to be destroyed in a future heat death with no true value, sanctity, or purpose beyond what selfish preference and opinion can generate. If God's purpose is to be evil he is certainly doing a terrible job at it.

2. The versus concerning servants do not have the word slavery in them yet you use slavery when speaking about them constantly. It is not I who is in denial. In fact even in verses where slavery is used any honest, non biased, not pressupositionally derived research will note the vast difference in even OT slavery than slavery as we know it. Here is a very exhaustive look at slavery in Biblical terms. http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html
It could easily be shown that the practice lessened misery in general and was almost always voluntary.

3. God has two types of will revealed to us. His active will (what he desires) and his passive will (what he permits usually for our sake). Slavery even in the much more benevolent form is part of his passive will. Slavery and divorce were allowed because of our sin. Many fathers might know that to forcibly separate a daughter from the boy she thinks she loves many times makes the problem worse so instead rules to mitigate damage are instituted. This is very apparent in the Bible. The Bible's progressive revelation from genesis through revelation exhibits more and more benevolent practices instituted in the case of indentured servitude.

• The Bible acknowledged the slave's status as the property of the master (Ex. 21:21; Lev. 25:46).
• The Bible restricted the master's power over the slave. (Ex. 21:20)
• The slave was a member of the master's household (Lev. 22:11).
• The slave was required to rest on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10; Deut. 5:14).
• The slave was required to participate in religious observances (Gen. 17:13; Exodus 12:44; Lev. 22:11).
• The Bible prohibited extradition of slaves and granted them asylum (Deut. 23:16-17).
• The servitude of a Hebrew debt-slave was limited to six years (Ex. 21:2; Deut. 15:12).
• When a slave was freed, he was to receive gifts that enabled him to survive economically (Deut. 15:14).

Why is slavery permitted in the Bible? | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
God's purpose was never to fix the misery our sin has created until the final judgement where divorce, slavery, and all sin will cease to exist. He cleaned up a practice we invented and we call him evil because it exists. He never looked down and said "hey why aren't you guys enslaving each other, get to it"

4. The member of a species that has enslaved his fellow man by the millions in the worst forms imaginable saying that God is evil because he found a practice in place and cleaned it up drastically is absurd.

5. David's son. If you wish to call God evil for killing David's son you MUST prove several things.

a. David's son did not go to heaven. If he did your argument is quite silly. I would take that deal every day of the week.
b. The act was beyond the sovereignty of a good God given that God's revelation and purpose is not to violate free will 99.9% of the time.
c. That God had an option that would have produced more good given less suffering that could have been performed within the context of his purpose.
d. That you understand the true nature of this "evil" act and that the rest of us are wrong about the billions of events we attribute to a good God.
e. You must show something impossible. Morality in the God hypothesis is simply a reflection of the nature of good. For him to be evil you must show that God's nature is not consistent with God's nature. Good luck

6. The people in the greatest position and with the greatest motivation to condemn God as evil in these circumstances did not do so. In fact they loved God and thought him just. Yet you thousands of years later think you know better than they themselves did.

1. David believed God's actions just and loved God all the same and God blessed him with another son and said David "was a man after his own heart".
2. Even slaves held by Christians did not blame God for their plight (unlike you are) but instead sought him as their way out and he delivered them mightily by the hands of other Christians and a Christian president who acted on their faith.
3. Your condemnation of God based on a few rich plantation owners who rightly or wrongly called themselves Christians and the ignoring of the hundreds of thousands of Christians who fought and died to free men they had never met requires a bias beyond anything I can even imagine.


If you wish to take your few dozen versus you do not understand and resist any light to threaten the contentions you value so much and dismiss the other 99% of acts attributed to God that speak of a love greater than anything a mere human has ever displayed, then I am probably not going to be able to help. It is truly a shame. In the philosophical response to "the problem of evil" there are given two components contained within it.

1. The philosophical problem of evil given a good God.
2. The emotional problem of evil given a good God.

1a. I have shown that the technical or philosophical reason to reject God because evil exists is invalid. It may be (and examples are countless and easy to find) that evil or suffering reminds a rebellious species it needs God. It may be that the exact amount of evil and suffering we have will produce the greatest numbers of free thinking people who recognize their need of God. It certainly has happened that way billions of times.
2a. The emotional problem has no answer. We are built to dislike what we dislike and nothing can change that except a proper understanding of why bad things happen. Just as many scientists have said that the cosmology that has recently been discovered is identical to what they would have guessed given the first five books in the Bible, the moral landscape (unfortunate as it is) is exactly what is to be expected and was predicted by the Bible thousands of years ago. I do not like it anymore than you do but have made peace with it. I give God thanks for every heart break and moment of suffering necessary to take the hardest most stubborn kid on Earth and wear the rebellion out of him. Like the apostles claimed, to suffer in his cause is gain.

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better (Philippians 1:21-23 emp. added).

The righteous perishes, and no man takes it to heart; merciful men are taken away, while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil. He shall enter into peace; they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness (57:1-2, emp. added).
http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=2202

 

[Copernicus]

Nice try, Robin, but that was in no way a reply to my post, which raised issues that you completely ignored in your very lengthy essay. It's ok if you want to let it rest, but don't expect to refer back to your essay, which you somehow found plenty of time to write while claiming limited time, as a response to me and others.

 

[Ingledsva]

The Bible acknowledged the slave's status as the property of the master (Ex. 21:21; Lev. 25:46).

The Bible restricted the master's power over the slave. (Ex. 21:20)

Exo 21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.


Exo 21:21 Notwithstanding, if he survive on a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his object/possession.

The slave was a member of the master's household (Lev. 22:11).
The slave was required to rest on the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10; Deut. 5:14).
The slave was required to participate in religious observances (Gen. 17:13; Exodus 12:44; Lev. 22:11).
The Bible prohibited extradition of slaves and granted them asylum (Deut. 23:16-17).

Lev 22:10 There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.

Lev 22:11 But if the priest buy any person with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat.

Note that in 22:10 they have a hired servant – a sakiyr.

In 20:11 it is a bought slave.

The servitude of a Hebrew debt-slave was limited to six years (Ex. 21:2; Deut. 15:12).


When a slave was freed, he was to receive gifts that enabled him to survive economically (Deut. 15:14).

[/quote]

Interesting that you fudge this by omission.

A Hebrew MALE's time was limited, not Hebrew women, or foreign slaves, or concubines, sex slaves, etc.

Also interesting that you left this out.

Exo 21:4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
Or this.

Lev 25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.


Lev 25:46 And you shall take them for inheritance to your sons after you, to hold for a possession; you may enslave them forever. But on your brothers, the sons of Israel, one over another, you shall not rule over him with severity.

So they were owning slaves for life and passing them on in inheritance, and breeding more slaves by giving female slaves to male slaves - just like in the old south.

You need to start looking in non Christian sources - not the backpedaling Christian ones claiming they didn't have slavery - only hired, or debt servants, etc.

*

 

[kjw47]

I think logic escapes you guys.
There is a "loving" and "merciful" "all powerful", etc. and he allows children to die... for what ever reason.
I might be mortal, but there is still a moral issue here, mortal or immortal.

The moral issue is this--- there isnt an iota of room in Gods creation for sin. God created all of this, he says what goes, not mortals.
The issues raised against God in the garden of eden are being fully discovered now in this system of things.
When satan told Eve they would become like God, knowing good and bad--he was saying if we knew good and bad, then we wouldnt need God to decide our path. It raised the issue in front of all creation( spirit beings) it was a challenge to Gods universal sovereignty--- Mortals chose to find out if we need God to direct our steps.
God created mankind to know only good and live forever at a young age on a paradise earth, his plans have not changed. When Gods kingdom arrives on the earth,his original purpose will be a reality. And the issues raised can never be raised again against him.

 

[Copernicus]

The moral issue is this--- there isnt an iota of room in Gods creation for sin. God created all of this, he says what goes, not mortals.

This is not under dispute here. What is under discussion is whether God is evil.

The issues raised against God in the garden of eden are being fully discovered now in this system of things.
When satan told Eve they would become like God, knowing good and bad--he was saying if we knew good and bad, then we wouldnt need God to decide our path. It raised the issue in front of all creation( spirit beings) it was a challenge to Gods universal sovereignty--- Mortals chose to find out if we need God to direct our steps.

It isn't clear what you are trying to say here. If we do know good from bad now, then we can certainly judge God bad now. As for his creations challenging his universal sovereignty, don't you think he could have seen that coming? If God were omniscient and the creator of our nature, then he would have no excuse to act surprised or angry.

God created mankind to know only good and live forever at a young age on a paradise earth, his plans have not changed. When Gods kingdom arrives on the earth,his original purpose will be a reality. And the issues raised can never be raised again against him.

Being omnipotent, he cannot be opposed or thwarted, yet you seem to believe that he was. If he wants what you say he wants, he can just snap his divine fingers and have it. What's the problem?

 

[1robin]

Nice try, Robin, but that was in no way a reply to my post, which raised issues that you completely ignored in your very lengthy essay. It's ok if you want to let it rest, but don't expect to refer back to your essay, which you somehow found plenty of time to write while claiming limited time, as a response to me and others.

I understood your claim to be something along the lines of that God was evil. Since my post countered the God is evil assertion then I guess I have no idea what your conclusion is.

Maybe you took a side road concerning whether the NT promotes slavery.

Here is every verse used in this thread for that purpose:
1Ti 6:1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
1Ti 6:2 And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.
Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eye service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."

The word "slave" does not appear in a single verse yet you and others have used "slave" over and over.

The same Greek word doulos is what servant was translated from. It means:
1) a slave, bondman, man of servile condition
a) a slave
b) metaph., one who gives himself up to another's will those whose service is used by Christ in extending and advancing his cause among men
c) devoted to another to the disregard of one's own interests
2) a servant, attendant

So when the scholars translated doulos to English they had to choose which meaning was indicated. Greek is a very descriptive language, maybe the most descriptive in history. Including context, over all narrative, and language use the term servant was thought to be the most accurate. It may be different in other translations but the actual purpose of this verse was to answer a question. What should be done when a servant (of any kind) or a master is born again and becomes a Christian? God says stay where you are and treat each other well.

I notice these verses were left out BTW.

Eph 6:9And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. Google

So why did God not abolish slavery.

1. God's purpose is not to fix all the problems with this broken world. His mission is to save people out of it. His Kingdom is not of this world. When his kingdom does come to this world there is no description of it containing slavery.

2. When a slave is born again and therefore heaven bound the issue about what he will do for a living is quite trivial in comparison.

3. In fact I am reminded of a story. When Grant sent Sherman to make "Georgia howl" every plantation or city he went through the whites had fled and the former slaves were starving. They sort of joined Sherman's March, slowed him down to a crawl, ate up all his food, tied up all the surgeons, and starved to death along the way. Sherman eventually had to run them off. When the south collapsed and the slaves were free they died at a much greater rate that at any time during actual slavery because they had no one responsible for feeding them and no home.

4. This is not a commentary on what God thinks about the issue of slavery. It is a practical set of instructions regarding an institution we created, when it comes into contact with God's truth. If God had instead said "All who come to me should flee their masters" it would have created economic chaos, backlash from the governing authorities and therefore resentment of the message, and thousands of hungry homeless slaves roaming the countryside. (Paul did make a similar claim BTW)

5. Biblically (even where the word slavery applies) as I have exhaustively shown or provided links for is not what we think of when we hear slavery. It was almost always voluntary (the link I gave covered this in detail). Was beneficial to both parties, usually to pay off debts or because no other means of support was available. The worst form was concerning captured enemy soldiers. However there were only so many options available.

1. Kill them. (which is how these things went most of the time).
2. Turn them loose to pillage and steal their way across the land.
3. Use them as forced labor and then after 6 years (once they had become pacified so to speak) offer them freedom.

We have only two choices here.
1. We can use our God given brains to resent God and accountability and based on that presupposition bend all our intelligence to stripping context, twisting historical facts, ignoring details, and cherry picking whatever is needed to conclude God is Evil and reject him. If the Bible is correct we will suffer eternally for our choices.
2. We can use over all benevolence always associated with God, Christ, personal experience and the Bible to give God the benefit of the doubt in the few areas where what he did was not ideal or causes confusion. It is not very difficult to think that creatures as fallible and inhuman as we can be might be getting this wrong as well.

In fact God never instituted slavery, we did. To create slavery and then call God evil because he only made it more benevolent instead of abolishing (by turning 10,000 homeless and foodless slaves loose across the landscape) it is irrational.

 

[WyattDerp]

If God is beyond time, and we're clearly in it, at least with our perception, then I think none of these questions can be answered from our point of view, at least not finally, not "yet". For all we know, when Jesus said "all tears will be wiped away" that might have already happened. Of course it'd be silly to pretend I could understand eternity as a mortal, but I think it may be just flat out wrong to think of eternity of a really long time span before and after time. What if spacetime was more like a bubble within eternity? Or a dimension? We'd have to "move through it", but from "outside of time", or "the 4th dimension", everything that can happen within time already happened, and God is just using tenses because we need em, haha.

I am afraid I am not making much sense. The point I tried to make is that sure, a materialistic, finite, timebound God would have to be evil to just watch the weak get trodden down; even if it's the fault of other humans, it's not the fault of those abused or exploited, so God better do something if it is able to, right? But if God is outside time and knows we'll arrive there too, it'd be wrong to judge any of it within time. It seems super important to us now, but it might just be a blink of an eye in something much "bigger"..

Even rather non-religious people occasionally have pointed out that it's nuts to cling to the ego or materialism, and those who shed them report great results and show great endurance in the face of hardships. So is God causing our suffering, or our putting our delusions of ego higher than anything else?

^ Man, I nearly had a theory there, but that would still sound crazy cold when talking about an small child having a painful disease, so at the end of the day the only way I found to tentatively believe in a God without instantly hating it, was to simply assume the last word is far from having been spoken yet. Many of his more fanatic followers however I would consider evil... intellectual honesty being the second most valuable thing I know of, right after love.

 

[1robin]

Exo 21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
Exo 21:21 Notwithstanding, if he survive on a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his object/possession.
Lev 22:10 There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing.
Lev 22:11 But if the priest buy any person with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat.
Note that in 22:10 they have a hired servant – a sakiyr.
In 20:11 it is a bought slave.

This is covered in depth in this link that I had already submitted. Did you not use it? http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html

A Hebrew MALE's time was limited, not Hebrew women, or foreign slaves, or concubines, sex slaves, etc.

Most foreign and women slaves had no home to go to and no job to provide food. A local male usually did. This was not a commentary on indentured servitude but only on debt slavery. However it did apply to women:
[And] if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: [of that] wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Deu&c=15
You left this out as well.
15 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today. http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html
If God was such a fan of slavery why did he spend so much time beating up on Pharaoh to end it, and why give the slaves gifts when they depart?
Does this sound like a god who loves slavery:
After he has served you six years, you must let him go free.' Your fathers, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. 15 Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to his countrymen. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name. 16 But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again. 17 "Therefore, this is what the LORD says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom for your fellow countrymen. So I now proclaim `freedom' for you, declares the LORD -- `freedom' to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth.
http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html

Also interesting that you left this out.

Exo 21:4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself.
Or this.
Lev 25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
Lev 25:46 And you shall take them for inheritance to your sons after you, to hold for a possession; you may enslave them forever. But on your brothers, the sons of Israel, one over another, you shall not rule over him with severity.
So they owned slaves for life and passing them on in inheritance, and breeding more slaves by giving female slaves to male slaves - just like in the old south.
You need to start looking in non-Christian sources - not the backpedaling Christian ones claiming they didn't have slavery - only hired, or debt servants, etc.
*

You seem to have missed the core concept in all these issues. God never instituted slavery. We did. He just added some rules to cover certain aspects. He did the exact same thing with divorce yet he hates divorce. Some practices he tolerates because of our fallibility. If he didn't his justice would demand instant and irrevocable judgment of every sin.
1. Exodus 21:4 has a very specific application. The Canaanites had been attacking his people for years. They were completely corrupt and had been all but destroyed. Hebrews had taken the women as slaves in some cases. (again indentured servitude, not picking 200 pounds of cotton a day in between getting whipped to death). God basically was answering the question: What should be done when a Hebrew man is given a Canaanite slave and they have children. The woman was owned by the master (this is only made necessary because of our ideals concerning property, not because God desires slavery to exist) and therefor her kids were property as well. Notice it does not say the man must leave his family. It says if he does so he can't take them with him. He must be allowed to stay if he wished. You are confusing something that was tolerated (and made more benevolent with something desired).
2. I do not need to argue against the presence of slavery in Israel as I have never denied it. I have said from the beginning that we created slavery not God and he only added laws to make it more benevolent. BTW if you allow the God of the Bible to exist and the Bible to be accurate in what way is the enslavement of heathen’s evil. If by being within Israel they are exposed and far more inclined to the truth of God and becomes saved should they not thank God for their circumstances? I can tell you that without many things that were not pleasant in the extreme I slowly came to believe. I would not trade a single miserable event if I had to risk my faith to do so. For the most part God acts within the context of our habits and practices (he does make rare exceptions and attempts to steer them in certain directions). Slavery exists because we are fallible not him.
Claiming I should not use Christians as sources is about the most illogical statement possible. I might as well say that no evolutionist can be used for evolution and no atheist can be used as a source for arguments against God. I also have never said true slavery (bad slavery) did not exist. I said the general case is one more associated with indentured servitude. It is not I who is spinning things you are the one that gave two verses that only used servant yet referred to them as slaves time after time. Continued below:

 

[1robin]

In summary:
1. We created slavery, not God.
2. God only made it a more benevolent practice in Israel.
3. Any claim that God is evil has about a million verses inconsistent with that idea and very few to support it.
4. God being God can enact extremely lethal retribution and it is well within his sovereignty and sense of perfect justice. Saying God responds to rebellion by force after great patience is no indictment. Saying God allows our freewill to produce things we eventually reject (reject, for reasons that only he can justify) is no indictment. By you methods God would either have to make the world operate with an arbitrary optimality you simply invented that would defeat his purpose or be called evil for tolerating some of what we instituted.

If God desires or loves slavery and is therefore evil:
1. Why did he supply the only foundation on which slavery can be shown unjust?
2. Why did he suffer and die on the cross to get us into a heaven that we do not deserve and where no slavery exists?
3. Why did he make the existing practice more benevolent?
4. Why did the majority of people who fought slavery in this country believe in him?
5. Why did the slaves themselves hold out hope in him beyond anything else?
6. When the fathers that travelled with Cortez and Pizarro etc… ran into the slave beating, 20,000 hearts ripped out alive a day crowd, in the Americas, did they say great God’s work is being done? No they said what those Godless savages were doing was diabolical and many gave their lives to stop it.
7. Why is Christ, God, and the Bible more universally associated with benevolence and love than any other concept in human history?
8. Why did Christians give billions to charity, build hospitals by the hundreds, suffer and die by the thousands ministering in savage counties, and create public school systems?

Until you can overturn those eight questions there is no foundation by which anyone can show God is evil.

Why you try so hard to find ways to dislike this person is a mystery (not really).
New International Version (©1984)
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed,

John 8. Zanzibar is an old city in East Africa. It is the home of the Swahili Institute, the official guardians of the Swahili language. But, for nearly 300 years it was the home of one of East Africa’s largest slave markets. But, something happened in Zanzibar. About 150 years ago a man walked into Zanzibar with a message of freedom for those who were bound by slavery. David Livingstone set thousands of slaves free, and even today the name of David Livingstone commands deep respect in East Africa. Today, in Zanzibar, a Christian Church sits on the very site of the former slave market, and the very same platform that used to display slaves as they were being auctioned off, is now the platform that holds up the altar in that place of worship. This is a picture of what Jesus does in the hearts and lives of all His elect. John 8 verse 36 says “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Jesus Christ Sets Captives Free sermon, Jesus Christ Sets Captives Free sermon by Mike Cleveland, John 8:31-8:32 - SermonCentral.com

 

[Copernicus]

I understood your claim to be something along the lines of that God was evil. Since my post countered the God is evil assertion then I guess I have no idea what your conclusion is.

I would have preferred you to address my argument rather than just a perceived conclusion. I do not generally take the position that God is good or evil. That depends on how people describe him. The God described in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, appears to be mostly evil, as far as "evil" has any meaning at all. The New Testament God is an improvement, but you can't really attribute benevolence to an omniscient, omnipotent being who permits the type and degree of human suffering that we find in the world today.

Maybe you took a side road concerning whether the NT promotes slavery.

No, I disagreed with your claim that the NT was incompatible with slavery. There are passages that appear to condone it, if not approve of it. You yourself seem a bit conflicted about the institution of slavery in America.

Here is every verse used in this thread for that purpose:

1Ti 6:1 Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.
1Ti 6:2 And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.
Ephesians 6:5-9: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; Not with eye service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And, ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him."

The word "slave" does not appear in a single verse yet you and others have used "slave" over and over.

Those verses do not contain the actual wording that people have cited in this thread, and it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Many versions of the Bible use the word "slave", which is a legitimate translation of the Greek word doulos. Even if you don't use that translation, anyone can see that "servant" is a synonym for "slave" in the above passages. Your translation argument is a real stretch, since other words in the verses resolve the ambiguity. "Slave" is an appropriate translation of doulos.

...It may be different in other translations but the actual purpose of this verse was to answer a question. What should be done when a servant (of any kind) or a master is born again and becomes a Christian? God says stay where you are and treat each other well.

The context resolves the ambiguity. Inglesdeva pointed that out quite clearly. What is puzzling here is that you make such a big deal about the ambiguity of doulos, but you then go on to refer to those passages as if they were about slavery. Why bother focusing on the ambiguity, only to abandon it in your own reflections on those verses?

I notice these verses were left out BTW.

Eph 6:9And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him. Google

You must not even have read my post. I quoted this verse in post 721, but it was a slightly different translation of the Greek.

So why did God not abolish slavery.

He didn't. It is people who have done that independently of religious belief.

1. God's purpose is not to fix all the problems with this broken world...

This is certainly false. Christianity, like all religions, preaches a moral code that is intended to improve conditions for humanity.

2. When a slave is born again and therefore heaven bound the issue about what he will do for a living is quite trivial in comparison.

This strikes me as an example of how attempts to rationalize religious belief can rob people of compassion. It lets them trivialize slavery and other atrocities.

3. ...When the south collapsed and the slaves were free they died at a much greater rate that at any time during actual slavery because they had no one responsible for feeding them and no home.

Irrelevant. Sherman's March was an outright atrocity that we should all condemn in retrospect. It in no way mitigated the wrongness of slavery, which is what you seem to be attempting to do here.

4. This is not a commentary on what God thinks about the issue of slavery. It is a practical set of instructions regarding an institution we created, when it comes into contact with God's truth. If God had instead said "All who come to me should flee their masters" it would have created economic chaos, backlash from the governing authorities and therefore resentment of the message, and thousands of hungry homeless slaves roaming the countryside. (Paul did make a similar claim BTW)

Paul actually returned an escaped slave to his owner. This is a weak argument. The real reason Christians did not preach against slavery is that they would have invited severe retaliation from Roman authorities. But, given your point that the suffering of slaves was trivial when compared to heavenly rewards, why should you suddenly feel their suffering mattered in this case?

5. Biblically (even where the word slavery applies) as I have exhaustively shown or provided links for is not what we think of when we hear slavery. It was almost always voluntary (the link I gave covered this in detail). Was beneficial to both parties, usually to pay off debts or because no other means of support was available. The worst form was concerning captured enemy soldiers. However there were only so many options available.

You seem to have gone to extreme lengths to delude yourself about the conditions under which slaves lived. To say that it was almost always "voluntary" is utterly outrageous. Its very definition belies that claim. It was abolished precisely because most people came to see it as morally reprehensible, not a benefit to its victims.

We have only two choices here.

1. We can use our God given brains to resent God and accountability and based on that presupposition bend all our intelligence to stripping context, twisting historical facts, ignoring details, and cherry picking whatever is needed to conclude God is Evil and reject him. If the Bible is correct we will suffer eternally for our choices.

It strikes me that you have bent your intelligence to twisting words and historical facts to rationalize your own conclusion. Perhaps the threat of eternal suffering motivates you to produce those unlikely textual and historical interpretations. I don't find the threat credible, but I do regard it as further evidence of evil intent by a putative deity.

2. We can use over all benevolence always associated with God, Christ, personal experience and the Bible to give God the benefit of the doubt in the few areas where what he did was not ideal or causes confusion. It is not very difficult to think that creatures as fallible and inhuman as we can be might be getting this wrong as well.

Actually, we are more human than God, and I find it quite difficult to imagine that the God you describe is anything but evil from a human perspective.

In fact God never instituted slavery, we did. To create slavery and then call God evil because he only made it more benevolent instead of abolishing (by turning 10,000 homeless and foodless slaves loose across the landscape) it is irrational.

No it isn't, because God had the power to intervene and prevent slavery and other types of suffering. Being omniscient, he cannot claim ignorance of how people would behave. To let it all happen is a sign of depraved indifference.

 

[1robin]

I would have preferred you to address my argument rather than just a perceived conclusion. I do not generally take the position that God is good or evil. That depends on how people describe him. The God described in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, appears to be mostly evil, as far as "evil" has any meaning at all. The New Testament God is an improvement, but you can't really attribute benevolence to an omniscient, omnipotent being who permits the type and degree of human suffering that we find in the world today.

Your post this was in response to gave a few verses but did not state a conclusion. I guessed, apparently I was right because you state the exact same claim here. I can support a benevolent God if I allow context, purpose, and the fact I do not have access to a fraction of the information he must have at his disposal. We live in a condemned world under penalty of death. If you hate that idea and find it malevolent then I am sure you can some verses taken in isolation or without allowance for purpose that can be used to justify that claim. If instead you agree with Christians that we deserve much less than we receive and include context and purpose these issues take on a much more reasonable aspect. Only by making God not God can claims to evil be justified. Yet we both have a natural revulsion to judgment and I can sympathize with that at least.

No, I disagreed with your claim that the NT was incompatible with slavery. There are passages that appear to condone it, if not approve of it. You yourself seem a bit conflicted about the institution of slavery in America.

The NT clarified issues concerning a system that man had previously instituted. I can agree that God does not condemn it but I have explained why that might have been the more benevolent determination. I have no conflict concerning whether US slavery was wrong or not. It was diabolically wrong. I was pointing out the terrible cost of just turning a people with no home, no food, no money, and no job loose causes. Even as a rebellious southern teenager who took pride in the martial aspects of the confederate army I never the less resented the practice of slavery.

Those verses do not contain the actual wording that people have cited in this thread, and it is disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Many versions of the Bible use the word "slave", which is a legitimate translation of the Greek word doulos. Even if you don't use that translation, anyone can see that "servant" is a synonym for "slave" in the above passages. Your translation argument is a real stretch, since other words in the verses resolve the ambiguity. "Slave" is an appropriate translation of doulos.

I said specifically that some versions may have used slave but the verses posted didn't. It was technical issue that showed the effects of the intentions of people who intend to show God as evil. I also stated why servant is a better word (it is more general and utilitarian than slave but does include slave) for the purpose those verses were given for, and that purpose was not slavery is good and God loves the idea.

The context resolves the ambiguity. Inglesdeva pointed that out quite clearly. What is puzzling here is that you make such a big deal about the ambiguity of doulos, but you then go on to refer to those passages as if they were about slavery. Why bother focusing on the ambiguity, only to abandon it in your own reflections on those verses?

I was illustrating that in verses that do not contain slave others said it did and that was indicative of your presuppositions. I also pointed out that servant is more applicable because it is the English word that most accurately reflect what Biblical slavery was. It also is better because that verse was intended to address all occupations where there might have been a desire to throw off the yoke of any burden not desired and the economy of Israel may have self destructed and foreign authorities would have resented the meddling in their institutions. Freeing all slaves sounds like a great idea but doing so is extremely problematic. It is Christianity that has provided the majority of the foundation by which slavery has been eradicated in most cases.

You must not even have read my post. I quoted this verse in post 721, but it was a slightly different translation of the Greek.

That may be true. I can't remember.

He didn't. It is people who have done that independently of religious belief.

Now this is just false. The major forces against US slavery at least were Christians acting on faith. There exists no foundation outside God by which to show slavery actually wrong. You may claim it anyway but it has no foundation without God. How can you found the sanctity of life, the dignity of man, or the equality of man beyond a mere opinion? In fact evolution is an argument for inequality between the races and its greatest proponent point black said nature is morally indifferent.

This is certainly false. Christianity, like all religions, preaches a moral code that is intended to improve conditions for humanity.

No it does not, though it certainly concerns it's self with those issues many times. BTW would this not counter you own argument. God's purpose is to bring us into the recognition of our need of him without major violations of free will. This it is easily demonstrated is enabled in part by exposure to the misery and evil our actions have and do cause. Many things that God could prevent, he does not because it apparently is his will that certain levels of evil exist. It is not his ultimate goal of course in heaven, but a means to an end that we made necessary. Do you think those hundreds of rules on dress code, sacrifice, and ritual were to maximize our happiness? They were to set Israel apart as unique. Continued below:

 

[1robin]

This strikes me as an example of how attempts to rationalize religious belief can rob people of compassion. It lets them trivialize slavery and other atrocities.

It has done anything but that. It was Christians who did by far and away the most to set slaves free. At least 80% of the men who died to free them were Christians. The greatest acts of genocide and atrocity were committed by the atheistic Stalin for at least in part atheist reasons. He feared and hated religion and religious people and illuminated any foundation for thinking human life was sacred. Hitler acted in his own words and in reality along lines derived from evolution. I am well aware he associated with the Catholic church but as his own writings show it was to gain the influence the church had and when they refused, he viciously recorded his true thoughts on God in his writings and turned on the Church with a vengeance. Hopefully we can avoid that red herring. Even if a Christian the Bible did not allow for any of his actions and it is easily shown that evolution very well could.

Irrelevant. Sherman's March was an outright atrocity that we should all condemn in retrospect. It in no way mitigated the wrongness of slavery, which is what you seem to be attempting to do here.

Nope, I am from the south and no lover of Sherman but what about his actions are inconsistent with military necessity. I am not talking about the slave issue. My comment on that was to illustrate the problem with simply freeing all slaves that may be one of the considerations God had to take into account. I have let this accusation go twice now but I will resent any further assertions that I in any way feel slavery in the 19th century US was anything but a nightmare.

Paul actually returned an escaped slave to his owner. This is a weak argument. The real reason Christians did not preach against slavery is that they would have invited severe retaliation from Roman authorities. But, given your point that the suffering of slaves was trivial when compared to heavenly rewards, why should you suddenly feel their suffering mattered in this case?

It wasn't an argument. It in fact undermined my argument a little (he seemed to contradict the verse where God said what to do concerning that situation) but I felt bound to mention it. By all means scratch that from the record.

You seem to have gone to extreme lengths to delude yourself about the conditions under which slaves lived. To say that it was almost always "voluntary" is utterly outrageous. Its very definition belies that claim. It was abolished precisely because most people came to see it as morally reprehensible, not a benefit to its victims.

What definition? The one you are borrowing from English in the 21st century or the Biblical one derived from Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek? Apparently you have not bothered to look at the links I gave and I see no evidence you have looked up the context historically of the words or the practice. Slavery in the Bible was approx. 80% voluntary and a form of debt repayment. The other approx. 20% was from prisoners of war and slaves sold from neighboring tribes, etc... In 1860 were slave owners required to give the slaves sheep, produce, money and help when released. Were they required to be released after six years? Were their masters required to treat them honorably? In fact I am not going to keep this line up until you assure me you have read the information at this site I have previously given. http://christianthinktank.com/qnoslave.html
I have only given one general site like this and it is necessary information. I do this to include more information than I can possibly post, on something this complex.

It strikes me that you have bent your intelligence to twisting words and historical facts to rationalize your own conclusion. Perhaps the threat of eternal suffering motivates you to produce those unlikely textual and historical interpretations. I don't find the threat credible, but I do regard it as further evidence of evil intent by a putative deity.

It was not me that insisted slave appeared in verses that were posted that did not contain them. I can end this claim real quick.
1. There are countless times as many Bible stories, personal experience claims, and actions performed by Christians that are undoubtedly benevolent than ones that are claimed to be malevolent. Yet you claim he is evil.
2. There is no other concept in human history more universally associated with good and love than God, Christ, and the Bible. Yet you claim they are evil.
Who is stretching what again?
There are hundred ways for each one I gave to illustrate the obvious fact concerning who had made up their mind independent from the facts. I have never heard of God miraculously enslaving anyone but I have heard of him miraculously healing thousands.

Actually, we are more human than God, and I find it quite difficult to imagine that the God you describe is anything but evil from a human perspective.

I believe what you said here accurately reflects what you think, but not what most people think. Why are countless brilliant, loving, and responsible parents dragging their kids into Church to be with a God as diabolical as you wish or say. BTW Christians are the only ones to have any experience with God in comparison with atheists and therefore the only ones who have experience on their side. They claim God is not only good but the most loving and compassionate being possible. That is consistent with my experience. If you wish I can give you a series of events that just happened to me a few weeks ago that have no other explanation than God's love. I certainly wish I experienced God more frequently and my prayers were all answered but the experiences I have had are all on the side of my contention.

No it isn't, because God had the power to intervene and prevent slavery and other types of suffering. Being omniscient, he cannot claim ignorance of how people would behave. To let it all happen is a sign of depraved indifference.

This is indicative of the problem that is driving your complaint. We create a mess, tell God to clean it up and even when he mitigates the terrible effects of our actions we call him evil if he does not completely make our garbage into roses . We had a perfect world and screwed it up and blame it on him. His purpose is not to produce a world we arbitrarily decided was optimal for our selfish purposes and desires. It is philosophically and empirically that the evil our actions produce is tolerated to some extent to show us the destructive nature and consequences of our rebellion. I think I am debating something that is so valued that explanation that context and purpose have no effect. I have been reacting to your claims but now I wish you to react to mine. If you can’t overturn or make consistent with your views the claims here you have no claim worth countering especially one that takes this much time.


If God desires or loves slavery and is therefore evil:
1. Why did he supply the only foundation on which slavery can be shown unjust?
2. Why did he suffer and die on the cross to get us into a heaven that we do not deserve and where no slavery exists?
3. Why did he make the existing practice more benevolent?
4. Why did the majority of people who fought slavery in this country believe in him?
5. Why did the slaves themselves hold out hope in him beyond anything else?
6. When the fathers that travelled with Cortez and Pizarro etc… ran into the slave beating, 20,000 hearts ripped out alive a day crowd, in the Americas, did they say great God’s work is being done? No they said what those Godless savages were doing was diabolical and many gave their lives to stop it.
7. Why is Christ, God, and the Bible more universally associated with benevolence and love than any other concept in human history?
8. Why did Christians give billions to charity, build hospitals by the hundreds, suffer and die by the thousands ministering in savage counties, and create public school systems?


Until you can overturn those eight questions there is no foundation by which anyone can show God is evil.

 

[kjw47]

This is not under dispute here. What is under discussion is whether God is evil.


It isn't clear what you are trying to say here. If we do know good from bad now, then we can certainly judge God bad now. As for his creations challenging his universal sovereignty, don't you think he could have seen that coming? If God were omniscient and the creator of our nature, then he would have no excuse to act surprised or angry.


Being omnipotent, he cannot be opposed or thwarted, yet you seem to believe that he was. If he wants what you say he wants, he can just snap his divine fingers and have it. What's the problem?

God isnt bad or evil--- God dignified every living being, human and above to have free will, we choose the path we walk.
He could have killed the rebels in the garden of Eden on the spot, but it wouldnt have solved the issues raised against him and they could be raised over and over, so God let the issues be resolved once and for all time. Besides since he is a God of Justice-- killing Adam and Eve would have cut off the seed, the seed which every human that was ever given life wouldnt have gotten life if the seed was cut off. God knows exactly what he is doing and why--We can sit back and try to judge him in our little mortal thoughts or we can listen to his son who taught-John 17:1-6-- that one needs to take in knowledge to know the only true God(Father) and Jesus.) -----Then when one actually knows God it becomes clearer.

 

[CG Didymus]

God isnt bad or evil--- God dignified every living being, human and above to have free will, we choose the path we walk.

Evil exists. God exists. God created all things. In the world he created there are natural things that happen that cause pain and suffering. Did those things get created after the fall? Were there disease causing microbes before the fall? Or did he create them after as part of the curse? Prior to the fall, he already had an evil angel, why did God create him? Why did God create the tree and then let the devil use it to get Adam and Eve to disobey? Do we really have free will or did God program us, some to believe, some to turn away? Do all angels have free will? What choices do they have--obey or disobey? Are they being tempted? Does God have free will? Can he choose to do something other than what he's doing? Is he tempted to abort the whole thing and change his mind about having created man?

 

[1robin]

Evil exists. God exists. God created all things. In the world he created there are natural things that happen that cause pain and suffering. Did those things get created after the fall?

I do not believe you have kept up with the recent discussion so allow me to back up and cover these claims from the beginning, in effect. It is not valid to posit God into reality without the context that comes with him, if we are discussing my God anyway. The context my God must be considered in includes the claims in genesis that God created everything perfectly and sustained it perfectly. Let me clarify what I believe concerning Genesis since it is me you are contending.

1. God sustained everything perfectly until man rejected God.
2. He then in most part abandoned us to natural law. He of course intervenes but by and large "nature red in tooth and claw" is left to its own.
3. I have studied genesis and find no reason to maintain a literal interpretation. In fact I have no idea how it is to be interpreted and without having historical narratives to compare it with we are left more powerless to understand it than the other 90% of the Bible has available.
4. My best guess is that it is a general framework that was constructed to make sense to bronze age cultures yet still be so general it would have no flaws even in a nuclear culture. It is symbolic of man's condition and prehistoric history in general. Any hyper-literal interpretations are made in a vacuum. However even a literal interpretation has drastically less inconsistency with historical realities that can be verified than atheists like to think.
5. So if you incorporate the fall (whatever the specifics are) that explains why things are no longer sustained in harmony.

Were there disease causing microbes before the fall? Or did he create them after as part of the curse?

I do not know, but I would maintain that things like gravity may have injured us if we fell, but before the fall we were prevented from falling. I admit that I do not know exactly what happened in every detail tens of thousands of years ago. The only problem comes by your sides not being as candid.

Prior to the fall, he already had an evil angel, why did God create him? Why did God create the tree and then let the devil use it to get Adam and Eve to disobey?

You are dealing with some of the most mysterious and least understood Biblical concepts. However even if left unanswered the conclusion that God is evil or not there is unjustified. Since the Bible was not made to answer every question dreamed up based on fact or fantasy used to justify dismissal. I am having to derive answers to questions I do not have from an over all narrative so I leave them open to correction as more is understood. He created angels with choice at least for a time. Satan chose to rebel. I do not think that is the case any longer. When we are discussing beings that are independent of time claiming what happened before or no longer is problematic at best. I believe it theologically consistent to say he allowed sufficient time for angels to chose then closed the window. Do you believe that if an infinite mind exists that faulty finite men will always fully comprehend why he does things? I resolved long ago to ignore unanswerable contention. There is plenty that can be resolved to base faith upon. Even if the entire OT was wrong the Gospels alone would be enough to trust Christ as savior. I think many things we ask ourselves why concerning are answered by the nature of true love. True love does not compel, it requires freewill. I think the tree is symbolic of being able to choose to rebel.

Do we really have free will or did God program us, some to believe, some to turn away? Do all angels have free will? What choices do they have--obey or disobey? Are they being tempted? Does God have free will? Can he choose to do something other than what he's doing? Is he tempted to abort the whole thing and change his mind about having created man?

Freewill is of course a very complex issue. I would respond by pointing out the absurdity of the opposite. If your thoughts are determined, why would you trust the thoughts that reveal your thoughts are determined. IOW determinism eats its self. You ask some very good questions. They are some of the most persistent in theology and I feel I may not be up to the task. It does not follow from that that your conclusions are valid.


The argumentation used by others here is valid but not of a caliber that I am not qualified to counter. I feel that I gave those arguments good reasons to be rejected but yours are of the type that no resolution may be possible and I may not have the answer even if one exists. I will endeavor to learn more about these common but terribly difficult issues and will add what I learn as I go. Theological philosophers would be the source I would and will start with.

You may feel these objections leave us impotent to make a decision about faith and with that I disagree completely. There are a great wealth of things that can be known or reasonably believed to be true that provide more than enough evidence to venture faith on. You have not asked for them so I will just throw a few out there as examples.

1. The Bible is by far the most textually accurate book in ancient history.
2. It has 25,000 historical corroborations and as far as I know no historical error beyond scribal mistake.
3. The three facts agreed on by most NT scholars on both sides is that, a. Christ was a historical figure that demonstrated an unprecedented sense of divine authority, b. that Christ was crucified by the Romans on accusations of blasphemy stated by the Hebrews, c. that his tomb was found empty. This alone is enough to believe but of course not prove the Gospel narrative is true.
4. The Bible makes the most comprehensive, accurate, and predictive statements about mans condition. For example a lion may kill a wildebeest but has any lion wanted to wipe all the wildebeests off the face of the earth. Man has some unique and not evolution explained problems with evil.
5. The Bible contains several thousand prophecies all of which were perfectly fulfilled unless they are for the future.
5. There is more textual evidence for Christ than any other figure of ancient history. Even Caesar.

These are not the best and there are hundreds of additional lines of reason to justify faith. Maybe tens of thousands. I will stop here before I get to far off track.

You have made the best arguments concerning this issue so far. I of course disagree with your conclusion and there may or may not be any answers to these questions. If of course the whole of revelation is taken into account then these mysterious issues are not game changers.

 

[Copernicus]

God isnt bad or evil--- God dignified every living being, human and above to have free will, we choose the path we walk.
He could have killed the rebels in the garden of Eden on the spot, but it wouldnt have solved the issues raised against him and they could be raised over and over, so God let the issues be resolved once and for all time. Besides since he is a God of Justice-- killing Adam and Eve would have cut off the seed, the seed which every human that was ever given life wouldnt have gotten life if the seed was cut off. God knows exactly what he is doing and why--We can sit back and try to judge him in our little mortal thoughts or we can listen to his son who taught-John 17:1-6-- that one needs to take in knowledge to know the only true God(Father) and Jesus.) -----Then when one actually knows God it becomes clearer.

I can't really see how you arrive at the conclusion that God gave us free will. Most Christians hold that God knew all outcomes of his creation from the beginning. If that were true, then none of us had free will from God's perspective. From our perspective, we would only have the illusion of free will, because we are ignorant of the facts as God knows them. So, unlike God, we cannot predict the future. He knew what sins we would commit. We only learn those as they are committed.

 

[Ingledsva]

Most foreign and women slaves had no home to go to and no job to provide food. A local male usually did. This was not a commentary on indentured servitude but only on debt slavery. However it did apply to women:

This is pure bull. It is the same crap Christians always use to try and defend the indefensible.

We had to smash the infants' heads against the rocks - they might have grown up and wanted revenge.

We had to keep our slaves and slaves children FOREVER, especially our female sex slaves, because thay had nowhere to go, and no job. Right!

[And] if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: [of that] wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.

Doesn't say "THEY" shall go free - "HE" shall go free.

The only time a female Hebrew servant can go free, is if she came in already married - then she leaves with her husband.