Why God allows Evil

[Brian2]

I don't want God to step in. I lack belief in any God. My belief is that there is no God to step in and stop evil. I was discussing the topic of this thread.

You don't?

The interesting part for me is that people believe in a God so prone to failure. His two major plans to stop evil had little if any effect.

God's first way (the flood) slowed down the spread of evil imo but was never meant to fix it.
The 2nd (Jesus) has succeeded and now you have a chance to join the victorious side.

 

[joelr]

God in the Bible is not into human sacrifice, except the sacrifice of His Son and that was not a sacrifice in any way except that God accepted it as a sacrifice. Jesus did not live in the Bronze age of course.

A woman was burned as a sacrifice just because it was part of a deal. That is human sacrifice

Jephthah's daughter, sometimes later referred to as Seila or as Iphis, is a figure in the Hebrew Bible, whose myth is recounted in Judges 11. The judge Jephthah had just won a battle over the Ammonites, and vowed that he would offer the first thing that came out of his house as a burnt offering to Yahweh. However, his only child, an unnamed daughter, came out to meet him dancing and playing a tambourine (v. 34). She encourages Jephthah to fulfill his vow (v. 36) but asks for two months to weep for her virginity (v. 38). After this period of time Jephthah fulfilled his vow and offered his daughter.


The Jesus sacrifice was written in Mark as the substitute for Yom Kippur and Passover. It is absolutely a sacrifice in the story.

Another interesting coincidence is the name Barabbas itself, an unusual name that means ‘Son of the Father’ in Aramaic, and Jesus is often portrayed as the ‘Son of the Father’ as well. So in this story we have two sons of the father; one released into the wild mob carrying the sins of Israel (such as murder and rebellion), effectively serving as an allegorical scapegoat (Barabbas), and the other sacrificed so his blood may atone for the sins of Israel (Jesus) — and we have one bearing the sins literally, and the other bearing the sins figuratively (just as we find in the Yom Kippur ceremony of Leviticus 16 in the Old Testament). We get further confirmation of this belief in the Epistle to the Hebrews (9-10), where we hear Jesus’ death described as the ultimate Yom Kippur atonement sacrifice. Interestingly enough, it is also implied in this part of Hebrews that Jesus’ death and resurrection would have taken place in the heavens, as that was where the most perfect atonement sacrifice would be made and where the most perfect holy temple would be for which to pour the blood of that sacrifice (another element supporting the contention that Jesus was initially believed to be a celestial deity rather than a historical person). So Mark here appears to be telling us through his own parable, to reject the sins of the Jews (notably violence and rebellion) and instead embrace the eternal salvation offered through the atonement sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The Spirit was on Jephthah and instead of trusting God Jephthah wanted to buy a good result with a human sacrifice, something that he was not even in a position, morally or legally, to do.
God did nothing to get Jephthah to want to make that sacrifice.
Human sacrifice in those times was something that the Canaanites did with their children and it was a reason that God had judged Canaan and given the land to Israel.

The Bible says that because the Israelites came from the Canaanites and hated them. But there is no indication that they actually did child sacrifice.



Canaanite religion - Wikipedia

It is considered virtually impossible to reconstruct a clear picture of Canaanite religious practices. Although child sacrifice was known to surrounding peoples, there is no reference to it in ancient Phoenician or Classical texts. The biblical representation of Canaanite religion is always negative.[30]

Canaanite religious practice had a high regard for the duty of children to care for their parents, with sons being held responsible for burying them, and arranging for the maintenance of their tombs.[31]

 

[joelr]

It did fix it really and Satan is now angry doing damage on earth, but the war has been won.

In the mythology Satan works for God. In fact he was also called the Angel of God when he was doing murder for Yahweh. Satan also asked permission to torture Job. So none of that makes sense even in the theology?

But then there is the free will argument? Religious people say God doesn't intervene because he wants people to have free will. Now you are saying this angel of God is somehow causing people to do bad, which breaks free will? So why would this God allow that? And if that's true, then all bad things are because Satan caused them so no more sin or repentance?

 

[John53]

You don't?



God's first way (the flood) slowed down the spread of evil imo but was never meant to fix it.
The 2nd (Jesus) has succeeded and now you have a chance to join the victorious side.

No I don't, same as I don't want Zeus, The Rainbow Serpent or the Tooth Fairy to stop evil. I do expect the government, police and legal system to try.

Attempt 1 would work you'd think by wiping out 99.99999% of the population but Noah let him down pretty quickly..

Hitler, Ivan Milat and Jimmy Seville strongly suggest attempt 2 is also an epic fail.

 

[Brian2]

In the mythology Satan works for God. In fact he was also called the Angel of God when he was doing murder for Yahweh. Satan also asked permission to torture Job. So none of that makes sense even in the theology?

But then there is the free will argument? Religious people say God doesn't intervene because he wants people to have free will. Now you are saying this angel of God is somehow causing people to do bad, which breaks free will? So why would this God allow that? And if that's true, then all bad things are because Satan caused them so no more sin or repentance?

The story of Job is no problem in theology.
Satan is a deceiver and has blinded people to the truth.
How God is going to judge those people is up to God.
Some of them want to be blinded to the truth because they have rejected the truth and so look for alternative explanations.

 

[Brian2]

No I don't, same as I don't want Zeus, The Rainbow Serpent or the Tooth Fairy to stop evil. I do expect the government, police and legal system to try.

Attempt 1 would work you'd think by wiping out 99.99999% of the population but Noah let him down pretty quickly..

Hitler, Ivan Milat and Jimmy Seville strongly suggest attempt 2 is also an epic fail.

I would say attempts 1 and 2 were working together. God needed a people that were not too overrun by evil so that He could bring the Saviour into the world amongst a people of faith and relative holiness.

 

[Brian2]

Yes they tried as hard as they could but then the Persians invaded. So they tried harder and the Greeks invaded. They still tried and the Romans invaded.

So which scripture says that God will no longer help out? You said it's scriptural that God would protect Israel and take care of them. So where does it say he will stop? Becuse he stopped.

You don't seem to care what the Bible says, but that does not stop you from saying that the opposite to what the Bible says is what happened.
What has happened to the Jews now is what was predicted and promised in the OT.
But the Bible does not say that God will completely reject the Jews, and He has not.
The OT does say that God will punish those who have done harm to the His people and in the end they will return to following Him and accepting His saviour.

No I reject it because it's fiction. So you believe in Inana, all the other Gods and that Gabrielle gave updates to Muhammad on the fact that Gods word had been corrupted? If you drop the naturalistic suppositions then you have to believe, there are eyewitnesses and far too many apologetics and proofs of Islam to ignore it. If you don't believe it then you also have a naturalistic supposition.

No I have no naturalistic supposition.

Demonstrate Christian science isn't a real sect of Christianity.

I do not know the beliefs of Christian Science well at all but from this site I noticed items 4 and 6.
9 Things You Should Know About ‘Christian Science’
4 seems to indicate the teaching of antichrist. (1John 4:2)
With 6, the belief that sin is an illusion means that they would say they have no sin and so the truth is not in them. (1John 1:8)

Prayer studies have shown prayer does not work.
Mortality rates for disease show that there is no help from any deity. If a cancer has a 50% mortality rate and you look at enough cases 50% always die. Probability wins. Adding a God to that doesn't work.
If a God was healing people then mortality rates would be untrackable because of all the healings. They would constantly change depending on how many people God, Allah, Krishna or other wanted to heal.

I see prayer working.

 

[SkepticThinker]

God in the Bible is not into human sacrifice, except the sacrifice of His Son and that was not a sacrifice in any way except that God accepted it as a sacrifice. Jesus did not live in the Bronze age of course.


The Spirit was on Jephthah and instead of trusting God Jephthah wanted to buy a good result with a human sacrifice, something that he was not even in a position, morally or legally, to do.
God did nothing to get Jephthah to want to make that sacrifice.
Human sacrifice in those times was something that the Canaanites did with their children and it was a reason that God had judged Canaan and given the land to Israel.

So God's not into human sacrifice, except when he is. Which wasn't actually a sacrifice, but God accepted it as a sacrifice.
Interesting. Do you think that makes sense?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Christians who want to get into politics and force their values onto everyone are probably doing for the same reasons that you would want to stop torture when you saw it. They see Christian values as good for society and don't want to be guilty of allowing other values to take over through their lack of action.

Humanists see their values as good for society and Christian values as harmful. You can understand why people who feel that way want exactly what you described here, but in reverse. The antitheist agrees that he shouldn't allow Christian values to prevail through lack of action. Look at what Christianity is doing to American women now. Perhaps the forces for secularism should have been a little more proactive as the Republicans were packing the Court with stealth theocrats.

it sounds like you want God to step in all the time

No. The skeptic doesn't believe in this god, and he is telling you why - because it DOESN'T step in. Here's a juxtaposition of humanist values and Christian values from The Atheist Experience for contrast:

Tracie (humanist): "You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, 'When you're done, I'm going to punish you' .. If I were in a situation where I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That's the difference between me and your God."

Shane (Christian caller): "True to life, you portray that little girl as someone who is innocent. She's just as evil as you."​

But no, skeptics are not waiting on this god to wake up and act. They know it never will because it can't. This deity has all of the same characteristics as the nonexistent, and it is expected to do as much as all other nonexistent things - nothing. The theists counters like the man with the invisible dragon in his garage, which is also nonexistent, and has all of the same characteristics of this deity - none.

Well we will be held accountable for allowing evil if we have the power to stop it.

Exactly, just as Ms. Harris implied above.. That is why the apologetics explaining why this omnibenevolent god does nothing falls on deaf ears, and why the skeptic rejects the depiction of it as moral, loving, or merciful.

It did fix it really and Satan is now angry doing damage on earth, but the war has been won.

Here's another of what would be considered a failure of this god were it believed that it and Satan existed.

The story of Job is no problem in theology.

Yes it is, at least in the eyes of outsiders hearing and judging it. It's the same as every other problem in Christian theology, like the one that is the topic of this thread, or why scripture seems to be self-contradicting, or why Genesis and the scientific narrative contradict one another, or where all of the water that supposedly flooded the earth came form and went to. None of those problems have been resolved by apologetics. And none are problems for the unbeliever. They all go away with unbelief. Of course there is suffering that a deity could prevent if there is no interventionalist deity. Of course scripture contains errors and contradiction if it was written by human beings. The only mystery with Job (and the flood story, which is also very unflattering to the deity, and the day of rest, which is also unflattering to an omnipotent god) is why these things appear in scripture.

 

[John53]

I would say attempts 1 and 2 were working together. God needed a people that were not too overrun by evil so that He could bring the Saviour into the world amongst a people of faith and relative holiness.

During the Roman Empire.... wow.

 

[ppp]

It did fix it really and Satan is now angry doing damage on earth, but the war has been won.

Doing damage on Earth is pretty much the definition of not fixed.

 

[Brian2]

So God's not into human sacrifice, except when he is. Which wasn't actually a sacrifice, but God accepted it as a sacrifice.
Interesting. Do you think that makes sense?

Yes.
What in that don't you understand?

 

[Brian2]

Doing damage on Earth is pretty much the definition of not fixed.

Nevertheless you probably know what I meant.
Jesus death destroyed the work of Satan in Eden and brought the possibility of eternal life back to humanity.
Jesus work of redemption did that, it fixed the problem.
If you want the quick fix that would mean a different approach and probably there would not be us humans around to do evil any more and be offered the eternal life.
As Ecclesiastes tells us, there is a time for every purpose under heaven. (Eccles 3:1-8)
The time for sowing and growing and harvesting is now, the end and the judgement is later.

 

[Brian2]

Humanists see their values as good for society and Christian values as harmful. You can understand why people who feel that way want exactly what you described here, but in reverse. The antitheist agrees that he shouldn't allow Christian values to prevail through lack of action. Look at what Christianity is doing to American women now. Perhaps the forces for secularism should have been a little more proactive as the Republicans were packing the Court with stealth theocrats.



No. The skeptic doesn't believe in this god, and he is telling you why - because it DOESN'T step in. Here's a juxtaposition of humanist values and Christian values from The Atheist Experience for contrast:

Tracie (humanist): "You either have a God who sends child rapists to rape children or you have a God who simply watches it and says, 'When you're done, I'm going to punish you' .. If I were in a situation where I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That's the difference between me and your God."

Shane (Christian caller): "True to life, you portray that little girl as someone who is innocent. She's just as evil as you."​

But no, skeptics are not waiting on this god to wake up and act. They know it never will because it can't. This deity has all of the same characteristics as the nonexistent, and it is expected to do as much as all other nonexistent things - nothing. The theists counters like the man with the invisible dragon in his garage, which is also nonexistent, and has all of the same characteristics of this deity - none.



Exactly, just as Ms. Harris implied above.. That is why the apologetics explaining why this omnibenevolent god does nothing falls on deaf ears, and why the skeptic rejects the depiction of it as moral, loving, or merciful.



Here's another of what would be considered a failure of this god were it believed that it and Satan existed.



Yes it is, at least in the eyes of outsiders hearing and judging it. It's the same as every other problem in Christian theology, like the one that is the topic of this thread, or why scripture seems to be self-contradicting, or why Genesis and the scientific narrative contradict one another, or where all of the water that supposedly flooded the earth came form and went to. None of those problems have been resolved by apologetics. And none are problems for the unbeliever. They all go away with unbelief. Of course there is suffering that a deity could prevent if there is no interventionalist deity. Of course scripture contains errors and contradiction if it was written by human beings. The only mystery with Job (and the flood story, which is also very unflattering to the deity, and the day of rest, which is also unflattering to an omnipotent god) is why these things appear in scripture.

For me it is a matter of trusting God.
This faith also brings with it an understanding of the scriptures which give satisfactory answers to the problems you pose, but these answers are not acceptable to those who do not have faith.

 

[ppp]

Nevertheless you probably know what I meant.
Jesus death destroyed the work of Satan in Eden and brought the possibility of eternal life back to humanity.
Jesus work of redemption did that, it fixed the problem.
If you want the quick fix that would mean a different approach and probably there would not be us humans around to do evil any more and be offered the eternal life.
As Ecclesiastes tells us, there is a time for every purpose under heaven. (Eccles 3:1-8)
The time for sowing and growing and harvesting is now, the end and the judgement is later.

None of that constitutes "fixed"

 

[Brian2]

None of that constitutes "fixed"

With faith it is fixed, otherwise nothing has changed since Jesus promised to come back. Where is He.
With faith it is. "Amen, come Lord Jesus".

 

[ppp]

With faith it is fixed, otherwise nothing has changed since Jesus promised to come back. Where is He.
With faith it is. "Amen, come Lord Jesus".

Nope.

 

[Wildswanderer]

I'm looking at it from the point of common decency. The lack of free will for the child was to be my next point.

What is decent? Seriously in a world devoid of any standard or right and wrong, what is good? Why is a child more deserving of your interference than an adult? These are all subjective judgements unless there is some ultimate standard of right and wrong, like a God.
Yes you can say that whatever does no harm is good, but that's just another subjective standard that you made up.
And you probably don't even believe it absolutely, because you would do harm to the person hurting the child.

Only because God has implanted within us a certain standard of right and wrong, do we make such judgments at all.
Otherwise anything goes.

 

[ppp]

These are all subjective judgements unless there is some ultimate standard of right and wrong, like a God.

A god is an arbitrary standard.

 

[Wildswanderer]

A god is an arbitrary standard.

Not if he truly exists and is the ultimate ruler.