Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Yes he did..
I never said God must be evil. The fact is that if God is good you should be able to demonstrate that. What do you call a person that could stop a rape with no harm to themselves but chooses not to? This is what your God does everyday. So is that Evil?Yes he did..
He knows all about us.
He is omniscient.
He knows what we don't know.
..and that is why the conclusions that you reach are spiritually more like the ramblings of a young child .. no, worse.
i.e. that God must be evil, bla, bla
Who's "God"? Your next-door neighbour?
What exactly are we blaming God for? Creating awareness? Making conscious life? Knowing about an inevitableness does not equate with forcing that inevitableness to be inevitable. I think many people have a misconception about God. Scripture says God sustains the good AND the evil. God defines the terms. Simply put anything in opposition to Gods will is evil. That is why we say God IS Good. God IS love. The terms applied to God are absolute. That is God conforms to its own will which is the Good. Why is it good? Because Gods will is the pinnacle of the most Just path possible for reality to take. Our conception of those terms are relative to our finite understanding.
No, The Christian God can stop all rape tomorrow with no harm to Himself. He chooses not to.Who's "God"? Your next-door neighbour?
Well that is not a good way to determine what is good or moral. Why does God have to be good? Our experience demonstrates that God does not will the most just path for reality. We know injustices happen everyday. If you are going to just say that they are just because God willed them then I am going to disagree with you about what just means.
..and He knows what you don't know.
Why do you believe God is good and just?
I see that there is good and evil in the world.
Why must that source be a God and not just come from people?
Right. So if one of the animals asks a question, the one who has authority over them should answer. When answering a question, a person adopts the questioners point of view in order for the answer to be relevant and understood. This started the process for the serpent to incept this idea of the tree of knowledge making her wise.
God is not a person.
I thought I was addressing your objection by demonstrating analogically that sometimes what you see as a detriment to your wellbeing with 20/20 hindsight I might add, is actually a blessing....but only if you trust the creator. For instance, some medicines are poisons until they
Oh but there is good evidence. As I've said before Christian scripture promotes rational assistance to your faith. The collected cannon of scripture has been spread over thousands of years. It makes predictions and predictions have been fulfilled. Its historicity has been historically validated time and again. Its witnesses have died for what they've claimed. Over those thousands of years represented in that scripture by multitudes of authors it has demonstrated remarkable cohesion, confirmation, and persistence. Scripture itself states that many false prophets will arise claiming many falsities. How do you know a prophet is Gods? By rationalizing that prophet against all those criteria. Cohesion in their message, confirmation, and its persistence in reality. That's not to say that many wont be fooled but Christ also said that he would rather that one be hot or cold than lukewarm. That is sincerity in your search rather than swaying with the breeze of popular opinion.
I cannot speak to whether or not you "need" man made books to understand. Because of our natures as finite, imperfect creatures any relaying of Gods perfection by us will necessarily be imperfect. However Gods perfection is such that it can use imperfection to relay whatever revelations it wishes in such a way as to fulfill its will.
I agree, it is not your fault. Did someone claim is was? What would be your fault is insincerity in your search, pride or hubris which prevents you from acknowledging what you sincerely believe to be true for the sake of winning an argument, or deliberate deception whether it be overtly towards another or introvertly towards yourself.
Adam and Eve Knew all the animals this is true. They were given charge over them, also true. However what makes you think Adam or Eve had any reason to believe the animals they were given charge over in Eden were dangerous or posed them any threat? Neither of them knew what fear was, what evil was, what lying was, what death was. The description of the great deceiver was transformed into a "serpent" like creature by Moses because of the experience and observational conception of what a serpent is and how it behaves post fall. When Adam and Eve was kicked out of Eden.
Its not that God has the "right" to decide as humans might conceptualize rights. Rights are given. God just is.
Ok. The only correction I would make there is that rights are taken.
Me too. I just am.
If by theory, you mean position. I agree. I assume you are using the colloquial definition, and not the scientific. Please correct me is you are using the scientific definition - in which case I do not agree.
I dont think you are using the words absolute and relative correctly, but interpreting what you seem to mean, you don't have anything close to absolute morality. You literally have a book that prescribes not killing in one situation, and killing in other situations.
I never said god was a person. I said why does good and evil need to come from a god? People can be the source of good and evil.
Indeed.
It's based on Gen 2:19 - "... whatever the man called each living thing, that was its name." One way of interpreting this is that Adam deduced each name based on the animal's nature. If so, Adam would have known the serpent's nature.
I trust my doctor because there is good evidenced based science behind the drugs they prescribe.
There are prophecies that have not come true such as the destruction of Tyre so much that it will never be known it ever existed. I can fly to Tyre today.
Ok, so we can never understand the bible?
How do you know a revelation is from god and not your own mind? What about sincere seekers, like I was at one point, that never heard from god?
I was a sincere Christian for 17 years. I sincerely believed and when I started to have doubts I begged god for assurance and evidence for 2 years or so. None came.
I agree we can find good and evil in the bible. God does both from instituting death for homosexuals at one time to writing rules for slavery etc. He does good by healing people of disease and such. The problem is how do you know it is true or comes from a god?