Let’s imagine I created a Robot, armed it and sent it into town to Kill as many people as possible.
Am I not Guilty, should I stand accused.
God created Satan, yet everyone points the finger at Satans deeds, Satan is doing what God created him to do.
So God is the creator of Evil but gets a free pass, why?
I think it's highly unlikely that you'll ever find a devout Christian who will openly admit that their "loving and merciful" God creates evil, despite
Isaiah 45:7 unequivocally stating so. On the contrary, you're more likely to see some very impressive mental gymnastics used to try to explain away the word "evil" in order to intentionally alter its meaning in the verse. I've never met a Christian who admitted it.
However, we both know that
Isaiah 45:7 clearly states,
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." The New King James Version uses the word "
calamity" instead of "evil," and the New International Version uses the word "
disaster" and not "evil" or "calamity." For the record,
Jeremiah 26:13,
1 Chronicles 21:15, and
Joel 2:13 coincide with
Isaiah 45:7 (NIV), which says, "
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things."
KJV: "
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."
Evil:
1. Morally bad or wrong; wicked, 2. Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful, 3. Characterized by or indicating misfortune; ominous.
NIV: "
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things."
Disaster:
1. An occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress; a catastrophe; 2. A grave misfortune, and 3. A total failure.
ESV: "
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things."
Calamity: 1. An event that brings terrible loss, lasting distress, or severe affliction; a disaster, 2. Dire distress resulting from loss or tragedy; 3. Any great misfortune or cause of misery; in general, any event or disaster which produces extensive evils, as loss of crops, earthquakes, etc., but also applied to any misfortune which brings great distress on a person; misfortune; distress; adversity.
The Bible mentions God changing his mind about bringing disasters down on his own people as punishment for their transgressions against him (
Jeremiah 26:13,
1 Chronicles 21:15,
Joel 2:13). And according to
Genesis 6:6-7, God regretted creating not only mankind but also every animal, every creature that creeps on the ground, and the birds of the air. The Bible contains several other verses that mention God's regrets in addition to creating humanity, all the animals, and birds (
1 Samuel 15:11;
2 Samuel 24:16;
Jeremiah 42:10).
There are scriptures which claim that God never changes, such as
Numbers 23:19, which says, "God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said it, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?" And
Malachi 3:6 says, "I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed." However, other verses imply that God changes his mind (
Jeremiah 18:5–10;
Joel 2:13;
Jonah 4:2), describe God changing his mind (
Exodus 32:14;
Amos 7:3,
6;
Jonah 3:10), or assume that God will change his mind (
Jeremiah 26:3;
Joel 2:14;
Jonah 3:9). It's clear that these verses contradict the first two.
Amos 7:3 "
The Lord changed His mind about this. "It shall not be," said the LORD.
Amos 7:6 "
The Lord changed His mind about this. "This too shall not be," said the Lord God.
Exodus 32:14 "So
the Lord changed His mind about the harm that He said He would do to His people."
Jonah 3:10 "When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways,
he relented on the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it."
Jeremiah 26:3 "Perhaps they will listen and each one will turn back from his evil way, and
I will change my mind concerning the calamity that I intend to bring on them because of their evil deeds."
As a former Christian, I don't think that anyone should look to the Bible to learn about morality. In my opinion, the following Bible stories aren't exemplary examples of upright moral behavior: forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist; smashing infants' heads against rocks; ordering the death of witches; God commanding his "chosen people" to kill an entire populace of foreign nations for their land in a conquest to possess a "promised land"; or God being irrationally angry and committing global genocide by killing every living creature and eradicating the entire human race (aside from Noah and his family) in a worldwide flood. Is that a loving God?
1 Samuel 15:3 states that God commanded the Israelites to attack and not spare the Amalekites (killing every man, woman, child, newborn, and animal and destroying everything that belonged to them). And
Psalm 137:9 states, "Happy is the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rocks." So much for the biblical commandment of "Thou shalt not kill." In my opinion, the God of the Bible has a sadistic mentality of "Do as I say, not as I do," making him the most hypocritical (detestable and barbarous) figure known to mankind. And this article, "
Violence in the Bible: Greatest Hits," has several other instances of severe violence in the Bible.
Despite my criticism of the Bible and assertion that it should not be relied on for moral guidance, I believe that what the Bible says should be taken with a grain of salt. As far as I'm concerned, there are a lot of contradictions in the Bible, as well as a few stories of Jesus that were copied and adapted from Greek mythology and other pagan religions, as I explained in other posts, such as this
one.
