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Is God Really Such a Bad Guy?

rrobs

Well-Known Member
Because your brought up one of the major examples to demonstrate that your god has a derranged, warped, and evil sense of morality, and you are trying to say this doesn't really make Yahweh a bad god. He is so violent and bloodthirsty that not even cattle are safe when he sends someone to war. Nor are the unborn safe from the wrath and fury and genocidal lusts of Yahweh.
You might as well say "sure, Hitler killed all these Jews, but look at all the great stuff he did for Germany. He wasn't so bad when you look at his labor laws, animals rights, and the Volkswagen." But Hitler was not a good person, nor is a Yahweh/Jehovah anything but an evil god.
Well, like I alluded before, it is clear, judging from your comments, that you read the first paragraph.

Do you have any comments on the rest of the OP? For example, what did you think about my comparison of Severus Snapes and God being mis-portrayed through most of the story? That neither one of their true character was kept hidden until end?
 

SigurdReginson

Grēne Mann
Premium Member
So your qualification for something being bad is suffering?

No. It's not.

I'm not claiming rape is ever good, I'm saying morality is flexible and situational unless there's some universal rule about it.

What happens when that universal rule becomes outdated, like in the case of homosexuality?

Like perhaps: " Do unto others as you would have them do to you."

Does the golden rule need to be a "universal rule" to be something self evident? Seems to be a pretty consistent theme in every religion and philosophy.

Did you ever think perhaps some of what God allowed in the OT wasn't his will at all, but his way of dealing with rebellious people?

Are you suggesting is that rape wasn't what he wanted, but that it was a tool he used because it was his way?

Would you ever use rape to deal with someone? Would you ever find it acceptable to ever use rape as a way of dealing with people?
 
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rrobs

Well-Known Member
How did you make the judgement that the OT is not correctly describing God, but that the NT does? Just wondering, because it seems you simply chose to believe the NT, because you find it more appealing than the OT. But that would be a fairly bad way to determine truth.
Easy. Read it. God orders all kinds of mayhem. Killed children, women, and more. He kills entire armies. There's no point in denying that or sweeping it under the carpet.

Christians need to know how to answer unbelievers when they bring this stuff up. That's what my OP does. It explains that, although those things were said of Him, it was never really Him all along. It was not until Jesus came that the devil was revealed for who he really was; the true source of evil all along,

I mean, I prefer that there is no such thing as nasty and deadly disease and therefore I will just believe that there ain't. Im pretty sure that, you would agree that it would be a bad way to handle truth and also rather unjustified way to reason.
Of course. That's why I said it's not good to ignore what the scriptures plainly say. But it's even more important to be able to understand why the scriptures say God ordered murder, even for His chosen people. Again, turns out that the devil killed everybody that ever got killed. But you don't know that until the end of the book, after Jesus revealed both God and the devil.

That's the simple explanation for all the bad things the OT says about God . Think about it and you'll have an answer next time someone says God murders and quotes an OT verse in support. He doesn't. The devil does. Real simple.
 

SigurdReginson

Grēne Mann
Premium Member
Yes. As clear as the fact that Severus Snapes was evil throughout 95% of the book.

I was clear in my OP that God is said to have done terrible things. I even mentioned rape. But, I went beyond that.

If you want the whole story, whether Harry Potter or the Bible, you have to read the whole thing. If you did that with Harry Potter, you would learn that Snapes was in fact a good guy all along. If you did that with the Bible, you would learn that God was in fact a good guy all along.

But there's never an explanation for why he had to do the evil things he was supposed to have done. Explain to me why - that's all I want. Is why a bad question to ask? Is it irrelevant?

Imagine if Ted Bundy was never caught and ended his life doing good and charitable things... He still kidnapped, raped, and murdered women and little girls when he was younger! o_O
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
God is often portrayed as a rather coarse individual in the Old Testament. Some incredibly grizzly things are said to be done by God. He is said to encourage the Israelite warriors to basically rape the women taken captive in the many wars they had with surrounding nations after killing all the males. What's up with that?

Severus Snape was a rather evil individual throughout most of the story in Harry Potter. He was, like God's portrayal in the OT, a rather evil person. It was only at the end the we learn Severus was really a good guy all along. The author portrayed him as evil for her own reasons. The exact same literary tool is used in the scriptures. In the end, it turns out God is not a bad guy at all, but instead He is the epitome of love and light.

Why as God portrayed as evil in the Old Testament when He was never evil at all? There are many reasons for that, but in this post I'm just pointing out that the portrayal of God in the OT is not at all descriptive of His true nature, which, as I said above, is love and pure light. The NT makes it plain that there is NO darkness whatsoever in God.

The true nature of God was revealed by Jesus Christ. Jesus was a perfect representation of God. He always did exactly what God told him to do. Jesus was an exact image of God. Therefore, if you can't see Jesus doing any harm to anyone, then neither does God.

The only thing that remains is to understand why God utilized the literary tool of making the good guy appear bad until the end.
Yo, rrobs! I hope you're vaxed and well and all things are good at your house.

As you know, I think God exists / gods exist as a concept / thing imagined in individual brains. So each society constructs their favorites deity or deities to reflect their own culture. Thus the God of the first part of the Tanakh is a tough guy, an alpha male, and at that stage [he]'s not the only god, just the tribal god of the Hebrews, in competition with all the other tribes of Canaan and their own gods. [He] says things like ─

Deuteronomy 7:1-2 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations...then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy." (and again at 20:16)
and also

Judges 11:23 So the Lord, the God of Israel, dispossessed the Amorites from before his people Israel; and are you to take possession of them? 24 Will you not possess what Chemosh your god gives you to possess? And all that the Lord our God has dispossessed before us, we will possess.
[He] plays with human sacrifice with Abraham and Isaac, does a deal for human sacrifice with Jephthah which is carried out (Judges 11), calls off a famine in exchange for human sacrifice (2 Samuel 21), famously spares Jonah, and in a process I've never understood sacrifices Jesus to [him]self.

But what I think we're looking at is the evolution of Hebrew culture. It's arguable that the great benefit of the Babylonian captivity was to expose many Jewish leaders to a level of sophistication in Babylon that didn't exist in Canaan / Israel, and it was this larger cultural outlook that they brought home with them. At this stage God becomes post-alpha, as it were, and is asserted to be the only God,

By the time we get to the time of Jesus (given an historical Jesus) Jewish culture has been under Greek influence for 300 years, in the wake of Alexander. It's recovered its independence and lost it again to the Romans. While its traditional element is still strongest in Jerusalem, and the Greek influence strongest, arguably, among the Jews of Alexandria, the administrative language of Judea is Greek and the whole NT is written in Greek. Ideas expressed by Jesus in the NT have Greek origins, such as the Cynic notion of taking to the roads, talking to those you meet, and relying on heaven for food and a place to sleep. The Eucharist is taken from Greek practice (bread for Ceres, wine for Dionysos, together). The gnosticism of Paul and the author of John is Greek, with the idea that Jesus pre-existed in heaven with God, created the material universe, and since God is so pure, remote, and removed from the material world, must act as mediator between God and man (an idea not found in the synoptics).

And so on.

In other words, gods reflect their cultures as they exist from time to time. A god who doesn't change with [his] culture loses his congregation and ceases to be a god. The history of God from the southern deserts of Canaan to the warrior tribe of Joshua to the alleged glory of Solomon to the Babylonian captivity to the more civil and sophisticated politics of the later books of the Tanakh to the Greek of the NT is the history of the culture of [his] followers.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
Doesn't matter. At least you should know what the fictional story actually says if you want to get the message it offers.
You could describe it as an allegory and recognize a message without having to believe that Harry Potter is a real story. Hmmmm. Sounds like a familiar concept.
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Do you have any comments on the rest of the OP? For example, what did you think about my comparison of Severus Snapes and God being mis-portrayed through most of the story? That neither one of their true character was kept hidden until end?
I'm not familiar with Harry Potter. Doesn't change the fact that Yahweh wants me, and many others for many reasons, dead. The NT doesn't change the fact that Yahweh is such an iron-fisted, violent, and dangerous tyrant he turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for simple disobedience. Jesus himself said he didn't come to change, lessen, or do away with the Laws and Prophets, but not only that he brought with him this idea of eternal punishment and roasting forever. Jehovah is so bloody cruel and viscious and monstrous he would punish people for all eternity over a short life spent not doing what he commanded.
 

Nimos

Well-Known Member
Easy. Read it. God orders all kinds of mayhem. Killed children, women, and more. He kills entire armies. There's no point in denying that or sweeping it under the carpet.

Christians need to know how to answer unbelievers when they bring this stuff up. That's what my OP does. It explains that, although those things were said of Him, it was never really Him all along. It was not until Jesus came that the devil was revealed for who he really was; the true source of evil all along,
Well that doesn't answer the question, you simply wrote what you claimed differently.

"It explains that, although those things were said of Him, it was never really Him all along."

My question was, how you determined that the OT weren't correct and the NT wrong? Answering that it weren't really him, is not an answer that is just another claim.

Because I could claim that God is the one in the OT, and the NT was exactly what we would expect Satan to do, to deceive us, and it worked, because look how many Christians there is. Im pretty sure you wouldn't accept that explanation.

Again, turns out that the devil killed everybody that ever got killed. But you don't know that until the end of the book, after Jesus revealed both God and the devil.
That is not an explanation either, rather it is to tell people to just believe something for no good reason, which ought to be a sin, if we should use those terms, but at some point in the future it will all be clear, because....of what, because you say so or why?
 

Justanatheist

Well-Known Member
So is a big reveal at the end of a story a valid literary style or not? If so, why not for the Bible?

Yes the big reveal is a valid literary style, now show me where the big reveal is in the OT, because if it is the bit where God tortures his only son to death for the sins of others I am going to say, "let the Jewish chap down from the tree and I will take my own punishment for whatever perceived stuff you say I did". Do you think torturing his son to death puts your god in a good light? Not my kind of good guy!
 

Jeremiah Ames

Well-Known Member
God is often portrayed as a rather coarse individual in the Old Testament. Some incredibly grizzly things are said to be done by God. He is said to encourage the Israelite warriors to basically rape the women taken captive in the many wars they had with surrounding nations after killing all the males. What's up with that?

Severus Snape was a rather evil individual throughout most of the story in Harry Potter. He was, like God's portrayal in the OT, a rather evil person. It was only at the end the we learn Severus was really a good guy all along. The author portrayed him as evil for her own reasons. The exact same literary tool is used in the scriptures. In the end, it turns out God is not a bad guy at all, but instead He is the epitome of love and light.

Why as God portrayed as evil in the Old Testament when He was never evil at all? There are many reasons for that, but in this post I'm just pointing out that the portrayal of God in the OT is not at all descriptive of His true nature, which, as I said above, is love and pure light. The NT makes it plain that there is NO darkness whatsoever in God.

The true nature of God was revealed by Jesus Christ. Jesus was a perfect representation of God. He always did exactly what God told him to do. Jesus was an exact image of God. Therefore, if you can't see Jesus doing any harm to anyone, then neither does God.

The only thing that remains is to understand why God utilized the literary tool of making the good guy appear bad until the end.

any portrayal of God as anything other than infinite love, is because that is HOW we perceive Him at times
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
Would the same logic apply to Severus Snape? Because he was "evil" throughout more than 8%% of the book, you're saying J. K. Rowling was wrong about him really being a "good" guy all along?

I suspect you agree with Rowling about Snape really being a good guy all along. You may even think, "Wow what a cool revelation at the end of the book!" At least that's what most think when they read a story where the bad guy was really the good guy all the time. You just don't find out until the end. It's a trope. But, we can't have that with the Bible. Why? Darned if I know?
What specifically evil thing did Snape do?

I mean, your claim is that Snape was evil, but you have not presented anything "evil" snape did.
Seriously, when did Snape condone rape?
Or murder?
Or slavery?

Seems to me your Snape analogy fails especially when comparing him to the God of the Bible.
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
God is often portrayed as a rather coarse individual in the Old Testament. Some incredibly grizzly things are said to be done by God. He is said to encourage the Israelite warriors to basically rape the women taken captive in the many wars they had with surrounding nations after killing all the males. What's up with that?

Severus Snape was a rather evil individual throughout most of the story in Harry Potter. He was, like God's portrayal in the OT, a rather evil person. It was only at the end the we learn Severus was really a good guy all along. The author portrayed him as evil for her own reasons. The exact same literary tool is used in the scriptures. In the end, it turns out God is not a bad guy at all, but instead He is the epitome of love and light.

Why as God portrayed as evil in the Old Testament when He was never evil at all? There are many reasons for that, but in this post I'm just pointing out that the portrayal of God in the OT is not at all descriptive of His true nature, which, as I said above, is love and pure light. The NT makes it plain that there is NO darkness whatsoever in God.

The true nature of God was revealed by Jesus Christ. Jesus was a perfect representation of God. He always did exactly what God told him to do. Jesus was an exact image of God. Therefore, if you can't see Jesus doing any harm to anyone, then neither does God.

The only thing that remains is to understand why God utilized the literary tool of making the good guy appear bad until the end.
Ah...
So The Satan is really the good guy and God is really the bad guy.

Which makes sense when you look at and compare their body counts.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
IMO: God's "true nature" can not be revealed. God is beyond duality of this world.

This is one reason I consider myself an agnostic, because there's no way that anyone can possibly know if there is a God or what, exactly, God actually is.

But since everyone is keen on guessing, I think a lot of the reason why some might view God as a bad guy is because there are so many people out there trying to claim that God is a good guy.

I recall an episode of Star Trek ("The Squire of Gothos") where they encounter a very powerful being who might be seen by some as "godlike" powers. It turned out that he was from a race of super-powerful beings, but he was still a small boy, prone to mischievous pranks and a good deal of sadism towards his human "pets." What if that turns out to be our "God"? That would mean we're the playthings of some sadistic child.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
God is often portrayed as a rather coarse individual in the Old Testament. Some incredibly grizzly things are said to be done by God. He is said to encourage the Israelite warriors to basically rape the women taken captive in the many wars they had with surrounding nations after killing all the males. What's up with that?

Severus Snape was a rather evil individual throughout most of the story in Harry Potter. He was, like God's portrayal in the OT, a rather evil person. It was only at the end the we learn Severus was really a good guy all along. The author portrayed him as evil for her own reasons. The exact same literary tool is used in the scriptures. In the end, it turns out God is not a bad guy at all, but instead He is the epitome of love and light.

Why as God portrayed as evil in the Old Testament when He was never evil at all? There are many reasons for that, but in this post I'm just pointing out that the portrayal of God in the OT is not at all descriptive of His true nature, which, as I said above, is love and pure light. The NT makes it plain that there is NO darkness whatsoever in God.

The true nature of God was revealed by Jesus Christ. Jesus was a perfect representation of God. He always did exactly what God told him to do. Jesus was an exact image of God. Therefore, if you can't see Jesus doing any harm to anyone, then neither does God.

The only thing that remains is to understand why God utilized the literary tool of making the good guy appear bad until the end.

It certainly can be hard for Christians to accept some of the stories in the OT about God but for me it comes down to trying to understand where God was coming from in OT times.
It is always easy for non believers to judge God by the stories but they are usually not even trying to give God any benefit of the doubt and usually twist the stories around a bit to make them sound worse anyway.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
God is often portrayed as a rather coarse individual in the Old Testament. Some incredibly grizzly things are said to be done by God. He is said to encourage the Israelite warriors to basically rape the women taken captive in the many wars they had with surrounding nations after killing all the males. What's up with that?

Severus Snape was a rather evil individual throughout most of the story in Harry Potter. He was, like God's portrayal in the OT, a rather evil person. It was only at the end the we learn Severus was really a good guy all along. The author portrayed him as evil for her own reasons. The exact same literary tool is used in the scriptures. In the end, it turns out God is not a bad guy at all, but instead He is the epitome of love and light.

Why as God portrayed as evil in the Old Testament when He was never evil at all? There are many reasons for that, but in this post I'm just pointing out that the portrayal of God in the OT is not at all descriptive of His true nature, which, as I said above, is love and pure light. The NT makes it plain that there is NO darkness whatsoever in God.

The true nature of God was revealed by Jesus Christ. Jesus was a perfect representation of God. He always did exactly what God told him to do. Jesus was an exact image of God. Therefore, if you can't see Jesus doing any harm to anyone, then neither does God.

The only thing that remains is to understand why God utilized the literary tool of making the good guy appear bad until the end.

Maybe a bunch of people wrote what they intended and attributed it to God.
 

stvdv

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
I think a lot of the reason why some might view God as a bad guy is because there are so many people out there trying to claim that God is a good guy.
Duality indeed is the source of all this creation
 

stvdv

Veteran Member: I Share (not Debate) my POV
I recall an episode of Star Trek ("The Squire of Gothos") where they encounter a very powerful being who might be seen by some as "godlike" powers. It turned out that he was from a race of super-powerful beings, but he was still a small boy, prone to mischievous pranks and a good deal of sadism towards his human "pets." What if that turns out to be our "God"? That would mean we're the playthings of some sadistic child.
Movies are "duality within duality of life", they can really veil our vision

IF God is the Creator of the Universe THEN the Universe proves that God can't be a sadistic child
 
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