So he is a discriminating god.
Theres really no way around this…
I accept the idea of dualism, because allowing the existence of evil is just cruel. Even for god.
I wouldn’t state it as much of a dualism as I would an absence. Evil is one of those things that exists in the absence of another. Like Cold is defined by the absence of heat, evil can be defined as the absence of good. Biblically speaking, Revelations talks about a time where there will be a reset. All evil will be separated and sealed away, while the good will be renewed, the same principle as when Christ was renewed after His death. Now think of everything in its entirety as a closed system. Not only is it a closed system, but it’s a closed system with an initial condition that God exists within it and He is good. Now first one needs to question to origin of the Devil. Without the devil’s prompting, it’s likely that Adam and Eve would never have sinned. The devil is an angel. Now angels were created as servants. The book of Hebrews talks about the inferiority of angels to Jesus. They were also created with free will. The devil was initially an angel that got sick of being a servant and sought to become greater than God. The creation can not be greater than the creator, and the Devil’s pride caused him to leave heaven.
This recently had me asking the question, why would God create angels if he knew some would go evil? To put my answer to this question into an analogy, why would you bake cookies if you knew some might get charred? You would bake cookies because you enjoy them, and they make you feel good. (Forgive me if I’m wrong. If not cookies, then maybe pizza or something.) Now those cookies are far inferior to you as a baker. You don’t want those burned cookies around you because they make your house smell. They will make you sick if you eat them, and they are unable to be of use to you. You toss those cookies out and you keep the good ones around, to give to your guests and visitors at your house. That’s a watered down way of how angels work. Would you not make cookies because you know that a few might get burned? I wouldn’t, as I know that the ones that do turn out right will be good and pleasing. While I would be upset that some cookies burned, I would be overjoyed that some did not. Like almost all analogies, if you press on it too hard, I’m sure you’ll find some sort of error, but it’s the best way I can come up with an explanation for the subject. Angels, like people, are meant to glorify God. Those who worship and serve Him bring glory through their service. Those who oppose Him bring Him glory by eventually falling to Him.
More reading: http://www.gotquestions.org/angels-repent.html
Because angels were able to become evil, so then man was able to become evil, and for almost the same reasons. What is different though, is God’s plan of redemption for mankind. He didn’t provide that same method for angels, most likely because Angels (notably The Devil) have seen God in heaven and know His glory full well. They chose to rebel against Him after having full knowledge of Him, and that is blasphemy.
Man on the other hand, has the option to be redeemed through a process called propitiation. Basically, Jesus’s death on the cross serves as an atoning sacrifice for all of the sins of mankind.
Now if man is evil, and God wants to reset the system, there’s two ways to go about this. Wipe out everything, make a new earth, start from square one. There’s no glory for God in this. This would be an admittance of failure and defeat. Instead, there’s route two. Present a method of salvation and redemption that allows those who choose it, a way to become good once again and inhabit a world free of evil. That’s mercy, and that’s the only solution that involves a master reset and a way for God to earn glory. Both methods will eliminate evil, but only one does it with purpose and maintains God’s infallibility. (The one that doesn’t have Him starting from scratch.)
Now, the system began good, and went evil. Angels went evil, then creation went evil. The next logical step is to allow man a way to become good again. That way is Jesus.
Now in Revelations, John describes a final struggle between God and His followers vs. the Devil and his followers. In the end of this struggle, the Devil is sealed away along with his followers. This means that the Devil, who is evil, the angels who followed him, who are evil, and the people who did not place their belief in Jesus, who are inherently evil and unaccounted for because the never received propitiation, are going to be sealed away. This is the master reset for the system. All that remains is God, who is good, his angels, who are good, and his followers, who have propitiation and are made good.
This is why I don’t see some sort of dualism, because dualism carries with it a notion of equality, and I in this case, good is infinitely greater than evil.
Before I write anything about your definition of discriminating, could you please clarify a little bit as to what you mean? As in, try your best to define it so I can understand what you mean, please.
Not true.
An organism having an orgasm = a ‘good’ feeling
An organism unable to experience an orgasm = an absence of 'good’
An organism feeling the immense pain from brutal torture = evil
Evil is gratuitous.
It will be too late at that time. Already, countless millions would have perished from cruel deaths.
You are just preaching now, with walls upon walls of text.
I’ve questioned the Bible’s metaphysical authenticity, and shown that your attacks on my questioning are thoroughly hypocritical. No Christian here has countered my accusations. So what relevance does ‘Bible speak’ have to non-believers?
You say cisco and the Christians have been the polite ones here, but he has been slipping subtle little personal insults into his posts for pages now. We atheists have been sticking to attacking the arguments. Or God. As in: saying things like God is a dick-sucker (although whether that is actually an insult depends on how prejudiced you are).
Aaaanyway… to label me as someone completely oblivious to theology, and then in the same breath dismiss the problem of evil with a wave of a hand… is utterly… utterly… mind-bogglingly stupid to me. Yes, stupid.
It is a total insult to the victims of the more horrendous things life can throw at us. I’m actually getting angry typing this so will go away and do something productive.
EDIT: actually, I was too kind in saying God was a dick-sucker. He’s the one who wants his dick eternally sucked, and he’s the one not giving reach-arounds.
I’m feeling quite bad today so I won’t say much, but I will leave you with this:
Part of God’s plan involving non-belief in God I can understand. There may be some complicated reason for that.
What I cannot accept is that Islam, Judaism, Christianity, the various ‘Hindu’ beliefs and all the other people who claim to know the mind of God, I cannot accept that they are part of God’s plan, that God would allow that.
And so, I will remain atheist.
Devastation occur not because God doesn’t care, or he is using it as a punishment. The Bible says that natural evil is a result of man’s original choice to sin, that all of creation was changed as a result of the separation of the world from God. God intervening with natural disasters would make a perfect world in where we are actually invincible, while this is good another side to it is that maybe he believes/wants that we can make a “perfect” world our selves because in the beginning, he did make a perfect world yet sin caused a separation that caused the world to be imperfect. As Jesus says in the lord’s prayer “Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” showing that God doesn’t get the same will in on earth unlike in heaven. Why doesn’t he? It’s not just because he chooses to limit himself. It isn’t of his will that these things happen, of course, people suffering and dying isn’t pleasurable to him. These devastation bring out the greater good and reminds us all of our humanity and morality which is what the Bible says that God wants to see in us. The whole religious point of view is too long and typing more in hopes for you to understand is hopeless based on your posts that show your conception of religion, theology and God. You know, the reason why i don’t like going into these topics is because it is usually brought up by young atheists who are completely oblivious to what they are saying, why ask these questions to a theist? Isn’t the theist point of view based on a life after death; God will give them their justice and stuff like that?
Evil is just a word to describe something bad, unholy, immoral, and all that. None of them physically exist. These are just mental attitudes. To a theist, people who commit evil will reap what they sowed when the time comes for them to face God.
Dude, in organized debates or in debate oriented forums, your demand for supernatural/metaphysical evidence will be ridiculed. It shows you don’t have any knowledge of the Bible or even a small amount of theological understanding, you are just basing what you think of these kind of things based from what you see in comic books. It is a materialistic mentality, disregarding the theology and philosophy that dims your perception. I already gave you some help with this issue with the Temptation in the Desert, just to show you God’s principles, It’s like you skipped it. You are completely oblivious to what is being debated about, and i can actually prove that you don’t know that much about theological topics with this question, what is hell?
Isaiah 55:8-9
8: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
The Truth is not given to this world in the clear form, but in the symbols and images. It is not possible to give it in other forms. So, there are a birth (in the highest eons) and its symbolic image (an earthly birth). And one has to reconstruct the Truth through this image. (Philip 67)
The garden of Eden story is metaphorical and symbolic, you are talking about it as if it where literate. A tree whose fruit bestows knowledge of good and evil or eternal life cannot be a real is obviously not a real tree. It was symbolic. Adamn and Eve where also not names, Adam means Man in english. “Forbidden Fruit” was a term referring to indulgence or pleasure that is considered illegal, immoral and probably deadly. You can learn more about that through google (just to save me from writing a bunch of paragraphs) or probably attend some literature classes in school so you can distinguish figurative language from literate narrations, instead of basing your understanding from what you saw in those christian cartoon movies.
I’ve already told you why I’m not accepting Bible arguments, and I’ll get back on to that shortly.
There are two things of interest in what follows, however:
Why do you say “maybe” here? Is this a strictly Christian argument? I thought Heaven was the only perfect world, and you only got there by accepting Jesus Christ as your saviour.
See, we obviously have to strive to make the world a better place for us because it can be quite hostile to us (disease, natural disaster, wild animals etc). Whether this is part of God’s plan or not is speculation. As it is not an overtly Christian theodicy, I am prepared to accept the above is possible, and is compatible with my conception of God. But it would not be proof until God showed up and congrtulated us on winning teh game (because striving to better our lives is also compatible with natural explanations).
Well I hope God is happy in what he sees in me, because I only have to read of certain types of events and I’m so shocked and horrified that it adds to my certanty that he does not in fact exist.
And mental attitudes don’t exist? We’re does that leave your faith then?!
A great example of an objective natural evil is physical pain, combined with the law of predation.
Why would God create organisms that, when injured, feel something that is objectively horrific, and yet make the very basis of their existence injuring and killing each other? The cunt.
… which is after they die, which conviently cannot be witnessed.
If it was apparent that people reap what they sow in THIS life, then sure, I’d believe. And I’ve tried to convince myself that this is the case, but it does not seem to be.
You still don’t understand my point about your HYPOCRISY. LISTEN CLOSE:
A central factor to your faith is the suppoed supernatural/miraculous/metaphysical MIRACLES performed by Jesus Christ.
And yet you attempt to ridicule me for demanding the exact same evidence (not just writings of them).
Could you please think about that a little more and get back to me?
It is a fictional concept designed to scare people into believing.
Or possibly it’s this thread.
If Jesus was a sheriff, he would arrest every single one of you.
Wait, you’ve been arguing about this yet you don’t accept Bible arguments? What should you expect from the theist to give in this? How are you going to understand the whole thing if you don’t bother to read and study what the Bible actually says? If it is unacceptable, then you shouldn’t even bother using that topic as a form of reasoning against God because look how narrow your point of view is.
I say maybe because i am not God, if a man can’t fully understand the reasons of another person, regardless of the amount of excuses the person makes to clear the understanding, then how can a fully understand the reasons of god? You thought heaven was the perfect “world” because your knowledge of theology probably comes from what you’ve heard. Heaven and Hell is a dogma of the church. During the time of the OT, there was no concept of the Heaven we think of today (the clouds, a beautiful area, God sitting in a thrown with angels all around), Heaven simply meant the sky. In the NT, heaven in Greek is synonymous with kingdom or glory. We can’t really say if heaven is a place or just a word meaning in God’s glory.
You see, i never saw miracles to be supernatural things, if you recall my examples before. Eventhough a miracle can be scientifically explained doesn’t mean less to me. To be fair, i would also call it natural explanations because that’s what they are. They are natural therefore they can be explained… however, it’s not really the point. You have to look at the bigger picture and remember my example with the Temptation of the Desert. If God does interveign SUPERNATURALLY as you want it, what would happen next? Everyone believed with out a choice and also what is the use of giving us a humanity if we never use it? See, we believe that God created us in his image and likeness - the likeness part is that he created us with moral principles and a moral code. These disasters bring it out this humanity with in us which is what we are supposed to use. We also see God as a good teacher, and the bigger picture is that we learn to exercise this humanity out. It isn’t death that makes the world “horrible” but what we actually do to other people is what makes it “horrible” or “great”.
Well I hope God is happy in what he sees in me, because I only have to read of certain types of events and I’m so shocked and horrified that it adds to my certanty that he does not in fact exist.
And mental attitudes don’t exist? We’re does that leave your faith then?!
When i said natural evil i’m referring to earthquakes, hurricanes, and stuff like that.
So you are asking in short, why didn’t God create us invincible? Another thing, why is injuring and killing each other the basis of our existence?
You really didn’t get my post.
Didn’t i explain this already, why he only showed his resurrection to the apostles? It’s like you are skimming my posts. It isn’t hypocrisy, you just misunderstood what i have been talking to you about. Jesus appeared only to his contemporaries because they were the ones chosen by him to preach about him. Again, and i’ve repeated this so many times, read and study about the temptation in the desert. I’m not ridiculing you, it’s just getting frustrating that you come here to argue yet clearly have no idea what you are actually talking about. Your asking of supernatural evidence such as divine protected bibles and such shows how you perceive God and just because there isn’t anything supernatural means he doesn’t exist to you?
Well you are actually right, but with out the care of it being fictional or non-fictional to you. What is hell (the concept), as to what you know about it?
I think, due to the analysis of your arguments since the beginning that you probably think the Christian belief of Hell is the inferno underground where people are screaming and the devil is there with a pitch fork or something.
Wearing arseless chaps.
First of all, Hell is NOT forever http://www.satansrapture.com/hell4ever.htm
Second, the churches do NOT teach gospel truth, they just teach what people WANT to hear (OSAS is a popular lie) I believe that we must overcome greed, temptation etc. In order to make heaven, not just believe your saved just because you went to some Billy Graham crusade. http://www.satansrapture.com/salvation.htm
Now as for Jesus existing or not, theres been some historical evidence that he existed, HOWEVER for God, your going to have to find out for your self. If you prey for God to reveal himself and if you really are ready to overcome sin and temptation, THEN HE WILL REVEAL HIMSELF!
So
Churches = man made lies
The words of Jesus = Truth from God
Don’t believe me? Well compare the words of Jesus to what people in churches say.
Since I am talking about this, I might as well link people what I believe is the truth
www.satansrapture.com
Yes people are skeptical about Bible Codes and such but guess what? You don’t need to believe in Bible Codes to obtain heaven, just DO what Jesus said.
I can actually see why many people are athiests though, I was pretty close to becoming one with all these powerless churches, then I found the truth and God set me free!
great read capn spanky!
From coast to coast give up the ghost! - Bizzy Bone
Why is the devil the first and last person to denounce the greatness of god?
You would think by 2010 everybody was falling from grace. Im sure a group of them would have teamed up and tried to take out God somehow? All these dead rebels that we have…
I really need some answers.
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.” -Stephen Roberts
Theres just so much ammo against the religious cause.:lol:
absence of religion is really not the same as absence of multiple deities
its just smart rhetoric
The terms you defined in the beginning have no moral relevance on good or evil. You’re going to use that in order to refute what I said?
Orgasm = good,
No orgasm = bad
Pain = evil
Your entire moral basis is going to be centered around that argument? You’ve just described feelings, not morals. You might has well have said
happy = good
angry = evil
sad = bad
What relevance does “Bible Speak,” have to non-believers? It depends. To some, it changes lives. To others, it makes them angry and jaded. Ever hear the phrase “…And the truth shall set you free?” It’s more like “…And the truth shall tick you off.”
I said Cisco was being civil, reasonable and logical. Maybe he wasn’t as civil in that aspect, but he was still reasonable and logical, and just by saying he wasn’t polite doesn’t take away at all from his validity.
If you got the impression that I called you oblivious to theology, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give the impression that I didn’t think you knew anything. But I also didn’t just “wave away evil,” like it was something that hadn’t been taken into account. Evil exists right now, and there is nothing I can do to ever “wave it away.” In fact, I’m going to say that there’s no doubt in my mind that I am inherently evil, and that I have done morally wrong things.
Is saying that God uses evil for a reason really an insult to people that suffer? The non-Christian might argue that, but the Christian won’t. Do you think that only those with the most unbearable lives are the ones that suffer? I don’t even know how you’re supposed to be saying I’m wrong here. It’s like you’re taking offense because I’ve said that God has a good reason for why people suffer! It seems backwards to me. If I were an atheist, I would be offended if I was told “God makes people suffer because He is a sadist,” because He isn’t, and Cisco has provided an argument for that, and so have I. Here’s another article: http://www.christadelphia.org/pamphlet/sufferng.htm
In the book of Job, as you probably know, Job and his wife lose their family, their servants, and their livestock, basically all of his riches. Then Job goes to the town dump and lays around in the filth, scraping himself with broken pottery until his friends arrive to tell him he must have done something wrong. Back then, the idea of God was that He made good things happened to good people and bad things happen to bad people. Because Job had bad things happen to him, he was a sinner. Now you can tell me this: is that true? Do good things always happen to good people or do bad things happen to everyone? The entire book is an explanation for suffering and why God uses it. In the end Job is restored. His suffering wasn’t in vain. Job’s children are also said to be accounted for, because the book of Job mentions he offered sacrifice and intercession on their behalf. While they died, the implication carries with it that they were saved because of Job. If you don’t feel like reading the Bible, read the other articles I’ve left here.
You want to know why alternate religions could be part of God’s plan, or why they exist in the first place? I’ll take you back a little bit to man’s first interactions with God in Eden. They were told not to eat a fruit. This is a commandment directly from God. The devil came in the form of a serpent, and twisted God’s commandment to those people. They got in their heads that this twisted commandment was right. Then they tested one condition of the twisted commandment “Shall not touch the fruit or you will surely die,” proved it false, and assumed the rest of the commandment was wrong. In other words, other religions usually range anywhere from a misinterpretation of the Bible, to a self-experience that allows people to become their own god. They test the conditions of their new religion and if they can verify them, their religion must be truth. Either way, they’ve gone away from Christianity at some point. Remember this, Judaism in the Old Testament was still a faith based religion. When it was faith based and Jesus had not died, then there was still a chance at redemption. Once Jesus died, Judaism never changed to reflect that, and unbelief in Jesus is regarded to be a lack of faith. Islam worships Allah, who is a single god, but who is also characteristically different than the God of the Bible.
Your wondering how God allows this to happen really perplexes me because of your previous stance. What would you expect God to do to all those practicing religions other than Christianity? Smite them as a sign that they’re wrong? That’s a very old school theology. Why doesn’t God just eliminate all other religions and make it so people can only choose one? What I find interesting is that so many people have a problem with God being “coercive” because He sets the ultimatum that requires you to choose Him or hell, but then He wouldn’t be coercive to allow only one religion to exist. He allows other religions to exist because He’s God. Your knowledge of Him will let you also know which religion is in fact, sufficient.
In your other post, you used the term “my conception of God.” What does that entail?
You go on to say that you wish you could observe people reaping what they sowed in this lifetime. You won’t. You try to convince yourself that that’s the case, but that’s not how things work. Dictators, drug lords, etc. all prosper during their lifetimes because of criminal acts, and they gain no punishment for it that you can observe. In the Bible, sin is sin. Everyone is on equal footing as a sinner. Even the most cruel dictator is equal to the guy that lies all the time, the guy who steals, or even the guy who has done nothing evil by worldly standards. Why can’t they earn punishment for this in their lifetime? If God were simply to smite them, they would have no chance at redemption, and no chance to repent. That’s why judgment is reserved until after physical death.
Lastly, on the subject of physical pain: pain is not always a bad thing. You can’t just say automatically that pain is horrifically evil. Imagine if you didn’t feel pain, what would that do for your chances of survival? Look out, your hand is on the stove. Don’t feel it? Well then you’re probably fine. You’ve tripped and broken your leg. If you walk on it now, it’ll never be fixable. You don’t know it’s broken because it doesn’t hurt? That’s no good! What too many people are quick to point out is that people feel pain. What is amazing to me though, is all the ways the human body is engineered to overcome pain as well. (endorphins, adrenaline, etc.) Pain is necessary. It let’s you know something is not right.
God would be a sadist if He sent people to hell without a chance at redemption, because in that sense, He would enjoy watching people suffer. He provided a chance to escape hell though. You assume that suffering happens on earth because God enjoys making it happen. I say that suffering happens on earth because it’s a byproduct of living in a corrupt earth. If we lived in the world that was originally created sinless, there would be no suffering. Man messed up though. Suffering is a curse from God, but we brought it upon ourselves. Who is actually to blame when you shoot yourself in the foot? The guy that told you where the gun was and told you not to do it, or the guy who pulled the trigger? No matter how much you can argue “If God never allowed evil then there would never be suffering,” you’d be skirting the issue. The issue is that if man never sinned there would never be suffering, God is just reacting to it.
@RoGE9 : It’s weird that you come in here talking about doing what Jesus said, when, in Matthew 18:8, He describes eternal fire. You automatically discredit the Bible and say that you don’t need the Bible you just need Jesus’s teaching. Where do you propose I find that teaching?
http://www.carm.org/religious-movements/universalism/hell-eternal
To those of you that read Matthew 18:8, when Jesus talks about cutting off limbs, He’s using hyperbole. He doesn’t actually mean that He wants you to cut off your arms and legs. What He does mean though, is that if you’re captive to repeating the same sins, you better do what you can to stop.
Good and evil arent subjective. but some evils have better excuses than others. regardless of how good your excuse is though, evil is evil.
the whole point of being alive is to have the tools to be prepared to be sad, and have the tools to get out of feeling sad.
happy individuals. todays modern feel happy all the time philosophy is inhuman because half of the human experience has been shut out. melancholic states of being actually possess more empathy than happy individuals. especially happy individuals that chase happiness out of the fear of sadness. but being sad without the right tools can also lead to evil because feeling sorry for yourself will bring envy and hatred.
there is no thought put into things on a societal level of how to be ok with systems of reality. what i mean by systems of reality is that 1/4 of the year is hot 1/4 is getting cold 1/4 is cold 1/4 is getting warm. half the day is night the other half sunshine. if theres no rain theres no life.
life cant be always sunshine, in the summer, without night occuring. but this is what the occult people like tony robbins and others teach the public. how to run from feeling sad and to be happy. positive thoughts only (which is like picking and choosing reality, leading to mind control/brainwashing of the self to the self) critical thinking or going indepth becomes a melancholic state of mind, therefore its avoided by everyone.
a world where everyone is happy but nobody is empathetic should be,evil,unnatural to some? hopefully?
in order to figure out good and evil, you have to first make a criteria as to what constitutes refinement and what constitutes distortion.
is putting your brain on ice so you might be revived 1000 years from now a refinement of humanity or a symptom of a distorted psychology of that person?
I can bullshit up some ammo in support of religion.
Religion controls people? Shit, I want to control people. [media=youtube]spVaO0xrzSs[/media]
That’s my argument. You can’t deny an awesome song to back me up.