Why is it that people blame God for the acts of man?

There are constant threads about how religions, especiallly Christianity, are false because of some influence by some other religion or some conspiracy to control mankind. Now I would present to you that all of these things happen and that they are in fact abhorent to God. In fact it is commandment 3 of the 10 commandments. Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain. Now this is commonly used as a reaosn to not use terms like g**d*** and such but its not really the order behind the commandment. To not use the Lord's name in vain is to not do false things in the name of God. The inquisition, the crusades, which tirals, etc. were all in the name of God but had nothing to do with God. Since God gave mankind free will, we have the ability to do a lot of horrible things and then use God to justify why we did them. However, this does not mean that God had anything to do with it. So, therefore we get into the constructs of religion which are control structures created by man. The larger the structure, the more room for corruption. If you remember from the Old Testament, God didn't even want the people of Israel to have a king but they complained to the point that he gave them a Judge. Jesus didn't create a hierarchy of control, he passed the message on to his believers and commanded them to spread it to the World. Nowhere did He say to create a political structure to control the minds and hearts of people, He said this is what you have to do to have a personal relationship with God and nothing else matters. If you have a personal relationship with God then you skip the inherently flawed political structures of man and get right to the source. So, why is it that atheists and others try to use these things to deny the existence of God when God has nothing to do with it, beyond the fact that it makes an easy target. I think paraphrasing Dogma to end this works well, "We took a good thing and built a beuracracy around it."

If there is a God then explain pop music and R&B

Surely not even Satan is that sick

My preacher always told me God created everything. I thought about it for 15 years before I realized evil was a part of everything.

It again all comes down to free will. God created everything, gave us guidelines, and said run with it. If God wanted to micromanage our earth, then how would we ever do anything truely great by ourselves? How would we experience joy from making the right decisions if we didn't know the sorrow of making a bad one? So therefore as free will gives us the ability to do truely great things, it runs both ways and leads to atrocities. Basically in the third commandment God was saying unless I'm directly involved, don't use my name to justify your actions. Oh, and lest I be accused of being a diest in that God is the clockmaker, winding the clock and letting it go for eternity, there is a safeguard built in called prayer. In prayer we communicate with God and ask him for help, thus giving up our free will in that instance to a degree to accept the help of the alimighty. Basically like a kid going to their parent and saying help, I don't know what to do but I know that you have infinietely more knowledge then I do and that you can do something to make it better, even if I don't understand what better is at the time.

Yeah I agree but it could very easily not be true at all... there is just no reason to believe it.

I have come to the conclusion that the free will is a limited free will. I think it is illusory. If we have free will, then God could not determine the 'end of this age', which Jesus states that only the Father knows. According to scripture, God knows when the end shall come, thus we are not free to determine our ultimate destiny, just like we don't know if we will meet our demise tomorrow. It is a limited free will that only applies in a created world like Earth. I still find it hard to believe that we can have free will, but God knows what we will do. How is that so if our will is exclusively our own? This just proves God could solve problems if he wanted to. Of course, he has a reason for it, but he/she/it is still complicit in whatever we do by allowing things to happen. No one can blame society if a baby dies at birth because of some disease or something. Is it just nature and did not God have a hand in that. Ultimately, God is the source for all that is good and bad. Even free will, if it is some sort of fact, had to be God's idea.


I had to add this, but why did God 'harden' pharoahs heart when he let the Hebrews go from Egypt? This is one scripture that proves God has a hand in our emotions and helps us do the things we do.

[edit on 11-12-2004 by ben91069]

Originally posted by Faceless
If there is a God then explain pop music and R&B

Surely not even Satan is that sick

Dude, I love ya!!

You took the thoughts right out of my mind with that one

To the topic. Religion in itself isn't all that bad, its the people that practition it to the letter under an extreme interpretation without showing any ability to have morals and thoughts of their own whats wrong.

Extremists are all muppets guided by a person or idea that preaches or is based on an extreme interpretation.

Hey, I am a Christian, but there is a lot of crap that isn't explained in the Bible. When I mean Christian, I mean like Jesus. I don't mean all this dogmatic garbage or anything about baptism, handling snakes, calling down fire, or even wiping mud into someones eye to make them see. I think that the character of Jesus showed itself as God-like in that he was a simple, humble guy that loved people as he would his own self. That is my goal with Christianity.

Originally posted by jukyu
There are constant threads about how religions, especiallly Christianity, are false because of some influence by some other religion or some conspiracy to control mankind. Now I would present to you that all of these things happen and that they are in fact abhorent to God.

Then why does he command that these abhorent atrocities be enacted? And why is it that he'll perform miracles, like suspending the sun in its course across the sky, to give his servants more day light time to more thuroughly exterminate a neighboring tribe?

In prayer we communicate with God and ask him for help, thus giving up our free will in that instance to a degree to accept the help of the alimighty. Basically like a kid going to their parent and saying help, I don't know what to do but I know that you have infinietely more knowledge then I do and that you can do something to make it better, even if I don't understand what better is at the time.

That's one of the most awesome analogies I've heard regarding man's relationship with God in a long time. It also illustrates the folly of pride. Nice one!

Yeah man has free will...but if you use it too much you are doomed...makes no sense at all. An all knowing god, would of already known every outcome from everything he ever created....down to the last tiny detail every person thinks of or does....

Who says he doesn't? What do you do with a child to let them learn. You let them make small mistakes while protecting them from the big ones. As of yet we haven't been wiped out by something from space and we've yet to completely annahilate ourselves though we're doing our best.

Some 'Christians' always avoid the question "how come there is free will but the future is predetermined". Go figure.

Originally posted by masterp
Some 'Christians' always avoid the question "how come there is free will but the future is predetermined". Go figure.

Or why there are two "creations" in Genesis...

People just need someone to blame.
If they can't blame another person, they blame God.
I actually knew someone who wasn't watching where he was going and walked into a door. He said "Who put that door there ?" and he meant it ! :shk:

Because they are unable to comprehend the idea of free will and the responsibility that goes with it. It�s also a convenient excuse.