God is GOOD and I will defend Him. A Challenge for Atheists

I will post one more and then sit back and listen for awhile.

First, famaliarize yourself with this character. Eliphaz If this does not speak to God's goodness, I am not sure what does. Remember, in spite of what God could do to us, He instead provides salvation and wisdom for us. Clay is our body in this context. A tent is a temporary home here on earth. Again, a reference to our bodies. Eliphaz notices that some men appear to die apart from wisdom. Ultimately, they did not listen.

Job 4

Eliphaz

1 Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:
2 “If someone ventures a word with you, will you be impatient?
But who can keep from speaking?
3 Think how you have instructed many,
how you have strengthened feeble hands.
4 Your words have supported those who stumbled;
you have strengthened faltering knees.
5 But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged;
it strikes you, and you are dismayed.
6 Should not your piety be your confidence
and your blameless ways your hope?

7 “Consider now: Who, being innocent, has ever perished?
Where were the upright ever destroyed?
8 As I have observed, those who plow evil
and those who sow trouble reap it.
9 At the breath of God they perish;
at the blast of his anger they are no more.
10 The lions may roar and growl,
yet the teeth of the great lions are broken.
11 The lion perishes for lack of prey,
and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

12 “A word was secretly brought to me,
my ears caught a whisper of it.
13 Amid disquieting dreams in the night,
when deep sleep falls on people,
14 fear and trembling seized me
and made all my bones shake.
15 A spirit glided past my face,
and the hair on my body stood on end.
16 It stopped,
but I could not tell what it was.
A form stood before my eyes,
and I heard a hushed voice:
17 ‘Can a mortal be more righteous than God?
Can even a strong man be more pure than his Maker?
18 If God places no trust in his servants,
if he charges his angels with error,
19 how much more those who live in houses of clay,
whose foundations are in the dust,
who are crushed more readily than a moth!
20 Between dawn and dusk they are broken to pieces;
unnoticed, they perish forever.
21 Are not the cords of their tent pulled up,
so that they die without wisdom?’

Job 5

1 “Call if you will, but who will answer you?
To which of the holy ones will you turn?
2 Resentment kills a fool,
and envy slays the simple.
3 I myself have seen a fool taking root,
but suddenly his house was cursed.
4 His children are far from safety,
crushed in court without a defender.
5 The hungry consume his harvest,
taking it even from among thorns,
and the thirsty pant after his wealth.
6 For hardship does not spring from the soil,
nor does trouble sprout from the ground.
7 Yet man is born to trouble
as surely as sparks fly upward.

8 “But if I were you, I would appeal to God;
I would lay my cause before him.
9 He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
miracles that cannot be counted.

Originally posted by CaDreamer
IF GOD IS OMNIPOTENT THEN HE KNOWS EVERYTHING..AS IN THE ALPHA AND OMEGA SCRIPTURE. HE THEREFORE KNEW WHAT SATAN WOULD BE BEFORE HE CREATED HIM, THUS GOD IS AN ADVOCATE OF CHAOS OR HE IS EVIL.

Yea he knew, but it doesn't mean he can't punish them... If I made something and knew it was gonna be bad by my own rules of free will, do i let it go unpunished?

no.

The good far outwieghs the bad God created plain and simple. And BTW why all caps? We can read normally. lol.

Originally posted by FriendlyGopher
Obviously your talking about YOUR god from the bible.

Aside from that bible portraying a god that is vengeful, violent and evil one story basically covers all.

The one where he asks this guy to kill his own kid and gets in his head to basically brainwash him to do so.
At the moment the poor chap wants to kill his son god pops up saying "It was all a joke dude just kill a lamb and chill out"

Well nowadays that "god" would go to jail for this type of behavior

Not my kind of loving god thank you.

God made death, so back then when they realized this and because he spoke face to face with God, he knew as God knew he would know, God might want to take his son early.

Again, it was a test of faith, just because you don't understand it but look at it through your earthly mind doesn't mean it's insane...

Jail was created by the fore fathers of this country based on the 10 commandments... that, that same God came up with...

This is a good post OP.... here's my simple take on it since I'm no brain surgeon.



ASSUMING God were real. Which I believe.


God made us.

We have love in us.

Who put it in us?

Us?

no.

GOD DID..


It's like saying the apple got off the tree without any tree being there.


God is love. Every act of love is from his grace.. God said it would be like this near the end. A Few knuckleheads without understanding would mock what they don't understand... and would lead many astray..


anyways good OP!

Where are the dinosaurs? Who cares...
That it? That's your answer?
Millions of years in the creation and along comes man with a belief in a God and poof, they never existed. Nought, zilch, not a jot said about them.
So God in his infinite wisdom decided to created beasts so terrifying, so huge, for so long, ruling this world, just to confuse us?
If that's the case, yeah maybe a few 10's of thousands of years but not millions of years.
I find it unacceptable that man, whom has only inhabited this earth in such a short time, can by sheer ego and imagination, create a fantasy so that his world view has some meaning, without prior knowledge and intelligence of what went before him.
You can spout from the bible as much as you like but facts are facts.
The 1st book of Genesis is fiction, the rest made up from various men with a belief system that fitted their times.

reply to post by sussy


The OP like most religous zealots comes at us with the notion that all the problems in the world will be solved if only we'd stop our opposition to his/her politics. I totally agree with you I could not believe the answer over dinosaurs. Inconvenient scientific facts ignore them, also a number of posters have pointed out that the bible demonstates any number of evils commited by their God. Textural criticisms, ignore them too. Also the OP slid by this little fact rather disingenuously considering their assertion that god is good. That's the fact that their God killed around 2.5 million according to the Bible whereas in the same book Satan killed 10. Doesn't make either particularly pleasant people but at least God does it 'cos he loves us. If only we'd stop being naughty children!

Against the rather massive repetition of the same theist propaganda slogans again and again, I'm sure, that real rational reasoning eventually will bring clarity. Though it may take some time, as the thread-author's semantic style appears almost incomprehensible in its semantic incoherence.

When reading the various verbal 'equations' presented here, I regularly ask myself: "Does this MEAN anything at all, or is it just a tangled mass of words with the only purpose of creating a smokescreen". A lot of time is wasted on trying to search for a meaning, which probably isn't there.

That the author categorically try to avoid answering any questions, which could bring him/her into a reality-check situation, I also find significant. Only areas of vague and undefinable concepts emerge, because they won't threaten any of the theist postulates on the thread.

So I have spent some time trying to construct a parallel example of this special kind of non-reasoning used here:

A is similar to B, but B is dissimilar to C. Now I will INVENT a cosmic principle of mirrored dualities, which is a constant, including even speculated concepts. So no matter how absurd any concept is, it MUST have an opposite according to my invented principle. Consequently the concept splitsplatpilaffendyp (which I need to 'prove' my pre-determined answer) has a mirror image, with the imaginary value of the square-root of minus one, which according to sacred geometry and the atomic weight of water (the building material of cosmos) exactly gives the necessary counter-point 'god' has made to make complexity aware of itself.

Now let A be splitsplatpilaffendyp and C be the imaginary value of the square-root of minus one, and thus we can clearly see that the bible 'logically' and 'rationally' states, that 'god' IS evil; .... but that's all for the best; because what creation thinks about this is of no importance. Only 'god's' whims matter, and suffering will in any case give us some spine.

I'm sorry to post such as this, but considering that the author has gotten away with its twin-brother in non-reasoning through most of this thread, I felt I would take the chance and risk an off-topic verdict on this post. I would ofcourse have preferred to present a real rational demonstration of the semantics used by the author, but there are to my knowledge no rational versions of his/her style.

My next post will, according to the tradition of this thread, be the promised preachings from my perspective. In full on-topic relationship to OP.

reply to post by JesusisTruthh


Dead people are dead. There will be a "resurrection of the dead". No one goes anywhere at the time of their death. They are DEAD. Churches teach that billions are sent to an eternal hell of fire and are not even judged before they go there. Hell is a man made invention. It is no where to be found in the Hebrew or Greek manuscripts. The definition of hell of four centuries ago: "hell, to cover or conceal"....The hell of the 21st century: the abode of condemned souls and devils....etc.." The meaning of words change, and when they change to the very opposite of what they meant a long time ago, it is important to take a long hard look at them. What does an unconscious death in the grave have in common with a conscious life of eternal torture in fire? Nothing! Please be careful with the Bibles that you read. The KJV is translated in Latin a lot of the time, not Greek or Hebrew. (l Ray Smith)

In the story of Job, why would an omniscient, omnipotent being allow the satan character to destroy Job's family and livelyhood in a bet if he already knew the outcome? Many people were killed because of this wager just to prove a point. How is that good? Would it be good to you if it happened to you and your family?

How was it good when the biblical god allowed 42 young men to be destroyed by two female bears when they made fun of Elisha's bald head?

How was it good to keep the virgin girls of the enemy after the Hebrews won their battles, but kill all the baby boys? Would you do that if you were in war today against an enemy nation? Could you pull the trigger on babies because it was good? That is sick, imo.

How is it good to require blood sacrifice through the killing of innocent creatures as a way to offer forgiveness?

And finally, the bible speaks of a war between our flesh and spirit. Our flesh is mortal, it only lasts for a blink of an eye in respect to eternity, which our spirit exists in. But, when we die and become pure spirit, we will be punished for eternity for what we did in our mortal fleshly bodies that only existed for the blink of an eye. And being in this fleshly body, we could not determine whether or not gods were real, or more specific the biblical god, therefore we will be tortured forever and ever. This god understands every reason for our disbelief and knows that while in this fleshly body it is difficult to believe, as many do not see any evidence or reason to believe or that most can not muster the faith to believe or perhaps have different beliefs, yet will still allow the punishment of eternal torture in fire. How is that good?

Originally posted by Hydroman
In the story of Job, why would an omniscient, omnipotent being allow the satan character to destroy Job's family and livelyhood in a bet if he already knew the outcome? Many people were killed because of this wager just to prove a point. How is that good? Would it be good to you if it happened to you and your family?


Well, first of all. Jobs life wasn't destroyed as he regained a family after that, and was proven through faith. Everyone dies. So you hydroman have the right to say when God takes peoples family or not? Did God say they were sent to hell? So if God took them early to heaven to test job, yet it's a bad thing? Only to your human mind. Everyone dies, it's a reality. If it happened to my family I would say: I believe they are in heaven. God took them when he allowed to.


How was it good when the biblical god allowed 42 young men to be destroyed by two female bears when they made fun of Elisha's bald head?

Because Elisha was a prophet and what those men said had specific meaning. The young men were most likely evil and God allowed them to be put to death. Only God can read their hearts. He' gonna do what's best for this World, not for hydromans humanly guess of who these men were.



How was it good to keep the virgin girls of the enemy after the Hebrews won their battles, but kill all the baby boys? Would you do that if you were in war today against an enemy nation? Could you pull the trigger on babies because it was good? That is sick, imo.

Why do so many atheist believe in pro choice and abortion. Do you? Why is God against abortion and yet allowed this? because he is the maker of life and death. It was his choice to do this (I couldn't do it myself), but it was his choice because of how that tribe taunted and baited the isrealites into sin, to put all the male species to death. These are one of those instance where you have to wait for God to explain it to see exactly why he did it.


How is it good to require blood sacrifice through the killing of innocent creatures as a way to offer forgiveness?

How is it not? God deals with sin through chastisement. Maybee he chose to make those certain innocent creatures as an offering. Your mind isn't his.





And finally, the bible speaks of a war between our flesh and spirit. Our flesh is mortal, it only lasts for a blink of an eye in respect to eternity, which our spirit exists in. But, when we die and become pure spirit, we will be punished for eternity for what we did in our mortal fleshly bodies that only existed for the blink of an eye. And being in this fleshly body, we could not determine whether or not gods were real, or more specific the biblical god, therefore we will be tortured forever and ever. This god understands every reason for our disbelief and knows that while in this fleshly body it is difficult to believe, as many do not see any evidence or reason to believe or that most can not muster the faith to believe or perhaps have different beliefs, yet will still allow the punishment of eternal torture in fire. How is that good?

edit on 5-7-2011 by Hydroman because: (no reason given)

The body seems to be a test of selfishness. The orgasm, the foods, all the good things seem to be a testing ground to prove our unselfishness so we can be made worthy for the afterlife.

again, it's not a blink of an eye. We have every oppurtunity to win the war against our bodies. And, sure we could determine it, infact many saints determined it and worked many miracles for God because of their faith.

I was not in this religion and made fun of it, and God converted me. He can lead anyone out of any faith into the true faith who is sincere, and will.


peace.

reply to post by JesusisTruthh


What I gather from your response is that no matter what answer we give, we can not be right because we don't know your god's mind. Also, it seems that you believe that if you've got the might, you've got the right, no matter how wrong it seems to everyone else.

You have the right to believe that way, but I don't believe that might equals right.

Imo, this life is like the blink of an eye compared to eternity, just like the May Fly's one day lifespan is like a blink of an eye compared to the human lifespan. You may not feel that way, but I do. Imo, if we lived 1,000,000 years it would still be like the blink of an eye compared to eternity. No one deserves to be punished FOR ETERNITY no matter what they did. But again, I don't have the same mind as your sick god, so my opinion doesn't really matter.

But let me ask you this...do you disagree with what other gods have done or said in other scriptures? If so, could it be because you don't have their mind? So how could you judge them by your standards since you are not a god? By using your god's standards? If so, why is your god's standards better than any other god's and how do you come to that conclusion?

If anyone else, either today or in the past, had committed the same terrible acts as your god they would be considered "evil". Like Hitler for example, trying to destroy an entire race of people as god also did with the Canaanites. Hitler was evil, but god was good.

Originally posted by Hydroman
reply to post by JesusisTruthh

 

What I gather from your response is that no matter what answer we give, we can not be right because we don't know your god's mind. Also, it seems that you believe that if you've got the might, you've got the right, no matter how wrong it seems to everyone else.

You have the right to believe that way, but I don't believe that might equals right.

Imo, this life is like the blink of an eye compared to eternity, just like the May Fly's one day lifespan is like a blink of an eye compared to the human lifespan. You may not feel that way, but I do. Imo, if we lived 1,000,000 years it would still be like the blink of an eye compared to eternity. No one deserves to be punished FOR ETERNITY no matter what they did. But again, I don't have the same mind as your sick god, so my opinion doesn't really matter.

edit on 5-7-2011 by Hydroman because: (no reason given)

ofcourse you don't, because God's mind isn't sick. I mean why would he teach about love anyways and say it's the fullfillment of the law, and why would he tell us to love our enemies?

Obviously he's sick, or he's misundertood....

Hydro nice talking with you

reply to post by aero56

The KJV is translated in Latin a lot of the time, not Greek or Hebrew.

The KJV was essentially written by Erasmus from the Greek and Hebrew, into the legalese/scientific, standardized Latin, which was converted wholesale into the English. Erasmus did all the hard work of writing the Bible. It was a simple thing to take it from there and did not require biblical knowledge but the translators were people dependable to make sure it ended up supporting English official Church doctrine.

Originally posted by JesusisTruthh

ofcourse you don't, because God's mind isn't sick. I mean why would he teach about love anyways and say it's the fullfillment of the law, and why would he tell us to love our enemies?

Obviously he's sick, or he's misundertood....

Hydro nice talking with you

It's one thing to teach something, it's another to practice what you preach, as your god did not.

reply to post by SuperiorEd


First off: If there is a God I don't think he is need of you to defend him.

Second:

If an all-powerful and perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.
There is evil in the world.
Therefore, an all-powerful and perfectly good god does not exist.

I have heard people respond with the free-will argument, but it is a fragile and unsound defense. God allows Evil in order for mankind to manifest it's "goodness".

If God was omnipotent he could do without Evil all together.

And it doesn't explain tsunami's or earthquakes.

I do believe in a God, I just also accept that Gods values, sentiments and operations are far beyond the comprehension of mankind. It would be like finding a rabbit that speaks fluent english and solves complex physics riddles.

Religion offers a route to spirituality, but to subjagate that spiritual exploration to the literal bible or orthodox church is to take the easy and false path IMO.

Originally posted by Hydroman

Originally posted by JesusisTruthh

ofcourse you don't, because God's mind isn't sick. I mean why would he teach about love anyways and say it's the fullfillment of the law, and why would he tell us to love our enemies?

Obviously he's sick, or he's misundertood....

Hydro nice talking with you

It's one thing to teach something, it's another to practice what you preach, as your god did not.

because he's the judge.. he can take life he seems worthy of who he reads the heart of. Doesn't mean he's not practicing it himself. Difference is he's the judge and we aren't. he made life we didn't. love comes from him or else we wouldn't have it in us.

The term free will has a word that lets you know the answer. 'Free' means unrestricted, but not without consequence. This means that God did not know about Satan. He likely realized it was coming. He did, however, know that man would fall. He warned man about it even. He realized that Satan would tempt man. Instead of stopping Satan's free will, He allowed His own law of free will to stand. God used the circumstance to demonstrate love for His creation. This is truly good through and through. God has victory in the end, while still allowing the gift He gave of free will. The choice to rebel belongs to the one who rebels. God is good in this as far as you can stretch any argument against.

Originally posted by JesusisTruthh

Originally posted by CaDreamer
IF GOD IS OMNIPOTENT THEN HE KNOWS EVERYTHING..AS IN THE ALPHA AND OMEGA SCRIPTURE. HE THEREFORE KNEW WHAT SATAN WOULD BE BEFORE HE CREATED HIM, THUS GOD IS AN ADVOCATE OF CHAOS OR HE IS EVIL.

Yea he knew, but it doesn't mean he can't punish them... If I made something and knew it was gonna be bad by my own rules of free will, do i let it go unpunished?

no.

The good far outwieghs the bad God created plain and simple. And BTW why all caps? We can read normally. lol.

No free will can exist apart form the possibility that one choice will be evil. God is good because He dares to allow this option. He is good because He provides grace (Unmerited favor). He does the impossible. Sentience that can choose good. His law is love. If you choose to hate, you are on your own. This is separation. You still live forever, just apart form the good that you threw back at God in his face. I do not choose that eternal outcome.

Originally posted by Indigo5
reply to post by SuperiorEd

 

First off: If there is a God I don't think he is need of you to defend him.

Second:

If an all-powerful and perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.
There is evil in the world.
Therefore, an all-powerful and perfectly good god does not exist.

I have heard people respond with the free-will argument, but it is a fragile and unsound defense. God allows Evil in order for mankind to manifest it's "goodness".

If God was omnipotent he could do without Evil all together.

And it doesn't explain tsunami's or earthquakes.

I do believe in a God, I just also accept that Gods values, sentiments and operations are far beyond the comprehension of mankind. It would be like finding a rabbit that speaks fluent english and solves complex physics riddles.

Religion offers a route to spirituality, but to subjagate that spiritual exploration to the literal bible or orthodox church is to take the easy and false path IMO.

reply to post by SuperiorEd


From all that you say, why is God such a sought after commodity?

I am not for or against - just logic tells me that I (and all others that care) MUST do what they can to make all lives better, take away suffering, especially from those who deserve better (i.e. famine stricken nations with chop em up mentalities of the tyrant leaders).

With that said; tell me why we need god anyway? He does little to fix the terrible wrongs --- I beleive in higher than god does - fix not just "welcome all and love them" --- FIX things, take part, become active - not just "believe and pray mentality".

Read the posts in this thread. God is either good or He is not. The evidence is against you bias. What is bias? This is taking the high ground against someone you perceive to be on low ground. This is called pride. The original sin was pride. There is no ground above God. If you think you are speaking down to God with "insert your age" years of experience and learning, you will be put to shame by God in the end. He already put His answers to you in His Word. With God, equality is His choice. Love is the rule.

Originally posted by Hydroman

Originally posted by JesusisTruthh

ofcourse you don't, because God's mind isn't sick. I mean why would he teach about love anyways and say it's the fullfillment of the law, and why would he tell us to love our enemies?

Obviously he's sick, or he's misundertood....

Hydro nice talking with you

It's one thing to teach something, it's another to practice what you preach, as your god did not.