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

Originally posted by ExistentialNightmare

Originally posted by gaia.chi.au
proof !!!! 1 + 1 + 2 !!!!!!!!! omg ! !!!!!

if god existed why didn't he just write the bible himself ?

He'd rather make some men in the desert write it for him. Wouldn't China have been a better place to disseminate the word? They could read and write and had a vast civilisation.

Considering the anti-educational and anti-rational elements of the missionary parts of the christianities, an advanced civilization would be the least suitable place to start a religion like christianity.

Besides that the impact of taoist and buddhist attitudes on 'good' and 'evil' on asian culture would make the christian version of 'ethics' almost unsellable.

Who would want to exchange a non-attached pragmatic observation of suffering (and a funtional way of relating to it), to postulates originating from an invisible paranoic/megalomanic character from a book of violence, spread by people with a long history of violence.

reply to post by bogomil

. . .no appearant need for any extra 'explanations'.

In case someone is thinking there may be an actual explanation at that link-to thread, I can summarize it for you. "three natures of creation" and good luck trying to ever get what that means by reading the thread. You will find a lot of speculation of fallen angels, though, and how we may (or may not) actually be them and have to "break out of the world". I guess a big prison break, to escape this prison planet, and of course that would involve leaving behind a dead rock planet, but oh well, they deserved it. Those who did not believe us.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by bogomil

 

. . .no appearant need for any extra 'explanations'.

In case someone is thinking there may be an actual explanation at that link-to thread, I can summarize it for you. "three natures of creation" and good luck trying to ever get what that means by reading the thread. You will find a lot of speculation of fallen angels, though, and how we may (or may not) actually be them and have to "break out of the world". I guess a big prison break, to escape this prison planet, and of course that would involve leaving behind a dead rock planet, but oh well, they deserved it. Those who did not believe us.

edit on 6-7-2011 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

The pauline trinity-concept is actually a very interesting facet of debates (or sermons) like the present one.

It mirrors a lot of pauline-christian attitudes, methods and not least ethical implications (the debated switch from a female 'holy spirit' to a male one. Clearly a tactical move against nature-religions).

But also the intrinsic content of the 'trinity' is worth considering; ofcourse from a theology-analytical position, not as a 'believer'. It is, as with much of the bible, borrowed material.

A trinity-concept is found in all indo-asian-european cultures in some more or less diluted version, with the oldest ones (as I have been able to trace) from hinduism, tantra and buddhism.

The fascination thing about the older, original versions of a trinity-concept (trigunic models) is, that there are some relatively rational elements in them, both from a contemporary scientific perspective and from a philosophical/theological perspective (but don't put to much into my words on this).

Relating to this thread on an alleged, self-confirming divine ethics, the original tri-gunic models gave ethics less prominence as a trans-cosmic 'absolute', but regarded it more on an almost utilitarian background as a relative phenomenon, being a subsidiary part of the overall 'suffering' considerations.

Thus 'good' is not satisfying some 'god's' whims, but a pragmatic lessening of suffering. The subject 'suffering' already 'explained' by some christians as necessary (ofcourse from THEIR premises) as an alternative.

reply to post by bogomil
You are a real asset to this forum and thanks for your hard work correcting and informing.
Let me give an example, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Seems like a lot of people think the first is good.
I say the first is the worst, it is the deceiver, promising glory if you go to war.
It is destructive religion that leaves death and destruction in its wake.

Originally posted by SuperiorEd

Okay. One more. God gave us free will but also equality. If we cannot choose evil, but are restricted, then we are not equal with God in a bond of love and choice. We create just like God. We have free will just like God. We have choice just like God.

You speak as if God is given a choice between good and evil. This is false logic. God creates the choices. He does not choose amongst a reality handed to him. He creates reality including the neccessity for Evil. Why does he include evil amongst the choices?

To claim that Evil must exist for people to choose good implies that God is not omnipotent but rather is restricted in his ability to create the world.

An omnipotent God could simply create Good without evil. Saints without serial killers. Children without cancer. To claim that one MUST exist for the other to exist is a limitation upon Gods power of creation and leads to the question "who dictates to God the rules of creation?" The God of God? See the logical difficulty in that premise?

He is either all powerful and has created evil in the world by choice or he is all good and is not all powerful since evil exists.

To say that evil must exist in order for love or goodness to exist is saying that God is limited in his power of creation.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by bogomil

 

You are a real asset to this forum and thanks for your hard work correcting and informing.
Let me give an example, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Seems like a lot of people think the first is good.
I say the first is the worst, it is the deceiver, promising glory if you go to war.
It is destructive religion that leaves death and destruction in its wake.

Thanks for your answer.

Honestly I must say, that I don't have any greater understanding of the apocalypse (except from having read it ofcourse). The 'signs, wonders and prophecies' department has never been something attracting me. I prefer material which somewhere, somehow can give you at least some firm ground to stand on.

My active interests are on such as comparative religion/mythology, real science, the meeting-point of science/religion and the philosophy-of-science together with general epistemology.

Relating to both your post and to topic, I find the chronology of the bible, and especially of the apocalypse rather confusing. The 'pride' of angels and the consequent war-in-heaven can take place both at square one of christian mythology or at the end-time scenario.

Relying on non-christian texts on this war in heaven and angelogy in general, it's of some importance for mankind's part of all this to have the chronology settled. After all the real conflict wasn't about satan's overzealous bureaucracy in the divine administration, but about what's alternatively called a rebellion or a freedom-movement. What 'good' or 'bad' depends on if you're propagandizised to be a terrorist or a freedom-fighter.

This is much a war of slogans and clichées.

reply to post by Indigo5


You wrote:

["You speak as if God is given a choice between good and evil. This is false logic. God creates the choices. He does not choose amongst a reality handed to him. He creates reality including the neccessity for Evil. Why does he include evil amongst the choices?"]

I'm in complete agreement. As I've written earlier, the options of the situation are already arranged, and 'god' has made it so, that mankind has to walk on a tight rope surrounded by blessing, threats and other supernatural paraphernalia to arrive at the expected, but socalled free-will choice.

I guess, that theists have some blind spot concerning logic on that point. "You are free to choose, but there will be CONSEQUENCES". If that's the best they (the theist) can think of in a free-will context, I almost pity them.
For me such a limited free-will concept would be a mental prison. Maybe it IS that for them, if "I want to be a slave of 'god' " is to be taken seriously.

Originally posted by bogomil
guess, that theists have some blind spot concerning logic on that point. "You are free to choose, but there will be CONSEQUENCES". If that's the best they (the theist) can think of in a free-will context, I almost pity them.

How does the concept of choice and consequence conflict with reality? Of course there are consequences for bad choices. Should there be no electricity or lawnmowers. Why do humans make these when all they do is allow the possibility of bad choices. Nothing prevents someone from climbing the fence and checking out the voltage or sticking their hand inside a running lawnmower. So would that make these devices evil?

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[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1e254be9ccec.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by dbates

Nothing prevents someone from climbing the fence and checking out the voltage or sticking their hand inside a running lawnmower. So would that make these devices evil?

It's ironic, because alledgedly this deity gave us free will, and a few hundred thousands years of human evolution God finally decides to tell us how to use it; because apparently we're naturally sick.

Of course it doesn't make those devices evil; similarly science can be used to create Nuclear Bombs which destroy life; does that make science evil? Of course not.

But if doctrine ("THE WORD OF GOD") states that homosexuality is evil, does that make homosexuality evil?

reply to post by bogomil

This is much a war of slogans and clichées.

Like the Crusades, and slogans like "the Holy Land"?
My point is that I am forced to agree with atheists more than believers and that is sad and an indictment against religion.
There are those who will say you are against God by pointing out error. But it is our duty when it does not end in philosophical discussions but real people and piles of bodies of people who never wanted to enter the debate.

Originally posted by bogomil

The 'options' of right or wrong you refer to are defined by and decided on in advance, by the intrinsic assumptions/postulates of your system. It's called a double-bind, and can only lead to the 'answers', which are expected from the beginning.

And what scripture can you point to which says that? Don't make things up to back up your answers, if you can't back it by scripture then it must be false according to this thread.

Originally posted by ExistentialNightmare
But if doctrine ("THE WORD OF GOD") states that homosexuality is evil, does that make homosexuality evil?

First you have to answer the question "what is evil?". If by evil you mean thoughts of malice and hateful thinking a villain would have. If you mean that this is evil as in someone making calculated thoughts about how to do wrong. If you mean that as evil then I would say no, homosexuality is not "evil".

I think evil is the wrong word to use. Homosexuality is a sin which means something done outside of God's will or desired path of action. If God made lawnmowers and you stuck your hand in the running blade it wouldn't be evil but it would certainly not be the use that God planned for the lawnmower. With that thought go back and look at the very first commandment God gave Adam and Eve. No, it wasn't not to eat the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The first commandment was this.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.
Genesis 1:28

This is one of the reasons the Catholic church does not approve of contraception of any kind. And of course I fully expect the rebuttal about how some people never get married and some married people don't have kids. Are those people sinning as well? But what about those people that have physical defects that keep them from reproducing? Is being ugly a physical defect and can we allow for that being a valid reason to not have a mate? Now we're getting into some really deep issues that personally I don't think this thread needs to or would support diving into. So, to be brief there is an established pattern or design that God has made. Men + women = new people. This is not just a good idea, it's a natural law that can't be changed. God sees homosexuality and says "Dude! You're doing it wrong!" which in our terms we call sin.

Back to the lawnmower analogy. Those things are made to cut grass but you could do many other things with them if you choose. You could turn them on their side and make it into a fan but that's not safe. Hey you could even hold it up and trim tree branches with it if you were strong enough but that's risky behavior and bad things could happen if you use the equipment in a manner other than what it was designed for. There are negative repercussions for not following the directions.

reply to post by dbates


Ofcourse there are consequences. Causality is a major part of cosmic existence and the base of most of our present knowledge (science/logic).

That's measurable (up and until an epistemological sceptical position, which I as a philosophical scepticist share to some extent), but the theist/metaphysical 'consequences' are just so many speculative postulates, which ought to be presented from 'agnostic positions' rather than as self-proving universal 'absolutes'.

There's something slightly insulting about: "I'm right, because I'm right" (or my religious manual is 'right), and "because I'm right, because I'm right, you must consequently be wrong".

Arranging a whole trans-cosmic originated scenario on ethical values, 'good, 'bad', reward, punishment etc. can hardly be compared to the 'relative reality' of lawnmovers.

I hope this answer covered your questions. I may have missed some essential point.

Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by bogomil

 

This is much a war of slogans and clichées.

Like the Crusades, and slogans like "the Holy Land"?
My point is that I am forced to agree with atheists more than believers and that is sad and an indictment against religion.
There are those who will say you are against God by pointing out error. But it is our duty when it does not end in philosophical discussions but real people and piles of bodies of people who never wanted to enter the debate.

edit on 6-7-2011 by jmdewey60 because: (no reason given)

I'm in a similar position myself. I'm a guarded metaphysicist, and am often in the situation, where I have to 'defend' my position and my material in two different directions. Atheists thinking I'm going too far, and theists thinking, I'm not going far enough.

But generally the atheists are easier to get along with. They are in my experience always somewhat open and at least civil concerning my 'weird' ideas, because I acknowledge the value of science/logic and follow the science/logic method as long, as it carries. My small extravagancies into the metaphysical are not considered threats either.

Originally posted by RealTruthSeeker

Originally posted by bogomil

The 'options' of right or wrong you refer to are defined by and decided on in advance, by the intrinsic assumptions/postulates of your system. It's called a double-bind, and can only lead to the 'answers', which are expected from the beginning.

And what scripture can you point to which says that? Don't make things up to back up your answers, if you can't back it by scripture then it must be false according to this thread.

edit on 6-7-2011 by RealTruthSeeker because: (no reason given)

I wasn't aware, that this thread ultimately defines 'truth' or 'reality' or methods for finding such. It makes some faith-based postulates, probably referring to the bible in the end, but I'm not bound by such premises (as many theists here appear to believe).

I should relate to the topic, but from whatever position I choose. Are you suggesting some kind of censorship on how, who and why for participation?

reply to post by dbates

First you have to answer the question "what is evil?". If by evil you mean thoughts of malice and hateful thinking a villain would have. If you mean that this is evil as in someone making calculated thoughts about how to do wrong.

Indeed, i very much understand evil; it's the amalgamation of the intent to do bad, it's the greed; it's the killing and destruction of life just for fun.

You don't have to be religious in order to use the word evil (or even "soul")

If you mean that as evil then I would say no, homosexuality is not "evil".

But it is detestable? It is an abomination?

What's detestable about love? Why is it such an abomination? I direct these questions to doctrine as well as yourself.

Homosexuality is a sin which means something done outside of God's will or desired path of action.

But how do you know God condemns this act of love? Is it the "bible says so" argument? What about the killing of the Amalekites? God desired their destruction; does that make it good? Should this "path of action" be fulfilled?

If God made lawnmowers and you stuck your hand in the running blade it wouldn't be evil but it would certainly not be the use that God planned for the lawnmower.

I understand your point, but humans "planned" the lawnmower, not God; it was designed for a practical use; not chopping off hands. If it does chop hands; it doesn't make it evil, it's an inanimate object.

This is one of the reasons the Catholic church does not approve of contraception of any kind

The Roman Catholic (The Pope) insisted that condoms worsened the aids crisis; moral preaching? I don't think so. It's no wonder he had to perform a U-Turn.

We all know that abstinence prevents pregnancy, we all know that being faithful to your partner prevents pregnancy, BUT SO DO CONDOMS!

And of course this objection to contraceptives does no favours to their arguments against abortion; which i support. But i also support a woman's access to contraceptives, and i support contraceptive education. But we all know the Catholic church has a problem with women making choices, and is obsessed with the female reproductive system.

Originally posted by bogomil

Are you suggesting some kind of censorship on how, who and why for participation?

No, but the op did ask that you provide examples from the bible.

Originally posted by RealTruthSeeker

Originally posted by bogomil

Are you suggesting some kind of censorship on how, who and why for participation?

No, but the op did ask that you provide examples from the bible.

edit on 6-7-2011 by RealTruthSeeker because: (no reason given)

Yes, that point has already been chewed over. The OP author is in no position of putting up such conditions. I could exclusively refer to a car-repairing manual, if it had any bearing on the topic.

Originally posted by ExistentialNightmare
What's detestable about love? Why is it such an abomination? I direct these questions to doctrine as well as yourself.

I already gave you a basic answer to this question and I don't think that this is the purpose of this thread or that it should be addressed in such great detail here. People should make specific threads to address these topics in greater detail. Every discussion doesn't have to be a good vs. evil/God vs. no God thread and I suspect that a more narrow topic would actually attract more interesting conversation. Honestly I get tired of talking about basic generalities that are discussed to ad nauseam here.

Originally posted by ExistentialNightmare
What about the killing of the Amalekites? God desired their destruction; does that make it good?

The Amalekites were the first to attack Israel when they left Egypt and they're the ones that started the offensive. Even though God declared judgement would come to Amalek he left a period of over 200 years for that to change. During this period of time the Amalekites were allowed to move into and live with and among the Israelites. They could buy land and build houses, marry and have children with the people of Israel. It was only after a few centuries of continued cross-border attacks and aggression that they were ordered to finally wipe out those that did not move in with the Israelis. It isn't as if they were not given a chance.

The Amalekites were essentially a group of marauding bandit nomads who traveled around plundering and pillaging anyone they could. Those that chose to settle down in Israel were spared. Those that kept acting like Captain Jack Sparrow were finally wiped out. Wiping out every last man, woman, and child was an act of last resort when these groups wouldn't cooperate or stop terrorizing the Israelis.

Oh, let's pretend we can discuss and gain something from threads like these, shall we?

Ok... My problem is not with god at all, it's his "fan club" that seems to be a little misguided (at least).


See, if I tell anyone that every day I sit down and "talk to an invisible elf, that lives in Middle-Earth, and is of a higher wisdom then I, and I ask him for advices on how to live my life, and he helps me" I'd probably be considered a mental patient, delusional at least.

But if I change the words "elf" for "god" and "Middle-Earth" for "Heaven", then I shall not be considered a mental patient, but a respectable religious person.

Why?

Neither "the elf" or "god" are going to disrespect me, try to make me feel bad in any way... but the people... well, I can't say the same about them.


Allah, God, Yeshua, Bhagwan, Vishnu, Yahweh, Elohim, Mother Earth... never ever, EVER, have been seen to actually harm anyone (nor doing anything GOOD, for the matter)... but their fans.... well. I think I'll stop here, I hope I got my message across.


Peace