atheism

[Akheron]

I know God’s plan in that it is taught to me by the Church and the Bible.
Isaiah 45:7 simply says that God makes all things. Not the devil because they were once angels; not evil because everything were once good (see Genesis).

I form the light, and create the darkness,
I make well-being and create woe;
I, the Lord, do all these things. Is45:7

It seems that some translations state quite clearly that God created evil, it’s a pity that God did not see fit to divinely inspire all the translators or to divinely endow all mankind with the knowledge of His chosen language.

It is already mentioned here many times – from man’s choice because he is given freewill.

God created man with the grain of sin inside him and the ability to let it grow. I am sorry, but I can only say that if God hadn’t wanted sin to roam in His creation, He would have created man another way. It can be so that the choice of doing evil is man’s but the ultimate responsibility for the existence of evil in the first place lies with the creator of all things.

No you don’t. I respect your belief even if you don’t believe in God. I only come in to clarify when you misunderstand Christianity and when you misrepresent it. I am merely stating what Christian believes about God not what everybody believes.

Are you stating what every Christian believes or should believe about God?

You do not believe in God but if you want to talk about him it is reasonable to at least listen to what the believers believe what God is.

I do my best to listen, my apologies if I disappoint you.

Yes, you are right. You could not possibly understand the love of God until and unless you experience it. Nobody can describe it to you or make you truly understand without you believing and experiencing it.

I believe that you are trying to describe God’s love to me in your next post. What is the point then?

You reject God, how then can you experience and understand his love? If you believe and experience his love, how then can you reject him?

I do not reject your God, I merely reject the probability of the existence of a deity of any kind.

You seem to believe that I first “rejected” (your word) God, thus depriving myself of the possibility of experiencing His love. Have you considered that perhaps my “rejection” (your word) does not come in the beginning of my reflecting process, but at the very end of it? I wanted to believe, but didn’t experience anything and thus came to the conclusion that I would choose to ground my life in the respect of myself and my fellow human beings rather than on the existence of a invisible divine power.

Yes. Sorry but that’s what it teaches. “ … eternal life for one who believe …”

Don’t be sorry, I am quite ok with that.

There are many things involved here. Since you don’t want to take it from me about the love of God, it makes this discussion a bit difficult. But I try.

I appreciate your effort.

You are defining love according to what it means to you and then proceeding to apply it accordingly. You cannot do that with God. In fact an English language does not have a word for God’s love. We take it from Greek – agape. His love is not erotic love or brotherly love but agape love.

Again you have to consider all the history of God as revealed to mankind from the beginning to truly understand why he does the thing he does.

You are speaking therefore on a wrong premise and I cannot answer you on that.

Wasn’t the Old Testament written in Hebrew? Didn’t God also had to create a Hebrew word to express the notion of His love to the Israelites?

I have to wonder why God didn’t make His love crystal clear and available for all His creatures regardless of the differences in languages and time periods. After all we would still have the free will to reject Him even if we understood Him perfectly.

No you are not. We are only trying to discuss a point. No problem. The Inquisitors were wrong and not God abiding. Some of the things they did have been disassociated with by the Church. John Paul 2 formally said them during his reign. I should say that’s an old argument and has ceased to interest.

So the Pope that initiated the Inquisition wasn’t infallible after all. That’s interesting.

You can start with us here. It is not difficult to know God – it’s a matter of making a decision

I am again sorry, but I cringe when I read something like that. Would you accept the proposition that it is not difficult to know Allah, you just have to be willing to?

Again, you have to know the background of God’s history with mankind. On the surface it looks oxymoron but it has good rationale if seen in context. Or maybe I did not put it properly for want of words and lack of ability that you don’t seem to access to the rationale.

So God is an apparently oxymoronic entity that hides His rational motives so as not to be directly available to the human experience.

God’s love is also governed by his justice. His justice is delivered with his compassion. He cannot be the truth if his loves betray both.

I must say that I have a big problem with God’s notion of justice, but that is another matter.

And I notice that you too seem to place a lot of limitations on your limitless God.

When creations disobey/sin – they face the consequence –death. That’s the justice. Obey, you experience the wealth of his glory; disobey, you are separated from him – and that means death because we cannot be on our own – there are just too many predators.

In your opinion, how would this world look like if God wasn’t here to help us?

May God bless you. Please don’t be offended about the wish; it’s just a Christian wishing you well.

I am not offended, how could I be? I thank you very much for your kind thought and may your day on earth be as wonderful as possible; I am just a human wishing you well.

 

[Reuben_J]

I agree that God’s instruction is quite obvious, to us. How can you know how an innocent creature without knowledge of good and evil in the Paradise of God would have understood it?

You say they disobeyed, I say they opted for another proposition that seemed to them as justifiable as the first since they had no way of weighing the one against the other in an informed way, as they had no knowledge of good and evil.

Obviously what seems so straight forward for me sounds complicated to you.

Simply it is this: Adam and Eve were created. It was clear to them at first that everything they had, came form the Creator God.

Only later they seemed to forget this because of the temptation, proposition as you said. This was where their free will came in. Should they stick with God or maybe the Serpent’s proposition seemed much more attractive? Which shall I take?

Today it is the same with people, even Christians. Which is the better proposition? We seem to forget why and how we exist. Someone came and says we make ourselves; there is no creator.

If God threatened them with death if they would eat the fruit, does it not imply that they didn’t die prior to that? Do children know what death is before it is explained to them or they see it for themselves?

Silly. They were just created. Children should listen to their parents. God tells us to be like children – which father will not give their children good things; what more the Father in heaven?

Why? Isn’t Genesis part of the inspired Word of God? How could we, mere mortals, simply infer knowledge about God that He chose not to state explicitly?

Of course, my good man, of course. What’s the problem? I can understand Genesis perfectly. Beside there is the Church who keep the faith lest we forgotten. The apostles were with the Lord, practically living with him. Not only he imparted teaching but he showed them the way of life lived practically. I don’t know what more can we ask for?

Why give them an instruction in the first place as He already knew they would eat from the fruit?

That’s the game. Anyway, God started it. Sometimes in history he seemed to regret it when mankind sinned tremendously but he said he would never forget as a mother never forgets her young.

Today many of his creations try to obey his instruction. On the whole his project seems to work well. There was no regret and no turning back for God because his love, unlike ours, never ends.

I agree that I exercise my free will and choose what to do most of the time, according to the situations I am confronted with and taking into account the rights and needs of others.

Yes, because you depend and trust on yourself.

But I use my experience as a human being of some age and the social tools that evolution has formed in my brain, I am not a newly created being with a blank space in my mind and without discernment, subjected to the will of an omnipotent deity.

Surely not, as long as you live on this earth. Same here. Agreed. Free will.

 

[Reuben_J]

God created man with the grain of sin inside him and the ability to let it grow. I am sorry, but I can only say that if God hadn’t wanted sin to roam in His creation, He would have created man another way. It can be so that the choice of doing evil is man’s but the ultimate responsibility for the existence of evil in the first place lies with the creator of all things.

I just only have time for this. I have to go then.

Don’t you realized that you are talking about what you want? You are talking about ‘if’.

I cannot speak for God. He could have created evrything as how we want it - no sin, no hell, no problem, no hardship. But then again, where the ‘fun’?

In fact God did not have to create. Remember I said, by himself he is complete. He does not need of us. I will go on to say his love is infinite. And so you, and sometimes even me, keep on asking why.

It 's the way God works and that’s not based on our supposition.

GTG. I will catch up with you.

God bless.

 

[Akheron]

I just only have time for this. I have to go then.

Don’t you realized that you are talking about what you want? You are talking about ‘if’.

No, I am not talking about what I want. Why would I want that God had created evil?

I am simply trying to understand the whole story, because your Scripture and your doctrine are not as straightforward and easily understandable as you seem to think when you look at them from the outside, you could ask one of the multitude of other Christian Churches that don’t agree with the Catholic Church.

I cannot speak for God.

You stated that you knew His plan, I assumed it gave you some amount of confidence as to whether or not you could explain His motives and His will to me.

He could have created evrything as how we want it - no sin, no hell, no problem, no hardship. But then again, where the ‘fun’?

What’s the ‘fun’ in suffering?

In fact God did not have to create. Remember I said, by himself he is complete. He does not need of us.

You say God didn’t have to create, why did He do it then? For ‘fun’? Because He knew His creatures would have so much more ‘fun’ living than non-living and that it would be very entertaining to watch?

I will go on to say his love is infinite. And so you, and sometimes even me, keep on asking why.

I don’t recall asking you why God’s love is infinite. Remember that we agreed that I couldn’t understand God’s love because I am not a Christian.

It 's the way God works and that’s not based on our supposition.

It is always nice with a bit of firm, consoling conviction in this world of ‘fun’ and suffering.

God bless.

How could you hear me sneeze?

 

[djeter]

Sometimes you can use atheism to confirm your faith. See this twist on Jean-Paul Sartre to follow the logic:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2009/08/04/learning-from-sartre/

dj

 

[Akheron]

Obviously what seems so straight forward for me sounds complicated to you.

I agree.

Simply it is this: Adam and Eve were created. It was clear to them at first that everything they had, came form the Creator God.

Understood.

Only later they seemed to forget this because of the temptation, proposition as you said. This was where their free will came in. Should they stick with God or maybe the Serpent’s proposition seemed much more attractive? Which shall I take?

I understand your words but they don’t address my point and I have to stand by my question: How could Adam and Eve know they were doing something wrong as they didn’t know yet what “wrong” was at that point of the story?

Today it is the same with people, even Christians. Which is the better proposition? We seem to forget why and how we exist. Someone came and says we make ourselves; there is no creator.

I don’t quite understand what you mean when you say human beings believe they make themselves. I don’t recall ever believing I manufactured my left hand, for instance. Do you mean that human beings have studied nature and begun to understand its workings all by themselves?

Silly.

I am sorry to have stated something that offended your intelligence, my apologies.

They were just created. Children should listen to their parents.

Parents should explain to their children the concepts of right and wrong before putting them in a situation where they are at risk of endangering themselves and making what the parents would consider the wrong decision, with disastrous consequences.

Should the parents choose not to enlighten their children, and the children happened to choose the option that is detestable to the parents, should the parents punish the children, their children, grandchildren, etc. for eternity?

God tells us to be like children – which father will not give their children good things; what more the Father in heaven?

Why would God give us free will if all He wants is perfectly obedient children?

If I may state my own position: I try to behave in society as a responsible adult, reflecting in advance about the consequences of my actions and prepared to stand for what I do and say in all situations. That is what human beings try to teach to their children: be mature, take responsibility for yourself, be aware of your shortcomings and work to increase your awareness and understanding of the world and to be a better person. A child cannot not achieve that, it is as we grow up that we progressively gain the knowledge, understanding and respect we need to be a good person in the society we live in.

I can understand Genesis perfectly.

I am glad for you that you have attained a perfect understanding of the Word of God. You should maybe go on a mission to enlighten those of your fellow Christians that cannot agree on whether or not the word “day” should be taken literally in Genesis.

Beside there is the Church who keep the faith lest we forgotten.

Can you trust that the Pope understands the teachings of God as they are intended to be understood? It would seem that some Popes in the past were mislead in their course of action.

The apostles were with the Lord, practically living with him. Not only he imparted teaching but he showed them the way of life lived practically. I don’t know what more can we ask for?

Maybe that God would intervene in this world as clearly and unequivocally than He did when He showed His face to Moses. He would thus remedy to the confusion of this time and give mankind a clear indication of His will, thus giving us a real choice to exercise our free will and reject or accept Him according to our hearts.

That’s the game. Anyway, God started it. Sometimes in history he seemed to regret it when mankind sinned tremendously but he said he would never forget as a mother never forgets her young.

Yes, God started what you call a game. But it is mankind that has to face the ‘fun’ consequences.

Today many of his creations try to obey his instruction. On the whole his project seems to work well.

Really? I thought you said that the human beings today, including Christians, don’t possess a clear understanding of which proposition they should accept, God’s or their own selfish will. Is this part of God’s project?

Furthermore, did you catch a news report recently? How is the world going? God’s project seems to work well indeed.

There was no regret and no turning back for God

A omniscient being is by necessity outside the realm of causality and cannot “turn back” because there is no such thing outside causality. There is no “before”, no “after”, no “regret” and no do-overs.

because his love, unlike ours, never ends.

I thought Heaven was a place (or a state of mind perhaps) where you experience perfect bliss and perfect love in all eternity. Thus our love will also never go on forever once we get to Heaven (for those of us, well those of you actually, that will make it there, that is).

Maybe you meant our earthly love to one another? If we have an immortal soul, maybe the love we have in our soul will survive as well for eternity.

Yes, because you depend and trust on yourself.

Well yes, don’t you agree that one has to depend and trust on oneself? (Or are you agreeing with me here, I cannot quite tell?) Who should I depend and trust upon to sustain my existence? I depend on myself and trust that I will go to work tomorrow and earn the money I need to live my life. I trust on myself to get myself to the doctor if I feel ill. Etc.

Surely not, as long as you live on this earth. Same here. Agreed. Free will.

I am sorry, I don’t quite understand how what you say here relates to the quote of mine you cite.

 

[Reuben_J]

½

Akheron:

It seems that some translations state quite clearly that God created evil, it’s a pity that God did not see fit to divinely inspire all the translators or to divinely endow all mankind with the knowledge of His chosen language.

I form the light, and create the darkness,
I make well-being and create woe;
I, the Lord, do all these things. Is45:7

I used NAB translation, one of the official Catholic Church translations. In other translations instead of using ‘woe’, ‘disaster’ is being used. Admittedly KJV uses ‘evil’. Looking at it in context, the verse unlikely to mean that God created evil as in the Devil.

If you refer to the creation story in Genesis, after every work of creation for all the six days, ‘God saw all he made, and indeed it was very good …’ This is repeated six times.

God did not create the Devil or intended evil because these are ‘not good’ and thus contradicting that ‘all was good’.

Akheron:

Are you stating what every Christian believes or should believe about God?

Yes. Please note, I am a Catholic. What I say therefore reflects Catholicism when I am not in error.

Akheron:

I do my best to listen, my apologies if I disappoint you.

Thank you. It is very kind of you. I don’t ask you to believe or agree with me.

Akheron:

I believe that you are trying to describe God’s love to me in your next post. What is the point then?

The point is to clarify the misunderstanding about God’s love.

Akheron:

I do not reject your God, I merely reject the probability of the existence of a deity of any kind.

You puzzle me there. I cannot reconcile your statement.

Akheron:

You seem to believe that I first “rejected” (your word) God, thus depriving myself of the possibility of experiencing His love. Have you considered that perhaps my “rejection” (your word) does not come in the beginning of my reflecting process, but at the very end of it? I wanted to believe, but didn’t experience anything and thus came to the conclusion that I would choose to ground my life in the respect of myself and my fellow human beings rather than on the existence of a invisible divine power.

I admit I made the assumption after noting that you are an atheist. In my simple mind it is the same thing. Of course, it could mean if I had been convincing enough in my explanation you may be convinced and believe and therefore the fault is in my lack of explanation skill.

Frankly, I am encouraged to hear that from you as you don’t totally shut the possibility for further exploration and openess to the idea of the existence of God.

Akheron:

Don’t be sorry, I am quite ok with that.

I appreciate your effort.

Thanks for you candor.

Akheron:

Wasn’t the Old Testament written in Hebrew? Didn’t God also had to create a Hebrew word to express the notion of His love to the Israelites?

I have to wonder why God didn’t make His love crystal clear and available for all His creatures regardless of the differences in languages and time periods. After all we would still have the free will to reject Him even if we understood Him perfectly.

Good question. God revelation is actually progressive, culminating in the coming of Jesus. The Israelites did not know that God is Trinitarian too.

The best possible reason why revelation came in stages is because it is due vey much the response of God to every particular action of the Israelites. We should think it stopped at the creation and Adam and all his descendants live in the garden forever. It did not turn out that way.

 

[Reuben_J]

2/2

Akheron:

So the Pope that initiated the Inquisition wasn’t infallible after all. That’s interesting.

Infallible is only in the matter of faith and moral. The Pope as a human person is not infallible. He is just another human. We had a number of really bad Popes but I think that’s another subjects.

Akheron:

I am again sorry, but I cringe when I read something like that. Would you accept the proposition that it is not difficult to know Allah, you just have to be willing to?

Why? You never know if you haven’t tried. I don’t know about Allah (I suppose you refer to the Islamic god) but I am pretty positive about the Christian God. And yes, if you are willing.

I understand this is exactly the issue with atheists. You would not believe in God because we cannot prove God. I don’t believe anybody can prove the existence of God – thus it’s a matter of willingness to believe. We call that faith which is vey important in all this, even if it is very little. The rest, the grace of God will take care of.

Akheron:

So God is an apparently oxymoronic entity that hides His rational motives so as not to be directly available to the human experience.

He he. We are on different wavelength here. I don’t know whether I need to pursue this or just let it go. Well, in short we can never understand God completely. It’s beyond us puny humans. We know God is love and Christians bank in that promise.

Akheron:

I must say that I have a big problem with God’s notion of justice, but that is another matter.

And I notice that you too seem to place a lot of limitations on your limitless God.

You mean?

Akheron:

In your opinion, how would this world look like if God wasn’t here to help us?

In the first place, there is no world as we know it is. And therefore I cannot answer the hypothesis.

Akheron:

I am not offended, how could I be? I thank you very much for your kind thought and may your day on earth be as wonderful as possible; I am just a human wishing you well.

I have come across a militant atheist who was offended. It is an insult to him since I know he does not believe in God and yet ask God to bless him. You come across as a nice guy, quite accomodating. It’s a pleasure discussing with you.

 

[Reuben_J]

No, I am not talking about what I want. Why would I want that God had created evil?

I am simply trying to understand the whole story, because your Scripture and your doctrine are not as straightforward and easily understandable as you seem to think when you look at them from the outside, you could ask one of the multitude of other Christian Churches that don’t agree with the Catholic Church.

Ok. Noted.

You stated that you knew His plan; I assumed it gave you some amount of confidence as to whether or not you could explain His motives and His will to me.

I suppose I did summarize this at the end of my last post.

Again summary:
God created man (and woman) so that they could live with him in paradise.
Man sinned, paid the consequence, and live in a fallen world (the world as we know today –pain and suffering).

God’s plan – to put man back to the original purpose of creation that is to be with him again.

How he goes about it? He sent his prophets and finally his own Son.

That’s the plan.

What’s the ‘fun’ in suffering?

Oh sorry, I don’t mean it that way. We would be robots if we were not given free will. What fun is robot?

You say God didn’t have to create, why did He do it then? For ‘fun’? Because He knew His creatures would have so much more ‘fun’ living than non-living and that it would be very entertaining to watch?

I know I shouldn’t play with my words.

I don’t recall asking you why God’s love is infinite. Remember that we agreed that I couldn’t understand God’s love because I am not a Christian.

No you didn’t. In the process of my explanation I have to mention it otherwise it would be even more difficult to understand.

It is always nice with a bit of firm, consoling conviction in this world of ‘fun’ and suffering.

Again, you misunderstand me. I saw you quoted the Bible (Isaiah) earlier on and I thought you must have some inkling about Christianity. I was wrong; you are quite ignorant – which mean I have to start from scratches. I did not want to offend you but I guess Ihave to work harder then.

How could you hear me sneeze?

 

[Reuben_J]

I agree.

Understood.

I understand your words but they don’t address my point and I have to stand by my question: How could Adam and Eve know they were doing something wrong as they didn’t know yet what “wrong” was at that point of the story?

God told them not to do it. God was their Creator; they knew that. How could therefore they did not know it was wrong if they disobey God especially as that disobedience came with threat?

I don’t quite understand what you mean when you say human beings believe they make themselves. I don’t recall ever believing I manufactured my left hand, for instance. Do you mean that human beings have studied nature and begun to understand its workings all by themselves?

The idea is that humans reproduce by themselves which got nothing to do with an invisible being.

I am sorry to have stated something that offended your intelligence, my apologies.

I can tell you the same. Patience is really needed here.

Parents should explain to their children the concepts of right and wrong before putting them in a situation where they are at risk of endangering themselves and making what the parents would consider the wrong decision, with disastrous consequences.

Yes, that’s part of it.

Should the parents choose not to enlighten their children, and the children happened to choose the option that is detestable to the parents, should the parents punish the children, their children, grandchildren, etc. for eternity?

If the rule is set like that then it would happen like that.

I don’t believe we should punish our children for eternity least of all God. He had made everything possible that we should not be punished for eternity. But if one wants to jump into the lake despite knowing that one will drown by doing so, then nobody can stop it from happen; only himself.

Why would God give us free will if all He wants is perfectly obedient children?

Because humans want free will. Can you imagine now if we don’t have freewill? We would only be as good as robots. We would only be like toys not even domesticated animals.

If I may state my own position: I try to behave in society as a responsible adult, reflecting in advance about the consequences of my actions and prepared to stand for what I do and say in all situations. That is what human beings try to teach to their children: be mature, take responsibility for yourself, be aware of your shortcomings and work to increase your awareness and understanding of the world and to be a better person. A child cannot not achieve that, it is as we grow up that we progressively gain the knowledge, understanding and respect we need to be a good person in the society we live in.

I agree with that. I have children myself and I try to do that as much as possible.

I am glad for you that you have attained a perfect understanding of the Word of God. You should maybe go on a mission to enlighten those of your fellow Christians that cannot agree on whether or not the word “day” should be taken literally in Genesis.

Perfect is only to mean I don’t have problem in understanding it. There is always room for improvement but I admit that I got the basic.

Your advice is not solicited and it’s malicous.

Can you trust that the Pope understands the teachings of God as they are intended to be understood? It would seem that some Popes in the past were mislead in their course of action.

On the whole the Church is doing fine.

Maybe that God would intervene in this world as clearly and unequivocally than He did when He showed His face to Moses. He would thus remedy to the confusion of this time and give mankind a clear indication of His will, thus giving us a real choice to exercise our free will and reject or accept Him according to our hearts.

To tell you the truth Catholics do not have problem about God’s intention. There is no confusion.

Yes, God started what you call a game. But it is mankind that has to face the ‘fun’ consequences.

---

Really? I thought you said that the human beings today, including Christians, don’t possess a clear understanding of which proposition they should accept, God’s or their own selfish will. Is this part of God’s project?

Did I say that? I meant we can be influenced by things that want to influence us that we forget the original purpose of what and why we are.

Furthermore, did you catch a news report recently? How is the world going? God’s project seems to work well indeed.

Pretty good on the whole but Satan is definetly doing fine too. Weed will grow with the wheat.

A omniscient being is by necessity outside the realm of causality and cannot “turn back” because there is no such thing outside causality. There is no “before”, no “after”, no “regret” and no do-overs.

Well that’s how it goes whether you like it or not. How else you want me to tell you? I am a Christian, remember?

I thought Heaven was a place (or a state of mind perhaps) where you experience perfect bliss and perfect love in all eternity. Thus our love will also never go on forever once we get to Heaven (for those of us, well those of you actually, that will make it there, that is).

In heaven everything is perfect. On earth it is not.

Maybe you meant our earthly love to one another? If we have an immortal soul, maybe the love we have in our soul will survive as well for eternity.

I don’t know. Human ‘love’ changes, that much I know.

Well yes, don’t you agree that one has to depend and trust on oneself? (Or are you agreeing with me here, I cannot quite tell?) Who should I depend and trust upon to sustain my existence? I depend on myself and trust that I will go to work tomorrow and earn the money I need to live my life. I trust on myself to get myself to the doctor if I feel ill. Etc.

I trust in God. He provides. I have to work hard though but ultimately I leave everything to God. From my past experience he never failed me. Money and riches are not everything to me.

 

[rinnie]

You said that in heaven there is “no evil, no devil and none of his works”. My point is that the devil originated in heaven - as you just said above, he is a “fallen angel”. (Or were you not aware that he fell FROM heaven?)

Which means it’s not at all certain that when you go to heaven, there won’t be any evil, or any devil. If it happened before, why can’t it happen again?

And if it can’t happen again because of something God is going to do differently, why didn’t He just do that the first time, and save everyone (including His Son!) a lot of trouble?

In the beginning there was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.

At that is stage of the game there was no evil. Evil did not exist yet. Read Ezekiel 28: 14-17. Its all there. THe maybe hit Rvelation 12:7-9 Then John 8:44

God gave us free choice. Who said it can’t happen again? God did. Why do you think we are here? This time, again we choose. The darkness or the light. ITs as simple as that You either CHOOSE eternal life in Christ or eternal death in the devil. Free choice, it’s up to you.

How do I know there will be no sin in the next world. THe new heaven andearth because Christ told me. Rev, 17

How do I know that God did not create evil Easy

God is light and there is no darkness in him. The devil sinned in the beginning and thus corrupted part of Gods creation including mankind. All evil will eventually be purged from Gods creation and thrown in the lake of fire. Only the righteous will remain. God will create a new creation where sin has never dwelt.

God did not create evil. Evil is not actually even a created thing, Its really a lack of Good.

Darkness is not a created thing. Darkness is the lack of light. you cannot shine darkness into light and overcome it.

Lies are actually the lack of the truth

Therefore when God said let there be light He was dispelling darkness. Yes darkness exists but only where light is not.

So bottom line, if GOd is light and you reject light you have darkness which is just lack of light. When you reject God you remomve his righteous presence from you and that of course leaves you evil. How can there be any good that doesnt come from God and why be surprised at the outcome of rebelling against the only true light and the only true source of good it really logical.

James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father in heavely lights who does not change like shifting shadows.

I decided to answer you before I left. Maybe when I get back you can read the scripture and found out where you are lacking in the truth. I pray the H.S. can shine upon you with the wisdom to help you to understand the truth that has been revealed to you.

 

[Akheron]

I form the light, and create the darkness,
I make well-being and create woe;
I, the Lord, do all these things. Is45:7

I used NAB translation, one of the official Catholic Church translations. In other translations instead of using ‘woe’, ‘disaster’ is being used. Admittedly KJV uses ‘evil’.

The Hebrew word is ‘ra’. As I have stated in an earlier post to someone else, it is the same word translated as “evil” in the expression “tree of knowledge of good and evil” in Genesis.

Looking at it in context, the verse unlikely to mean that God created evil as in the Devil.

Well, looking at the context, God created “woe” at the very least, “evil” if we consider the Hebrew text.

If you refer to the creation story in Genesis, after every work of creation for all the six days, ‘God saw all he made, and indeed it was very good …’ This is repeated six times.

God did not create the Devil or intended evil because these are ‘not good’ and thus contradicting that ‘all was good’.

Could “good” mean something else in this context, for instance “according to plan”, since apparently “evil” doesn’t always mean “evil”?

Yes. Please note, I am a Catholic. What I say therefore reflects Catholicism when I am not in error.

You answer with the affirmative to my question about whether or not you are stating what every Christian believes or should believe about God and then you point out that you are a Catholic. You are therefore stating that as a Catholic you can safely talk on behalf of all Christians, Catholics and others. Would the “others” agree with you on that point?

Thank you. It is very kind of you. I don’t ask you to believe or agree with me.

I understand that and I do my best not to impose my opinions on anyone.

Akheron J;5525500:

I do not reject your God, I merely reject the probability of the existence of a deity of any kind

You puzzle me there. I cannot reconcile your statement.

My statement wasn’t very clear, sorry. Let me put it that way: Do you reject Allah as an existing god you don’t wish to believe in for some reason or do you simply find it improbable that He exists as a real entity?

I admit I made the assumption after noting that you are an atheist. In my simple mind it is the same thing. Of course, it could mean if I had been convincing enough in my explanation you may be convinced and believe and therefore the fault is in my lack of explanation skill.

I don’t expect you to convince me, please don’t put this burden on yourself.

Frankly, I am encouraged to hear that from you as you don’t totally shut the possibility for further exploration and openess to the idea of the existence of God.

I am not totally shut to any possibility as I am neither omnipotent nor omniscient. I am equally open to the possibility of the existence of Allah or Zeus, to name only two of the many gods that may or may not exist.

Good question. God revelation is actually progressive, culminating in the coming of Jesus. The Israelites did not know that God is Trinitarian too.

The best possible reason why revelation came in stages is because it is due vey much the response of God to every particular action of the Israelites.

You mean that God’s revelation was progressive, as Jesus was the final stage and no more revelation is to be expected. We have to make the best of what He gave us because He won’t give us any more clue.

One would think that God, being omniscient, knew in advance every response of the Israelites and could have presented His revelation all at once according to what He had foreseen.

You didn’t respond to my question about the Hebrew word that God would have had to use to describe His special love. Or maybe God’s love wasn’t part of the early revelation God chose to unveil to the Israelites?

And I still cannot understand why God would choose this convoluted way to reveal Himself to the world instead of just making Himself known to all mankind at all places and all times at once, thus safeguarging the clarity of His message. Why did He chose instead to inspire humans to write down His words, but chose not to inspire the translators that He knew would have to translate His words into the many languages of mankind (languages that He Himself had created).

We should think it stopped at the creation and Adam and all his descendants live in the garden forever. It did not turn out that way.

I didn’t turn out that way because it wasn’t meant to turn out that way. Had God intended it to turn out that way, it would have.

 

[Akheron]

Infallible is only in the matter of faith and moral. The Pope as a human person is not infallible. He is just another human. We had a number of really bad Popes but I think that’s another subjects.

Wasn’t the Inquisition a matter of “faith and moral”? It was a religious enterprise so one would think the Pope would have consulted God about it.

Why? You never know if you haven’t tried. I don’t know about Allah (I suppose you refer to the Islamic god) but I am pretty positive about the Christian God. And yes, if you are willing.

I understand this is exactly the issue with atheists. You would not believe in God because we cannot prove God. I don’t believe anybody can prove the existence of God – thus it’s a matter of willingness to believe. We call that faith which is vey important in all this, even if it is very little. The rest, the grace of God will take care of.

If you don’t know about Allah and are not willing to open your heart to Him to see if He speaks to you, how can you say for sure that He doesn’t exist?

It is an atheist issue in the sense in which you too are atheist: you are atheist towards Allah (or Zeus or any god other than the Christian God). Why? Is that because Muslims have failed to prove His existence to you? Because you are not willing to have faith in Him? Or because you freely choose how you would like to live your life and that doesn’t include Allah?

He he. We are on different wavelength here. I don’t know whether I need to pursue this or just let it go. Well, in short we can never understand God completely. It’s beyond us puny humans. We know God is love and Christians bank in that promise.

You cannot understand God completely, however you know He is love. How do you know that? The God described in the Bible doesn’t seem that loving to me.

You mean?

I mean exactly what I say: you seem to put limitations on your God. Re-read your posts, there are some instances where you state that “God cannot” do this or that. My understanding was that God was omnipotent, thus can do whatever He wants. Do you not agree?

In the first place, there is no world as we know it is. And therefore I cannot answer the hypothesis.

You mean that you are unable to subtract from the world around you the benefits that you attribute to God? Is it because of a limitation of your imagination or because you are unable to precisely define these benefits?

I have come across a militant atheist who was offended. It is an insult to him since I know he does not believe in God and yet ask God to bless him.

I understand. I could take offense but I always try to think the best of people and I assume that you mean well by asking your God to bless me. Furthermore, as I don’t believe in your God, it doesn’t make any practical difference to me.

You come across as a nice guy, quite accomodating. It’s a pleasure discussing with you.

Thank you. You are very civil yourself. The pleasure is mine.

 

[Akheron]

I suppose I did summarize this at the end of my last post.

Again summary:
God created man (and woman) so that they could live with him in paradise.
Man sinned, paid the consequence, and live in a fallen world (the world as we know today –pain and suffering).

God’s plan – to put man back to the original purpose of creation that is to be with him again.

How he goes about it? He sent his prophets and finally his own Son.

That’s the plan.

You stated that you couldn’t speak for God. You seem to be doing just that.

We would be robots if we were not given free will. What fun is robot?

I don’t know. Do you?

Will we have free will in Heaven then?

Again, you misunderstand me. I saw you quoted the Bible (Isaiah) earlier on and I thought you must have some inkling about Christianity. I was wrong; you are quite ignorant – which mean I have to start from scratches. I did not want to offend you but I guess Ihave to work harder then.

You don’t have to work hard to convince me. Please don’t try to convert me to your faith. This is not the purpose of my presence here, I just want to understand the Christian point of view.

And no, I am not completely ignorant about Christianity. I have been subjected to some fair amount of exposure to the doctrine. But I choose to take it from scratch again to be sure to understand every last bit of doctrine.

 

[Reuben_J]

You answer with the affirmative to my question about whether or not you are stating what every Christian believes or should believe about God and then you point out that you are a Catholic. You are therefore stating that as a Catholic you can safely talk on behalf of all Christians, Catholics and others. Would the “others” agree with you on that point?

Catholics are Christians. I use these terms interchangeably because they mean the same thing to us.

I cannot speak for non-Catholic Christians for obvious reason. We differ in certain aspect.

 

[Reuben_J]

You stated that you couldn’t speak for God. You seem to be doing just that.

I seem to be doing some repair job here.

I can speak from what I know from God’s revelation. I cannot speak nor quote him on what I do not know.

 

[Reuben_J]

You don’t have to work hard to convince me. Please don’t try to convert me to your faith. This is not the purpose of my presence here, I just want to understand the Christian point of view.

Ok noted.

 

[Reuben_J]

Wasn’t the Inquisition a matter of “faith and moral”? It was a religious enterprise so one would think the Pope would have consulted God about it.

No it wasn’t. He should have consulted God about it obviosuly.

 

[Reuben_J]

I mean exactly what I say: you seem to put limitations on your God. Re-read your posts, there are some instances where you state that “God cannot” do this or that. My understanding was that God was omnipotent, thus can do whatever He wants. Do you not agree?

You mean when I said God cannot compromise his love and justice in order that he is a true God? Does omnipotent means he can change his characteristic? That would contradict himself if he is forever the same, yesterday, today and tomorow.

Anyway, you may disagree but this is what Christian God means to me. I cannot change his characteristic. You can wish what you want God to be but it may not be what he is. So i cautioned you on that. If you truly want to know about Christianity then that’s what you hear from me not what you think.

Hope that helps. More that than it will be pure exercise in argument.

 

[Akheron]

God told them not to do it. God was their Creator; they knew that. How could therefore they did not know it was wrong if they disobey God especially as that disobedience came with threat?

How could they know it was wrong when they hadn’t yet obtained the knowledge of what “wrong” is? How would they understand that “obey” was right and “disobey” was wrong if they didn’t know what right and wrong was? What were they to do with the threat of “death” if they didn’t know what “death” was? How would they understand the seriousness of the threat or even the concept of threat itself?

The idea is that humans reproduce by themselves which got nothing to do with an invisible being.

Don’t human beings, and mammals in general, reproduce by themselves? (Well, it takes one of each sex of course). Do you mean that it is the hand of God that puts the sperm inside the egg?

I don’t believe we should punish our children for eternity least of all God. He had made everything possible that we should not be punished for eternity.

How has He made everything possible to prevent us from getting punished for eternity as He is the one that put the forbidden tree within the reach of Adam and Eve, even if He could have put it at an infinity of other, safer locations? Furthermore He is the one who decided of the punishment to be dealt upon His creatures, could He not have chosen a punishment that did not imply eternal suffering for His children?

But if one wants to jump into the lake despite knowing that one will drown by doing so, then nobody can stop it from happen; only himself.

How could you not do something that an omniscient God had foreseen you would do?

Because humans want free will. Can you imagine now if we don’t have freewill? We would only be as good as robots. We would only be like toys not even domesticated animals.

Let me begin by stating that I don’t understand how one can reconcile the belief in an omniscient deity and the concept of free will.

But assuming that one could, are you sure humans really want free will if the price is eternal suffering and the isolation from God? Would you not rather choose to be in the presence of your God even if you had to surrender your free will to get there? Furthermore, is it not what the Bible promise the Christians will get at the end of their life on earth: eternity at the side of their God. I assume this means free will disappear because how could you have the free will to sin in Heaven?

Your advice is not solicited and it’s malicous.

My intention wasn’t malicious. I am simply surprised that you profess a perfect understanding of the meaning of Genesis while millions of Christians cannot agree on it.

On the whole the Church is doing fine.

Is it enough?

To tell you the truth Catholics do not have problem about God’s intention. There is no confusion.

I don’t doubt that. But millions of Christians, including Catholics, have killed and been killed because of the lack of clarity of God’s message. Maybe He could have been a bit clearer as He knew that millions would die as a result of the (for you apparent) confusion.

Did I say that? I meant we can be influenced by things that want to influence us that we forget the original purpose of what and why we are.

How could things want to influence us? Things have no intentions.

Pretty good on the whole but Satan is definetly doing fine too. Weed will grow with the wheat.

Why is Satan doing well in a world created by an omnipotent, benevolent God? Does Satan have a God-granted free will too?

Well that’s how it goes whether you like it or not. How else you want me to tell you? I am a Christian, remember?

I was merely pointing out that it doesn’t make any sense to say that a being existing outside of time could have turned back if He wanted. I have no positive nor negative feelings about this fact.

I don’t know. Human ‘love’ changes, that much I know.

Does the essence of human love change or merely its manifestations?

I trust in God. He provides. I have to work hard though but ultimately I leave everything to God. From my past experience he never failed me.

If you work hard to achieve your goals, it means that you don’t leave everything to God. You yourself take actions in the pursuit of your goals.

Money and riches are not everything to me.

Neither do they to me. But I need money to feed myself, as manna doesn’t seem to rain down from the sky much anymore.