C
CeaselessMedik
Guest
What I just said - so that when we’re unhappy it actually is breaking from the norm…but then, couldn’t He also create us so that we would never acclimate to pain?
I think I just got my answer. Thanks, guys.
- Status
I think I just got my answer. Thanks, guys.
L
LilyM
Guest
But we don’t ever truly acclimate to pain, even if we think it happens. Especially not physical pain.What I just said - so that when we’re unhappy it actually is breaking from the norm…but then, couldn’t He also create us so that we would never acclimate to pain?
I think I just got my answer. Thanks, guys.
L
ltravis
Guest
Well, the evidence of our world is that good is productive while evil is destructive. That would mean a universe controlled by an all powerful evil would destroy everything including itself. That conflicts with the idea of an infinite and immortal god.
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Greg27
Guest
This question has been posed by a number of thinkers down the ages. Some ancient and modern skeptics and scientists believe the world is too evil or flawed to have been made by God (Hume and Schopenhauer argued this). Buddhists also argued there is too much suffering for the world to have been a perfect creation of a perfect creator. Scientists such as Richard Dawkins down to Democritus had no time for a God who made the universe, judging time and natural law along with atoms or elements working together are enough to produce the order we see in the cosmos and the variety of things in it.
The Gnostics, who did believe in a God, separated the true God and his realm from this world, which was made by one of the true God’s creations who fell from the pleorama, or the spiritual realm of God’s fullness. This world was made by this flawed God and his servants, while in man there is a spark of soul which needs to escape the material body to get back to the pleorama.
Descartes also considered the idea all things coming into his mind were the work of a false deciever, which assumed the powers of God, though he concluded a good God does in fact exist and guarantee the truths he believed in.
Some mystics, particularly in Jewish kabbalah and also in Hinduism, see evil as an attribute of the Godhead or the Absolute. Evil exists in the universe as a result of some movement or problem in the world of spirit, and manifests itself in worldly pain and contradiction. The mysticism of Jacob Boehme and Nicholas Berdayev, and also the dialectical philosophy of Hegel, tried to see evil as part of the cosmic cycle of Being and becoming.
Is God evil? I think in terms of his essence, no. I don’t think the cosmos is evil either; we don’t know whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, and if it does, what conditions it experiences and whether other living beings experience pain. There is a lot of violence and energetic processes in the universe ranging from black holes to supernova to collisions between galaxies which seem to have no point at all, yet the laws and objects in the universe have a majesty and splendour of beauty which makes us ask the question why is it beautiful and where does it come from? Clearly life on our little blue planet does involve a lot of suffering, and with humans, many choices for moral and existential evil. Yet in the scheme of things this planet is only a tiny atom in the vast oceans of the universe, and the sum total of evil in human history needs to be seen in this perspective in relation to the overall cosmos.
So an answer to the problem of evil in terms of the system of the cosmos or speculation about God or the Absolute is not possible. I think it is more profitable to focus on the existential, psychological, and human roots of evil and also a reasonable contemplation of its mystery from a theological and religious perspective, focusing on the nature of human being and its existence in this world, rather than grand speculative solutions which are not ultimately verifiable by any possible experience. (In this way I think I come close to Kant).
The Gnostics, who did believe in a God, separated the true God and his realm from this world, which was made by one of the true God’s creations who fell from the pleorama, or the spiritual realm of God’s fullness. This world was made by this flawed God and his servants, while in man there is a spark of soul which needs to escape the material body to get back to the pleorama.
Descartes also considered the idea all things coming into his mind were the work of a false deciever, which assumed the powers of God, though he concluded a good God does in fact exist and guarantee the truths he believed in.
Some mystics, particularly in Jewish kabbalah and also in Hinduism, see evil as an attribute of the Godhead or the Absolute. Evil exists in the universe as a result of some movement or problem in the world of spirit, and manifests itself in worldly pain and contradiction. The mysticism of Jacob Boehme and Nicholas Berdayev, and also the dialectical philosophy of Hegel, tried to see evil as part of the cosmic cycle of Being and becoming.
Is God evil? I think in terms of his essence, no. I don’t think the cosmos is evil either; we don’t know whether life exists elsewhere in the universe, and if it does, what conditions it experiences and whether other living beings experience pain. There is a lot of violence and energetic processes in the universe ranging from black holes to supernova to collisions between galaxies which seem to have no point at all, yet the laws and objects in the universe have a majesty and splendour of beauty which makes us ask the question why is it beautiful and where does it come from? Clearly life on our little blue planet does involve a lot of suffering, and with humans, many choices for moral and existential evil. Yet in the scheme of things this planet is only a tiny atom in the vast oceans of the universe, and the sum total of evil in human history needs to be seen in this perspective in relation to the overall cosmos.
So an answer to the problem of evil in terms of the system of the cosmos or speculation about God or the Absolute is not possible. I think it is more profitable to focus on the existential, psychological, and human roots of evil and also a reasonable contemplation of its mystery from a theological and religious perspective, focusing on the nature of human being and its existence in this world, rather than grand speculative solutions which are not ultimately verifiable by any possible experience. (In this way I think I come close to Kant).
F
freesoulhope
Guest
As an existing being, i see overwheming evidence that there is a God, from the world around me, and Big Bang cosmology. I also do not see any problem with the existence of evil and the existence of a perfectly good God. I also experience a sense of duty to be a perfectly good being, and i believe that there are in fact objective moral values. As a Catholic however, i have a problem reconciling the God of the old testement, with the God of the new testement. Here is one of the problems…
There is the posibility that some of the stories are purposely mythical, with logical errors and even moral errors, reflecting isreals ignorant and incomplete perceptions of God at the time. This is the veiw i usually consider when reflecting on what has been written in the OT. The whole warrior God thing was big in those times.
My problem isn’t so much that God has been said to give orders to kill, its just that when atheists demand an explanation to how these seemingly horrific monstrous acts can occur, Christian philosophers always seem to avoid answering the question; i my self cringe when i am challenged about these things.
What im asking is, can somebody give me some positive info on the matter, or give me a link to some free philosophical arguements; prefferably “audios”.
Thanks for you time.
Peace.
- The God of the old testement takes life; i have no problem with that, because God is only removing man from the material world. But i do have a problem when he asks a living created being to take the life of others. That doesn’t bother me to much, as long as the reason being is perfectly just, as i am humble enough to take in to account the possiblity that i may be in error in how i percieve what i am reading. But the lives of innocent children; why ask somebody else to do it, why doesn’t God himself take the life?
There is the posibility that some of the stories are purposely mythical, with logical errors and even moral errors, reflecting isreals ignorant and incomplete perceptions of God at the time. This is the veiw i usually consider when reflecting on what has been written in the OT. The whole warrior God thing was big in those times.
My problem isn’t so much that God has been said to give orders to kill, its just that when atheists demand an explanation to how these seemingly horrific monstrous acts can occur, Christian philosophers always seem to avoid answering the question; i my self cringe when i am challenged about these things.
What im asking is, can somebody give me some positive info on the matter, or give me a link to some free philosophical arguements; prefferably “audios”.
Thanks for you time.
Peace.
K
Kitty_Chan
Guest
Hi well you can find some short audio here
leestrobel.com/
pull down on the Video Channels
Under Investigating Christianity theres;
Why does God allow pain and suffering
Under Investigating God theres;
Can the world have morals without God
Do Pain and suffering disprove Gods existance
They are short but covered better in the book The Case for Faith. There is a interview with Peter Kreeft. If you havent read it you should it covers alot of suffering and questions.
dont know hope that helps
leestrobel.com/
pull down on the Video Channels
Under Investigating Christianity theres;
Why does God allow pain and suffering
Under Investigating God theres;
Can the world have morals without God
Do Pain and suffering disprove Gods existance
They are short but covered better in the book The Case for Faith. There is a interview with Peter Kreeft. If you havent read it you should it covers alot of suffering and questions.
dont know hope that helps
B
blessedtoo
Guest
Here is a great and helpful article by Jimmy Akin. I found it very helpful in understanding this conundrum.
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2007/02/hard_sayings_of.html
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2007/02/hard_sayings_of.html
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Socrates4Jesus
Guest
Free:
The killing everyone (including children) thing i do not understand and have wondered myself whether that was actually what God instructed the leaders of the Jewish people, such as Samuel, to have them do. I think the best response to give in that case is that you do not have all the answers and agree that this is something that should not take place today.
The killing of all of the adults i do understand on some level. The ancient Canaanite people were horrifically evil. They heated iron statues of one of their gods till they were red hot, then took their newborn children and placed them in the arms of the statues to suffer and die as sacrifice to the god. Sex between visitors of temples and the temple priestesses was required. Married women were even required to serve as temple prostitutes. Some of these practices continued on into ancient Rome, though not to such an extreme extent.
Their culture was like a cancer that would destroy the Jewish nation if they did not put a stop to it. The adults, it seems, were beyond redemption. God could not allow His people to be infected by such sinful practices, i think. “Love…always protects” (1 Corinthians 13) St. Paul wrote, and i can see the wars against the Canaanite people as necessary to protect the ones God loved. The Canaanites were in a constant state of war with the Jewish tribes and would have gladly wiped them off the face of the earth, if they could.
The killing everyone (including children) thing i do not understand and have wondered myself whether that was actually what God instructed the leaders of the Jewish people, such as Samuel, to have them do. I think the best response to give in that case is that you do not have all the answers and agree that this is something that should not take place today.
The killing of all of the adults i do understand on some level. The ancient Canaanite people were horrifically evil. They heated iron statues of one of their gods till they were red hot, then took their newborn children and placed them in the arms of the statues to suffer and die as sacrifice to the god. Sex between visitors of temples and the temple priestesses was required. Married women were even required to serve as temple prostitutes. Some of these practices continued on into ancient Rome, though not to such an extreme extent.
Their culture was like a cancer that would destroy the Jewish nation if they did not put a stop to it. The adults, it seems, were beyond redemption. God could not allow His people to be infected by such sinful practices, i think. “Love…always protects” (1 Corinthians 13) St. Paul wrote, and i can see the wars against the Canaanite people as necessary to protect the ones God loved. The Canaanites were in a constant state of war with the Jewish tribes and would have gladly wiped them off the face of the earth, if they could.
C
cmancone
Guest
When I first started reading the old testament I was often worried over many of the apparent acts of violence found there. I’m not bothered by it anymore. Allow me to be frank about why.
Before I really started reading the Bible, I was under the impression that the old testament was about God’s Justice, and the New Testament is about God’s Love. The simple fact of the matter is, I was very wrong. As near as I can tell, there is just as much mercy and forgiveness in the OT as there is in the NT. Also, there is just as much death and pain mentioned in the NT. Granted, there is less killing of people in the NT, but Jesus promises that many people will find themselves in Hell, thrown out into the darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. As far as I’m concerned, there is no difference between the God of the NT and the God of the OT. They are one and the same (they were certainly written by the same God).
The problem I think is in the presentation. When it comes to the NT we are taught about the nice parts. We are taught about Jesus preaching love and redemption, and we aren’t taught about Jesus preaching death and destruction. We get this idea that the God of the NT is loving, and forgiving, and nothing else, while the God of the OT is a vengeful and murderous God. I think the real problem is the society we live in, a society that has no sense of objective morality, and I think that viewpoint is quickly working it’s way into Christianity. You can’t talk about death, destruction, and condemnation in a post-modern world, and many Christian churches are following suit.
Moving back to your question. When I first started reading the OT, it didn’t sit well for me. Because of this watered-down God that is taught in chruches today, I only knew about God’s love and forgiveness. The problem you see, is that what I was taught about God, and what I believed about God, was not actually the same thing as God. There is more to God than just love and forgiveness. God is as much about Justice as He is about Love. As a Just God, He can allow no evil to go unpunished. He will see Justice done - if God did any less He would no longer be God. In some cases this meant the death of entire peoples, man, women, and children. This apparently is one of the biggest problems you have.
First off, I don’t see why you make a distinction between God killing unholy people himself, and God using people to kill unholy people. God can act through whatever means He wishes. He often uses us to accomplish His works of Love, reaching out to our neighbors, helping the sick, visiting those in Jail… if He can use us to accomplish acts of His Love, why can’t He just as easily use us to accomplish His acts of Justice? What’s the difference between God raining down fire and brimstone to destroy a town and God using the Israelites to do it? The result is certainly the same.
As for children, I have a couple thoughts to share. Mainly, I would point out exactly what you pointed out. When someone is killed, they aren’t “killed” from God’s perspective. We see a person die, but all God sees is a body destroyed. When the Israelites destroyed a town completely, God didn’t see children being killed. If anything, God probably saw children being saved. This might seem strange, but think about it. Imagine being a child raised in a town that knows nothing but evil. The simple fact of the matter is that most children are heavily influenced by how they are raised and the place they live in. A child raised in an area given away to sin and evil will almost certainly turn out the same way themselves. In those circumstances, it certainly seems better for a child to die young than to live and turn into a sinner. Personally, I’d much rather die young and innocent than live to become evil and condemned to Hell. When those children died at the Israelites hand, I don’t think God saw death. I think He was saving them from something much worse.
Most importantly, I really think you need to accept God as He is, not how you want Him to be. The OT is not anymore full of errors in morality than the NT is. The simple fact of the matter is that Justice personifies God as much as Love does. To deny one is to deny God. You can’t truly follow God if you deny half of who He is. What you must do freesoulhope is to set aside your pre-conceived notions about God and accept Him for He truly is. The first thing you must realize is that God HATES evil. He despises it. Evil has corrupted His world and destroyed the vision He had for us. God is Holy beyond our comprehension, and it is impossible for any evil to stand in His presence. God will deal with evil in the most sever way possible. I praise God for this, and I thank Him because He will see Justice done in the end. At the same time, I thank God because through His Love He sacrificed Himself as payment for our sins, to see His Justice done.
Before I really started reading the Bible, I was under the impression that the old testament was about God’s Justice, and the New Testament is about God’s Love. The simple fact of the matter is, I was very wrong. As near as I can tell, there is just as much mercy and forgiveness in the OT as there is in the NT. Also, there is just as much death and pain mentioned in the NT. Granted, there is less killing of people in the NT, but Jesus promises that many people will find themselves in Hell, thrown out into the darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. As far as I’m concerned, there is no difference between the God of the NT and the God of the OT. They are one and the same (they were certainly written by the same God).
The problem I think is in the presentation. When it comes to the NT we are taught about the nice parts. We are taught about Jesus preaching love and redemption, and we aren’t taught about Jesus preaching death and destruction. We get this idea that the God of the NT is loving, and forgiving, and nothing else, while the God of the OT is a vengeful and murderous God. I think the real problem is the society we live in, a society that has no sense of objective morality, and I think that viewpoint is quickly working it’s way into Christianity. You can’t talk about death, destruction, and condemnation in a post-modern world, and many Christian churches are following suit.
Moving back to your question. When I first started reading the OT, it didn’t sit well for me. Because of this watered-down God that is taught in chruches today, I only knew about God’s love and forgiveness. The problem you see, is that what I was taught about God, and what I believed about God, was not actually the same thing as God. There is more to God than just love and forgiveness. God is as much about Justice as He is about Love. As a Just God, He can allow no evil to go unpunished. He will see Justice done - if God did any less He would no longer be God. In some cases this meant the death of entire peoples, man, women, and children. This apparently is one of the biggest problems you have.
First off, I don’t see why you make a distinction between God killing unholy people himself, and God using people to kill unholy people. God can act through whatever means He wishes. He often uses us to accomplish His works of Love, reaching out to our neighbors, helping the sick, visiting those in Jail… if He can use us to accomplish acts of His Love, why can’t He just as easily use us to accomplish His acts of Justice? What’s the difference between God raining down fire and brimstone to destroy a town and God using the Israelites to do it? The result is certainly the same.
As for children, I have a couple thoughts to share. Mainly, I would point out exactly what you pointed out. When someone is killed, they aren’t “killed” from God’s perspective. We see a person die, but all God sees is a body destroyed. When the Israelites destroyed a town completely, God didn’t see children being killed. If anything, God probably saw children being saved. This might seem strange, but think about it. Imagine being a child raised in a town that knows nothing but evil. The simple fact of the matter is that most children are heavily influenced by how they are raised and the place they live in. A child raised in an area given away to sin and evil will almost certainly turn out the same way themselves. In those circumstances, it certainly seems better for a child to die young than to live and turn into a sinner. Personally, I’d much rather die young and innocent than live to become evil and condemned to Hell. When those children died at the Israelites hand, I don’t think God saw death. I think He was saving them from something much worse.
Most importantly, I really think you need to accept God as He is, not how you want Him to be. The OT is not anymore full of errors in morality than the NT is. The simple fact of the matter is that Justice personifies God as much as Love does. To deny one is to deny God. You can’t truly follow God if you deny half of who He is. What you must do freesoulhope is to set aside your pre-conceived notions about God and accept Him for He truly is. The first thing you must realize is that God HATES evil. He despises it. Evil has corrupted His world and destroyed the vision He had for us. God is Holy beyond our comprehension, and it is impossible for any evil to stand in His presence. God will deal with evil in the most sever way possible. I praise God for this, and I thank Him because He will see Justice done in the end. At the same time, I thank God because through His Love He sacrificed Himself as payment for our sins, to see His Justice done.
K
Keikiolu
Guest
You won’t ever be able to tell the difference between a belief and an assumption, in the context you used those terms above, unless you first accept your belief as a belief and not as an assumption.
In other words, you’ll never see any “proof” of God unless you first believe in Him, which would then strengthen your belief in Him, which would also cause you to believe less that belief in God is an assumption, and not a belief.
No one “burns in hell” for questioning. They “burn in hell” for willfully closing their ears to God’s speaking to them.
If you REALLY don’t hear God’s missives, then you are merely largely deaf, as it were, and are held accountable for only those things that you DO hear from God, such as the “pangs” created by your going against the well-formed part of you conscience.
Reason shows ME that God is only good.
The reason that you can see evil in God is only because the god you see is not God, but that god that the deceiver has you believe is God.
Notice the capitalization in that last sentence.
Counterfeit is one of the prime “tricks” of that old deceiver guy of whom I refer.
So,… when you have a correct understanding of God, the god that you’ve been fooled into taking for God will “explode” and a great rush of very nifty communication with God will come flooding in, from that direction that you’ll suddenly realize has been VERY noisy all your life, but which you’ve always had VERY good reason to ignore, because that’s not where “God” was supposed to be coming from.
Best to 'ya…!
Mahalo ke Akua…!
E pili mau na pomaika
i ia oe. Aloha nui.
I
itsjustdave1988
Guest
Scripture is inerrant, so I wouldn’t explain those passages away as if the rest of God’s Word was true, but these portions, the Sacred Author simply got it wrong.
See here:
***God sometimes ordered Hebrews to wipe out a city. Was it immoral? ***
M
Mirdath
Guest
See, I have a hard time buying this. The record of these practices comes to us through the Israelites – not, I’m afraid, the most trustworthy source. And think about it for a second: if the Canaanites really did commonly practice infant sacrifice, all the moral qualms created by their extermination could have been solved by the Israelites spending another couplefew decades in the desert – their enemies would have killed themselves off!
In the stories of the conquest of Canaan, we are told that the locals sacrificed babies – and then shown their military might, so great that God must intervene directly to throw down the walls of Jericho. That is not the sign of a culture that kills off its infants. The evils of Canaan seem to me to be grossly exaggerated, and their destruction contradictory to the later teachings of Jesus that all may be redeemed.
Nobody is beyond redemption, save those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit – is it not so?
C
cmancone
Guest
Hi Mirdath. I’m not really sure where to start. First, I’m not sure why you question the historical accuracy of the OT. Historians and archaeologists know that it is an accurate historical text. There’s really no reason to doubt it unless you have a reason to doubt it. The fact that the people of the time practiced infant sacrifice is a simple fact. They even convinced the Israelites to do the same at some low points in their history.
Obviously though, the Caaninites weren’t going to just kill themselves off. They practiced infant sacrifice but that doesn’t mean they sacrificed all their children! They certainly weren’t going to kill themselves off.
If you haven’t Mirdath, read my original post. The OT doesn’t in anyway contradict the teachings of Jesus in the NT. The only way a person could really believe that is if they misunderstood the teachings of the OT, or misunderstood the teachings of Jesus.
Obviously though, the Caaninites weren’t going to just kill themselves off. They practiced infant sacrifice but that doesn’t mean they sacrificed all their children! They certainly weren’t going to kill themselves off.
If you haven’t Mirdath, read my original post. The OT doesn’t in anyway contradict the teachings of Jesus in the NT. The only way a person could really believe that is if they misunderstood the teachings of the OT, or misunderstood the teachings of Jesus.
C
CeaselessMedik
Guest
But wouldn’t I be required to make a “leap of faith,” as it were, to believe it in the first place? Go on the assumption that the Bible is true, or its message is, and then treat it as fact?
M
Mirdath
Guest
History is written by the winners; that’s the problem I have with it. I do not know of any other sources for that area and time that might help provide a fuller picture. I’m not exactly putting the Canaanites up on a pedestal here, I simply don’t trust the word of the people who killed most of them to be an accurate depiction of what they were really like.
J
james1001
Guest
Hi Midrath,
I’m afraid I’m not following. You also only have the Israelites’ word that they actually killed the Canaanites don’t you? So why choose to believe one element of the story and not the other?
M
Mirdath
Guest
We can look at the ruins of Jericho. I do not doubt the historical veracity of these parts of the bible – the Israelites went here, did this, et cetera – but I do not believe they were necessarily objective or fair in their portrayal of their opponents.
R
RhyannaRose
Guest
Cmancone,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply! This is also something I have pondered long and hard, because I think for people in my generation and younger (I’m 25) we’ve been taught so much about the God of love that we do not know much of the God of justice. What you wrote really made sense to me and helped me settle the topic in my mind once and for all. Thank you
Thanks for your thoughtful reply! This is also something I have pondered long and hard, because I think for people in my generation and younger (I’m 25) we’ve been taught so much about the God of love that we do not know much of the God of justice. What you wrote really made sense to me and helped me settle the topic in my mind once and for all. Thank you
K
Keikiolu
Guest
Uh,… yeah…! ← said in best “Valley Girl” accent I could muster>
That is why faith comes before reason (as I’m continually harping on).
The initial “reason” (more appropriately termed “excuse”, or “cloture opportunity”) for faith is distress of one sort or another.
The NEED to believe is the first “reason” to believe, but it has nothing to do with human “reasoning”. After a decision to believe in something has happened, THEN we check our new belief by reasoning, and if it isn’t deemed “not worth it” we keep it.
Then we either deepen our belief, or erode it until some other “distress” causes us to choose a replacement.
Mahalo ke Akua…!
E pili mau na pomaika
i ia oe. Aloha nui.
K
Kitty_Chan
Guest
Mirdath
one thing that separates the scriptures from the rest of writings and history written by winners is the scripture shows all its ups and downs.
If it was true that the winners write then why did we learn that David lusted? that jonah jonah endied up in the fish why, he was avoiding, Paul denied Christ, if it was a rewritten history then those things would have been left out. But they are there, good and bad, for all to see.
If it was a winner book, everyone would have flowing robes and majesty. And a true fairy tale existance. There would be no emotion, it would be dead. But its not dead, its alive, and their events their stories are OUR stories because there is nothing new under the sun and things repeat. Not exactly the same but the same.
They felt, questioned, wondered, worked out things, and it is written down for us to ponder and work out. The writings are our examples, of how to run our lives. There is cultural differences and things of the old you have to put yourself in their shoes. They dont have the knowledge we have, we have the sum of their experiences and history to help us, they did not. It was all brand new.
one thing that separates the scriptures from the rest of writings and history written by winners is the scripture shows all its ups and downs.
If it was true that the winners write then why did we learn that David lusted? that jonah jonah endied up in the fish why, he was avoiding, Paul denied Christ, if it was a rewritten history then those things would have been left out. But they are there, good and bad, for all to see.
If it was a winner book, everyone would have flowing robes and majesty. And a true fairy tale existance. There would be no emotion, it would be dead. But its not dead, its alive, and their events their stories are OUR stories because there is nothing new under the sun and things repeat. Not exactly the same but the same.
They felt, questioned, wondered, worked out things, and it is written down for us to ponder and work out. The writings are our examples, of how to run our lives. There is cultural differences and things of the old you have to put yourself in their shoes. They dont have the knowledge we have, we have the sum of their experiences and history to help us, they did not. It was all brand new.
- Status