Greetings -- A Freindly Atheist Who Wants to Know: Why Christ?

[KingJ]

interpretation of Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." One might CLAIM I'm reading it wrong,

God created evil in that He created free will. Evil is on Adam. Evil is on the fallen angels. God created evil to allow for free will as no free will is wicked. This does not mean God is guilty of evil. Quite the opposite.

A God who ''UTTERLY'' hates what is evil, allows it to exist for us to have true free will.

The devil has pulled the wool over your eyes my friend.

 

[Samson2020]

For a long time I wasn't sure I wanted to live forever. Not so long ago I suffered a medical catastrophe that brought me to the brink of death. It was long and arduous and I had a lot of time to ponder these things. What I came to was a conviction, while I'm in no hurry to die, I have no interest in life eternal. To illustrate, describe for me you notion of what life might be like after death and we'll see if I find it at all appealing. (Honest. Promise.)

Well the Bible states that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them which love him. 1Co 2:9
Jesus tells us that Nothing shall be impossible to us. So whatever I can imagine will be insufficient. But lets say that you want to take a bath in the sun, take a ride on or in an
electron within a complicated molecule, have a race from one end of the cosmos to the other, give life to the ones you loved most, simply bask in the Love of the Lord himself, having known this particular one can't think of anything else to compare with it, be instructed as to everything that has ever happened and why.

For several thousand years after the first death is accomplished there will be a time for teaching the rest of the humans the way unto eternal life and at some point those who are part of the Lords seed will be given the opportunity to give of the same life they received from him. This is quite deep and quite far away so don't get stuck on it as most
cannot see this.

Whatever you can imagine as a fun or good thing, eternal life in spirit form will be much grander than that. And honestly take a good look at your children and ask yourself
do they make you proud? Do they Glorify you in the sense of loving you, and respecting you, and cherishing you? And do you return the same to them? And did this come about by letting them do whatever they wished so they had no respect for you? Probably not, as it took time for them to understand that when you corrected them it was for their own good. Same with God.

As far as your purpose on earth is concerned. If a vessel to dishonor then you will do just that. Be a doer of evil whether it be towards God or man or both. But if a vessel to Honor you will grow up to be a son of God with unlimited ability just as he.
And as surely as you are now a vessel to dishonor you shall someday be turned to a vessel to honor. That my friendly atheist is the GOOD NEWS.
Just like the military, NO MAN LEFT BEHIND.

Christianity in the modern day is not much to look at with all its pomp and circumstance. And rather boring like watching cartoons for those that are off the milk bottle.
So in some sense what poses as Christianity is running off tremendous amounts of people, and even this is Gods doing.

All I can say to you is Jesus is the WAY unto eternal life and you will come to know him someday, and the love you will experience is something you will never forget
and continually long for the rest of your human days.

 

[Kirby D. P.]

God created evil in that He created free will. Evil is on Adam. Evil is on the fallen angels. God created evil to allow for free will as no free will is wicked. This does not mean God is guilty of evil. Quite the opposite.

A God who ''UTTERLY'' hates what is evil, allows it to exist for us to have true free will.

The devil has pulled the wool over your eyes my friend.

That is your interpretation. However, the trail of responsibility still leads straight back to God. It is an odd contradiction, I admit, that someone who "UTTERLY" hates what is evil creates and permits it. I try to ascertain my own (myriad) contradictions. But acknowledging them is, in my experience, the best first step in addressing them. For what it's worth, the character of God in the Bible clearly shows just such an evolution of personal growth. In the "short" span of 2,000 years, he matures from a monster who would wipe out all living (land) creatures on all the planet in just a few months to a more nurturing guardian and custodian, one who works diligently over the span of a human lifetime to devise a system whereby sin might be forever expurgated and nobody at all need die (bar one, of course).

That is a marked and commendable arc of growth. Neither Pol Pot nor Hitler ever showed such promise. But, then, to credit him with that transformation means accepting he is not the immutable perfect being, unchanged from the dawn of time as so many Christians insist.

The thing I keep coming back to, again, is God is supposed to have made us in his image. One of the signal characteristics of humans is the capacity for growth and learning. Why must these not be Godlike attributes? I can point to an entire book, the most popular in world history, recounting the truly admirable moral development of a being of awesome power, who can destroy whole worlds at a word, who has no higher authority to whom answer, and, despite all that, chooses, of HIS OWN "FREE WILL," to seek the redemption of his flawed creatures, rather than just tear it all down and start over from scratch; something he has done in the past, and (remember) lived to REGRET.

To me, that is an EXCELLENT (if imperfect) story. What you posit appears (to me anyway) to deny and reject it. I think that's a real pity.

 

[Kirby D. P.]

Well the Bible states that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them which love him. 1Co 2:9
Jesus tells us that Nothing shall be impossible to us. So whatever I can imagine will be insufficient. But lets say that you want to take a bath in the sun, take a ride on or in an
electron within a complicated molecule, have a race from one end of the cosmos to the other, give life to the ones you loved most, simply bask in the Love of the Lord himself, having known this particular one can't think of anything else to compare with it, be instructed as to everything that has ever happened and why.

For several thousand years after the first death is accomplished there will be a time for teaching the rest of the humans the way unto eternal life and at some point those who are part of the Lords seed will be given the opportunity to give of the same life they received from him. This is quite deep and quite far away so don't get stuck on it as most
cannot see this.

Whatever you can imagine as a fun or good thing, eternal life in spirit form will be much grander than that. And honestly take a good look at your children and ask yourself
do they make you proud? Do they Glorify you in the sense of loving you, and respecting you, and cherishing you? And do you return the same to them? And did this come about by letting them do whatever they wished so they had no respect for you? Probably not, as it took time for them to understand that when you corrected them it was for their own good. Same with God.

As far as your purpose on earth is concerned. If a vessel to dishonor then you will do just that. Be a doer of evil whether it be towards God or man or both. But if a vessel to Honor you will grow up to be a son of God with unlimited ability just as he.
And as surely as you are now a vessel to dishonor you shall someday be turned to a vessel to honor. That my friendly atheist is the GOOD NEWS.
Just like the military, NO MAN LEFT BEHIND.

Christianity in the modern day is not much to look at with all its pomp and circumstance. And rather boring like watching cartoons for those that are off the milk bottle.
So in some sense what poses as Christianity is running off tremendous amounts of people, and even this is Gods doing.

All I can say to you is Jesus is the WAY unto eternal life and you will come to know him someday, and the love you will experience is something you will never forget
and continually long for the rest of your human days.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

 

[KingJ]

That is your interpretation.

No, it's actually not.

Psalm 145:17 God is righteous in ''ALL'' His ways. 1 John 1:5 God is light with ''NO'' darkness in Him at all. God ''HATES'' wickedness Psalm 45:7. God ''IS'' good Psalm 136:1.

However, the trail of responsibility still leads straight back to God.

Nonsense. Adam sinned. Then things went pear-shaped. The devil rebelled, then things with the angels when pear-shaped.

God is guilty of evil because He allows a highly intelligent creation free will? Are you being serious?

It is an odd contradiction, I admit, that someone who "UTTERLY" hates what is evil creates and permits it.

You really do need to meditate long and hard on how wicked 'no free will' is.

I try to ascertain my own (myriad) contradictions. But acknowledging them is, in my experience, the best first step in addressing them. For what it's worth, the character of God in the Bible clearly shows just such an evolution of personal growth. In the "short" span of 2,000 years, he matures from a monster who would wipe out all living (land) creatures on all the planet in just a few months to a more nurturing guardian and custodian, one who works diligently over the span of a human lifetime to devise a system whereby sin might be forever expurgated and nobody at all need die (bar one, of course).

God does not change Num 23:19. The error is in our ability to read and grasp the A-Z of said incident.

With regards to the flood. We know the following about God. He wants a healthy balance of good and evil. Whenever evil dominates good in a society to a mortal sin level, He takes action. The sins of Sodom for example were very grievous Gen 18:20. There are many reasons He would take action. People in such a society are guilty of extreme evil. Constant evil. It is no environment for children to grow up in. As such He knows these people are sold out to what is wicked. Beyond hope. So He brings change by removing them. At the time of the flood, society as a whole was beyond a point of no return. Much like today. A drowning is a quick death and I will argue from scripture that all twenty and under go straight to heaven to be tested at another time. It points to change, not cruelty.

God is going to do the same with this end time generation. So, certainly not a ''different'' God.

That is a marked and commendable arc of growth. Neither Pol Pot nor Hitler ever showed such promise. But, then, to credit him with that transformation means accepting he is not the immutable perfect being, unchanged from the dawn of time as so many Christians insist.

If we look at Jesus stopping the stoning of the adulterer, on face value we see a change. But if we discern slightly better then a Sunday school lesson, we find this: 1. Only Jews were instructed to stone one another to death for mortal sins. When Jonah preached to Nineveh, he never said stone each other for said sins. His message was for them to stop sinning and repent. 2. Jesus brought to an end the period of the law and the need for a chosen race to be an example of God's law. 3. Any Jew OT who repented, would be saved, albeit they be stoned to death Psalm 51:17. 4. Make no mistake, the person that continues unrepentant in any OT sin that warranted death by stoning has the same eternal home as those who were stoned 1 Cor 6:9-12. 5. Stoning, though very graphic, was always a quick death. It was overseen by elders. 6. A panel of elders would judge the need for a stoning and this only done in true and extreme cases of evil.

The thing I keep coming back to, again, is God is supposed to have made us in his image.

God does whatever He wants. He does what pleases Him Psalm 135:6. Fortunately for us He is a good God Psalm 136:1 who loves us all John 3:16.

One of the signal characteristics of humans is the capacity for growth and learning. Why must these not be Godlike attributes? I can point to an entire book, the most popular in world history, recounting the truly admirable moral development of a being of awesome power, who can destroy whole worlds at a word, who has no higher authority to whom answer, and, despite all that, chooses, of HIS OWN "FREE WILL," to seek the redemption of his flawed creatures, rather than just tear it all down and start over from scratch; something he has done in the past, and (remember) lived to REGRET.

Your problem is that you don't step back and see the big picture, consider the A-Z of it all.

If you were a very good person and had to put yourself in God's shoes, you would do the same as He has done. If not, what would you do differently? Not allow for true free will? Not deal with the very wicked who don't want to repent? Remember, at the time of the flood, God let them know He was not pleased with their constant wickedness. They had 50-120 years / the time it took to build the ark, to repent and make right with God.

 

[Kirby D. P.]

No, it's actually not.

Psalm 145:17 God is righteous in ''ALL'' His ways. 1 John 1:5 God is light with ''NO'' darkness in Him at all. God ''HATES'' wickedness Psalm 45:7. God ''IS'' good Psalm 136:1.

Nonsense. Adam sinned. Then things went pear-shaped. The devil rebelled, then things with the angels when pear-shaped.

God is guilty of evil because He allows a highly intelligent creation free will? Are you being serious?


You really do need to meditate long and hard on how wicked 'no free will' is.

God does not change Num 23:19. The error is in our ability to read and grasp the A-Z of said incident.

With regards to the flood. We know the following about God. He wants a healthy balance of good and evil. Whenever evil dominates good in a society to a mortal sin level, He takes action. The sins of Sodom for example were very grievous Gen 18:20. There are many reasons He would take action. People in such a society are guilty of extreme evil. Constant evil. It is no environment for children to grow up in. As such He knows these people are sold out to what is wicked. Beyond hope. So He brings change by removing them. At the time of the flood, society as a whole was beyond a point of no return. Much like today. A drowning is a quick death and I will argue from scripture that all twenty and under go straight to heaven to be tested at another time. It points to change, not cruelty.

God is going to do the same with this end time generation. So, certainly not a ''different'' God.



If we look at Jesus stopping the stoning of the adulterer, on face value we see a change. But if we discern slightly better then a Sunday school lesson, we find this: 1. Only Jews were instructed to stone one another to death for mortal sins. When Jonah preached to Nineveh, he never said stone each other for said sins. His message was for them to stop sinning and repent. 2. Jesus brought to an end the period of the law and the need for a chosen race to be an example of God's law. 3. Any Jew OT who repented, would be saved, albeit they be stoned to death Psalm 51:17. 4. Make no mistake, the person that continues unrepentant in any OT sin that warranted death by stoning has the same eternal home as those who were stoned 1 Cor 6:9-12. 5. Stoning, though very graphic, was always a quick death. It was overseen by elders. 6. A panel of elders would judge the need for a stoning and this only done in true and extreme cases of evil.


God does whatever He wants. He does what pleases Him Psalm 135:6. Fortunately for us He is a good God Psalm 136:1 who loves us all John 3:16.

Your problem is that you don't step back and see the big picture, consider the A-Z of it all.

If you were a very good person and had to put yourself in God's shoes, you would do the same as He has done. If not, what would you do differently? Not allow for true free will? Not deal with the very wicked who don't want to repent? Remember, at the time of the flood, God let them know He was not pleased with their constant wickedness. They had 50-120 years / the time it took to build the ark, to repent and make right with God.

Yeah. See? That is your interpretation, as opposed to mine. I don’t find it very fair to characterize mine as “nonsense” when I don’t likewise treat yours.

When Genesis says, “The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done,’” I interpret this to mean God did not DECIDE to never do again what he has done by sending the flood to kill everything until he enjoyed the smell of Noah’s blood sacrifice. The Bible makes a point of specifying his determination to dispense with punitive worldwide apocalypse only after he finds Noah’s sacrifice pleasing. (Which, by the way, confirms God once found blood sacrifice uncontroversially acceptable, AFTER the Fall, yet BEFORE the Crucifixion. I hope you’ll agree he no longer does, further confirming he evolves as a moral being over time.) My interpretation of YOUR interpretation is God was ALWAYS never going to slaughter all with a flood ever again. That he knew all this an advance. In this, you deprive both Man and God of free will. In none of your quotes does God UNsay his claim to evil in Isaiah. You cleave to the notion God can’t possibly ever do evil. I am, RIGHT NOW, holding in my hand scripture in which he says, with his own words, he does. You may INTERPRET whatever you like, but I’m just reading what I read.

Not only that, but God can and does commit destruction for no good cause. I don’t have to interpret that. It’s what he says in Job 2:3, “...ALTHOUGH thou movedst Me against him to DESTROY him WITHOUT CAUSE.”

I take God at his word, both here AND in John and Psalms and all the rest. I don’t try to thread any needle to turn God into any particular character to suit my own presuppositional perspective. I must make room for a God whose identity encompasses both: I accept he hates evil, AND I accept he has wrought evil— per HIS OWN WORDS. I’m not insisting my “interpretation” is “right” and yours is “wrong.” And I’m perfectly ready to alter my interpretation. But, the one I currently have encompasses both these disparate, manifest aspects of God. The reason I am nowhere near accepting yours is yours requires me not to see what I clearly do see.

In sum, I see God hates evil and, on occasion, commits evil. This is entirely consistent with a God who made Man in his own image, capable of perpetrating evil even as he hates it. My “only” evidence for this is a plain reading of the Bible. If you are to dissuade me from this interpretation, you will have to produce some bit of evidence stronger than that.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Not only that, but God can and does commit destruction for no good cause. I don’t have to interpret that. It’s what he says in Job 2:3, “...ALTHOUGH thou movedst Me against him to DESTROY him WITHOUT CAUSE.”

Greetings, Kirby.

Don't want to interrupt your conversation with KingJ. Just thought I'd clear something up. You appear to be interpreting this as that God destroyed Job, but the account simply says He allowed him to suffer for a time. He allowed Job to prove that his love for God was greater than someone who simply loved God for the earthly blessings He provided. As a result of proving Satan a liar, Job's latter state was even better than his former one was. He was never destroyed, though Satan was trying to move God to destroy him. God instead blessed him with even greater blessings after the episode.

"12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch.15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.

16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years." (Job 42:12-17)

Just thought I'd interject regarding the scripture you quoted.

Blessings,
Hidden

 

[Kirby D. P.]

Greetings, Kirby.

Don't want to interrupt your conversation with KingJ. Just thought I'd clear something up. You appear to be interpreting this as that God destroyed Job, but the account simply says He allowed him to suffer for a time. He allowed Job to prove that his love for God was greater than someone who simply loved God for the earthly blessings He provided. As a result of proving Satan a liar, Job's latter state was even better than his former one was. He was never destroyed, though Satan was trying to move God to destroy him. God instead blessed him with even greater blessings after the episode.

"12 The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys. 13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters. 14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch.15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.

16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 17 And so Job died, an old man and full of years." (Job 42:12-17)

Just thought I'd interject regarding the scripture you quoted.

Blessings,
Hidden

Hi, Hidden. Thank you for the input. I am well aware of what passes for the scribe as God’s “restitution” of Job’s lot. I always found it funny (though not particularly significant) we never hear Job say if he feels fully restored with his replacement family and holdings. I do know how I would feel. But maybe I’m just a sentimental old fool who places too much attachment to my existing children.

But I am not interested in Job’s ultimate fate. I am interested in God’s state of mind. Define Job’s calamity however you choose, God labels it “destruction,” and, while he casts some blame at Satan, he ultimately does own the buck stops with him, AND he says it was destruction WITHOUT CAUSE.

I may be atheist, but I did genuinely believe once upon a time. When I did, I accepted God is endowed with such complications. These paradoxes (or nuances or whatever you want to call them) in no wise affect my acceptance OF God.

If one can claim God did not visit destruction upon Job at Satan’s prodding for no good reason, WHEN THAT IS THE LITERAL TEXT ASCRIBED TO HIM, one can just as easily declare he hates justice and abhors peace.

I am not trying to get you or King J to think any less of God. But the God you seem to attest is simply not the God depicted in scripture.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Hi, Hidden. Thank you for the input. I am well aware of what passes for the scribe as God’s “restitution” of Job’s lot. I always found it funny (though not particularly significant) we never hear Job say if he feels fully restored with his replacement family and holdings. I do know how I would feel. But maybe I’m just a sentimental old fool who places too much attachment to my existing children.

I hear you. I would find it tough to take as well. I would have to let God be God, trusting that they have been taken to a better place and will be waiting for me when I go on to be with them myself. But it would hurt.

But I am not interested in Job’s ultimate fate. I am interested in God’s state of mind. Define Job’s calamity however you choose, God labels it “destruction,” and, while he casts some blame at Satan, he ultimately does own the buck stops with him, AND he says it was destruction WITHOUT CAUSE.

See, this is where I think you are misreading it, though... and actually, now that I am looking at the verse, the Hebrew reads, "You have asked me to swallow him up without cause," referring back to Job 1:9-19. In other words, He was saying Satan had asked Him, not to "destroy" Job as in kill him, but to decimate his life; leave him in a state where his blessings had been taken away, to where he would curse God instead of bless Him. I think what you are reading into the text is that God had no purpose in allowing it; that God was allowing it only to subject Job to suffering without cause, whereas this was only Satan's mindset. The Lord allowed it because He knew how faithful Job was, and so was using his faithfulness as a testimony against Satan's accusations; accusations not only against Job but against mankind as a whole (i.e. that no one truly loved God for His own sake, but only for what He provided). This set of events also paved the way for the martyrdom of the saints, who likewise proved by their deaths that they loved God more than their lives, and were willing to fully trust Him with their fates in eternity.

He was saying Satan wanted to see Job's entire life swallowed up without cause, but it is not saying that God allowed it without cause. Two different things.

 

[KingJ]

When Genesis says, “The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: ‘Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done,’” I interpret this to mean God did not DECIDE to never do again what he has done by sending the flood to kill everything until he enjoyed the smell of Noah’s blood sacrifice. The Bible makes a point of specifying his determination to dispense with punitive worldwide apocalypse only after he finds Noah’s sacrifice pleasing.

You are not discerning the scriptures. I smell a lot of cherry picking.

The context to His statement in Gen 8:21 is with regards to the ''curse of the ground''. The soil never got harder to toil after the flood. Is that what you are insinuating?

As for a blood sacrifice. Scripture is crystal clear that what was before is a type and shadow of what was to come. The blood of bulls and goats could ''NEVER'' take away our sins Heb 10:4. At best an OT sacrifice showed you were repentant and after God's heart. Desired to do what pleases Him. It is easy to say ''I repent''. A bit harder to prove it by sacrificing a prized animal. The sacrifice added some weight and evidence to the sincerity of repentance. As does Matt 16:24 do to us living today who think we can simply say some ''magical words'' of repentance.

Noah's sacrifice was not the reason God brought a worldwide apocalypse. God tells us why with crystal clarity in Gen 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Mortal sin and unrepentant sinner are two scriptural terms affiliated with every person / society / nation that God removes.

 

[KingJ]

(Which, by the way, confirms God once found blood sacrifice uncontroversially acceptable, AFTER the Fall, yet BEFORE the Crucifixion. I hope you’ll agree he no longer does, further confirming he evolves as a moral being over time.)

You are espousing He evolves as a moral being because before the cross He ordained the slaughter of animals and after He doesn't? Are you being serious?

Animal slaughter has taken place from day 1 of Adam's sin to today. It is part and parcel of an environment of free will where good and evil takes place.

God selected it as it was inline with what He had planned from the beginning of the earth 1 Pet 1:20 and it was a cost to someone at that time to lose a prized animal. Much like for lent when you need to give up something of value.

My interpretation of YOUR interpretation is God was ALWAYS never going to slaughter all with a flood ever again. That he knew all this an advance. In this, you deprive both Man and God of free will.

Please expound further.

Free will is hard to grasp when we hold to a single word (omniscience) to define the A-Z of God. Catholics are open about their belief in God limiting His omniscience to uphold free will. Protestants outside of Calvinists, believe in true free will but most can't properly explain it. They don't want to say God '''limits'' Himself.

In my view the fact that we see evil happen is crystal evidence of God ''limiting'' Himself for free will. So, not sure why it is so hard to accept on foreknowledge / omniscience.

In none of your quotes does God UNsay his claim to evil in Isaiah. You cleave to the notion God can’t possibly ever do evil. I am, RIGHT NOW, holding in my hand scripture in which he says, with his own words, he does. You may INTERPRET whatever you like, but I’m just reading what I read.

He does not have to unsay it. The bible can say terrible things if you cherry pick verses and have zero inclination to read context or the full chapter.

This is what the devil did when tempting Jesus in the wilderness in Matt 4. Note how in every temptation Jesus replies with a ''it is also written''.

I have provided the context and a valid scriptural explanation for that verse.

 

[KingJ]

Not only that, but God can and does commit destruction for no good cause. I don’t have to interpret that. It’s what he says in Job 2:3, “...ALTHOUGH thou movedst Me against him to DESTROY him WITHOUT CAUSE.”

Rom 9 is crystal clear that God can ''do'' whatever He wants. As angels say ''who is man that you are even mindful of them'' Psalm 8:4.

BUT the rest of scripture tells us what He does in fact decide to do. Just because God can do something wicked, destroy without reason, does NOT mean He does.

When I used to frequent atheist forums it became rather hilarious how many lambasted God for destroying nations unjustly. In every instance there a list of reasons given for His actions. What we read and see with crystal clarity on every occasion is that God is long-suffering, merciful and slow to anger. He will scrape the barrel for a reason not to reign destruction. In some instances, people are able to reach a depth of intent and evil with a single action. This is why certain sins received capital punishment and someone like Ananias and Sapphira were killed on the spot.

I take God at his word, both here AND in John and Psalms and all the rest. I don’t try to thread any needle to turn God into any particular character to suit my own presuppositional perspective. I must make room for a God whose identity encompasses both: I accept he hates evil, AND I accept he has wrought evil— per HIS OWN WORDS. I’m not insisting my “interpretation” is “right” and yours is “wrong.” And I’m perfectly ready to alter my interpretation. But, the one I currently have encompasses both these disparate, manifest aspects of God. The reason I am nowhere near accepting yours is yours requires me not to see what I clearly do see.

In sum, I see God hates evil and, on occasion, commits evil. This is entirely consistent with a God who made Man in his own image, capable of perpetrating evil even as he hates it. My “only” evidence for this is a plain reading of the Bible. If you are to dissuade me from this interpretation, you will have to produce some bit of evidence stronger than that.

No offence, but I would not credit you as a person who takes God at His word. I honestly feel you ignore many pertinent facts in the words you read and are guilty of cherry picking.

Miss representation of the facts is a serious crime and one that many atheists are guilty of. Many atheists are ex-Christians who are bitter toward God for some or other reason. So they manipulate scripture to enable them to live with themselves in a self righteous state where they are the righteous victim and God the demented wicked and nonsensical being.

Just a sad state of affairs. My heart truly goes out to you and others like you. I wish you would just get on your knees and allow the Holy Spirit to speak into your life again. God's ways will once more make sense and His love will permeate through scripture. The fog of lies the devil has woven over your eyes needs to go!

 

[Kirby D. P.]

I hear you. I would find it tough to take as well. I would have to let God be God, trusting that they have been taken to a better place and will be waiting for me when I go on to be with them myself. But it would hurt.


See, this is where I think you are misreading it, though... and actually, now that I am looking at the verse, the Hebrew reads, "You have asked me to swallow him up without cause," referring back to Job 1:9-19. In other words, He was saying Satan had asked Him, not to "destroy" Job as in kill him, but to decimate his life; leave him in a state where his blessings had been taken away, to where he would curse God instead of bless Him. I think what you are reading into the text is that God had no purpose in allowing it; that God was allowing it only to subject Job to suffering without cause, whereas this was only Satan's mindset. The Lord allowed it because He knew how faithful Job was, and so was using his faithfulness as a testimony against Satan's accusations; accusations not only against Job but against mankind as a whole (i.e. that no one truly loved God for His own sake, but only for what He provided). This set of events also paved the way for the martyrdom of the saints, who likewise proved by their deaths that they loved God more than their lives, and were willing to fully trust Him with their fates in eternity.

He was saying Satan wanted to see Job's entire life swallowed up without cause, but it is not saying that God allowed it without cause. Two different things.

“He was saying Satan had asked Him, not to "destroy" Job as in kill him, but to decimate his life; leave him in a state where his blessings had been taken away, to where he would curse God instead of bless Him. I think what you are reading into the text

All I am reading into the text is God caused/allowed Job to endure undeserved suffering. Just to prove a point to a being who, so it is said, is incapable of articulating truth and who is, by extension, inaccessible to it. Suffering which entailed the death of numerous people, whole lives, whose lives, so far as we know, deserved no more punishment than Job himself.

I am willing to debate the merit or wisdom of God’s actions here. But I can’t accept dressing up these deeds in any sophist equivocation with “pure goodness.” I know unprovoked, undeserved homicide when I see it. I like Star Wars. I enjoy Vader’s redemption at the end of Jedi. That does not transform his role in the destruction of Alderaan into anything other than villainy.

 

[Kirby D. P.]

Rom 9 is crystal clear that God can ''do'' whatever He wants. As angels say ''who is man that you are even mindful of them'' Psalm 8:4.

BUT the rest of scripture tells us what He does in fact decide to do. Just because God can do something wicked, destroy without reason, does NOT mean He does.

When I used to frequent atheist forums it became rather hilarious how many lambasted God for destroying nations unjustly. In every instance there a list of reasons given for His actions. What we read and see with crystal clarity on every occasion is that God is long-suffering, merciful and slow to anger. He will scrape the barrel for a reason not to reign destruction. In some instances, people are able to reach a depth of intent and evil with a single action. This is why certain sins received capital punishment and someone like Ananias and Sapphira were killed on the spot.



No offence, but I would not credit you as a person who takes God at His word. I honestly feel you ignore many pertinent facts in the words you read and are guilty of cherry picking.

Miss representation of the facts is a serious crime and one that many atheists are guilty of. Many atheists are ex-Christians who are bitter toward God for some or other reason. So they manipulate scripture to enable them to live with themselves in a self righteous state where they are the righteous victim and God the demented wicked and nonsensical being.

Just a sad state of affairs. My heart truly goes out to you and others like you. I wish you would just get on your knees and allow the Holy Spirit to speak into your life again. God's ways will once more make sense and His love will permeate through scripture. The fog of lies the devil has woven over your eyes needs to go!

Alas, we are clearly talking past each other now.

In closing, please know I take no offense when any Christian finds fault with my views on God.

I will take issue with one point of detail, however. Don’t confuse lack of belief with sloth in study. I also do analysis of Melville. I take every word of Captain Ahab VERY seriously and at his word. For his part, Ahab is one of the most honest, least duplicitous characters in all of literature. He is ALSO an unmittigated villain or, at best, an antihero. These are two attributes, singular villainy and frank honesty, in which I find Ahab quite distinct from God.

A lot of your critique of my scriptural analysis cuts both ways. One thing which mystifies me is a tendency among believers to envisage a God who is all-powerful on the one hand, yet cartoonishly simplistic on the other. Forgetting all the scriptural citations, I can take all the advice about God’s nature from this entire conversation and scribble it onto a single side of a cocktail napkin. A dozen different ways of reiterating a description of a personality with but one moving part. There’s about 78,000 words in the Bible. That’s a real funny way of printing a, “He’s just good. All light, no darkness,” bumper sticker.

Life is complicated. People are complicated. To insist God made Man in his image AND also that God CAN NOT be complicated strikes me as incoherent and deeply intellectually flawed.

If you think my “intellect” clouds my capacity to hear the Holy Spirit, you should probably complain to the person who gave me that intellect. You do, after all, have his address.

 

[Hidden In Him]

All I am reading into the text is God caused/allowed Job to endure undeserved suffering. Just to prove a point to a being who, so it is said, is incapable of articulating truth and who is, by extension, inaccessible to it.

The point I was making about human suffering is that it gives the faithful an opportunity to prove they possess a genuine love for God Himself and not just what He can do for them, and will therefore be rewarded far more greatly in eternity for it (Matthew 5:10-12). But I understand that as an atheist you are going only by what is seen in this life and not by faith in what will come in the next.

God bless! Just thought I would interject. I will leave you to your conversation with KingJ.
Hidden

 

[KingJ]

There’s about 78,000 words in the Bible. That’s a real funny way of printing a, “He’s just good. All light, no darkness,” bumper sticker.

If you would just end chapters or read a full passage and not cherry pick statements. I don't need to cherry pick those verses you quoted for a bumper sticker. I can see His goodness in literally every action He performs in scripture.

- Swift destruction of the extremely wicked and cruel = mercy and not repaying evil with evil
- Brutality of the cross = Lamb to the slaughter / not cheating by calling 1000 angels to protect Him / setting a clear precedent in His dealings with us
- Cross = Greatest act love in that He lays His life down for us John 15:13.
- All children go straight to heaven = sensible God
- Nobody predestined for hell = impartial God Acts 10:34 = good God

I could go on all day!!!!

It is because David grasped God that he tells us all ''GUYS, REJOICE, because GOD IS GOOD''!!! Psalm 136:1. It is not uncommon to see evil and assume God is evil.

What you are ''missing'' when you read scripture is the fact that God wants us to judge Him. He ''GIVES'' us our brains as you noted. He ''GIVES'' us the knowledge of good and evil Gen 3:22. He gives us time and space to exercise our free will. He tells us that we must judge better then the world 1 Cor 6:1-9. He tells us that we can and must discern all matters 1 Cor 2:15. He wants us to grasp the love that God has for us in Christ Eph 3:18. He wants us to interrogate Him. When Abraham interrogated Him in Gen 18, He did not say to Abraham ''silence, I am God, dare you question me''.

Imagine I miss-represented you. Lets say you wanted to date my sister. I know that you do charity work at an orphanage. You chose to help with the pigs as nobody wanted that job. You are a smart, kind and caring man. You have a good day job that pays well. You live in slight poverty though as you donate most of your money to charity. Now what would you do to me one-day if you discovered I told my sister that you were a poor man who smelt like a pig most of the day.

I hope you can be honest with yourself and rebuke yourself for bias and cherry picking scriptures. You, like many atheists I know, '''KNOW'' the scriptures that debunk most of what you espouse. You just hold on to certain statements with ferocity.

 

[Kirby D. P.]

If you would just end chapters or read a full passage and not cherry pick statements. I don't need to cherry pick those verses you quoted for a bumper sticker. I can see His goodness in literally every action He performs in scripture.

- Swift destruction of the extremely wicked and cruel = mercy and not repaying evil with evil
- Brutality of the cross = Lamb to the slaughter / not cheating by calling 1000 angels to protect Him / setting a clear precedent in His dealings with us
- Cross = Greatest act love in that He lays His life down for us John 15:13.
- All children go straight to heaven = sensible God
- Nobody predestined for hell = impartial God Acts 10:34 = good God

I could go on all day!!!!

It is because David grasped God that he tells us all ''GUYS, REJOICE, because GOD IS GOOD''!!! Psalm 136:1. It is not uncommon to see evil and assume God is evil.

What you are ''missing'' when you read scripture is the fact that God wants us to judge Him. He ''GIVES'' us our brains as you noted. He ''GIVES'' us the knowledge of good and evil Gen 3:22. He gives us time and space to exercise our free will. He tells us that we must judge better then the world 1 Cor 6:1-9. He tells us that we can and must discern all matters 1 Cor 2:15. He wants us to grasp the love that God has for us in Christ Eph 3:18. He wants us to interrogate Him. When Abraham interrogated Him in Gen 18, He did not say to Abraham ''silence, I am God, dare you question me''.

Imagine I miss-represented you. Lets say you wanted to date my sister. I know that you do charity work at an orphanage. You chose to help with the pigs as nobody wanted that job. You are a smart, kind and caring man. You have a good day job that pays well. You live in slight poverty though as you donate most of your money to charity. Now what would you do to me one-day if you discovered I told my sister that you were a poor man who smelt like a pig most of the day.

I hope you can be honest with yourself and rebuke yourself for bias and cherry picking scriptures. You, like many atheists I know, '''KNOW'' the scriptures that debunk most of what you espouse. You just hold on to certain statements with ferocity.

Okay. I’ll own it. I cherry pick verses you whitewash or ignore.

Indulge me. Please, if you think you can, give me the context that rehabilitates these two little pearls:

“So now, kill every male among the dependents and kill every woman who has gone to bed with a man,
But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” (Num 31:17-18)

“If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.” (Deut 22:28-29)

Now, when I say “context that rehabilitates,” I don’t mean any old sunshine that seems inconsistent with the horrors of plundering the girls of a vanquished foe as sex slaves or forcing a rape victim to marry her attacker. I’m not looking for “on the other hand, the meek shall inherit the earth,” or, “It is easier for a camel to fit…” I mean actual, clearly explicit scripture that specifies either (A) these were just examples if hyperbole, blurted out in the heat of the moment, or (B) some shred of dogma that clarifies how these undeniable abominations are actually “good” by anybody’s standard.

For example, I wouldn’t suggest “cherry picking” Psalm 136 and its assertion, “his steadfast love endures forever,” because its CONTEXT includes Psalm 137 where it is declared, “Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”

I think you may be confused about me. When I believed, I had a pretty good handle on the warm fuzzies. I knew about the “embarrassing” other stuff. I just always told myself the other stuff wasn’t all that important. If they are to have an intellectual leg to stand upon, people who say every word is inerrant and perfect have to be willing to take the good with the bad. Or else accept that God may be many things, but incapable of change over time is not one of them.

 

[Ivan Chamurliev]

Alas, we are clearly talking past each other now.

In closing, please know I take no offense when any Christian finds fault with my views on God.

I will take issue with one point of detail, however. Don’t confuse lack of belief with sloth in study. I also do analysis of Melville. I take every word of Captain Ahab VERY seriously and at his word. For his part, Ahab is one of the most honest, least duplicitous characters in all of literature. He is ALSO an unmittigated villain or, at best, an antihero. These are two attributes, singular villainy and frank honesty, in which I find Ahab quite distinct from God.

A lot of your critique of my scriptural analysis cuts both ways. One thing which mystifies me is a tendency among believers to envisage a God who is all-powerful on the one hand, yet cartoonishly simplistic on the other. Forgetting all the scriptural citations, I can take all the advice about God’s nature from this entire conversation and scribble it onto a single side of a cocktail napkin. A dozen different ways of reiterating a description of a personality with but one moving part. There’s about 78,000 words in the Bible. That’s a real funny way of printing a, “He’s just good. All light, no darkness,” bumper sticker.

Life is complicated. People are complicated. To insist God made Man in his image AND also that God CAN NOT be complicated strikes me as incoherent and deeply intellectually flawed.

If you think my “intellect” clouds my capacity to hear the Holy Spirit, you should probably complain to the person who gave me that intellect. You do, after all, have his address.

Hi Kirby. You might be right on some of your views on God or the things you are struggling to accept or understand like many of us. First thing is that we cannot fully understand how God is. We are not in His place to e able to know. What He instead did was that He came to be in our place 2000 years ago. Indeed God is having two sides ( if we can call it in such a way ). The side of His goodness/love and the side of justice. He is extremely just and this is his nature. Something that He can not change, He cannot just control it in any way. Many people say: " If He is a God, He can do whatever he likes ". Well, it is not exactly like that. The same way you've got certain natural reactions you cannot control ( I'm speaking about the very nature in us ) , He also can't. This is about His justice. This explains why is that He had to send His Son to die for us. Someone had to take the punishment. Someone had to pay. There wasn't any other way. He couldn't just forget the injustice being done by people. Even if He wanted, He couldn't. And His standards are high. But He wanted to find a way, He didn't want us to take this punishment, that was about to come. And here is where His love is shown. He didn't do it selfishly or for interest. 1Corinthians 13:5" Love does not seek it's own "He could've perfectly leave us to pay for what is right. But he didn't.He is not the man with the beard sitting on the throne an taking decisions lightly as He likes. He is much greater, He takes everything. Acts 17:28 I think there is difference when in the Bible speaks about what pleases God and for Him to like something. When I say I like a certain kind of food for example, like a steak, I would enjoy it, but even if I don't have it on my table I will always have something else. This is a matter of a mere personal choice. But it is not the same with how God works. So yes, we see on one hand His justice and on the other His love shown through His Son, that is also a part of Him. Many of the wrong things in this world are caused by man too. And we need to know that for God the eternity is much more important than anything else. This is much more important than how is our life here. However we can not understand everything of God. It is also a question of faith. I am pretty logical as well as a person. But even though, God is giving me logical explanations, probably because He knows how I am. But the main ingredient for us to understand it, is to taste it, to try it. You cannot say how is a cake if you don't have a piece of it. ( This is a famous example ) Today in the same way you need many reasons to become a believer, I also need many, many to become an atheist. To believe is a miracle. When it happens, it happens for sure. No half convictions.
So the best thing is to be open, not to close your door completely and to be in constant research of this truth. I wish you all the best in this.

 

[Raintree]

Hi there, maybe your presence in this site isn't an accident at all and I hope that you'll keep an open mind about everything that you will learn from this site. Everyone here is a Christian so I may say, do expect Christian views in dealing with daily human circumstances. Lastly, I hope that you will meet Jesus personally. I do believe that His meeting you and you might not have realize it yet.

 

[Kirby D. P.]

Hi Kirby. You might be right on some of your views on God or the things you are struggling to accept or understand like many of us. First thing is that we cannot fully understand how God is. We are not in His place to e able to know. What He instead did was that He came to be in our place 2000 years ago. Indeed God is having two sides ( if we can call it in such a way ). The side of His goodness/love and the side of justice. He is extremely just and this is his nature. Something that He can not change, He cannot just control it in any way. Many people say: " If He is a God, He can do whatever he likes ". Well, it is not exactly like that. The same way you've got certain natural reactions you cannot control ( I'm speaking about the very nature in us ) , He also can't. This is about His justice. This explains why is that He had to send His Son to die for us. Someone had to take the punishment. Someone had to pay. There wasn't any other way. He couldn't just forget the injustice being done by people. Even if He wanted, He couldn't. And His standards are high. But He wanted to find a way, He didn't want us to take this punishment, that was about to come. And here is where His love is shown. He didn't do it selfishly or for interest. 1Corinthians 13:5" Love does not seek it's own "He could've perfectly leave us to pay for what is right. But he didn't.He is not the man with the beard sitting on the throne an taking decisions lightly as He likes. He is much greater, He takes everything. Acts 17:28 I think there is difference when in the Bible speaks about what pleases God and for Him to like something. When I say I like a certain kind of food for example, like a steak, I would enjoy it, but even if I don't have it on my table I will always have something else. This is a matter of a mere personal choice. But it is not the same with how God works. So yes, we see on one hand His justice and on the other His love shown through His Son, that is also a part of Him. Many of the wrong things in this world are caused by man too. And we need to know that for God the eternity is much more important than anything else. This is much more important than how is our life here. However we can not understand everything of God. It is also a question of faith. I am pretty logical as well as a person. But even though, God is giving me logical explanations, probably because He knows how I am. But the main ingredient for us to understand it, is to taste it, to try it. You cannot say how is a cake if you don't have a piece of it. ( This is a famous example ) Today in the same way you need many reasons to become a believer, I also need many, many to become an atheist. To believe is a miracle. When it happens, it happens for sure. No half convictions.
So the best thing is to be open, not to close your door completely and to be in constant research of this truth. I wish you all the best in this.

Thank you, Ivan. This is some excellent food for thought.