Is God Evil?

Murder an unrighteous killing? Typically, the law of the land would describe one sort of killing as 'in the right' (a soldier kills for his country) and another sort of killing as 'in the wrong (a jealous husband kills his wife. Thus righteous or unrighteous - a particular actions agreement (or no) with the law of that land on that matter.- As above. The overarching land, and thus overarching law of the land, is Gods law. To which we, who live on his land, are subject.- So long as the bullets all land back down on your property and the noise of the discharging gun doesn't spread beyond your property I don't, in principle, see the problem. We might have to talk about who owns the airspace above your property however..- I don't see the problem yet. Perhaps you'd like to clarify your argument?Welcome to EvC by the way..Edited by iano, : No reason given.

You drew a false comparison. You belong to God but the dog doesn't belong to you - it belongs to God.- It wouldn't make him good anymore than flooding the worlds inhabitants makes him good. He is good before he does a thing and because he is good, it follow that his actions are good. Thus flooding the world was good - as would torturing a dog be good were he to do so.It seems strange that you'd chose a hypothetical something God didn't (iirc) do when there is such a wealth of possiblity to chose from regarding property of his and promises he makes.

This was an evil act. That's the whole point of the thread. When millions of people are intentionally killed for not towing the party line it is evil.You can't say that your god has not (by human standards) acted in an evil way.

That's one way to spin it. A more accurate way to state it would be to say they were killed because they refused to repent of their evil. Usually speaking, it's good to resist and punish and destroy evil. Not evil. Indeed he cannot.(Certain)Human standards in this case claiming themselves good and God, by it's measure, evil. In the other corner we have God claiming human standards evil and Gods standards good.The terrifying thing is that unrepentant humans will be allowed to see that their standard was on the loosing side. And they will agree that their standard should be on the loosing side. They will fully agree that their standard, in so far as it disagreed with Gods standard (and very often it doesn't, very often it agrees with Gods standard) it was in fact evil.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

God tells the prophet Ezekiel to inform the people that He has no please to judge them by killing them. We also have one entire book in the Old Testament dedicated to the truth of God's reluctance to have to judge man. That is the book of Jonah. The prophet wanted the enemies of Israel to be judged. He runs away from his assignment of warning Nineveh. God teaches him His mercy at their repentence and His overall reluctance to have to judge any nation. One whole book on the Old Testament carries this theme. You and I were not there. And I would hate to try to imagine a society of man where "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually".Do you know the sorrows of the victims of a world where "the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence .. for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth"?I will take God's word for it. I would say that if your righteousness exceeded the God of the Bible then your impact on human history should be similar to that of Jesus Christ.Jesus warned that in the end times it would be as it was in the days of Noah: "For just as the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be." (Matt. 24:27)His tone is not one of judging God's acts but of warning man of his wickedness. Furthermore He says that if those days were not cut short no human flesh at all would be saved: "And unless those days had been cut short, no flesh would be saved; but on account of the chosen, those days will be cut short." (Matt. 24:22)What I get from that is that unlike Noah's day man today has the ability to unlesh such evil as to extinguish all human life on earth. Thank God, those coming days will be cut short by God for the elect's sake.I believe rather in "the righteous judgment of God" (Rom. 1:32) ... "Your righteous judgments have been manifested" (Rev. 15:4). Symbolically we see the altar (representing the slain saints of God) say "Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments." (Rev.16:7)I read the late martyrs praising God "Great and wonderful are Your works, Lord God the Almighty! Righteous and true are Your ways, O King of the nations!" (Rev.15:3)I read that God's judgment is not arbitrary or despotic but according to truth. "But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth upon those who practice such things." (Roman 2:2)It usually escapes man that there could be judgment according to what is the TRUTH of the universe.Once again, the backround of God's hatred and judgment of iniquity is a release against which we can grasp something of God's love in His salvation work in Christ's death and resurrection.So I have to regard your condemnations of God as the product of someone in need of reconciling his view and opinion to the truth of God. The problem of man's twisted accusations against God are not new.The good news is that God has made provision for our forgiveness in Christ. His judgments reveal the absoluteness of His holiness and righteousness. But His redemption in Christ reveals that perfect justice has potentially been secured for all, if they will only believe in the Son. We are dealing with the absolute perfection of God in righteousness yet also in love and salvation to those who will humble themselves to partake of Son's saving work. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Perhaps there is no one who is completely satisfied with what they percieve God has done in thier personal lives. Some of the whys are very hard for us to know now. Some of us trust God in spite of these things.I expect that in the final judgment God will say to some people:"I was right and you were wrong."But in some cases He may say:"I was right. But you were right too."

I belong to no one, thank you very much. Thank you for your answer. Now, since you perceive torturing or killing as a good thing as long as god does it, I sincerely hope you never here a voice in your head you think is god telling you to do just that. It was to make a point. The point that your morals aren't really up there when it comes to god. I don't know how anyone could say those despicable actions are anything but evil, regardless of who does them.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

That being the case - then your attempt to enable us to understand by saying "Surely you have no objection to God doing what he likes with his own property" is silly.But let's think of two possibilities:1. God does not exist/is not the only owner in reality.
In which case - I object to some of the things that owners do with their property.2. God exists and is the ultimate owner.
In which case - I object to some of the things that the only owner might do with its property. So - at the heart of things - murder is not morally wrong? God willed the death - life isn't the main event and 'even if a person ends up in eternal torment, this isn't a bad thing'. This is the kind of rationalisation madmen make before they commit an atrocity, don't you think?

quote:

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The next day the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. "You have killed the Lord's people," they said...and the Lord said to Moses,
"Get away from this assembly so I can put an end to them at once." And they fell facedown...Then Moses said to Aaron, "...Wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has started."...But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.

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Numbers 16:41-49, shortened for clarity.

Have a look at the thread title. It supposes God existing in order to wonder about his being evil or not. If he does, then you belong to him.If only for the purposes of this discussion. You need to your argument to deal with that fact, not evade it.- The clunky, rather obvious way in which you 'managed' to manoevre things so as the make this skewed point is noted. Beward of demanding yes/no answers - they give the game away to everyone else. If fact, make a rule for yourself right now to never ever ask a yes/no question again.- But God doesn't torture dogs so your hypothetical point means you are talking about a hypothetical morality and a hypothetical God. The reason I can find whatever God does as good is that I've found all that God does to be good and have been convinced that I won't find anything that God does evil.And so far, no one here has managed to come up with something that God has ACTUALLY done which I would (or they could, if their argument doesn't hold together) consider evil.If our sin is actually evil (selfishness, hatred, greed, slander, malice, cowardice..etc, actually evil) then I see no problem in punishing it. And if the trouble which comes to those who do evil is utilised by God in his attempt to save men from his rightful wrath against sin.. then all the good-er.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

So you're god has given me the ability to tell right from wrong, but hang on; not really because what I think is evil is in fact good?Way to go Yahweh!Numpty.

Please don't preach to me.

Could you explain further what's silly about this?Your objection took the form of an attempt to usurp/dilute Gods understandable rights (as undoubted owner) with bootstrap rights plucked from where I don't know. If God-as-per-Bible, then the rights we fight tooth and nail for, are derived from the value He assigns us and the commands He issues us (which are written in our hearts, our consciences bearing witness) to govern our conduct with each other. Whilst they have, and are designed to have, a sense of inalienability about them when it comes to our dealing with each other, their remit cannot be extended so as to bring God down to our level - so that he be subjected to the same rights he assigned to us, for our benefit.This is often seen in peoples applying Gods command that we not kill each other - to God. If you understood that your God-given rights viz-a-viz other men had nothing to do with your God-given rights before God (which are limited) then many aspects of your argument could be laid aside.- Understood. Now my question is: what basis for your objection? There will be two categories: righteous or unrighteous objection. Valid and invalid. Like, the rapist might object to the state (his freedoms owner) locking him up, but we'd see that as an invalid, unrighteous objection.- ?God permitting people to sin doesn't mean God approves of sin. But no one dies unless God permits it: whether by sinful murder or righteous flooding.I don't see someone ending up in eternal torment as a bad thing - given that their ending up there has their own will positioned as primary decider in that affair. God in this case is a 'mere' enabler for the persons heart's desire being met.Our will sits at the centre of who we are and it is the ultimate sign of value and respect that sets a will free to have it's heart desire. The sense of infinite positive and infinite negative associated with heaven and hell only reflecting the magnitude of, and consequences of this freedom.- It's the same kind of rationalisation that has people with sore teeth go to the dentist. I can see you're not up for discussion this morning..- And rounded up...

But this can't be true of a child who dies without any knowledge of god.

You were trying to explain to us why God gets to do what he wants by explaining that one can do what one likes with ones property. I disagreed, and suggested that one can't do what one likes with ones property, with examples. You denied that anybody can own property.So the concept of property and ownership seems a bit silly to bring up. Not at all. You made that bit up. I was just pointing out that your analogy of property rights doesn't make sense. Using our temporal morality - one is free to do as one pleases to the ends of pursuing life and happiness (and importantly, property (or estate), according to Locke) as long as so doing doesn't impinge on those same rights as held by others.The point being raised is that Yahweh went massively against this principle, which we call evil. Remember when I said that "your argument must devolve into: What God does defines what is right (or is by defition right), therefore you can't say it is evil. This can be said of any person or being, ".Which it clearly has. I hope that is now clear. The rights to enjoy one's property is coming into conflict with the rights of others to live. By that simplified explanation (I hope I don't have to regurgitate all of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau etc etc just to explain the basis of the objection) God is wicked.Obviously if you define God as being without sin, then the entire point is moot. You think that someone that kills others is morally right by virtue of its entity, and I don't. So why is murder bad? Not why is it a sin. But why should I have a problem with murderers? They have done God's will, and the person has not been terminated, only their body, and they carry on. So what's problematic about murder? Well - it's one thing to say 'My tooth hurts, I don't like that but now I'll get a professional to look at it to avoid getting an infection and dying' and its another thing to say"I'll kill 15,000 people which they will find painful. But that pain will wake other people up! It will show other people that they have strayed. So that they might wake up and see the true path!"The latter is the kind of thing Mohammad Atta may have said, or anybody else to justify a terrible crime. By equating humanity to a single corpus - you can justify 'cutting out the cancer' or 'amputating a gangeronous limb' or 'purifying the Volk' with this kind of reasoning.

"So what is wrong with God evolving to what he has become today?"I'm not clear as to whether you believe God is real and that he has evolved of his own accord, or that you accept God is a fictional character that has been changed by humans.Either way, what I would say is wrong is to hold God up as a supreme being. If he is real and he can't decide from one millenium to the next whether he should wipe out whole civilisations or be all lovey-dovey and forgiving, then he is not worthy of worship. If he is fictional and his character has been changed by humans to reflect the morals of contemporary society, at best he is nothing more than a useful tool; but I would say a grossly misused tool.