Is God Evil?

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I find this statement interesting.. Do you claim that god is both?

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There was more to what I said. 1. The verses listed in the OP, but not actually being discussed are all in the OT. So the most we can say is that God was evil or did evil.
2. The Hebrew religion was influenced by other religions. God then became all good and evil went to Satan.I'm arguing, because saying God is evil is incorrect. They could say God was evil.I have agreed that as the stories are written in the OT, the actions that were taken would be considered morally reprehensible today.Later influences from other religions such as Zoroastrianism set God up as representing only good. The role of evil went to Satan.In the NT, God was good and Satan was evil. Since Christianity took off from there with the Greeks, that is what they sell. Jesus was the example of good. Jesus is considered to be God by some.What evil is God responsible for since the OT?So we can say God was capable of morally reprehensible actions.What purpose does that further?

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

Not according to your model of things perhaps. But if the mechanism of salvation can transcend the boundary of a person never having heard of Christ I'm sure it can transcend the age of the person involved. Remember that the soul is eternal, it doesn't age.

It was my understanding of your belief that faith was the conduit of salvation.Is this not what you said in our 'Great Debate' back in the day?A pre language child cannot posibly have faith.No faith, no salvation.

The point of using an appeal to "doing what you like with your property" would naturally be intended to limit itself to the confines of your own sense of propriety - and wouldn't include that which falls outside the limits of your propriety (such as government control over your treatment of your animals). That there is a difference between your and Gods level of propriety shouldn't render the appeal uninstructive.If you have a sense of doing what you like with what you consider your element of propriety of an object then you should get the point (even if, at the end of the day, God actually owns everything)- Do unto others .. in other words? This governing principle given by God for mans dealings with man. The rational basis for his proclaiming so might involve all men being created of equal value to God?- He kills men for their sin and punishes them for their sin. And died himself for sin and was punished for sin. How so massively against this principle?- And remember I said in response:

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Good is but a word and we can decide to attach it to what God reckons is the case, or to what we, (or some of we), reckon is the case. It's just a word. The more interesting discussion takes place when we look at what we think is good to find out is there harmony with what God thinks is good.

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The current example we are dealing with is whether it is good that we can do what we like with our goods (within the confines of our propriety) - as mentioned above. If we're agreed with that principle then God can do whatever he likes and that is (due to total propriety in his case) good.- This is what I mean about problems occuring when you try to evolve upwards to God what God has devolved downwards to us. If our life is Gods property then how do you arrive at the notion that we have a right to life?God taking back his property (our life) is morally right because of simple ownership issues.- Murder is bad for us to do for the reasons you've already given: God-devolved morality governing human behaviour - which Locke/Rousseau/Hobbe seem to agree with.It's not Gods will that a person be murdered anymore than it is a mothers will that her son become a junkie. But it is Gods will that man be permitted to express his own will - just as it is a mothers will that her son not be tied to her apron strings his whole life through -even if that might result in his becoming a heroin addict.- You'll have heard of the thief on the cross. Facing death is one way in which people are brought face to face with their decision for/against God. We might suppose some of those 15,000 became believers.You'll have heard that God disciplines believers - unto death at times. We might suppose some of those sinners believers at the time of their death.Then there is the termination of the damned - to whom God says "enough!"And if there were none righteous amongst the 15,000 - but God assembled those 15,000 naysayers in one place and one time to serve a secondary purpose (outside the primary purpose of personal punishment and judgement on each)?- I think you're applying the limitations of men and what they can possible achieve with the the boundless possibilities of God and what he can achieve. If you've no problem with God removing one unrepentant sinner from the game then you should have no problem with him doing so to 15,000 of them at the same time.

I get the point - but I disagree. Let us consider reality without a god in which a scientist creates a fully sentient android. I would argue that although the scientist has legal rights of ownership over the android, he doesn't have the moral right to torture or kill the android.Likewise, I do not think that Yahweh has moral rights to kill humans. Their right to life conflicts with his property rights, and he asserts property rights over their right to life, thus impinging on the principle of being 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. Then the answer is no, as per the android example in the atheist universe. So there exists a disharmony between our beliefs about good and evil and what you think god's beliefs about good and evil are. It is my view that all humans having a right to life is good. Any entity which views things differently than this is at best amoral. If it acts in such a way as to deny what I see as a right to life, then that entity is evil. OK - so it isn't inherently immoral. God is fine with murder? A mother does not permit her son to become a junkie. You said that God had to give his say so before someone dies, even the murdered. Seems to me then, that God could withhold his consent if he so willed it. Which seems to be equivalent to every person who is murdered dying as per God's will. And I said that if a murderer has carried something out which was God's will (the person dying), why is murder considered immoral? They almost certainly became believers since they were presumably in Heaven or Hell at that point - given God's wrath I'd suppose the latter. That is what I thought you were initially proposing: that God killed them as a warning to others. Actually - in the story God was going to kill everyone because of a general 'murmuring' amongst the people, but Moses and Aaron placated him (and not for the first time one or the other of them had to stay God's hand from a rampant massacre). I'm not. I'm just saying that you are making the same excuses for God's violent actions as men make for the same actions. It sounds like you are the one applying the limitations of men on the boundless possibilities of God. You are also the one using manmade concepts such as propriety and ownership to justify god's violence.If your position was: What God did was righteous. We might not know why it was righteous, but ours is not to reason why. I'd not be arguing with you and you would be being consistent with the concept of not applying mankinds limitations on god.I'm simply saying that by the standards we judge other humans (and even other animals) God would be judged as evil. Your counter seems to be that human's morality might be able to square with God being good by trying to invoke divine universal property rights. My counter is that human morality also says that where a conflict of rights exists then there might be a moral problem and I think depriving 15,000 people of a right to life for no reason other than 'I am allowed to under my property rights and I didn't like something they did' is definitely in the immoral territory.

Here you've separated the 'creator' from the 'moral agent' (let's call that moral agent: society) and unintentionally skewed things. So let's unskew things by supposing society to have created a fully sentient android..Supposing for a moment that this android was promised that certain consequences would follow his own free decisions. Would society have a moral right to impose due consequences attaching to the androids free decisions? Including the inflicting of punishment and removal of life?- That principle (right to life) governs dealings between men on the basis (presumably) that men are assumed to be born equal. I mean, one man can't argue his right to take anothers life in a way that supercedes anothers ability to argue same. And so each has his case cancelled out by the others.How do you debate a mans right to life with the one who owns it, sustains it and reserves the right, on giving it, to take it away again (if only by ceasing to sustain it). What foundation is there for the principle you might invoke in that debate. Outside merely re-asserting the principle I mean.- We'll have seen by now whether you'll have permitted your androids to decide to wreak havoc on earth or whether you'll feel morally authorised to ..er..curb their behaviour.- Fair enough. But I was enquiring into how you suppose someone elses property: supplied and sustained by them to you - under condition, is a right of yours? If I may, you sound like a tenent who quits paying the rent compiaining about your landlords taking you to court to seek your eviction.- Morality devolved from God - which states murder wrong cannot be something God is fine with??Remember, all we're saying with 'good' and 'bad' is whether or not an act conforms with or counters what God would have us do. Your calling what God calls 'good', 'evil' doesn't actually change anything in any material sense - you might as well call an "elephant", a "daisy".What's of interest, like I say, is whether we can align what we (by consensus) think is good-in-principle with what God thinks good. The case of an android facing the consequences of it's decisions being a case in point.- She does permit as soon as she cuts loose the apron strings. And she cuts apron strings (if she is a good mother) at all stages in the childs development into adulthood. And permits at all stages of the childs development, the potential for harm to occur: getting knocked down, hanging with the wrong crew, letting career paths close, letting her 14 year father a child. Freedom brings potential for harm.So when one person is murdered by another, God isn't willing it actively (necessarily) but he permits the murderer his own wills expression. That said, if a persons answer to Gods foundational question regarding where a person wants to spend eternity, isn't answered, then I'd suppose God superimposing his will on anothers desire to murder.The freedom to express ones will (with an eye on the primary purpose of deciding eternal destinations) doesn't require that it be free to express at all times.- Clearly I don't believe concepts such as ownership to be man-made. Perhaps there is more to it but the Bible is confined to using words and concepts that reasonate in man so I'll have to limit myself to that.- Again, I don't see the problem. I've merely shifted "righteous" to mean "what God does" to see if harmony can be found between what God does and mans sense of morality. One such area is proprietry and I think the sense we have instilled in us regarding that area works well enough when considering God, the owner and [i]us (arguably excluding our will but including our earthly life), the possession.So, if we attach the sense "righteousness" to ownership dealings between us and objects we possess and those dealings reflect similarities between God and his dealing with us, then we can say that God to is righteous in his proprietry-based actions at least.- ..for example. Hopefully you'll have explained further on where this right to life comes from.It might help frame the discussion if we took on the analogy of a landlord and tenent: us being mere tenents in what Paul referred to curiously as 'a tent'. God evicting a tenent who won't pay the due rent invokes proprietry rights you might agree with. As would his removing a person from a building which is about to fall down.

This is a different argument that doesn't require worrying about androids or property rights. You might as well ask does society have the right to impose penalties on its members. The answer is yes.The question is, what is the limit of those penalties that society can morally (from our point of view) go to. I suggest complaining about society would not be a justifiable reason to enact a death penalty - and threatening to kill potentially hundreds of thousands and actually killing tens of thousands in retaliation of that 'crime' is an immoral act. Self defence is an entirely different kettle of fish. If they were 'wreaking havoc' on a planet that was in a different galaxy and they presented no threat to us in any way...and by 'wreaking havoc' that means 'complaining when 200 of them were executed by us for inciting a rebellion against our rule which had seen them spend years upon years on a desolate rock face with nothing but hope of a promise fulfilled'. I don't think my life is someone else's property. To quote Locke: " every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his". Is that a question?I was just saying that since there are no negative side effects of murder - why does God want us not to do it? Indeed - and I'm basically arguing that we can't. I'd hardly call that permission. It is more a case of being resigned to the fact. You brought this permission up in a 'God gives us life and then takes it away' context. A mother does not have this kind of control over her children: a point I think you were trying to make in your ownership argument. According to you, murder has no negative consequences - possibly has some positive consequences - and it does not go against God's will. Yes? Right - but according to our understanding of property rights, there limits to what we are allowed to do with our own property. Yes? It comes from us. We mutually agree each of us has a right to life. Anything you do with your property needs to respect other people's right to life. That is what we think is good. When you do something with your property that causes loss of life, on the whole we think that bad. We agree there are exceptions. Being angry at someone for complaining about a series of executions does not qualify as an exception in our moral sphere. I understand. And what I am saying is that this view is not in accord with our morality. We don't see people as merely 'hiring' their life and that it can be taken away for not paying 'rent'. If Hitler claimed that jewish physical bodies owed their existence to the labour of the German folk and he was evicting the jews from their bodies...I'd still regard him killing them all as immoral - even if he was right.If God's attitude is that I am merely renting this body at his pleasure - then I consider God to have an immoral position. If he acts as if this was true, I'd regard God's disregard for human life as immoral.Your argument seems to require that the state of being biologically alive has no value and that taking that state away from somebody is not depriving them of something. Either that, or you want to argue that being deprived of that value is suitable punishment for the crimes they committed. I disagree with that.

The android might be sentient but its not a human being and isn't a 'member' of the moral agency involved in setting up the parameters for it's behaviour and enforcing transgressions of same.- Do you remember the point I made about saying 'I just touched' a white hot substance and the inappropriateness of complaining about the burns received?I'm not sure your getting the wrathful aspect of Gods character Mod. Perhaps you've lulled by the "come to friendly Jesus" brigade and have forgotten why it is he came..------Listen, I've to go out for the evening. I'll try and get to this later or tomorrowCheers.

And this is way it is valid to call your god evil.

This implies that God is merely an effect from a casue. He has no will, no ability to make decisions. In essence, he is a force of nature that we have anthropomorphized. In that case, God is neither moral nor immoral, he's amoral. He's not evil, but neither is he good.

And therefore no point in worshipping.

Goodness gracious. You haven't made the slighest effort to find out what the analogy attempted to convey in it's original context. You've merely shoehorned it into this vacuous 'point'.Edited by iano, : Delete attack on Larni.

Once the android has to interact with other humans it becomes a member of society. Yes. Are you suggesting that god is an amoral agent like a white hot substance? God is kind of like the Boxing Day Tsunami - a dangerous but mindless killer who it would be ludicrous to blame morally?I suspect not. You seem to think the correct response to complaining about God is for God to kill the complainer. If you touch something that is hot, you get burned. You pick a fight with Tyson, you get beaten up. You complain about God, he kills you. The one act leads to the other.What I am suggesting is that if God is a moral agent capable of making decisions - then killing people for complaining is an immoral act just like Tyson would be being immoral if he beat an eight stone weakling up for disagreeing with him.I refer you once again to the bloody tyrants defense: "Look what you made me do,", says God, "I'm a reasonable guy, I did all these things for you - but that wasn't good enough for you. I have a lot of responsibility and when one my children misbehaves I have to chastise them.". As if this line of reasoning justifies killing those that disagree with you. Not so much Father God as Godfather: And I see them both as immoral. Eh? I'm talking about God killing lots of people because he gets angry at them complaining about his blood thirstiness, about how God is morally wicked for his disproportionate reactionary violence...
and you counter with the hypothesis that I think God is too friendly? Is God worse than I had thought? How does that support your position?Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Iano, you might be a different guy in person, but I cannot fathom why you revel in your interpretation in a god that is as ruthless, cruel, and indeed downright evil as you insist.Why do you make such a big deal about the OT Christian god's wrath over the NT Christian God's love? Is it a personal thing?I just don't understand the emphasis and I wonder if you are reading too much of a personal desire for revenge over one of universal forgiveness.I just don't understand. Are we reading the same New Testament?

Perhaps it's like witnesses to a car crash. Same crash, different take?When it comes to dire warnings regarding the fate of the wicked, Jesus is the man to go to. When it comes to escaping the wrath of God: promised to be exercised against the wicked, Jesus is the man to go through. What appears inescapable to me, as a consequence of reading the New Testament, is the Bad News which renders the Good News as good at it is.The Bad News (if you're a sinful man) is that there is such thing as a holy God. His being holy renders him furious wrath against evil - wherever and in whomever it is found. I see nothing at all in the God of the Old Testament that conflicts with God as reported in the New Testament: he showed a degree of patience then and he shows a degree of patience now. But a day comes for all men, when God's patience with them is exhausted and God's effort to lead a man to repentance is expended no more.All there is left for a man to do in this case .. is to face God's wrath.Anyone who can read the New Testament and fail to grasp the perilous position of unrepentant men w.r.t. Gods wrath-to-come is, in my view, observing the car crash through closed eyelids.- I don't revel in it. When I stop to think about it, a shiver runs down my spine and I'm driven to warn folk - such as I do now. I speak of God's ruthless wrath because that wrath will finally be unrestrainedly ruthless. He was ruthless in the Old Testament, he is ruthless today and he will be at Judgement ... and for all eternity. The question of this thread isn't whether God is ruthless, it's whether or not that ruthlessnes is righteous.I'm arguing that it is, and reckon that it is only by;a) denying himself utterly sinful - despite all the evidence to the contraryb) failing to begin to comprehend the holiness of God..that a person can conclude God unrighteous in his furious expression of wrath against a man's sin.- The Christian God's love is aimed at at least one central goal - enabling us to evade that same Christian Gods wrath. And without a reported awareness of the Christian Gods wrath, the point of the Christian Gods love might be missed.You could hardly miss Jesus' warnings in the NT about what faces the wicked. Nor could you miss Pauls descriptions of the fate of lost men viz-a-viz Gods wrath and Judgement. This, even though the explicit audience for so much of the NT is the Christian - above whom God's wrath will 'passover'.- The threads OP focuses on areas where God expresses his wrath against sinful man, so it's not surprising that my posts here will deal with that aspect of God. Generally speaking however, I would keep a focus on God's wrathful aspect in order to counter the modern tendency to focus on 'coming into buddy Jesus' arms' which is a travesty of the gospel to my mind.Paul, in his exposition of gospel mechanics (in the book of Romans) begins his treatise with the state of sinful man - whether Jew(lost to God 'believer') or Gentile (lost to God unbeliever). He lays out the Bad News first - so as to give a rationale and reason for the hope that he has, in Christ Jesus.I would tend to follow his lead.- There is no universal forgiveness. Rather, forgiveness has been made universally available. Whether or not men will avail of it is another matter. Nothing, bar the most highly selective reading of a stripped-to-the-bone canon could suppose mankind universally forgiven.Man created with free willMan fallen and subject to wrathGods love wanting mans restorationGods love providing a means of restorationMan chooses which position he'll occupy for eternityMan exposed for all eternity to God: in restored or unrestored state.That's all he wrote.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.