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Author Topic:   Is God good?
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 361 of 722 (683463)
12-10-2012 7:18 PM
Reply to: Message 358 by Rahvin
12-10-2012 7:11 PM


\You are SO right, that was an attack on my opponents.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 358 by Rahvin, posted 12-10-2012 7:11 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 362 by Rahvin, posted 12-10-2012 7:44 PM Faith has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


(1)
Message 362 of 722 (683465)
12-10-2012 7:44 PM
Reply to: Message 361 by Faith
12-10-2012 7:18 PM


\You are SO right, that was an attack on my opponents.
Yes, Faith. It was. You accused your opponents of being hypocrites. You did not actually address any of their arguments, you simply called them hypocrites.
But whether your opponents are or are not hypocrites has absolutely no bearing on whether or not your god is good. It had nothing to do with the topic. You're just trying to use emotional appeals to draw attention away from the actual topic. Perhaps the debate should remain on-topic, rather than becoming about the participants.
I still contend that the Flood is an example of mass murder, and by any ethical system that considers murder to be bad, your god must then be a monster.
Your only argument seems to be that god "cannot sin" and therefore is good - but you're simply engaged in special pleading. You've placed your god into a unique reference class specifically constructed as to only contain him (how can god "sin" when "sin" is defined as disobedience to god?), and you make a moral exception for that class. Special pleading, plain and simple.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it.
- Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 361 by Faith, posted 12-10-2012 7:18 PM Faith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 363 of 722 (683466)
12-10-2012 8:16 PM
Reply to: Message 359 by Faith
12-10-2012 7:16 PM


Re: Calvinism
You are trying to hold me responsible for something Calvin said which I haven't studied. I don't have to agree with everything he said in order to be a Calvinist or belong to a Calvinist Baptist church, and i don't have to account to you for anything he said.
True, you don't have to agree with everything Calvin said to be a Calvinist, but his doctrine of predestination is the specific thing that makes Calvinism Calvinism. If you don't agree with the stuff I've been quoting, you're not a Calvinist at all.
And I think if you are a Calvinist, then you do have to account for the distinctive doctrine of Calvinism, just as a Marxist would have to stand up for state ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. It's kind of a sine qua non of the dogma.
And in the context of this discussion, you definitely have to choose one side of the fence or the other. You can't approve what Calvin said on the grounds that God is "sovereign", and also tell us that God won't intervene to prevent ghastly crimes 'cos that would be an abrogation of the criminal's free will. You need some sort of coherent theological standpoint to argue from.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 359 by Faith, posted 12-10-2012 7:16 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 364 by Faith, posted 12-10-2012 11:22 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 364 of 722 (683472)
12-10-2012 11:22 PM
Reply to: Message 363 by Dr Adequate
12-10-2012 8:16 PM


Re: Calvinism
Predestination is not distinctively Calvinist. Like many other doctrines particularly imputed to him it's simply that he did a more systematic treatment of it, but you'll find it in Luther as well among others because it is found in scripture. I remember thinking that back when I read Calvin for the first time, how odd it is that people think he made this stuff up when I'd just read it in Luther. Naturally unbelievers like to make much of the most difficult doctrines.
I THINK I remember Luther writing, but I haven't been able to find it, that this is one of those doctrines that is so beyond our human ability to grasp that it shouldn't be taught until much later in a Christian's life. How can it be that we are responsible for our actions and yet scripture shows us that nothing occurs without God's willing or permitting it? That's impossible for us to understand.
I have some feeling for it nevertheless that involves thinking of God on a higher plane of action, not that that explains anything, it's just my way of picturing it. It has nothing to do with our felt freedom to do as we are moved in any case. It's meant to be a comfort, really. It adds confirmation to our being saved, which of course wouldn't matter to you. And it also tells us that the devil (or evil people) CANNOT act unless it's permitted by God, which means that things would be a LOT worse if sin were completely unrestrained. Some systems allow the devil unrestrained ability to do as he pleases, but that's just too scary, it makes him almost omnipotent and gives us little protection from him. But I'm sure this is all of no interest to you.
Sorry, I have to come back to what I'm not allowed to come back to here, God is good, He can do no evil, that's an article of faith given in scripture, it's not our business to judge Him but the other way around.
Shalom.

He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 363 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-10-2012 8:16 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 365 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-10-2012 11:41 PM Faith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 365 of 722 (683473)
12-10-2012 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 364 by Faith
12-10-2012 11:22 PM


Re: Calvinism
I don't think Luther goes nearly so far as Calvin does. It is one thing to think that God elects those whom he will save through efficacious grace, and quite another to think that God plans the details of each criminal's crime and then makes him carry it out by a positive act of will.
Really, on this issue a Calvinist is not a Lutheran and still less an Arminian. Go look on the Internet and see what John Wesley, the father of Methodism, has to say about Calvin and predestination! Protestanism is not a monolithic system of thought, its distinguishing feature is not being Catholicism. After that it all gets a bit confused.
And if you're going to talk theology, you need to decide which side you're on, you can't just espouse Protestant theology 'cos there is in fact no such thing. Not on this issue, anyway.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 364 by Faith, posted 12-10-2012 11:22 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 366 of 722 (683475)
12-11-2012 12:35 AM
Reply to: Message 330 by Dr Adequate
12-10-2012 1:38 AM


Calvinism
Since Calvin said all these things and Calvin was an expert in scripture, how do YOU think he reconciled them with the many statements in scripture that God is good? THAT's the problem. You think they prove that God is evil or that Calvin says God is evil, but obviously Calvin can't be saying that and anyone who believes the Bible can't understand it that way. Granted there are many who have so much of a problem with this theology of God's sovereignty taken to the max that they can't go there, so like Wesley they have to give more to human free will to argue against Calvin. That's the whole Arminian dispute. I find more problems with those theologies than with Calvin's, because those are the theologies that give evil too much power for my comfort. You think God is engineering evil, I don't read it that way but I also can't explain why. i'm sure Calvin does though, but you didn't quote anything to show that.
You said I shouldn't talk theology (beyond the theology of salvation as taught by the Protestant Reformation) but I didn't bring this up as far as I remember. It's a debate I try to avoid because it gets way beyond my abilities. I said I consider myself to be a Calvinist Baptist, that's ALL I said unless I'm remembering this all wrong, and that led you to pounce on Calvinism as proof of God's not being good. T'wasn't I but you who brought this up. Yes, I affirm the basic Calvinist tenets, largely because I think Arminianism is seriously off base, but i also avoid getting into debates about it and I disagree with you that I'm obligated to do that.
My interest is in keeping the BASIC doctrine of the Reformation concerning salvation in view, because that was pivotal in the split from Rome, AND because there seem to be some here who have no clue what that doctrine is (I was very surprised to find that out) AND at least one here who seems to be determined to keep it as obscured as possible.
These quotes of Calvin show God far above us in whom EVERYTHING must happen by His will just in the nature of things, because it's HIS nature,but we don't live on that plane. Calvin was intent above all to ascribe sovereignty to God. It's beyond our ability to grasp.
But again, SCRIPTURE, which was Calvin's authority, tells us that God cannot sin, and Calvin would not be denying that, so YOU explain how he reconciles these attributes of God that you think can't be reconciled. I'm sure you're up to it.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 330 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-10-2012 1:38 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 367 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-11-2012 12:56 AM Faith has not replied
 Message 369 by PaulK, posted 12-11-2012 1:45 AM Faith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 285 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 367 of 722 (683476)
12-11-2012 12:56 AM
Reply to: Message 366 by Faith
12-11-2012 12:35 AM


Re: Calvinism
Since Calvin said all these things and Calvin was an expert in scripture, how do YOU think he reconciled them with the many statements in scripture that God is good?
How do I think he did it? Extremely badly. But that's hardly the point.
You think they prove that God is evil or that Calvin says God is evil ...
Please do not lie to me about what I think, as this is simultaneously rude, dishonest, and stupid.
Of course, I suppose it is possible that this trifecta is just what you're aiming for, in which case do carry on.
You said I shouldn't talk theology ...
No, I said you should have a theology in order to talk theology. Otherwise you're going to say mutually inconsistent things according to the needs of the moment, as indeed you have done.
Yes, I affirm the basic Calvinist tenets, largely because I think Arminianism is seriously off base, but i also avoid getting into debates about it and I disagree with you that I'm obligated to do that.
Affirm them or deny them as you please, but don't try to have your cake and eat it. If, as Calvin asserts, God plans in detail every crime that's committed and then causes the criminal to commit the crime by a positive act of will, then there's no sense in saying that he won't intervene to prevent the crime because of his tender concern for the free will of the criminal. If Calvin is right, then the murderer commits murder because God willed that he should do so, and it would be neither more nor less an abrogation of his free will if God had instead fore-ordained that he should stay home and do some knitting, maybe have a nice cup of tea and some scones.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 366 by Faith, posted 12-11-2012 12:35 AM Faith has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 368 of 722 (683477)
12-11-2012 1:21 AM
Reply to: Message 357 by Faith
12-10-2012 7:04 PM


What hypocrisy ?
As I have usually heard it, hypocrisy refers to employment of a double standard - and not the refusal to employ a double standard.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 357 by Faith, posted 12-10-2012 7:04 PM Faith has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 369 of 722 (683478)
12-11-2012 1:45 AM
Reply to: Message 366 by Faith
12-11-2012 12:35 AM


Re: Calvinism
quote:
Granted there are many who have so much of a problem with this theology of God's sovereignty taken to the max that they can't go there, so like Wesley they have to give more to human free will to argue against Calvin. That's the whole Arminian dispute. I find more problems with those theologies than with Calvin's, because those are the theologies that give evil too much power for my comfort.
And yet you write:
And again, I think this is all about His leaving human beings made in His image free to make a nearly perfect mess of things on our own. The way to prevent evil is to follow His laws and to make laws for nations that follow His laws, but you all violate His laws and are supporting laws more and more that violate His laws.
If all we do is willed by God then we are not free and cannot choose to follow those laws or make the laws which you desire. God will that that should not happen. And if all is as God wills it, then the responsibility is God's too. Far from being a God who refuses to tolerate sin, the Calvinist God is a God who demands it.
Make sense of that, if you can.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 366 by Faith, posted 12-11-2012 12:35 AM Faith has not replied

  
Drosophilla
Member (Idle past 3641 days)
Posts: 172
From: Doncaster, yorkshire, UK
Joined: 08-25-2009


Message 370 of 722 (683485)
12-11-2012 4:22 AM
Reply to: Message 357 by Faith
12-10-2012 7:04 PM


How twisted it is that everyone here is carrying on about God's including babies in the great judgment of the Flood as if that were a great evil, though it is the judgment of God who cannot sin, but they approve of killing babies in the womb. What a bunch of hypocrites.
You've got that ass-backwards! It's you and your ilk that are the sick and twisted ones. In 1994 Reverend Paul Hill took a shotgun and murdered Dr John Britton and his bodyguard outside Dr Britton's abortion clinic. He said he wanted to stop the 'murdering of unborn babies' as befitted his Christian beliefs. Presumably the same sick beliefs that think it's OK for an 'almighty god' to murder equally unborn babies in the womb of tens of thousands of pregnant women that undoubtably were present in the world at the time of the Flud.
But that's OK isn't it? Cos your sky daddy authorises it it's OK. And what he says goes - because we are too dumb to figure out the 'greater good.'
At what point did you lose your rationality Faith - if indeed you ever possessed any? I find you and your ilk deeply distasteful holding such psychopathic views.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 357 by Faith, posted 12-10-2012 7:04 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 371 by Faith, posted 12-11-2012 4:58 AM Drosophilla has replied
 Message 372 by crashfrog, posted 12-11-2012 8:27 AM Drosophilla has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 371 of 722 (683486)
12-11-2012 4:58 AM
Reply to: Message 370 by Drosophilla
12-11-2012 4:22 AM


If anybody on your side against me had an ounce of honesty, fairness and common sense, they'd call you down on a post like this. But I won't hold my breath.

He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 370 by Drosophilla, posted 12-11-2012 4:22 AM Drosophilla has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 373 by Larni, posted 12-11-2012 9:00 AM Faith has replied
 Message 459 by Drosophilla, posted 12-13-2012 8:09 AM Faith has not replied

  
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


(4)
Message 372 of 722 (683490)
12-11-2012 8:27 AM
Reply to: Message 370 by Drosophilla
12-11-2012 4:22 AM


But that's OK isn't it? Cos your sky daddy authorises it it's OK.
I don't think Faith thinks murder is ok, and regardless of our opinion of her views I think she deserves not to have ascribed to her views that she doesn't actually hold.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 370 by Drosophilla, posted 12-11-2012 4:22 AM Drosophilla has replied

Replies to this message:
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Larni
Member (Idle past 164 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 373 of 722 (683492)
12-11-2012 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 371 by Faith
12-11-2012 4:58 AM


Hi Faith.
I'm not going to say Drosophila is wrong to hold the views he has but I don't think you are a psychopath.
You believe your god is good because in the final analysis you believe he has very good unfathomable reason for his actions.
I don't believe this to be the case but I can see where you are coming from.

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286
Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134

This message is a reply to:
 Message 371 by Faith, posted 12-11-2012 4:58 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 374 of 722 (683497)
12-11-2012 10:19 AM
Reply to: Message 356 by Faith
12-10-2012 6:55 PM


Re: Is God Good? & MAINSTREAM BASIC BIBLE CHRISTIANITY
That's "evil" in the sense of calamity which God brings as judgment, that is not "evil" in the sense of sin which scripture says God cannot commit.
Its not evil its evil
Its just another one of the numerous examples of the Bible contradicting itself.
And this whole thing is quite funny, let me analogize it:
Let's say I am the Grand Rulemaker and I cannot be wrong. I decree that nobody shall wear a red hat. Next, I put this on:
If you were a believer like you are, then your arguments would be that either that is not a hat, or it is not red... for as the Grand Rulemaker who cannot be wrong, I have decreed that nobody shall wear a red hat. So, that can't possibly be a red hat that I'm wearing.
Meanwhile, everyone else can see that it is, in fact, a red hat and you are just making stuff up to maintain your preconceived beliefs. It makes you look quite silly to point at a red hat and claim that it is either not red or not a hat.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 356 by Faith, posted 12-10-2012 6:55 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 377 by Faith, posted 12-11-2012 2:42 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 375 of 722 (683507)
12-11-2012 11:43 AM
Reply to: Message 274 by Dr Adequate
12-09-2012 10:14 AM


I'm not sure what you mean by "a final moral perfection". Personally I don't think I have ever witnessed moral perfection, so I don't see why one needs to account for it.
I think the Jesus of Nazareth is as high a moral perfection as I have witnessed on the earth. Ie. as close to Perfect as there is in history.
The second runner up would not even be in the same class, I think.
You may have never seen "moral perfection" but you must have some scoring mechanism to distinguish between lesser moral behavior and better. Otherwise you wouldn't be objecting to God as evil.
Some kind of scoring system you use to differenciate relative excellence, mediocrity, and abject failure. This scoring system is not unlike how you would score the performance of a golfer or boller.
You have a scale, a scoring board of some kind.
So you have looked the Bible over and have SCORED God's involvement POOR, EVIL on your scale. You have a standard in mind- a moral scoring system of some kind.
I would like to ask you: Where does the moral scoring system you use that allows you to identify evil come from in the first place?
Where is a standard of good out there that makes the whole notion of evil intelligible? I think you must have a transcendent concept of moral duty to, or moral obligation to something that has given man this standard to which goodness is owed.
I have a problem with duty in complete isolation.
So you think God is evil on the scale of Rule Maker WHO ?
I think moral conduct is in the realm of living beings with choice of will.
The Bible begins "In the beginning God ...". And it says that God calls the things not being as being.
" ... God, in whom he [Abraham] believed, who gives life to the dead and calls the things not being as being." (Romans 4:17b)
Are there problems with the idea of God being the ultimate transcendent moral will to whom I am obligated ? Maybe so. This thread has attempted to highlight a problem - "God may not be good for doing this or that or the other. " That's the problem being argued here.
You see, if I am made in the image of God as Genesis 1:26,27 states then whether I believe in God or do not believe in God, I still understand why I have a built in sense of the goodness or badness of moral acts.
I don't have to be a Theist in order to have an opinion about conduct. I can be an Atheist and know something about goodness. Being an Atheist does not make me not made in God's image if Genesis 1:26,27 is true.
If in the beginning there was only particles, real moral obligation seems meaningless in the final analysis. I don't think its an easy problem to solve - Moral Obligation without God in a universe which only knows material things as its ultimate essence.
The popularity of Jersey Shore.
I can see why you'd rather wrestle with the delimma of Jersey Shore's popularity.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-09-2012 10:14 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 376 by Dr Adequate, posted 12-11-2012 12:54 PM jaywill has replied

  
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