Is God Evil?

Dude, if you use the reply button in the lower right you can cause an email to be automatically sent to the recipient.It makes Peq aware that you have lest her a message.Hope this helps.

Noted.

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Either you are being dishonest or you've never read:

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It is also dishonest to present verses as referring covering the same issue when they aren't. You've been shown that earlier in this thread, but you don't wish to address those issues.

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According to the above, God is an evil liar.

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The ... part is important in the warnings given in the Torah. These verses deal with idolaters. Parents who are idolaters will teach their children to be idolaters. As long as the family continues to hate God, God will not leave the guilty unpunished.Ezekiel 18 is explaining that when one repents, none of his offenses will be remembered. So a child whose family hated God could stop worshiping idols and start following God's decrees and do what was just and right. He would no longer be considered guilty and his offenses would be forgotten. He is only responsible for his own sin.Deuteronomy 24:16 deals with laws for the people.Try reading the story that surrounds the verses. Jeremiah 31:30. This is for the future. Has this come about yet?

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Gen:3:4-5 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

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Fascinating that you call God evil because of his threats, but now call him a liar because he didn't follow through with a threat. Diabolos (Devil) means prone to slander, slanderous, accusing falsely. Since a diabolos is someone who is prone to false statements or lies, what better word to personify than diabolos as the father of the lie? (Rhetorical) Don't confuse dogma with what is written. Satan and the Devil are not the same, unless you wish to show otherwise or prove that God didn't use creative writing.That's why I have asked that you show where God has followed through on his threats or warnings. The A&E story shows that God can change his mind and give a lesser disciplinary action. Is that lying?

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

Um...the flud?ABE: Hey, what happened to the kitty in the wizard hat?Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

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Um...the flud?

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There wasn't a warning before the flood. The warnings that Wotak provided, IIRC, were after the flood.In the context of the flood story everyone was bad. Only Noah found favor. If we have to accept that the flood story is true for the stake of the discussion, then what it says is also true for the sake of discussion. Yes, even the worms were corrupt.

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ABE: Hey, what happened to the kitty in the wizard hat?

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Halloween is over. The kitty is out looking for a good Christmas chapeau.The Marine Corps birthday is this month and veterans day, so my avatar will honor the women in the military besides my own former branch.Semper Fi Edited by purpledawn, : No reason given.

Hi Wotak,i feel very inclined to respond to these verses you've mentioned. I can see that they appear to be completely contradictory so it is not hard to see why you have the opinion you do. What i want to show you is that these verses are not speaking about the same subject. The first 3 scriptures are refering to general sin that we all have. The bible is clear that each persons sin is his own and punishment for such sin goes only to the individual. It was written into the Mosaic Law that if a father sinned, his children were not to be punished for the mans sin.However, Exodus 20:5 Numbers 14:18 Deuteronomy 5:9 & Exodus 34:7 are speaking about a different type of sin. The subject in these verses are to do with the worship of false gods. In the case of such sin, the laws about not punishing the children does not apply. The reason it does not apply is because false worship was something that corrupted everyone...including the children...and all suffered as a result of it. God did not protect people from their own evil, its in this way that 'God is bringing punishment upon the 2nd generation and upon the 3rd etc'Besides this, anyone involved in false worship stood in opposition to God by default. When the nation of Israel turned to idolatry, it suffered the consequences of this for generations thereafter. Even the faithful Israelites felt its effects in that the nation’s religious delinquency made staying on a course of integrity difficult for them. The children suffered as a result because false worship, by its very nature, is destructive. The cannanites worshiped Molech who demanded child sacrifices for instance. So false worship was something that God was completely against and anyone who practiced it constituted himself, and his families/children, enemies of God.That probably will not be satisfying for you, but im merely trying to show you that the verses you use are not contradictions. They are speaking about completely different subjects. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

the verse you are referencing is a prophecy about Syria's future attack on the Isrealites. This was a prophecy about what Syria would do to the Isrealites. God had removed his protection from them because of the idolutrous worship they were participating in. So God was not the one dashing anyones children to the rocks...it was an invading army who did this. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

Satan is not a creature designed to perform evil acts. He was one of the foremost angels in heaven who chose to rebel. He was created perfect and without any defect...without any sin. But he, like many of us, chose to go his own way and opposed God.For this act of rebellion he became a 'satan' and a 'devil' which means 'resister' and 'slanderer' in Hebrew.this is the one you should be blaming for all the injustice in our world, not God.

Have to ask this... at what point did God say to Adam&Eve that Satan, this evil being that was abhorrent to God because God is holy and cannot abide sin, was skulking around God's own garden disguised as a snake? And that they really shouldn't listen to a word he says?If Satan could be created perfect, yet still sin WITHOUT any outside prompting, how the hell did God expect Adam & Eve to remain sinless with this goddamn talking snake goading them all the way???

we could pose the same question about why Eve didnt consult with her husband before she made such a huge decision without him...or why Adam didnt consult with God to get Gods viewpointGod would have certainly gave A&E the right direction had they asked for it because for them, to sin was a choice and therefore it was within their power to reject that option put before them. God made them with free will so just as they could have freely chosen to obey God, they could have freely chosen to reject the snakes offer.It also highlights the issue of mans integrity which is another reason why God did not prevent the first couple from experiencing the snakes deception.Mind you, if they maintained loyalty to God and rejected the snakes offer, God would have destroyed the snake then and there so as not to disrupt the peace and happiness of the first couple. The fact that they followed the snake meant that all the children born to them were genetically disposed to the condition of sin....but thats another subject. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

A&E are newly created beings - we are in no position to judge their sense when it comes to them asking the right questions. But God is a whole different ball-game. Why did he allow Satan in the garden? And why were they not warned? (Of course, I am arguing against Christian doctrine here, not the Genesis account - as Satan does not appear in the Genesis account) So Satan did not have freewill when he chose to rebel? And we know this because...? God's highest created being, Lucifer, has already rebelled. God doesn't have a great track record when it comes to creating devoted followers, does he? Perhaps he needs to look at himself before blaming and cursing everyone else?

Is that what you tell your dead child after he walks in front of a speeding car?

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. - Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe." - Carl Sagan"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

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He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth

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This single sentence describes both Satan and God, if we are to take the words within the bible literally.

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Don't keep changing the parameters of the discussion. Show evidence that the Bible is to be taken literally (free from exaggeration or embellishment) because the words are God's. In Message 96 you said: This does not automatically mean literal (free from exaggeration or embellishment). Reading the simple meaning means we take figurative or creative uses of words into account if the context calls for it. Just as God meant us to read it.

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Why is it that God chose to introduce and describe the Devil that he created in a manner that he could also be described?

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As I explained. The text isn't describing a being. It is personifying the word diabolos.Diabolos (Devil) means prone to slander, slanderous, accusing falsely. Since a diabolos is someone who is prone to false statements or lies, what better word to personify than diabolos as the father of the lie? (Rhetorical).Show evidence that God created Satan or the Devil as a being. The uses of the name Satan in the Bible are usually personifications implying adversary.In the Bible, Wisdom is not really a woman (Proverbs 8) and Kindness, Truth, Justice, and Peace are not beings. (Psalm 85:11)

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

I see it like this: (taken from an earlier similar topic at EvC}

Are the words attributed to God in the Bible actually Gods words? If not, could it be the human authors of the Bible who are attempting to use God to justify the plot twists in their stories?

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What is a working definition of evil? I would define evil as doing anything outside of the will of God, as we understand Him.

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Lets examine some of the O.T. and put it into a modern context.

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What if some ancient historian were teleported to the current century. Furiously chiseling his observations on a stone tablet, perhaps our ancient reporter would record something such as this:

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And it came to pass that on the eleventh day of the ninth month, the holy martyrs from the kingdom of Egypt captured several of the Great Winged Chariots and rode them through the air and they crashed into the Giant Twin Towers of the Amerikites.
And God spoke to King Bush The Lesser and commanded him to go forth and find the great leader of the Egyptian Martyrs from the kingdom of Arabia.

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And it came to pass that a mighty Army was gathered and sailed forth from the shores of America and the Amerikites were of one mind and heart, for they feared for the safety of their kingdom.

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And Bin Laden, who was the leader of the Martyrs, had journeyed to the land of the Afghan Kingdoms. The people saw his stature and they understood the wrath that the Amerikites had for him, and thus they hid him in the caves of Tora Bora and when the Amerikites rained brimstone down upon him as God had commanded them to do, the Martyrs escaped by night into the land of Pakistan. And Bin Laden was of great height he stood a full 7 cubits high!

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Wherever he went, the people hid him, for they knew that he had stirred up the false gods of the Amerikites and that the Amerikites worshiped created things.

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But King Bush was convinced that he heard from the true God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He told his advisers that it was the people of the moon god that were the true idolaters, for surely they wanted to crush the blessings that Jehovah had bestowed upon the Amerikites.

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Meanwhile, the King of Babylon, whose name was Saddam, helped the martyrs and the noble cause of Bin Laden, for he hated the Amerikites and the famines that they had caused his people. He feared no gods except his own advisers, and he purged the men who got too close to his throne.

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My point is this: GOD, if God exists, was not actually the one doing the killing. The people can blame God all they want and claim He ordered them to kill. Dubya Bush claimed that God told him to attack Iraq. Shall we blame God or Dubya??

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Edited by Phat, : fixed

If Yahweh is real we blame him and he is evil.If he is not we blame Dubya and he is a twat.