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Author Topic:   God is cruel
Faith 
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From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 4 of 301 (300526)
04-03-2006 9:12 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Protomenace
04-02-2006 7:15 PM


First let's make some assumptions. Let's assume that god is real, god created me, and atheists go to hell.
Ok, so if god created me, didn't he make me the way I am?
Yes and no. Human beings were made in the image of God, that is, with God's moral and intellectual qualities, but Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ever since then we are flawed, we are spiritually dead to God and our moral and intellectual abilities are distorted.
He made a person who requires empirical evidence to believe things.
Since we are spiritually dead because of Original Sin, we have only a very faulty ability to discern God, and since our intellectual abilities are flawed our ability to discern empirical evidence is likewise not trustworthy.
As we all know, god has supplied no such evidence.
Bible believing Christians disagree. The evidence is abundant but we have lost the ability to recognize it.
So I go to hell? Wait a second, that seems a little unfair god. It's not my fault I'm the way I am, it's your fault. You made me this way. Isn't that a bit cruel on god's part?
So, I have to assume that A. God is cruel. or B. God isn't real.
I believe the fact that we are fallen creatures since Adam and Eve's disobedience explains it all.
1) God is not cruel, but the consequences that our sins bring upon us are very cruel indeed. But God, being a merciful good God, has given us a way out, even sacrificing His own Son to pay for our sins so that we can be set free of them.
2) God is very real but the ability to discern Him has been lost because of our sins.
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-03-2006 09:18 AM

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


Message 31 of 301 (300628)
04-03-2006 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by Chiroptera
04-03-2006 2:27 PM


Yeah! Why don't we each get a chance to eat or not eat the apple?
Just as a practical matter, how long do you think you could hold out not eating something that was specifically identified to you as the one thing you are not allowed to eat, and this other being comes along (you can't have one part of the story without the other you know) and tells you that God lied to you and it's really good to eat and will make you as smart as God?

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


Message 35 of 301 (300632)
04-03-2006 2:44 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Heathen
04-03-2006 2:07 PM


So if God is so merciful why doesn't he simply put us back to the pre-fall position? instead of holding us all responsible for the actions of Adam and Eve however many thousands of years ago?
Because he's also a God of justice and righteousness. He doesn't act whimsically. Mercy doesn't ignore justice, it still has to meet its terms.

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


Message 37 of 301 (300637)
04-03-2006 2:54 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by robinrohan
04-03-2006 2:44 PM


You would need an objective morality, provided by God, to prove that God is cruel.
You may have just proved the necessity of the existence of God, Robin.
It is starting to sound something like what C.S. Lewis was getting at when he argued for God from the existence of human moral feeling. People call God cruel with a strong sense of indignation, but in order to justify such a judgment they need an objective ground for morality, and the only objective ground possible is God. So God must be real and their judgment false.
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-03-2006 02:54 PM

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


Message 65 of 301 (300711)
04-03-2006 7:07 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by Heathen
04-03-2006 5:05 PM


Even if it is merely as a construct to attribute morality to?
Didn't sound like he was talking about a "construct," whatever that might look like. It sounded something like C.S. Lewis' idea that the fact that we are all moral creatures with strong moral opinions (whether we agree or not) is evidence for the existence of God. I never found his argument convincing, or maybe I didn't even understand it. But this reminded me of it, as if to say that all the human complaining about God's not suiting our own moral standards could only come from our being made in the image of God Himself even if we twist it around against Him.
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-03-2006 07:09 PM

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


Message 69 of 301 (300745)
04-03-2006 9:48 PM
Reply to: Message 68 by DorfMan
04-03-2006 9:43 PM


Re: They were told
Well said.

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


Message 71 of 301 (300751)
04-03-2006 10:12 PM
Reply to: Message 70 by Coragyps
04-03-2006 10:06 PM


Re: They were told
Why does everybody assume that what the Bible says about something is ALL that happened? I would assume that to describe in some detail if far from exhaustively the creation and early days of planet earth and our first parents, just the first few chapters of Genesis, would take at least a few volumes the size of the Bible. In other words, it seems reasonable to expect that there was plenty of communication between God and his first couple, and no reason to doubt that they understood enough about the implications of the threat of death to have been appropriately warned. That is after all implied by the few words we are given. They were warned, they understood, they disobeyed. It's a common human story. What's the problem?

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


Message 73 of 301 (300760)
04-03-2006 11:41 PM
Reply to: Message 72 by ringo
04-03-2006 10:23 PM


Re: They were told
If it ain't there, don't make it up.
You bet. And it isn't making anything up to assume that what happened supported and didn't contradict what is actually written, but you guys love to dream up contradictory scenarios. If it says they were told they would die, then the logical thing to assume, the fair thing to assume, is that they understood it, instead of imposing your own crazy ideas about what they could have understood for which there is no written support. Sheesh.

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


Message 202 of 301 (302339)
04-08-2006 10:38 AM
Reply to: Message 200 by Legend
04-08-2006 8:25 AM


Re: the Rule-maker is responsible for the outcome of the Rules
All this complaining about the inevitable consequences of our sins and attempt to blame it on God, but it is God who gave the solution to the problem. His word is full of advice about how to live so as to avoid the consequences you are talking about. Stop sinning and trust in Him. He is also a healer -- those who trust in Him and pray to Him receive all kinds of blessings, including the healing of all kinds of diseases caused by the Fall. He also sent His Son to die for us so we can have eternal life.

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


Message 252 of 301 (304242)
04-14-2006 2:19 PM
Reply to: Message 251 by Heathen
04-14-2006 2:10 PM


I have been simply seeking to find out how a christian can reconcile that with the notion of a benevolent/merciful (non-cruel) God.
No one seems to be getting close to explaining this.
For me.. this is probobly the single biggest obstacle (amongst others)to 'worshipping' a God.
It's been explained pretty well already, I think, but maybe C.S. Lewis would make the case better. His book The Problem of Pain discusses all this. It's under copyright so won't be found online, but this site does a pretty good job of spelling out his argument:
... The main argument of The Problem of Pain is preceded by a presentation of an atheist objection to the existence of God based on the observable futility of the universe. The book starts on a personal note: "Not many years ago when I was an atheist . ". There follows a compelling picture of a universe filled with futility and chance, darkness and cold, misery and suffering; a spectacle of civilizations passing away, of human race scientifically condemned to a final doom and of a universe bound to die. Thus, "either there is no spirit behind the universe, or else a spirit indifferent to good and evil, or else an evil spirit". On the other hand, "if the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator? [ . ] The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been ground for religion: it must always have been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held". But, where should we look for the sources?
... How could a bad creature have come from the hands of a good Creator? The Christian answer is that it did not: man, and the rest of creation, was initially good, but through the abuse of freedom, man made himself an abominable, wicked creature he now is. This doctrine, which finds no support in science ” only in the Scripture, in the human heart and in newspapers ” is particularly foreign to the modern mind, which operates within a progressivist and materialistic paradigm. Lewis is aware of his reader's disposition; from the outset, he insists that "science has nothing to say for or against the doctrine of the Fall"....
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2006 02:21 PM

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


Message 259 of 301 (304284)
04-14-2006 5:18 PM
Reply to: Message 258 by jar
04-14-2006 4:51 PM


Re: How could A&E know to obey one voice over another?
They should know the voice of God because they were made in his image. Eve knew the difference but obeyed her ego instead.

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


Message 261 of 301 (304287)
04-14-2006 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 257 by PurpleYouko
04-14-2006 4:35 PM


Re: I haven't seen it either
I suppose in a way you are right, it is faith speaking, but I do think specific answers have been given plenty of times. Maybe it wasn't said on this thread, though I thought so. God's giving His creatures free will, or the ability to choose against Him, is the normal answer to complaints that the Fall shows an evil God. There would be no issue of obedience or of loving God if we had no free will. Love is shown by voluntary obedience and love is of more worth than compulsion.
But also, if it is faith that affirms this, it means faith that God is good and does nothing that is not good, and this is also logical. There is no contradiction between faith and logic. We know whatever happens happens because God is good and God is love. The link I posted about C.S. Lewis goes into more detail about how this is so.
This message has been edited by Faith, 04-14-2006 05:25 PM

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


Message 262 of 301 (304289)
04-14-2006 5:27 PM
Reply to: Message 260 by jar
04-14-2006 5:23 PM


Re: How could A&E know to obey one voice over another?
God is good, God is love. United with God they needed no special tools. They would know His voice, just as Jesus' sheep know His voice.
Of course she followed her ego. She was persuaded that she would have the same knowledge God has. That's ego.

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


Message 266 of 301 (304300)
04-14-2006 5:49 PM
Reply to: Message 264 by jar
04-14-2006 5:32 PM


Re: Just more assertions.
The answer to both your queries, which has already been given, is that they knew God's voice. The serpent's voice would not be God's and they would know this. Therefore she would not follow the serpent's voice. The reason she did is given in scripture -- he persuaded her she would be like God. That is ego.

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


Message 271 of 301 (304314)
04-14-2006 7:56 PM
Reply to: Message 269 by jar
04-14-2006 5:59 PM


Re: knowing GOD's voice?
Again, the answer to both your queries is, they knew His voice.
Tools? The "ears to hear."

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