God is cruel

what is convenient is ignoring the biblical fact that God created this whole cruel, unjust and unfair system (Isa 45:7-12, Amos 3:6, Col 1:16, Heb 11:3), when it suits us.what is convenient is applying the terms 'cruel', 'unfair' and 'unjust' to actions initiated by man and not to the same actions when initiated by God.what is convenient is attributing good things to God and bad things to man/the devil/free will/etc. I want you to say something you cannot say without dropping your moral double standards.This message has been edited by Legend, 04-08-2006 01:30 PM

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

ahh....self-righteousness followed by self-justification.The cornerstone of a healthy belief system!

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

legend

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I take it there are no Christians dying from disease then ?

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or is it that the ones who die horribly just didn't pray hard enough ?!

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we dont know the hearts of everyone. there are so called christians that dont even obey.. that lie, cheat, and steal. this trend is becoming more and more common.
i believe even though we have free will, our lives are on a timeline that can be looked apon.. with each choice we make, there is a lesson to be made. spirits in the material world are affected by choices. ultimitly, the state of your heart will determine the life you live, not the way you're looked upon by other people. **genuine** good people live happy lives..and if your heart changes, your life will change along with it. and i know youd like to reply with a couple examples of happy people that die from lightning.that is the logical way.but this isnt my point, the point is youll be guided by the state of your heart... you are the driver.every day we meet people that put on the mask of false happiness and pretend they dont have anything missing. this void is filled one way.. and one way only.

God created everything did he not? You're skipping my point. Adam and Eve decided... but Is it Fair or Just that we should pay for their mistakes?
God has determined that we should, God has determined that we are doomed to saty in a fallen state unless he decides we should be lifted out of it.Is that fair, Just or merciful?

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You're skipping my point. Adam and Eve decided... but Is it Fair or Just that we should pay for their mistakes?
God has determined that we should, God has determined that we are doomed to saty in a fallen state unless he decides we should be lifted out of it.

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Is that fair, Just or merciful?

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I have answered your question several times and you are not willing to accept my answers. I'm not interested that you change your point of view and I'm not interested in changing mine.As for God deciding we should be lifted out of our fallen state? I've not heard that said before and it is a strange idea. But, you go for it.You clearly do not understand that God's ways are not our ways. The fair, just, and merciful ways in which God is all these things, is certainly too abstract for you.

I have not changed my point of view... I am asking the same questions. Is it fair Just or merciful that we should pay for the actions of two people thousands of years ago?
Can you point me to where you have answered this question? THe idea that we cannot save our selves but that god must save us has been explained to me by many christians on this site. It is their Idea of Salvation, not mine. So you understand God then? that must be one hell of a brain in your head to understand the unfathomable.
You will then be able to explain to me why it is fair that we are paying for the actions of Adam and Eve, when We had no control over their actions, no input into their choices, no knowledge of their choices.
why/how is that fair?

NO you haven't, if I am mistaken please show me where you did.I really want you, or another of the Christan folk on here to explain to me the fairness or Justice involved in the fall.
Why is it fair or just that we as a human race, should suffer as a result of Adam and Eve's lack of obedience? why are we not in an 'eden state' and given the opportunity to individually decide whether or not to stay in that state?(This is a different thing to being given the opportunity to dig our way out of the fallen state.. after all Why am I Born 'fallen' beacause of A&E's mistake?)This (to me anyway) is a very big problem with Christianity, and this is the first point in the Bible where God shows how cruel he really is.I cannot worship anyone I see as being cruel or unfair.edit to correct quoteThis message has been edited by Creavolution, 04-13-2006 11:04 AM

I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Hi Crevo,A couple of thoughts. The first is that, if you accept (for the sake of argument) that we are in a fallen state because of A&E's actions then you also must accept that a consequence of that Fall is skewed thinking on our part. In the sense here, a skewed sense of what justice is. Not a totally useless sense - just a skewed one.It should be self-evident then, that we are not in a position to rely on our skewed sense of justice when deciding what is objectively just. In our closed system of falleness we might support each others notion (fallenly) and arrive, through much (fallen) consensus, at a fallen notion that the fall was unjust.But if the fall, then we have no way of knowing we are correct. The Fall would guarentee that we would be incorrect. If we think the fall is unjust and know that we cannot be right then it follows that we are wrong. If we are wrong then the fall was just.IOW: if the fall then we cannot comment on whether God was just or not for want of being objective when it comes to what constitutes justice.When Moses saw the bush burn but not being consumed, he was curious. How can that be? And he approached it to investigate - only to be told by God not to come closer and to remove his sandles "for you stand on holy ground". This Christians position is "I don't know why it is just, but I know God is just therefore the fall was just. Such aspects of God's plan come back to faith - not intellectual working out (although there are many things to challenge and satisfy the intellect)Not all aspects of Gods plan are open to us to understand: "Predestination (God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy) vs. God want that none should perish" is perhaps the best known of these closed areas where all we can do is remove our sandles and 'allow' God to be God In wanting to know things that are the sole preserve of God you want in fact to have the same knowledge as God. You want to be like God in other words. Which was precisely what caused A&E's fall. You show here that you wouldn't in fact have done any better than themThis message has been edited by iano, 13-Apr-2006 12:46 AMThis message has been edited by iano, 13-Apr-2006 01:41 AM

thanks Iano. Where is this 'skewed sense of justice' supported biblically? I thought the apple was from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so when A&E ate from it, they gained the knowledge of good and evil.
Seems like they had the 'skewed' knowledge before thay ate. yet you seem certain you are correct? what makes you sure that your interpretation of the bible isn't 'skewed'? hmmm no... all I ask is that I be given the same opportunity adam and eve were to choose... A choice is not a choice unless you are presented with ALL the information and ability to make an intelligent choice.
I do not have (according to the fall) the ability to make a rational choice, thus how on earth can I trust that choosing god is the correct choice?

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well jar, the topic here is the justice of the fall.I guess we should stay on topicthanx tho This message has been edited by Creavolution, 04-13-2006 11:01 AM

Was there a Fall?I can find no indication in the Bible that there was ever a Fall or that there is anything like Original Sin. As I said in Message 6, if the assumptions outlined in the OP were true, then God would indeed be true. Fortunately, there is no support for the positions outlined.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

personally I do not accept genesis or the fall as fact.But I am trying to rationalise how someone who does, can accept God as being anything other than cruel.

That rationalization is a very common, even basic human response to a conflict between dependency needs and abuse. It's easier to see and understand it if you investigate the guilt and self blame of survivors of parental abuse. It's common that the victim rationalizes the abuse that they were bad and somehow deserved it and are to blame. This reflects the deep dependency need to have "good" parents and that the mind functions to preserve emotional values.Rationality is of relative late emergence and doesn't have the power of our more primitive emotional needs. Rationalizing comes before rationality and examples of that can be found in even the most brilliant of thinkers though I confess this sleepy morning I can't think of a single example.(just thought of Newton's interest in astrology, but I don't know much about that)Fritz Perls talked about the importance of retroflection, diverting an impulse from an object to the self, in the Jewish religion. On occasions of disasters, defeats, etc. when the populace would feel rage directed at the priests and the God they represented the priests convinced the people to be angry with themselves and accept the blame. The bad thing happened because of their failures. God and the priests were righteous and the people were to blame so they retroflected their anger back onto themselves, a type of guilt function.This kind of manipulation went on after 9/11 or the flooding of New Orleans. Preachers with say an anti homosexual agenda blamed these events on homosexuality. There is no rational basis for this but rationality remains a big challenge for humans and so there are people who will literally buy into these kinds of sales pitches. That is to say they will send money. Irrationality pays whether it's selling soft drinks, fashion, or religion. And our human irrationality spans the range from the truly tragic to the ridiculous, sometimes simultaneously.lfen

Me personally, I don't think it is necessarilly 'fair'. I'm almost positive it isn't 'just' eitherIt is, however, exactly how actions and reactions appear to work in real life.So, for example, if a mother catches some type of lethal sexually transmitted disease and passes it on to their child within their womb, is the child in any way responsible for the disease they have acquired?Or, if the mother catches some type of lethal sexually transmitted disease from her cheating husband, is the mother in any way responsible for the disease they have acquired?Or, if the father catches some kind of lethal sexually transmitted disease from a tainted blood donation, is the father in any way responsible for the disease they have acquired?Me personally, I don't think the people in any of these cases are deserving a disease in any way. And I certainly don't think what happened to any of them is fair by any means. It's certainly not just by any definition that I can fathom either.It is, however, exactly what happens in real life when we make mistakes and pass those mistakes onto our ancestors.In a sense, our ancestors are paying the price for our mistakes-- not because they are guilty, but becase we are. The fact that it is not fair is, in my opinion, an extremely overlooked yet important element within the account of humankind's shameful disgrace before God in the garden: the Mystery of Iniquity.I'll note that many Christians, such as myself, do not believe that humanity is born by default damned to hell. In fact, I'm often repulsed by this concept whenever I read it.However, if one notes that God may have willingly allowed humanity to choose their own destiny, it seems highly likely that his willingness inevitably leads to the possibility of other's actions causing things to go wrong for very innocent people, people not deserving the wrongs they've received.Any causal glance at the evening news will fairly well demonstrate. . .everyday. . .all around the world. . .this exact kind of iniquity in real life-- and this fairly well captures my own view of original sin.As far as I can tell, the orignal sin has very little to do with what's considered fair. More importantly, the original sin seems to be pointing out exactly what's considered not fair-- and it asks us how we will respond when faced with these kinds of challenges in life.Maybe I'm wrong. But as the Scriptures themselves say, "A tree is known by its fruit."This message has been edited by Mr. Ex Nihilo, 04-13-2006 11:38 PM