No. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. A sin is not evil fruit. It is a question of wickedness, and a source of sap and inspiration other than God. If He is in our heart we just will have good fruits. All men are sinners yes, but not all are Hitlers.
by the first corollary to godwin's law, you hearby lose the argument.
False! The ones commanded by God were done out of love for man, and were righteous!
it's not false. it's what the bible -- and GOD -- says.
--Yes, He made the devil, and the darkness, and evil and good, but only so we could choose, and appriciate the good more one day. The devil is God's servant, for our good.
i agree. but evil is still evil.
In this sense of the word, it means repented of the 'bad things' or 'harsh punishments' or such. Things that He as a Father decided we needed. Then He decided on some less severe way of getting the lesson across, or deed done.
yes, and the word GOD uses for it is "evil." remember, adam and eve's first sin was taking that which belonged only to god: knowledge of good and evil.
Doesn't matter I already gave the context.
having read the old testament, i understand the context. and it's a little different than what you may think.
God is righteous and good!
of course he is. god
defines righteousness and goodness. (heck, if you know any old english, the word "good" comes from the word "god")
but evil is evil nonetheless. and god uses evil, and god does things that
he himself calls evil.
Ezr 9:15 - O LORD God of Israel, thou art righteous: for we remain yet escaped, as it is this day: behold, we are before thee in our trespasses: for we cannot stand before thee because of this.
when we sin, it is because we are breaking god's commandments for us. can god sin? god is not a man that he should repent -- who would he repent
to?
Ps 19:9 - The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
the judgements of the lord. which include, specifically, the exile. that was one of the evils described above, rather prominent on the minds of some of the later prophets, like jeremiah. how can an action god calls evil be righteous?
because god does it. god says "i do this evil to you" and we say "thank you, we deserved it."
Ps 116:5 - Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.
these are not neccessarily exclusive. i'm sure you can think of times when god did not show any mercy. for instance, passover is a good one. (though i suppose he could have killed EVERY egyptian...)
1Jo 1:5 - This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
yet god creates (present tense) darkness. we also have to remember that there are a number of competing philosophies in the bible. i know most christian don't like this idea, but there are. the things isaiah says about god might not line up with the things john says about god. people have opinions, and we can rarely get any two people from
the same time period to agree, here. there's an old saying about 2 rabbis having 3 opinions between them.
The Spirit of God is not hate, and evil. On the contrary-
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance
again, newer christian ideology. christianity has split a multifaceting, complex character of god into three persons: a wrathful father, a merciful spirit, and a sacrificial son.
I hear many object to getting rid of them. War will be here as long as the heart of man is wicked, regenerate, and unsaved, and man still rules this earth.
i doubt salvation has anything to do with it. our wise president is a born again christian, and he goes and starts wars.
Fortunately, that isn't very long at all.
in the geologic spectrum of time, no. but i doubt that's what you're referring to. don't expect the rapture anytime soon. rather, we should work to make heaven on earth -- live these lives as if they matter. because they do. the trick, i think, to living as a christian is to forget all about any afterlife and concentrate of living this one as best as we can, following christ's examples to the best of our abilities.
In the case of the old testament stage of man, and God's people, of course that is a different story. They still had physical weapons and the fight was still pretty physical way back in man's kindergarten. The judgements of God are true, and righteous altogether. Sodom, the flood, you name it, done in love every one, and for our good!
what good does death do for the dead?
™ Version 4.2