Is God good?

To be clear, I mean that Darwin's ideas about favored races played a major part in Hitler's rational for wanting to do his "Final Solution".Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Yes. For now I would put it that way.There is something there outside of man, transcendent concerning Good and Evil. It would exist even if man did not exist. Like the laws of logic would exist whether or not man existed. I think I spoke to this issue of "WHO exactly, is the transgression against?"We could say " I just did it to this guy and no one else." But that is not how the Bible teaches the matter of sin, trespass, transgression. The offense was against someone yes. But it was against God.David, after his affair stealing Uriah's wife, Bethsheba, and arranging for her husband to be murdered, admitted that his sin was AGAINST GOD. "For I do know my transgressions, and my sin is before me continually. Against You and You alone have I sinned." (Psalm 51:4) He does not say that the sin was only against Bethsheeba.
He does not say that the sin was only against Uriah the Hittite.David acknowledges that he has trangressed against God. God is the crucial third party involved.So the sin against masochist by the sadist, in God's view, is not just a matter of concenting and willing sinners. It is a transgression against God's law.When the victim is not knowledgeable about what has happened to her or him, God still knows. And we have sinned against God. This is why elsewhere He says "Vengence is Mine, says the Lord. I will repay." (Romans 12:19 comp Deut. 32:35) My main point above is that every trangression, every trespass is not merely against another person. It is ultimately against God's law.The good news is that provision has been made for out extensively GUILTY selves in the redemption of Christ.The hard part is coming to agree with God that, yes, we are guilty.
Agreement is not begging. Agreement is not necessarily groveling.
Agreement is just acknowledgement to the truth of the truth. Saying that there is an objective moral standard or a trancendent moral law does not mean some moral issues are not difficult. Some people say that if we admit to a transcendent moral law how will we then live? We have no book which consists of 100,000,000 chapters detailing excactly the good thing to always do.So there are difficult isues. And there are issues about how to apply to good. Many ethical situations are very difficult to codify.Regardless, I think this difficulty does not argue that there is not objective ultimate good. I think it rather argues that there IS this transcendent standard.God gave the Law of Moses to expose man's fallen nature of sin. Man gained something that he was very proud of - the knowledge of good and evil.But in reaching out for that knowledge he didn't realize what the result would end up being. The result was that -1.) Man does not have always the life power to perform the good that he knows.2.) Man does not have always the life power to resist the evil that he knows.The knowledge of good and evil did not equip man with the power to perform all the good, nor the power to resist all the evil. Man knows and even delights in what is right. He cannot always do it. He knows and hates what is evil. He cannot always resist it.In reaching for the knowledge of good and evil man came under the dominion of God's enemy. He was poisoned with some kind of foreign element which has a parasitic attachment to man's being.The Sin nature is like a huge cosmic leech. 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.

Then you should have said so, instead of saying something completely different.And you would have been massively, ludicrously wrong.

Faith, Revelation says that the Woman seated upon the beast is the "Mother of harlots" .Is she a harlot? Yes. But she is also the mother of harlots. This should mean that she has spawned of many others like herself.Historically this can be seen in that the denominations all came out of the RCC, carrying to one more or less degree many of her errors. "And on her forehead there was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." (Rev. 17:5) The many daughters came out from the mother.
The many denominations came out of the RCC.Now I will try to tie this far fetched comments to the topic. We're suppose to be talking about whether God is good or not. Of course I believe God is good.It is a statement of man's depravity in his fall into sin that man will take what is good to dignify his basest motives. Of course when man is really intent on doing wickedly he will put the best face on it as a facade. To dignify his worst behavior he will envoke what is most high, most noble, most holy.This is probably why, in spite of the glorious aspect of the history of the Christian church, there is also that other most ignoble side. " ... THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH".The most wonderful things on earth have been under the Christian banner. Yet at the same time some of the most abominable things have also been under the Christian banner.Hence we have Christ's parable of the woman who leavened the meal until the whole things became leaven. "Another parable He spoke to them: The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened." (Matt. 13:33) Books like "God is Not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything" by Chris Hitchens are mostly fueled by this negative history that Jesus prophesied and foretold. That is the corruption of the Gospel of the kingdom by the fermenting of many evil things mixed with it.Of course the gates of Hades cannot prevail against the church which Christ builds. And Revelation reveals the church's triumph in glory - the Bride and Wife of the Lamb in chapter 19 and the New Jerusalem in chapters 21,22. She overcomes to match Christ and marry Christ.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Nothing was "ludicrously wrong" unless you're hunting for cheap points, I think.So we write something when [with] a little more time [it] might have been written somewhat more clearly.If you'll notice, my posts are usually edited numerous times to try to get it right. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Your statement that "Darwin's ideas about favored races played a major part in Hitler's rational for wanting to do his "Final Solution"" was in fact ludicrously wrong.If you are done bearing false witness then perhaps we could return to the topic, since you'll find your nonsense about Hitler debunked on plenty of other threads.

Jaywill, much as it would be preferable to have no divisions among God's people, no "denominations," it is not defensible to claim that the fact that they exist is somehow part of the harlot Church.You have to take into account what they believe and teach, and those that maintain their heritage from the Reformation are clearly opposed to the teachings of the Mother of Harlots, and embrace the true doctrines of salvation.There are plenty of apostate churches out there these days without blaming this on the mere existence of denominations. This takes spiritual discernment, not categorical thinking.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

...but she sits upon the ancient beast of Civilization that existed from the days of Egypt:Rev. 17:3 So he carried me away (in the spirit of thought), into the wilderness (of my imagination) and I saw (as if) a woman, ....... (those who have Institutionalized a system of sexual seduction into a failed matrimony), sit upon a scarlet coloured beast (of a brazen and corrupt sexually misdirected economic system: [Dan 3:1-5]), full of names of (Pagan) blasphemy, having seven heads:
(which existed in (1) Egypt, (2) Assyria, (3) Babylon, (4) Persia/Mede, (5) Greece, (6) Rome (7) the whole of Western Culture to follow)... ... having ten horns upon these seven heads:
(1. Undivided Empire; capital Rome: [305 AD],2. Western Roman Empire: (Romulus Augustus): [to 476 AD],3. Eastern Roman: Byzantine Empire, [1453 AD]4. Charlemagne, [800 - 1000 AD]5. Holy Roman Empire, [1200 AD-1492 AD]6. Italy, [Renaissance, 16th century]7. Spain, [17th century]8. France, [18th-19th Century]9. Britain, [19th-20th century]10. Nazi Germany, [20th century])11. America next?In 1960, America saw Feminism arise and the whole body of the women in the USA changed the sexual mores into the proverbial "Whoredom" of the Gentile world which Moses and the patriarchs abhorred.

Christianity in general began a decline from a 1000 years of mandatory attendance.It was slowly reduced to what has become 20% church attendance in RCC Europe and 50% in Protestant America.
The beast of Roman and Greek Culture arose again in a Renaissance that brought back attention to the sexuality of our species which the prudence of the church had previously overcome:Rev. 20:3 And cast him, (this dragon, the subtle cultural system of exploitative sexual mores, that old serpent, cultural Paganism), into the bottomless pit (of time), and shut him, (Satan), up (1000 years so as to inhibit the culture of libidinal freedom and sexual excess), and set a seal, (THE CROSS), upon him, that he (could not maintain that pagan, astrological/mythological promiscuous religious subculture that) should deceive the nations (in the Western world) no more (with his pagan culture), ... ... till the thousand years (of the Dark Age of Monasticism) should be fulfilled (and the Renaissance of the Beast begin): and after that, (in The Renaissance), he must be loosed (to open the adolescent subculture of ever increasing sexual permissiveness) a little season (since the end of the singular one Church over all Rome).Its just factual history come true in prophecy.

Hitler not only thought exterminating the Jews was good, he thought that exterminating the homosexuals, intellectuals, Serbs, Russians and a whole bunch of others was good.Had the Conquest of Canaan actually happened, then there would be no difference between the behavior of the God in that fable and Hitler. Had the Biblical Flood actually happened the only difference between that God and Hitler would be in orders of magnitude of evil.

I am way off topic. I think if we open up another thread perhaps on the proper Christian unity or some such heading, we can get into some fellowship about this.Well it is more like this - We can leave Babylon but Babylon will not so easily leave us. The high symbolism in Revelation concerns somethings which are in man's blood (so to speak).You know the significance of the Old Testament Babylon was that it was a place where God's people were CAPTURED AWAY from the promised land. They were exiled. Daniel was there too. Daniel was very spiritual you know. In fact some of the highest revelation in the whole Bible was written by the prophet Daniel - WHILE HE WAS IN BABYLON.So the matter is not to simple. "Come out of her MY PEOPLE" (Rev. 18:4 my emphasis) suggests the God realizes the HIS people, His saints, to a large degree have been caught, captured, exiled into such a spiritual Babylon.Don't you think so? "And I heard another voice out of heaven, saying, Come out of her, My people, that you do not participate in her sins and that you do not receive her plagues; For her sins have accumulated up to heaven, and God has remembered her unrighteousnesses." (18:4,5) So while saints are in the process of "coming out" of Babylon, there is also the need for Babylon to come out of them, out of their system.Mind you, that every single one of these saints [genuinely regenerated] eventually is a part of the New Jerusalem of chapter 21 and 22. So it is not so simple a matter that Babylon is "them over there."We believers need this leaven of degraded Christianity eliminated out of us. We need to overcome this degradation.The denominations cannot be used by God to turn the age and bring in the kingdom age. God must recover with a remnant the proper oneness. And He is doing that today. We came out. But the coming out was a start in the Reformation. It was not completed in the Reformation. The recovery is still going on.This is why in Revelation Jesus tells the church in Sardis that her works are not completed before His God. She has broken free from the degradation of the previous situation - Thyatire. But she has not COMPLETED the recovery - " ... for I have found none of your works completed before My God." (Rev. 3:2) Protestant Sardis has begun a recovery from Catholic Thyatira. But it is an incomplete recovery. She has a problem with spiritual death - " ... you hae a name that you are living, and yet you are dead." (v.1) The reputation is good. But the actual state Christ says does not match the good reputation - "These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: I know your works, that you have a name that you are living, and yet you are dead.

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Become watchful and establish the things which remain, which were about to die; for I have found none of your works completed before My God." (vs.1b,2) This is an improvement over Catholic Thyatira. This is the Reformation. But as you can see the reputation does not match the reality. And the recovery of the Reformation is incomplete.In Philidelphia the recovery advances further. And this is the move of the Lord in the Brethren which in turn came forth from the Reformation denominations.This is a short note on matters which require much explanation. But notice that in every one of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 there is a promise of reward to those who overcome the surrounding degradation.This proves that God reserves some who overcome - overcomers, in all kinds of degraded Christianity throughout the centries. A remnant will overcome in these last days also.Here overcoming is not in reference to salvation. This overcoming described in the seven letters in Revelation 2 and 3 is not in regards to eternal redemption. It is in regards to establishing the kingdom. Yes it does take spiritual discernment. Notice however that divisions and sects are discribed by Paul as the works of the flesh in Galatians 5. So when we become discerning with the Scripture to help, we realize that the denominations are the works of the flesh: "And the works of the flesh are manifest, which are such things as -

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fornication,
uncleaness,
lasciviousness,
idolatry,
sorcery,
enmities,
strife,
jealousy,
outbursts of anger,
FACTIONS,
DIVISIONS,
SECTS,
envyings,
bouts of drunkeness,
carousings,

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and things like these, of which I tell you beforehand, even as I have said before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21 My emphasis) " Factions, divisions, sects" are ways in which man divides up the one church that Christ established. And these are denominations too. They cannot be only things based upon wrong teachings. They can be things based on right doctrines but administered not in spiritual life but in the zeal of the fallen nature.At the least divisions can be indications of being tossed about as children lacking maturity -

" ... That we may be no longer little children tossed by waves and carried about by every wind of teaching in the sleight of men, in craftiness with a view to a system of error, But holding to truth in love, we may GROW UP into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ ..." (Eph. 4:14,15) So the denominations can carry some errors along with their withdrawal from the Mother. They are then daughters of the mother. They also can be divisive because of turfs of jealousy. They can be divisive based not only on heretical teachings but even right doctrines.Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, Pentacostal Church ... etc.These can be divisions of the Body of Christ which are the works of the flesh. They can be indications of children tossed as on litte boats on a windy sea - "That we may be no longer little children tossed by waves abd carried about by every wind of teaching ..." .Holding the head is an organic matter of life. The Head is Christ the living Person. The Head is available and alive. It is a life matter which unites the believers.Right doctrines are important. But even right docrtines can be used divisively when we are not holding fast the living Head - "But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ,

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Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operations in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love." (Col. 4:14-16) The apostles established churches according to localities - one city one church. So the recovery of the local ground is a further recovery from the incomplete Protestant Reformation.And now I am way off the original topic. But on another thread we can develop this more.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.

That is true. I believe the books of Exodus and Joshua are actual history.
But what it really at issue in this topic is not the historicity of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Joshua, etc. but is God good who is spoken about in these books.I will continue to sound just like a believer. It is a given with me, and as the OP stated, that the Bible is true.If it is not true, it puzzles me why you and others would spend so much time trying to argue against it. Where is the book "Unicorns are Not Great" ? Wheres the best seller "The Leprachuan Delusion"?
Where's the book "How UFO Sightings Poison Everything"?I think you argue here so strenously because there is a threat of the TRUTH of the Bible, I think. Since you mention the Flood I will speak here about the flood.Here is perhaps the crux of the argument. Both God and Hitler had people killed. Now let's be fair about it.1.) In the Flood I do not KNOW for certain children died. I can assume some did. But I really don't know that kids drowned.2.) There is the difference in the purpose of the killing. These people in the flood were not killed because they were all of some ethinic racial group. It was not because they were all Armenians, or all Jews, or all Gypsies. The thing binding them together in one group was not anything about race or ethnicity.Granted, still they were drowned by God's flood. It was the wickedness of their lives which He would no longer tolerate. Race and ethincity was not a factor. With Hitler, if he didn't like your ethinicity you were subject to extermination.With the flood - And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth ...". It is not that God saw that there were a lot of Armenians around and He hated Armenians. It was the wickedness of MAN (any kind of human) which was the cause of the judgment.(We're speaking to the Flood right now)3.) You don't take seriously how BAD this society had fallen. You simply wink at this or just don't see any big deal in it. " ... and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (v.5) You shrug? "So?" "And God said to Noah, the END of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them ..." (v. 13) You shrug? "So? God should just let them continue on forever in violence. That would be the good thing to do. Just be the ultimate Permissivist ad infinitum."No. God makes an example of this society fallen to rock bottom immorality. It is not the last time He does so. You see within most of us, we just don't think things can actually get that bad.God says "the END of all flesh has come before Me." This is the END. This is as terrible as it can get. It would be unrighteous of Him not to intervene.Then His govenrment would not be taken seriously. Then His authority would not be taken seriously. But we HAVE to take His holiness seriously, His righteousnesss seriously, His judgement seriously because to save the world Christ is to come and be judged for all men at Calvary.I have to repeat again that the serious hatred of God for sin and unrightousness had to be established for us to see what it means for Christ to die on His cross for the sins of us all.If you say "Big deal" at the earth reaching rock bottom sinfulness you will probably say "Big deal" that Christ died for you that you might be eternally redeemed, reconciled to God.Anyway, Noah was preparing the ark for about 200 years. In that time he was a preacher of righteousness.Also Enoch had been raptured out of the earth for walking with God. The poeple of that day had ample warning that to please God and be taken was preferable to sinning and remaining. Judgment was coming.How long did they know judgment was coming? At least for the 200 years Noah was building an ark and preaching about a coming FLOOD.Probably, since Enoch called his son Methusaleh, which means something like "When he dies it will come" and this man died after 969 years of life, this could have been a warning.The raptured man Enoch says, judgment will come when my son Methusaleh dies. Methusaleh lives LONGER than any other recorded man. This implies also that God held off the judgement for as long as He possibly could. So I submit that they had about a millennia of forewarning that a divine judgment was going to come. That is something they had never seen before. That was the rain for 40 days and the fountains of the deep being broken up to cause a huge flood.So God judges, true. But God gives about 1,000 years of warning that they may repent. I don't KNOW that children died. Floods of course do take children. So, assume some children died.God knows them. He knows if they were innocent or not. His record is infallible.God has places that we do not know about. "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8) Samuel was brought up from his "rest" in the realm of Hades (1 Sam. 28:8,11). And the Bible says "Sheol [covered to men's eyes] is naked before Him" (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11) I believe that though some people were temporaly judged with physical death that was not the end of their dealings with God in the eternal scheme. They were made examples though.Some judged and made absent from the body may have been made relatively more present before the Lord in a realm of the soul of which we have no experience.Many, many verses reveal that God has places for the departed souls of those whose loose physical life. What God can do Hitler cannot. Hitler has not either the authority or the power to do as God does.In ending human life Hitler and God have the same ability. In preserving the human departed soul, resurrecting the body at the end of time, recalling every minute detail of one's life, accounting for every minute contributing factor, and many things the moral Adolf Hitler and the Almighty God are not equal.How do I know that the example of the temporal judging of some Old Testament people was not the end of their story in the eternal scheme of things? I know because Jesus in a number of places implies it strongly.
Ie. "Truly I say to you, It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." (Matthew. 10:15)

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"But I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you." (Matt. 11:24) I think some of the people who died in the flood perhaps crying out to God outside of the closed ark, will wonder why those of latter ages didn't receive the gracious gift of salvation in Christ upon believing.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

If you believe the stories of the Biblical Flood, of Joshuah, of the Exodus are actually true (and there is overwhelming evidence they are not factual) then those Gods are far more vile and evil than Hitler.In the case of the flood myths there is the absurd claim that all people other than one family were wicked and so deserved to be killed. But wait, there's more. (I can just hear the infomercial) ... all the animals and plants except the select few were also deemed wicked and so killed off.In the case of Joshuah it is even worse. The God character announces that certain lands belong to HER people and so sets about doing ethic cleansing on a grand scale.But the most evil God in those stories has to be the one found in the Exodus myth. That God intentionally hardens Pharaoh's heart repeatedly just so IT can show off.The reason Protestant Christians such as myself continue to speak out on this subject is laid out above, the God you are trying to market is evil and unworthy of even my respect, much less any worship.Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

In supporting the lies and ancient misconceptions about what genesis says in regard to the Creationism the church people try to stone wall as an alternative to the facts of Evolution you force the God of the Bible to appear heartless and evil, simply because you ignore one of his NaturaL Laws is Survival of the Fittest and another is that every species MUST bow to his ever changing unfolding reality or become Extinct.Clearly, the dinosaurs disappeared as did Neanderthal man with the "flood" of modern man Out-of-Africa 40,000 years of "days and nights" ago.If the church keeps supporting what is now a lie concerning these facts, their "God" will become a devil who is beyond explanation to the next generations who can only see the elimination of children, women, and a whole world of people as evil, rather than evolution at work.

Is God good in that "He" uses evolution as the tool by which life improves and becomes stronger on planet earth?
Sure.
That is how "He" has manifested in an image called man.If God was not good in this way, man would never have come into being.