Maybe we could stop choosing it.....

It can be so difficult to tell them apart sometimes. Was Nebuchadnezzar choosing evil when he sent the jews into exile, or was he delivering God's 'justice' unto them?

No you are wrong. Stop hating on the Bible. Think with a open mind not with your preconceptions. Look at the Hebrew lexicon definition. It is talking about calamity especially if you read the entire chapter.

The KJV translates Strongs H7451 in the following manner: evil (442x), wickedness (59x), wicked (25x), mischief (21x), hurt (20x), bad (13x), trouble (10x), sore (9x), affliction (6x), ill (5x), adversity (4x), favoured (3x), harm (3x), naught (3x), noisome (2x), grievous (2x), sad (2x),

source

Looks like evil is the predominant use of the word. Where else does it turn up?

quote:

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And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil

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Duh. You didn't get what I was saying about him being wrong. Wrong = the context. Ra does have several meanings. Evil, bad, calamity,... The context IS important. Look at the chapter. It is clearly meaning evil as in calamity or evil as in punishment. It is clear.

I dispute your contention that it is clear, but I'm happy to play within those walls.

So God is only responsible for natural disasters and those evils that are committed by men in order to punish others? So the slaughtering of women at Shechem was an evil created by God, the Babylonian exile was an evil created by God, the enslavement in Egypt was an evil created by God and for all we know the holocaust was too.

So what evil is God not responsible for creating?

Stop hating on the bible.

Why would I stop hating books that justify murder, enslavement, capital punishment for trivial crimes, rape, and teaches people that their loved ones are being tortured forever because they couldn't convince them that Jesus is saviour?

It's like one of the worst collections of writings in the history of mankind - responsible for misery and suffering than Nero ever managed.

This must be a community filled with atheists whom don't bother with context.

I'm not sure the context really helps you all that much. God didn't murder that person over there - he just wiped out all the people of Pompeii. Stop hating on him!

I am not sure how these evils were created by God?

Probably the same way he created other evils. I presume he spoke them into existence or something.

God is not responsible for evil. God is responsible for free agency. God is responsible for punishing evil.

So he created 'calamity' but he's not responsible for it? Is this like the trinity? Do I have to believe before I can understand?

Besides - it is perfectly possible to create free agency without creating evil. I am incapable of flying to the moon, but I am still to be regarded as free. Why would I not be free if I was incapable of committing murder or rape?

Where does it read any of this...

Numbers 15:32-36

It is a book responsible for love and the rise of actual peace.

Peace? When did that happen?

Was it responsible for the love they showed Priscillian in 385?
Was it pursuit of peace that practising alternative religion was punishable by death in 451?
How about when the nobles enforced Christianity on peasants using armed men? Was the Bible responsible for that kind of love?
Was Charlemagne being peaceful when he ordered the Massacre of Verden in 782?
The general destruction of pagan property and holy places? Loving and peaceful?
The absence of freedom of speech and religion- love?
Was coercing Jews through torture and murder into converting in the 15th Century inspired by the loving and peaceful Bible?
How about when the Portuguese tortured Indians until they converted?

And Peace? Actual peace? Are you kidding me? Where is this actual peace? Wars have been fought just as regularly, if not more so, since the Bible was put together.

Humanity, along with satan is responsible for suffering.

Satan is not responsible for suffering. Satan is doing that which he was created by God to do. God is responsible. Also, God created humanity. If humanity has a propensity to evil, God created that too.

Let me rephrase this a different way, if religion is the creation of humanity than religion is not the issue.

Your rephrasing makes your point less clear.

Here is a list of tribes that {theologically it is perfectly fine to commit genocide against}

Instead of rendering them infertile (the trick he performed on Sarah in reverse) - he had to have them bloodily and painfully murdered, regardless of their character, because they had descended from giant evil rapist angels and were in danger of spreading their genes. Not that any of that is actually in the Bible - but making stuff up is par for the course I'm led to believe, and if some guy who made a youtube said it - that's as good as God himself speaking the words.

You've convinced me. The all powerful master of the universe thinks that killing women and children is the only solution to errant genetic material. He couldn't....remove it with his will. He couldn't prevent them from reproducing. Nope. Being sliced open with a sword is obviously the only way to resolve this non-Biblical dilemma.

Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

You still don't know that he created evil.

We're talking about 'calamity' remember? Are you calling God a liar now?

I suppose you need to open your mind enough to see other vantages which will reveal other vantages. Point, punishing evil is not evil.

I'm not contending that punishing evil is evil.

I'm saying God is responsible for the calamities he causes. You dispute this. I'm waiting for your defence.

Free agency is just that, do what the fuck you want to do, it would involve 0 limitations.

So we don't have free agency, gotcha.

Evidence: agoraphobics would like to go to the shop, but they have limitations.
Agorophobics are merely extreme examples of normal human functioning.
Humans are limited in their capacities to do whatever the fuck they want.
Ergo, humans do not have free agency.

The law is to guide you into heaven. I suppose since you don't like the law, or God it does not really matter.

I see your Christian concern for your fellow man. Your indifference to what you believe will be my future suffering is noted.

You will be fine dead. I think the most common thing I have heard from an atheist is, I am fine thinking I am dead in death. I presume you're the same? IF so why are we arguing?

Because we're not talking about atheism? Therefore we're arguing about something else. I think I've made it clear what I'm arguing about.

Ok. The counter argument is clearly, this does not refute the God of the Bible as a God.

The counter argument sucks. It sucks because the argument did not conclude that it refutes the god of the Bible as a god. In fact, I didn't make an argument. I just asked why would I not a hate a book that justifies capital punishment for trivial crimes?

IT does clearly demonstrate how important it is to keep the Sabbath.

Indeed, because if you didn't people would murder you and would never face any justice for it. Wonderful.

The idea is to bring peace.

Yes, and peace has not been brought in the millennia since its composition.

War does bring peace.

Except
a) While the war is ongoing
b) When the next war begins because of the consequences of the previous one

You know - like human history.

abe: in other news Ignorance brings Strength. Freedom brings slavery.

In my understanding, you need to remove evil, and through removing evil you bring peace.

So the Bible brought peace by ensuring we'd be in a perpetual state of war and reinforcing the comfortable delusion that war is about removing evil. I'm just not sure who the evil people were in the War of the Spanish Succession, remind me? What about the War of the Roses? The hundred years war? The Norman conquest of Britain?

Think of it this way, if the Bible is in fact the word of God then the above is not so bad because it will bring you a life in eternity.

That's like the worst possible thing that you could possibly wish for me. I'd sooner be tortured for a thousand years, thanks.

As much as I can appreciate your humanity, in general humanity is evil.

Yep. And the Bible has not changed this one iota has it?

Again I will say, if religion is man made, then God is not the problem.

If religion is solely man made then we know nothing about god or the gods and this entire discussion about Jesus and Satan is meaningless.

However, in religion the goal is to bring peace.

I'm sure. It's not been successful has it? As you say - the only way religion has inspired peace is by encouraging the killing of anybody that disagrees on even minor philosophical points...I mean evil people.

I can't speak for the evils people have done in the name of Christianity, Islam, Atheism and the like but in most cases it is not because of the Bible (can't speak for the quran don't care too either) per say it is their interpretation of it.

No Bible, no bad interpretations.

Where is the peace? Peace will be in the new existence once free agency has lead man to God.

So when you said the Bible is a book responsible the rise of actual peace you were in fact not telling the truth? What you meant to say is 'I believe the Bible will one day be responsible for these things, but it hasn't happened yet.'

To which I reply. 2,000 years of wars, persecutions, pogroms, and mob 'justice' is not grounds for encouragement in this regard.

No, Satan chose to be evil.

What did he use to make this decision? Was that thing created by God?

God intended on satan to be a guardian angel. Ezekiel 28.

I don't see any mention of Satan there. Nor do I see any discussion about choice. Maybe you could help a closed minded atheist out?

The point I am making is if humanity created religion and God does not exist then the problem can't be religion. The problem is clearly humanity.

I contend its both. That religion is a symptom of humanity's problems.

Yes the Bible can seem cruel in some places, but it is reasonably cruel.

No. It is absolutely not reasonably cruel, whatever that means.

Humanity is evil.

Therefore genocide is justified. I get it, you wish you were Hitler

IT is directly telling you humanity is evil and you need to follow certain laws. IF humanity simply followed those laws IT would bring PEACE.

Sure, if everybody followed the Koran I'm sure there would be peace. We've already established that humanity, God's creation, is evil. So obviously attempting to get humanity to all follow any unified set of rules is impossible.

Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I have been trying to tell you that God created humanity, the angels, etc with the law of free agency. This meant they can do what the fuck they want to do...

And what causes their desires?

And what does any of this have to do with the absurd notion that genocide is justified because of evil angel genes?

However, I would suggest you look into it with an open mind.

Do you want to get our minds out and compare who has the more open one?

I am perfectly fine with paedophiles. I have no problem with them whatsoever. I would vote for a qualified paedophile into high office.

Your turn.

Living beings are not physically capable of flying to the moon, so accordingly no mental tinkering is necessary to disallow it.

Are brains somehow magical?

On the other hand, there is no physical reason why you have to love your neighbor as yourself, so when you choose to do so, you exhibit free will.

Unless your brain is built that way.

Tell me - is there any reason a human brain has to be able to even consider homicide?
There are plenty of other animal brains that don't.
How would my non-murdering self's (as of today's date at least) freedom be affected if my brain was built to be nice and never nasty? Would that mean I couldn't choose to listen to Mozart? Go to the cinema? Decide between collecting money for charity or donating my labour? How would my freedom be challenged?

If anything, my freedom is also impeded by the fact that I have no choice but to consider evil alternatives from time to time. This results in me occasionally hurting other people - against my better nature and long term intents.

However, I would suggest you look into it with an open mind. Do you want to get our minds out and compare who has the more open one? I am perfectly fine with paedophiles. I have no problem with them whatsoever. I would vote for a qualified paedophile into high office. Your turn. You are a hypocrite.

I guess I win, I'm more open minded than you. I thought I'd win that one. I haven't met a religious person who tried the 'you need to be open minded' who has ever come close to beating me at that game...I'm just too good at it.

Apparently you're so lazy you can't even be bothered to explain your positions any more. Not that you put much effort into the theory of evil raping angels.

Any chance we can get back to discussing who is responsible for the bad things in this world Jesus or Satan - or any ancillary discussions? Or is have you permanently degraded to responding with lazy single sentence replies? I know - it's difficult to write a lot without getting your argument torn to shreds, but you should see that as a good thing. It's purifying the evil from your mind through verbal warfare - it brings mental peace if you let it guide you to good!

Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Mod may be many things but I don't think he is a hypocrite.

I'm pretty sure I'm a hypocrite. I have a pulse after all I think to label me a hypocrite might be stretching the word too thin, of course. I may have broke him/her with Message 574

Oh yeah You are a troll.

On the other hand, I don't think we should confuse the noble art of trolling with someone losing an argument and losing their thin veneer of civility.

Jesus

'And God so loved the world...'

Evil existed before humans. So humans did not create evil. Before humans, Satan was not evil. Therefore evil either has always existed or it was created. There is only one creative spirit. Jesus.

But the abstraction of evil is not real evil. For real evil to come into the world, there needs to be evildoers. For evildoers, there needs to be free agency. God created free agency. God created evildoers. God created real evil.

But there needs to be more than free agency. There also needs to be the desire to commit evil. It is one thing to be free to commit evil, but if humans lacked the desire, there would be no real evil. For real evil there must be desire. God created desire to commit evil. God created the knowledge of how to commit evil. God created disobedient and curious humans who would acquire that knowledge and their desire to enact it.

God, and therefore Jesus, created evil. The Bible provides me with all the evidence I need.

Satan

Satan did what God told him to, and was absolutely essential to realize God's goals. Satan cannot create evil. Even in the New Testament, whose authors slander Satan at all opportunities by 'creating'^* a new character, the devil, and insinuating they are one and the same. Even if we assume he is the temptor - he is working with tools God created - human desire, human's poor reasoning skills etc.

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To answer Message 1

The fact of Jesus and Satan is not a fact. It is a Belief. Now...what if this belief were false?

1) People known as Christians would be made out to look as ignorant and stupid as possible. Much of it would be their own fault, for they would try and live as believers and as worldly people at the same time.
2) Other religions would be involved in conflict just like Christianity.
3) People who practiced and studied occult and ancient mystery religions would be quite intellectual and bemused by all of the hoopla over supernatural reality. They would consider it all an exercise in intellectual mystic states of achievement.
4) Many would call themselves Christians who were not.
5) The Bible would be ridiculed and scorned for its fantasy, yet concepts such as alternative universes and the Tao of Physics would be reverently considered.
6) People with Williams Syndrome would love all of us...buffoon and bartender, professor and psychotic (incidentally, what's wrong with psychotics, are the unloveable? 1 in 20 people will suffer an episode of psychosis, 1 in a 100 will be plagued by it and are typically called schizophrenic. Two of my closest friends suffer(ed) with psychosis. One of them was killed by it.)
7) Satan would not let us know about him.
8) Anytime that the topic was brought up, people would attempt to either refute the basic message or distract attention from it.

^* by creating I mean by stealing from pagans.