Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 64 (9164 total)
4 online now:
Newest Member: ChatGPT
Post Volume: Total: 916,833 Year: 4,090/9,624 Month: 961/974 Week: 288/286 Day: 9/40 Hour: 0/1


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Is God good?
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 14 of 722 (661251)
05-03-2012 2:58 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by frako
04-27-2012 7:01 AM


The problem is one of relativity.
Given this knowledge, there is only one relevant logical question to be asked; Which person's "good" is the real GOOD?. Is it Pete and his friends in group X? Or is it James and his friends in group Z? Or is it some other view?
If you are atheist and believe in relative morality, then you can't state that even though there is no ultimate morality, our God is ultimately morally bad.
Atheist Syllogism;
-There is no ULTIMATE right and wrong.
-Pete has morals X and judges God to be "wrong" or "bad" in his own book;
ERGO he concludes that God is ULTIMATELY bad and wrong.
The error is that of the law of none-contradiction. You are saying that God is ultimately bad and yet there is nothing ultimately bad.
It just doesn't work - it takes denial to pretend to yourselves that this works.
You see, only if you are ultimately morally perfect can you state that you have the say when it comes to ultimate reality. If you as Frako-none-believer have the keys to righteousness, then do share! do your morals stop you from sinning? Are you an example? Have you never lied or insulted, or even been angry and thought about angry things? Have you ever held a grudge or retaliated or spoken evil?
Our God lives in a holy place, we are told by scripture. We believe heaven, where He resides, is a place of holy perfection, a place where there is ultimately no lying or stealing or killing, therefore we have chosen in our lives to believe and trust the one who speaks from this position. It is these scriptures that describe God, which we hold as comments pertaining to God, such as, "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all". We TRUST and have FAITH that such scriptures are true, so we are not going to make foolish and self-righteous politically correct assertions about God, who we are told, is unfathomably great.
If you knew God this way, then you would have no reason to look into the scriptures in this narrow-minded way. It is because you do not know God, that you can't understand.
How can a good being punish an innocent child?
You see, that's an example of what you see from reading the text. You've chosen one strict way of interpreting scripture based on the position of mortality and individual rights, morals that are only fashionably new morals, modern morals that have arrived in the last few decades or so.
This is YOUR take on it, as a certain type of person, a certain group, whether your group is a minority or a majority, it is a subjective conclusion, even an ODD conclusion, trying to filter God through the human-rights system, Lol.
That's not how the bible describes God. God is gravity, that is how you should see Him.
Sure you can argue against gravity, you can say it is evil, you can even jump off a cliff in protest, but ultimately, gravity will have your ass splat.
It's the same with God - to judge God is only always error and misunderstanding. Why? Because we are told that God's understanding is unfathomable. Of course you do not understand His actions, because you do not have even 1% of His knowledge. Could you create a DNA? Could you come up with a contraflow lung?
"Trust in the Lord, and lean not on your own understanding".
Your moral conclusions about God are definitely important to you and those who share your modern morals. Soon those morals will change, maybe in a decade or so, you will not dare accuse God because in a decade it might be bible-phobic and immoral to say things bad about the bible. But those of us who trust the Lord and know Him, and how He truly is, we will still have a foundation that has not changed.
For the purpose of this topic the Christian god exists and the bible is 100% accurate.
If it is 100% accurate, even for the topic, then LOGICALLY, you have came to a non sequitur by saying God is no good, because christ said, "there is only one who is good, that being God".
So if the bible is 100% accurate, then it would mean that when you believe in 100% of the bible, you are obviously not going to come to the conclusion that God is not good, because many scriptures tell us that He is the source of all good.
If we as genuine believers in the 100% bible believe in all of the scriptures, then how can we come to a conclusion that God is bad, based on a biblical event that took place rather than a biblical teaching?
So it's how you think that is what counts isn't it? If we take the 100% bible, then "God is light and in Him is no darkness whatsoever" therefore if you find a troublesome text that puts God in a bad light, you have to then ask some questions such as, "then what does this text really mean, and if God is not bad, is there something I myself have not understood?"
I think it's usually an excellent question because nearly always is the bible seen as saying something bad against God when in fact He can have a greater purpose. Remember, He is acting in a system which is already a mess, therefore His intentions can't always be clear.
In an imperfect system, good actions can be seen as bad actions, for example, if a man steals food, but he is stealing it to feed his starving child, then he has a good motivation, but his actions don't seem good. It is wise to then ponder what God's motivations are, in an imperfect system. His actions can be misunderstood, even though He has a just motivation, or He has a secret knowledge, and He knows it will turn out for the good, overall.
I don't think people like you actually think about these things. Perhaps you don't realise that there are people who really do believe in what the bible says, so when it says that God is our only hope, we believe it, and we don't play little-god, by letting our opinions become god.
The controversially, inconceivably, incontrovertibly, irrefutably immutable one hath spoken!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by frako, posted 04-27-2012 7:01 AM frako has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by frako, posted 05-03-2012 3:36 PM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 16 by Jazzns, posted 05-03-2012 3:42 PM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 18 by rueh, posted 05-05-2012 11:57 AM mike the wiz has not replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 26 of 722 (681161)
11-23-2012 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by rueh
11-23-2012 10:34 AM


Re: Light and Darkness
The contradiction you proposed, is not really a contradiction.
Logically, the two predicates are disparate. You can do evil, and not be evil, logically.
Evil = does evil actions.
Does evil actions = Evil? (incorrect, affirmation of consequent)
It's easy to fire things back at me, BUT the implications of relative morality have not changed, if there is no moral God, and this universe is atheist, then there is no such thing as "evil" ULTIMATELY, as it is only between our ears in such a case.
You have no moral foundation. Your morals in picture form, are like balloons floating in your mind, when you go "pop" so do your morals. God will only be "evil" for as long as the moral relativist lives because as soon as your thoughts end, MORALITY ends, if it is based on a subjective set of preferences.
In a society of the Amish, God is not "evil", but if atheists joined that society, God would "become" evil. He would go back to being good, when the atheists left. (Reductio ad absurdum)
Think about it. Some people have a morality that homosexual sex is moral, and mike the wiz is an evil fundamentalist that would stone evolutionists if given the chance. To which I can reply, logically, "pink evil bubbles hate me, and my morality is to destroy all evil pink bubbles, and everyone who is not mike the wiz is an evil pink bubble". Now if enough people believe me, that will become the morality that is right and wrong, just like people believed Hitler was right when he said that Jews are evil, smelly, and less than human.
Ultimately, there is no basis for right and wrong except what is beneficial to society, or the "majority" opinion, if there is no moral God.
Now you might say, "but I know wrong" - EXACTLY, therefore you were created as a moral being AND God IS moral, AND he says we are all guilty of sin, therefore we need to repent and only His morals count. You are more precious to Him than you could possibly even imagine and therefore you are a glorious creation. You know this to be true. (search your feelings Luke)
OR - you can think you are wiser than the creator of the universe.
WHY DO IT? It is futility. You are NOT just a hairless ape - you are of eternal value and deserve eternal love and an eternal destiny. I DEMAND you search your feelings, you will know it to be true. You are not an accident, you were specifically and marvelously made.
(This is my final thought, as one of my posts takes the effort of 20 USUAL posts. I hope you will consider and study what I have said, and google any terms I have mentioned, to test me.)
Thanks for your time.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by rueh, posted 11-23-2012 10:34 AM rueh has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by rueh, posted 11-23-2012 12:33 PM mike the wiz has not replied
 Message 28 by Stile, posted 11-23-2012 12:49 PM mike the wiz has not replied

  
mike the wiz
Member
Posts: 4755
From: u.k
Joined: 05-24-2003


Message 31 of 722 (681211)
11-23-2012 6:20 PM


Some good thoughts there guys. I appreciate that.
My own position - I can't describe it in words. This following link might give a small insight into my own walk with God. Obviously it's not something that I can describe.
If there was ever one thing, one last thing I would like to communicate, it would be how this song make me feel when it describes the reality of what God has done in my life.
With all my small words, with all my cleverness, I can't come close to achieving what this song achieves, and How these words inflect my soul.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tej3PL61jM&list=FLpxx5Fu...
With the very greatest sincerity, good luck to you all, and God bless you.
michael.

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024