A question that was first presented by Socrates.

So if you had a kid and he went and killed several people and the fact that you were the kids parent mean't that his existance could be traced back to you, would that mean that you were responsible for what he/she did? The literal existance of the devil can be traced back to God having made Lucifer, yet God did not force Lucifer to choose free will over obedience.
IS all evil from the source of the heart, or is the free choice of independance the allowance of a rogue spirit to operate through an undisciplined vessel? If what you say is true, and if both natures..or both spirits operate through me, I must then understand that I am not the source. The source is the source of these natures...which is NOT me. I think that there is confusion between a "nature" and a "spirit". The source of a nature is thought to be the natural...the creation. The source of a spirit is thought to be God. (The argument being, also, that the bad spirit was only allowed to express itself because of God)
I believe that the source is not human or natural.
-----------------
Getting back on topic, if "good" is a nature and thus a natural measurement of humanity, or if "good" is a manifestation of a Spirit whose (super)nature is an absolute. I am not talking dualism. There may be two spirits or two natures available, but the choice is to allow one or the other to operate in any given moment. To allow the Holy Spirit to operate requires certain actions or allowances on our part. Were we "good" enough to choose Him, or was He "good' enough to choose us?This message has been edited by Phatboy, 10-25-2004 09:34 AM

whereupon the response.... Again, God created Lucifer,but given that this being had some unique character, God did not MAKE Lucifer become a rebellious Satan. By the same token, Dad and Mom "create" their kids, but they don't make decisions for them. Even if Dad and Mom were omnipotant and created the entire world around their kids, the kids have this amazing freedom to decide where to live and how to live.

Or perhaps a bird just flew through the glass ceiling of concrete reality..on its way to the realm of eternal hope.
God is good. God is hope.
We all hope we are good, but what is the anchor of our hope?
For some, eternal belief and optimism in the human spirit and the potential thereof.
For others, hope in our Creator who is the source of all that is good. 1) IF according to traditional lore, God created Lucifer who chose to rebel.
2)This act of rebellion became Satan and the definition of the source of evil
3) Evil=choice, since without a choice, evil would never have been chosen
Thus...substitute the word evil with the word choice.
So God created [choice] strictly for [choice]-doers, whom He created mainly so that later He could create [choice] to cast upon them. He is good because the [choice] He creates is only to punish the[choice]doers for the [choice] they do to others, which is necessary so that He can later punish them for it. Makes no sense, does it? God allowed choice, knowing that there would soon be choosers who would soon complain that the choices were forced upon them. He IS good because the alternative that He allowed is only to discipline the choosers who did not choose Him. They complain that He makes them choose Him. He only shows it as it is: Life or Death. Therefore....choose life.4)Humans took on the nature.
5) This choice was what was given to us initially

Lam-here is the edited version: Lets say that God indirectly allowed evil to exist. Now what? You don't even believe in God butIF you did, you may point a finger at Him and accuse Him of being the source of any problems that humanity attributes to evil. If God is the source of [the will to choose] which manifested into a negative spirit once chosen, how does it help to stay apart from God and hold on to our free will?We are asked to be in a Card game where the dealer has all of the cards marked so as to know any hand we play. This dealer not only has marked the cards,(or knows that the cards were "marked" by a rebel whom the dealer created) this dealer in fact knows every possible path that you choose to take to get out of the casino. You may run to a mountain top and the dealer is with you. You may run to the bottem of a lake and the dealer is with you. When you die, the dealer awaits...He wants a simple answer: Are you in or are you out? The issue in this scenario is this: Do you trust the dealer?
He is not trying to win, for He has already won. He only wants you to be in His game.Some possible questions for this parable:
1) Whats in it for me if I am in His game?
2) What happens to me if I choose to be out of the game in an alternate reality that this same dealer supposedly created or allowed to be?This message has been edited by Phatboy, 10-25-2004 04:44 PM

When a enemy nation of Israel was wiped out, it was because they were so far gone morally as to be reprobate. God knew that they were too far gone to repent since they knew nothing of Him. (Nor did they want to) His orders to Israel were a matter of survival for Israel...kill or be killed. It would be morally the same or similar in instituting Capital punishment on a child molestor who was unrepentant and who had ruined the lives of dozens of victims. The ancient peoples whom Israel wiped out were far from even being able to change.

Yes, of course BUT the "prime directive" of Christianity is in essence that God not interfere with humanity learning its own harsh lessons about obedience and rebellion, reaping and sowing, what comes around goes aroundedness.
1)Why can't God just save everyone and eliminate evil? Because for a reason only known and understood fully by Him, everything must occur so that humanity individually and collectively understands the consequences of independance from God and freely and willfully chooses their own destiny with or without Him.
2) Does goodness exist without God? In my belief, NO. Humanity is a continually evolving imperfection that will NEVER become any better than we already are. We may be able to build computers and map genomes, but our internal base motives and passions are virtually identical to our ancestors.
3) But there is no God. God is a human construct. It is time that civilization took responsibility for itself. And this type of thinking is precisely what the Bible says ushers in the last days of an AntiChrist who exalts self above religion and preaches a secular self deification type of message. Human wisdom triumphs! For awhile...then the Truth is known!

Look at it like this:
Guns kill people. Sin causes Evil. Guns in and of themselves are not the cause of killing. People who misuse Guns are the root cause.
Sin (Evil) in and of itself as a created reality is not the cause of misery and death in the world. People who choose evil (by unchoosing God) are the cause of death and misery. Is Remington Arms company responsible (legally) for every death inflicted by one of their guns?
No. Is God responsible for the human misuse of evil? No.

In one sense, yes. Everything comes from God. Lets think about it a moment, however. Does what you or I choose to do in the next moment or day or week come from Gods decision? If yes, that is a pantheistic view. If no, that is a monotheistic view.
Monotheistically, God does not control human decisions, nor is He responsible for them. That is why we have the option of "choosing" Christ.
To say that evil (or good) "comes from" a source implies that the source is either part of our decisions and minds,(pantheism) or is not a part of our decisions and minds (monotheism.) If I do good, am I God? If I do evil, am I the devil? I am in communion (common union) with one spirit or the other, but I am not in communion by possession or synergistic union. I am in communion by choice.
To a monotheist, we can commune with God, but our thoughts are never His thoughts and our ways are never His ways. Even Jesus said that there is none good but God. Jesus was not just in communion with God, Jesus WAS God. He said to the rich young ruler, "why do you call me good? There is none good but God." In that statement, He neither denied being God nor being good, but He was basically asking the man this question: Do you know who I am?This message has been edited by Phatboy, 10-27-2004 10:35 AM

This is a continuation of the thread by Socrates...I will answer this in the morning...I'm tired. Shut er down, Jar.This message has been edited by Phatboy, 10-28-2004 01:44 AM