Morality of God

[Peregrine]

Of note: Free-will the ability to choose, an action not a noun, you do not escape the consequence of the choice you make, of your actions. You plant potatoes you harvest potatoes, you plant thistles you get thistles, you perform evil you get punished.

 

A gun to the head is not free will. If I put a gun to your head and say "plant potatoes," can you honestly tell me you have free will to do otherwise? This is exactly what God does... threats of hell, murder of unbelievers, or even direct divine intervention.

 

Of note: If God is our Judge then he can not be judged for sentencing our actions with punishment. That is like judging the supreme court for giving a murderer a death penalty.

 

This assumes that the judge gives the sentence based on a legitimate system of justice. God's "justice" comes only from his own ego and lack of morals.

 

Of note: When you are omnipotent, omniscient and entirely just and holy, then YOU can judge god.

 

I don't need to be. There is a higher law than God.

 

 

 

 

Darnoc, stop dodging the question. Would you do it or not? And would you please reply to my other specific arguments?

[ThetaOrionis01]

Darnoc, you have not replied to my last post either. :P

 

Let's say that you are right and that the bible isn't to be taken litterally. So perhaps all those passages which indicate that he is a sadist are perhaps later on additions by other peoples.

 

If these passages were additions by other people, then perhaps everything else that is written in the bible was, too. That would mean that you cannot believe anything that is written in the bible.

 

 

Again you make some sweeping assumptions and statements.

 

When nothing can exist without its opposite and god is one side (the good side) automatically also evil must exist. Evil is therefore a "necessary evil" in order to give us free choice and to be like he is (he created us after his image, so we have free will and also the ability to choose between evil and good). Even when evil exist and was created when god created everything else, it is still no excuse for us to do it. Without shadow there is no light, without lies there is no truth.

 

What do you base these assumptions on? For one, 'without shadow there is no light' is incorrect. You assume that god is good - on what basis? Again you arbitrarily define 'good' and 'evil' to suit your argument.

 

So without evil there is no good

 

In that case, by your own argument, you have disproven the existence of god. You claim that god is good. Before god created anything, there was only god and nothing else. Yet good cannot exist without evil, you claim. Therefore god cannot have existed.

 

But in order to keep evil in its barrier (so that it can't become even more stronger), laws have to be made and punishment. God made these, those laws are a protection from ourselves and a protection for other people from us.

 

'Evil' according to god's laws equates with exercising free will. Therefore those laws - which god frequently breaks himself by killing unbelievers - are designed to deprive people of this free will.

 

 

Now, if god is truly omniscient and omnipotent, then god created humans in the full knowledge that humans would 'sin' and 'do evil'. Therefore, is not all 'sin' and 'evil' god's responsibility, and his excessive punishments akin to a toddler's tantrum when his or her toys don't perform as he or she wants them to?

[Darnoc]

@Peregrin: OK, I'll stop dodging your question. But I don't have the time right now to answer all your arguments, I'll have to go in some minutes. I'm going to answer to them either later on this evening or tomorrow.

 

OK, back to your question. I quote it again, for those who don't remember it:

 

Darnoc, here's a question for you... And yes, I know the situation I'm describing isn't true... assume it is for purposes of discussion:

 

Lets say the Canaanites had it right... God demands the sacrifice of children to him. This is unquesitonable truth, God himself has come down to earth and made this demand. Do you follow God's orders?

 

 

If this would happen, I'll probably would do it (of course no one can tell, if he/she really would, because no one has been in such a situation). Even when all that I learned to be right and good tells me otherwise. Even when my moral sense tells me otherwise. Everything inside me would have course say that this isn't right, but I'll probably do it still.

 

Why? There are several reasons. When god really would come down and tell us this, the question of his existence is answered: He exists, there is no way we could defy his will. I stop to have any free will then. Then you would have the situation, you described, Peregrin: God points a gun to our head and orders us to do something (in this case sacrificing children).

The second reason is that I personally believe that it doesn't matter what I think. An allpowerful and allknowing being certainly sees more than I ever will be able to see. It knows everything, it knows what is right and not. So if god really would personally tell us this, we couldn't reason with him. Our knowlegde, compared to his, is nothing.

And the last reason is: When those children die, we would acctually do them a favor. They will never see the suffering and pain of this flawed world, they would directly enter god's realm (assuming that only persons who never broke god's law can enter his realm, then certainly little children will enter there; they can't choose between good and bad, so they can't be held responsible for their actions). It sounds brutal, but god doesn't think like we do. For him, life doesn't end with death, our life here on earth is nothing compared to eternety.

 

OK, this is my answer to your question. Now what is your answer? What would you do, Peregrin?

 

P.S. I'm going to answer your other arguments later on, I don't have the time now. I'll probably make a list with all the arguments in this topic and answer them one by one.

[Greywolf]

Okay ...

 

Let me get this straight

 

God is the creator of the universe, God created man, If there is a higher power then what is it? God created everything.

 

Also, if we are all unholy, they your the criminal in the court declaring that the supreme court be judged when you are the murderer.

 

 

Good is the action of obedience to God

Evil is the action of disobedience to God

 

Also - God does not force you to make a certain decision, you decided to. He states ahead of time the consequence for your decision, he gives you measures by which you can judge your decision to obey God

YOUR Creator for purposes of this arguement

 

GOD created you, God defines just and unjust ... God is just, and how we know this is he follows his own laws and keeps his word. In the bible, he gave man the dominion over the earth. By DIRECTLY influencing this world, like striking a murder down dead in his tracks, would be breaking his word. It is when he is asked and brought into the situation by us humans that he is allowed to act. Thus why history defines situations of miraculous happenings. He does not murder, and we as eternal beings can't die in essence, our soul will live for all eternity in either eternal torment or eternal content depending on our decision from our free will.

 

Just remember that a criminal stands up for his crimes, and in the end you will stand up for those crimes not in front of a jury, but in front of a judge that knows everything, is just and is holy.

 

You can't define what is just and holy because you don't know, if we state that the bible is fact, than God is AllKnowing, AllPowerful and perfect. Your making arguements against god just like satan did. Eat the apple and be your own gods, disobey god and you shall surely NOT die. There is no consequence for your actions. But there is, your precious civilized society you rant on about that downs God and everything is based upon the principles of the Bible giving us the order of law and rights to individuals.

 

Your moral conscience comes from God, your very being comes from God was created from him. You stated that the Bible is the for all purpose the historical record of God's actions. God created Earth, God created Man, God warned Man not to eat of the tree (NOT to disobey him), God gave Man dominion over the earth, God defined clearly the consequences of disobediance and Man understood, for the trees and animals died around him. Man knew what death was, thus he knew what the consequence of disobediance was. He CHOOSE to disobey god, to become like god, he wanted to be his own god and from then on he has constructed religions and false gods to fill the void of what he was created to do and that was worship god. God provided a way to save mankind, stated in Gensis written by Moses many generations before Jesus that the son of the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, and Jesus came and died and bore the penalty of death for our disobediance as clearly defined before the fall of man by God. He bore the penalty so we might be able once again to be with god. Again the bible is historical fact of God's actions remember.

 

God is the creator, he created the world, man in his likeness, almost like his children and as a wise father he watched out for them and provided every means for them to return to him. As for there fall, what more can one do than to warn someone of the consequence of a choice, warn them not to do that choice, without interupting there free will, they have a choice anything more than warning would have made them simply automatons. AND they were not Ignorant, they had understanding, they knew what death was, they knew the consequence of their disobediance was harsh, yet they fell to temptation. God didn't force them not to choose to disobey him, he simply informed him of the inevitable action that would have to be taken if they did. Then he provided a way to circumvent that action and to fall under his lordship again.

 

You talk of putting God on trial. Does it not say, do not judge lest ye be judged. And there is coming a day when all men and women shall be judge for their deeds, for their actions and for their choices during the reign of mankind. God will come back and claim what is his, the earth, his creation and those that have obeyed him and fallen under salvation through the lord Jesus Christ will stand with him. Again, if the Bible is historically correct, then the information written centuries before events, basically prophetic, is accurate and thus the book of Revelation is accurate and one day every tongue will cry that Jesus is Lord, and we shall all stand before the white throne of Judgement.

 

As for God's justice, every time he gave his word in the bible, he kept it. Historical Document remember Peregrin. So you tell me, how can we the criminals judge a being awesome enough to create us, warn us, love us and provide a way for us to return to him LIKE a father. We are the ones that have wrong the earth, we are the ones in dominion of it. We are the ones that are killing ourselves. Not God. Don't blame God. Humanity is always doing that, whether it is the corrupt religious leadership that ruins people's lives or themselves they always find some way to blame God, put him on trial or to disavow his existance and to say "We are our own gods" (hmmm genesis "and ye shall be like God."). Humanity is living a lie that is costing us our salvation.

[ThetaOrionis01]

Just a few points because it's getting late here :P

 

...if we state that the bible is fact, than God is AllKnowing, AllPowerful and perfect.

 

In that case god KNEW before he created mankind that humans would 'sin' or 'disobey' him as you put it. If god did not know this in advance, then god is not all-knowing. If god knew this in advance, why then did he create people he KNEW would disobey him? There are several explanations for this - either he is hopelessly naive and hopes that things will not turn out as he KNOWS they will, or he creates them anyway simply because he can, or he creates them so he can punish them later. Neither of these explanations indicate behaviour which is 'good' or 'holy'. If god is all-knowing then god KNEW before creation even began of every single act of 'disobedience' humans would commit.

 

 

If god created people he knew would 'disobey' him, then 'sin' was an inevitable consequence of his creation as he created humans in the full knowledge that they would sin. Therefore, all evil deeds ever committed were known to god, and he did nothing to prevent them. He is therefore responsible for all evil.

 

 

 

God is just, and how we know this is he follows his own laws and keeps his word. In the bible, he gave man the dominion over the earth. By DIRECTLY influencing this world, like striking a murder down dead in his tracks, would be breaking his word.

 

Explain the flood, explain what happened to Sodom & Gomorrha, just to cite two events. What was that if not mass murder? So god did break his own laws (thou shalt not kill, I believe it says). And god, being all-knowing, KNEW that this was against his own law. That makes him guilty.

 

 

It is when he is asked and brought into the situation by us humans that he is allowed to act.

 

The consequences of his actions are not confined to those who asked for his intervention. How about those who did not ask to be smitten down by his wrath? God is taking sides and directly interfering in human affairs. And so he becomes subject to human judgement - by his own actions he makes himself subject to judgement.

 

 

As for there fall, what more can one do than to warn someone of the consequence of a choice, warn them not to do that choice, without interupting there free will, they have a choice anything more than warning would have made them simply automatons. AND they were not Ignorant, they had understanding, they knew what death was, they knew the consequence of their disobediance was harsh, yet they fell to temptation.

 

They were NOT aware - or else what is all this stuff with the fig leaf about? :P

 

The fact that they may have seen the death of animals does not mean that they had any concept of death applying to themselves. They were ignorant of the consequences - never having experienced evil, or being outcast, how could they possibly picture such a state of being? They were not able to make an informed choice - THEY HAD NO FREE WILL.

You can train an animal to obey you - and if it disobeys you, does that prove the animal has free will?

 

But of course, since god knew before he created us PRECISELY what we would do with our lives none of has free will - everything we do is already known to god. We were, infact, created to do precisely what we are doing - because otherwise, god is not all-knowing and all-powerful.

[Peregrine]

OK, this is my answer to your question. Now what is your answer? What would you do, Peregrin?

 

Tell God to ----- off and grab the closest weapon. I recognize a higher law than the orders of an insane barbarian.

 

And if your arguments are correct, then I'd be doing the right thing. If God can be killed, I'm doing the world a favor. If God can't be, then I earn my place in Hell. Hell is the opposite of God. By any civilized moral standards, God is evil. Therefore Hell is what we consider good.

 

Why? There are several reasons. When god really would come down and tell us this, the question of his existence is answered: He exists, there is no way we could defy his will. I stop to have any free will then.

 

You don't have the will to defy an evil order? If God wants to take control of my body and make me do it, that's what he's going to have to do. But until that point, I refuse to do something so evil.

 

The second reason is that I personally believe that it doesn't matter what I think. An allpowerful and allknowing being certainly sees more than I ever will be able to see. It knows everything, it knows what is right and not. So if god really would personally tell us this, we couldn't reason with him. Our knowlegde, compared to his, is nothing.

 

Yes we can. God claims to be all knowing. And in any case, infinite knowledge does not mean that God must pick the morally right action. An omniscient evil is no less omniscient because it chooses evil.

 

And the last reason is: When those children die, we would acctually do them a favor. They will never see the suffering and pain of this flawed world, they would directly enter god's realm (assuming that only persons who never broke god's law can enter his realm, then certainly little children will enter there; they can't choose between good and bad, so they can't be held responsible for their actions). It sounds brutal, but god doesn't think like we do. For him, life doesn't end with death, our life here on earth is nothing compared to eternety.

 

So you wouldn't have minded being killed before you ever got a chance to live? And by your own definition, everyone is evil. God's law states nowhere that there is an age requirement to evil. Not only are you taking away their mortal lives, but like everyone else, they will be judged and risk hell.

 

 

====================================================

 

God is the creator of the universe, God created man, If there is a higher power then what is it? God created everything.

 

Not a higher power. A higher law. There is a difference.

 

Also, if we are all unholy, they your the criminal in the court declaring that the supreme court be judged when you are the murderer.

 

A court's authority is derived from a legitimate system of justice. God's authority is derived from his own power and ego. And if the law I was accused of violating was a morally wrong one, I would be a criminal only by its morally incorrect definition. I would still remain a good person by the highest law.

 

Also - God does not force you to make a certain decision, you decided to. He states ahead of time the consequence for your decision, he gives you measures by which you can judge your decision to obey God

YOUR Creator for purposes of this arguement

 

Except when he gets involved directly. Read above, I have stated a clear case of God denying free will because it failed to produce the results he wanted. And once again, free will under the condition of threats is not free will.

 

GOD created you, God defines just and unjust ... God is just, and how we know this is he follows his own laws and keeps his word.

 

His dedication to his own evil laws is not a good thing! God is just only by his own twisted definition, not by the definition of any civilized society.

 

In the bible, he gave man the dominion over the earth. By DIRECTLY influencing this world, like striking a murder down dead in his tracks, would be breaking his word. It is when he is asked and brought into the situation by us humans that he is allowed to act. Thus why history defines situations of miraculous happenings.

 

Concession accepted, thank you for debating. If God takes one side and answers their request, he is denying free will to the other side.

 

He does not murder, and we as eternal beings can't die in essence, our soul will live for all eternity in either eternal torment or eternal content depending on our decision from our free will.

 

Then if I killed you I would not be guilty of murder either. A death is the same no matter who causes it.

 

Just remember that a criminal stands up for his crimes, and in the end you will stand up for those crimes not in front of a jury, but in front of a judge that knows everything, is just and is holy.

 

A "judge" whose decisions come from one thing: force. Rule by force may exist and be unalterable, but that does not make it any less wrong.

 

You can't define what is just and holy because you don't know, if we state that the bible is fact, than God is AllKnowing, AllPowerful and perfect. Your making arguements against god just like satan did. Eat the apple and be your own gods, disobey god and you shall surely NOT die. There is no consequence for your actions. But there is, your precious civilized society you rant on about that downs God and everything is based upon the principles of the Bible giving us the order of law and rights to individuals.

 

God's law and the laws of civilized society are clearly different. The Bible is not the only (if at all) source of this. Many of our laws existed before the Bible was written.

 

And for this debate, the Bible is an entirely accurate historical account. God claims to be all knowing and perfect, a fact which is clearly false.

 

You talk of putting God on trial. Does it not say, do not judge lest ye be judged.

 

I welcome that judgement. By the highest law, I pass that judgement far better than God.

 

And there is coming a day when all men and women shall be judge for their deeds, for their actions and for their choices during the reign of mankind. God will come back and claim what is his, the earth, his creation and those that have obeyed him and fallen under salvation through the lord Jesus Christ will stand with him. Again, if the Bible is historically correct, then the information written centuries before events, basically prophetic, is accurate and thus the book of Revelation is accurate and one day every tongue will cry that Jesus is Lord, and we shall all stand before the white throne of Judgement.

 

The fact that events are true does not make them morally correct. If God decides to abuse his power and judge humanity, etc, than he is evil. Power does not make anyone's actions right, even God's.

 

So you tell me, how can we the criminals judge a being awesome enough to create us, warn us, love us and provide a way for us to return to him LIKE a father.

 

Because there is a higher law than God's. And for a more practical reason, because it is a fundamental part of this debate. One condition of it is that we can judge God.

 

We are the ones that have wrong the earth, we are the ones in dominion of it. We are the ones that are killing ourselves. Not God. Don't blame God. Humanity is always doing that, whether it is the corrupt religious leadership that ruins people's lives or themselves they always find some way to blame God, put him on trial or to disavow his existance and to say "We are our own gods" (hmmm genesis "and ye shall be like God."

 

The fact that God is not the only cause of evil in the universe does not make his actions any less evil.

 

Humanity is living a lie that is costing us our salvation.

 

Only because we are the toys of a criminal sadist. And I would question the value of any "salvation" granted by a being that evil.

[Greywolf]

A:  Not a higher power. A higher law. There is a difference.

 

Yes, you may state this but you an inferior being are declaring what that higher law is, you are being your own God by stating that there is a higher law to which you answer and not to God. But you are creating the standards by which that law applies to everybody, thus the law is created by you ... not a higher power or higher purpose. There has to be a constant for all equations, even multivariable calculus, God is the constant.

 

B:  A court's authority is derived from a legitimate system of justice. God's authority is derived from his own power and ego. And if the law I was accused of violating was a morally wrong one, I would be a criminal only by its morally incorrect definition. I would still remain a good person by the highest law.

 

The laws of mankind are contrived by men, they are creations of humans. But if the actions of God are stated as historical then he created mankind and THUS created his sense of morals. So the very higher law which you answer to that is instilled by your conscience that goes against the legality of mankind follow the morality created in you by God. Your using God's own creation of morality within you to argue against his laws, and his laws and that morality are in sync, aligned and one and the same. Your higher law is consitituted of God's creation YOU, he created how you think, why you think and your ability to distinguish right from wrong, disobedience from obedience.

 

(((((Theta- you state they did not know and were ignorant, however they knew the diverance between disobedience and obedience they never knew the shame of disobeying, or the feeling as eternal life left there bodies. They looked at each other and were ashamed of there disobediance, because they now knew what they had lost. But they knew knew between obediance and disobediance, they knew what it meant to obey God, and do what he says and they knew what it was to disobey God and not do what he said. Its like a child (and they were not childlike, they were grown adults capable of intellectual conversation with God himself) or anybody in society, they know they have the choice to obey the rules of society or disobey, now if the rules always look out for the best of the individual then they should be content, but we covet something, want something that is not ours, in this case the position and status of god. We disobey knowing well that the consequence for our action is "death" however, we believe we will never have to answer this consequence, "thou shalt not surely die, thou shalt be like god." They looked at each other and were ashamed at their actions, they looked at each others bodies and were ashamed at what they saw, the corruption that lay there now. And they hid it behind the figleaves, and hid from God.)))))

 

C: Except when he gets involved directly. Read above, I have stated a clear case of God denying free will because it failed to produce the results he wanted. And once again, free will under the condition of threats is not free will.

 

God has to make decisions as much as you do, but his choices are always best for the individual. He gives us a time of mercy upon the earth were we reign as the dominant species. You don't see any other species rising up to attack our position. And these are not threats Peregrine, they are consequences ... as much as I have to take the responsibility of my actions so do others. If I kill someone, murder them in there sleep for sadistic pleasure. I choose to do so, HOWEVER, I face the consequence of my own death, period of punishment etc. by the laws of man, and further by the laws of God. Yet god gives us a time of mercy, even a murderer can realize his crimes and truly feel sorry for them. What about those murders that happen in a moment of passion or emotion and the murderer can't forgive themselves. We tone this down and call it manslaughter sometimes, but they deliberately killed someone in a moment of intense emotion. They have the choice do something, but in the end they must live with the consequences.

 

Obviously your definition of free-will will never exist because the laws of man state consequences through there judicial system for making choices that destroy the construction of society. Thus, free-will is chaotic. Meaning that for it to exist, we must lose all moral conscience and must become totally leaderless. No laws must exist, because they mete out the dos and don'ts of society and list the consequences for doing so. Your "threatened" by your own higher law, your higher law destroys the very free-will you talk about because your definition of free-will can not exist while a law stands that claims that something is right or wrong, deserving of punishment or not. Your arguement is flawed.

 

As for the direct intervention of God, when was the last time he struck down a serial killer dead, a rapist dead, you dead for stealing something here or there or coveting something belonging to someone else. As for God chosing sides, he doesn't man does and God does everything but force mankind to choice HIS side. There is obediance and disobediance, you can only do one or the other. God does everything possible to influence you towards obediance and towards doing what is right, but the choice is ultimately yours.

 

D:  His dedication to his own evil laws is not a good thing! God is just only by his own twisted definition, not by the definition of any civilized society.

 

God create man, historical fact by use of the bible, its a recorded action. Thus he created how we think, reason and gather socially. Mankind therefore made civilization upon the principles of God, with the inevitable corruption of disobediance. Meaning quite frankly, that God created mankinds ability to create civilized societies. Your perception of the world comes from your God created mind, God created how you think, not what you think about but how. How we chunk information and store it, how we reason and postulate and created our moral conscience. He breathed into us, he made us eternal like him, giving us the same moral, emotion, spiritual and physical elements of God, but we have fallen. We are no longer in the image of God, we are fell creations.

 

((((((((Theta - You state that if God knew we would disobey and turn to evil why create us, but he also knew of those that would return back and obey him. You have a children, if you knew before hand that one of your children would be come a murderer, one a rapist but the third a repectable individual in society. Would you still have children? If you didn't what about that third child? Is one good child worth the inevitable risk of two bad ones. We are the children of God, he created us and in us created the ability to procreate. As a mother, would you kill of your child now today this instant, if you knew that one day they would kill someone. Then what if you knew that years later as they sat in a cell and truly realized they were wrong and wanted forgiveness but they are condemned to die. Would you give your life so they might go free? Would you take the consequence of a crime they truly in there heart were remorseful for and sought forgiveness. I don't know my answer, I have never beheld a child, something that comes from the binding of two beings to create a wholly unique individual. But God does, and he answered that question.))))))))

 

E:  Concession accepted, thank you for debating. If God takes one side and answers their request, he is denying free will to the other side.

 

He doesn't chose sides, man does ... they either chose to obey him or not. He does not deny man the choice to do so, but it states that disobediance is punished by death and obediance is rewarded with favor. Your looking at God like he was a man, he isn't HE is I AM THAT I AM. He became like man and died on a cross, but he is far above our comprehension. He does not deny you the choice of obediance and disobediance ... or we would never disobey. This is all in the bible, why would man write this? Mankind could do anything without laws, I could go out and take thirty women for my wives by force, I could kill anybody I chose without consequence. We would have our free-will only by not writing laws and creating morality issues. Thus our morality comes from somewhere else, as you call it a Higher Law, but we were created by God in his likeness, thus that morality only comes from him. So if God is evil and sadistic, then the higher law does not exist within us, because God does not answer to it and thus we have no morals, no sense of right or wrong and no laws. Thus without God being the higher law, we the creation have no link to it whatsoever, because God created the universe and everything in it. (Action of God defined in the bible historical).

 

F: Then if I killed you I would not be guilty of murder either. A death is the same no matter who causes it.

 

Death is the same yes, for us. We are human and our bodies are physical, we think in three dimensions and sometimes in four. We however do not understand the spiritual realm. Our comprehension is trapped within our physical bodies and physical minds. Now if you kill a person, you remove them from the mercy of God, you send them into eternity. You destroy there chance of repentance and salvation and begin to condemn your own. Thou shalt not kill was a law given us by God, death is not for us to mete out as punishment, death is inevitable now since we have "all fallen short of the glory of god." and the punishment for sin is death [Romans]. It is God's position as our creator to judge our actions, he determines right and wrong ... he is God.

 

F: G: A "judge" whose decisions come from one thing: force. Rule by force may exist and be unalterable, but that does not make it any less wrong.

 

He rules from love, the punisment for sin is death, you can not escape your fate but he bore your punishment. He bore the consequence of his own creation's disobedience to him, so that his creation might not face the same consequence. All we have to do is to obey him again and he choses to forget the disobedience of our former lives. Those that don't make the chose to, live in their "free-will", doing what they want without God for the period of there lives, then they die. They made that choice in life. They are dead now. They died from a multitude of reasons from another human being slaughter them or an accident or disease. They have died. If God ruled by force and not loved, nuclear armament would have vanished from the earth, mankinds leaders would have been puppets of god's will, you couldn't take the name of God in vain, murderers wouldn't haunt the shadows of our streets or rapists the windows of our homes. Society would be a perfect machine. So we have define that obviously God doesn't rule by force or we wouldn't be having this discussion and you wouldn't be putting him on trial.

 

H:  God's law and the laws of civilized society are clearly different. The Bible is not the only (if at all) source of this. Many of our laws existed before the Bible was written.

 

I disagree, again God created mankind, thus he created how we percieve the world and how we think and thus how we create our laws. He defined good and evil by stating if you eat of this tree ( and thus disobey me ) then you will surely die. That is why the tree bears that name, he explained to them the difference of obediance and disobediance by the outcome of their decision. Now you state many of our laws existed before the bible. But God existed before the laws and before man, he created man, he created the moral sense in man, and thus from this we extrapolate our laws. The laws of the bible are simply a reiterization of the basic moral beliefs that have existed within us sense creation. The most important:

 

Thou shalt not covet [ paraphrased from last two commandments of the bible ]

 

Thou shalt not want, I want this I want that ... be content, it says in the bible "does not god provide for the sparrow, does he not clothe the lillies in the valley, if all these things be important unto him how then you?" It means we should have no wants, no needs for God meets them, we have to work for them now which was the curse places on Adam, but before hand their only duty was to worship god and praise his name, they were given dominion over a self efficient earth to rule the animals. God provided them food, shelter and companionship. All they had to do was obey him, but they didn't. They WANTED to be like God, they coveted his position and his power and they disobeyed.

 

As for the laws of society, they are based upon the same principles of our moral beliefs albeit those that are corrupted by those that covet (again the word covet) power. Thou shalt not kill, we shouldn't take the life of another human being. It appears idealist because of wars and accidents etc. But it does not apply to accidents, wars it does, if we didn't disobey the laws of God then there wouldn't be any wars, and thus no death from violence. But we want to spit in the face of God and say you are no better than us, we are just like you. We are our own gods. It says that all of heaven mourns when an individual disobeys God, and all of heaven rejoices when one comes back to God. God is emotional, he created emotion he knows about emotion, he created in us a sense of justice, God knows justice. If he didn't he wouldn't of created it with us to judge his own actions or the actions of others. He gave us a sense of justice. I could give you examples of all the laws.

 

 

- As for your final comment you claim it to be false but give no proof, also you claim it to be false and have appear in all context of your written material to have read the bible superficially if at all and are using the word of God, which is a unique book that no man could of or would have written without some outside influence if you look at the picture it portrays, to attack God. The Bible goes against our mindset, the mindset of the culture now and at the time, and presents to us a clear concise description not only of God but of humanity. If the bible glazed over that humanity falls, that the saints aren't perfect that we as people make mistakes over and over again then it would be a lie. But the bible is the truth.

 

I:  I welcome that judgement. By the highest law, I pass that judgement far better than God.

 

This simply sounds arrogant and gives little to the debate other that you feel yourself better than God, you state you're your own god. Your just saying the very thing satan did in the garden of eden, I shall surely not die. This isn't anything new peregrine, people have said this for ages. You attack God because you can't stand for there to be one other than yourself. This higher law only is a replacement of God used to give you total control over your life without fear of consequence because you can justify your actions by comparing them to others and then condone the confrontation of God's actions against your own. The one that created the stars and flung them into space, the God that took a handful of dirt and breathed life into and create humankind. The God that died for our disobedience, the God that is what he is, the God that defined and is the highest law.

 

J:  The fact that events are true does not make them morally correct. If God decides to abuse his power and judge humanity, etc, than he is evil. Power does not make anyone's actions right, even God's.

 

You forget, God has the right to judge humanity, he has every right to kill us all in fact. He created us, he gave us life, he formed us and breathed into us an eternal spirit. God has the right, he is not evil he is God. You create a painting, you have the right to rip it up or to touch it up, repaint it etc. We are God's creation, we answer to him. He could just wipe the slate clean, destroy all of humanity, but he doesn't. Now an evil god, a power hungry god, a power abusive god would just destroy earth and make it anew, say enough of these humans, they don't want to obey me, they forget me, there voices ring out curses using my name every minute of every hour upon the face of the earth. Enough, he would destroy the world or rule in tyranny over us forcing us to do his will. Your confusing God's fatherhood with tyranny. We have children, he made procreation successful, as a good father or mother we can begin to understand how God feels. We will never know how God thinks until he comes back to us or we go to him and even then, he is still God.

 

Instead of being power abusive he allows us to live, allows the corruption that comes from our free will to choose between obedience and disobedience to continue and escalate until a time where the world becomes wholly disobediant and God removes those still obediant to him and allows total evil to control the world for a time, then he cleanses the earth of all that humanity has corrupted it with: the pollution etc. Then comes the judgement where we must answer for the voluntary choices we made. Thus, he is a judge and must carry out the sentence, and the fact that he carries out the sentence albeit reluctantly gives credit to his being just, but he is also merciful and mercy is not a trait found among power loving tyrants that abuse their power over their own creations.

 

K:  Because there is a higher law than God's. And for a more practical reason, because it is a fundamental part of this debate. One condition of it is that we can judge God.

 

Okay, you state you can judge God in this thread, fine. But there is no higher law than God's, he is the highest law. Anything else is a man made contraption to overthrow God's authority in his life and give him the excuse to continue to live within his disobedience to God. It states that we would do this exact same thing in the bible. We make other God's, other ideals before us and worship (OBEY them) and not God, the true God. Your just doing the same exact thing that was done thousands of years ago when the first idol was created. Making a way out, a God you can worship, making yourself in control of a future that without God is death. Thus, your not judging God here for his actions. Your Judging him, for judging you. Your stating he has no right when he has every right. He created you, your his creation, he is God. He is the highest law, he set the highest law, he obeys the highest law and he gives you the choice to obey the highest law or to turn away from it. Its your choice, your action "Done of one's own accord; voluntary" as the dictionary defines FREE-WILL. But God is the Highest Law, not a set of morals that you have contrived yourself. So your fundamental part of this debate is null and void as its a contrivation of your own desire to remove God's influence and the inevitable judgement from your conscience by drowning it out with God's trial as you decided to call this. This is a facade to satisfy your own need to remove God from the location of Highest Law and replace it with one in which you yourself are justified in disobediance to God because you state he is evil while claiming to be better than him. You are doing the same EXACT thing that adam and eve did in the bible, becoming your own god. Justifying your action and escaping the consequence of your disobedience. Unfortunately, it will take more than your arguments to dethrone God. Its been tried before when man became arrogant and strove to invade heaven and over throw God. Read the Bible. Everything your doing here was done thousands of years ago. Nothing has changed, people are still making the same excuses with different names to justify there disobedience and remove the idea of consequence for that disobedience.

 

 

L:  The fact that God is not the only cause of evil in the universe does not make his actions any less evil.

 

Evil: (dictionary definition of the noun)

1: The quality of being morally bad or wrong

2: That which causes harm, injury, misfortune

 

Lets look at the situation according to the bible. We have the fall of lucifer to satan, a person who disobeyed and rebelled against God, an angel. He moves the forces of evil persay, unfortunately we get all hung up on it. The devil is not our greatest enemy, he isbasically the leader of the rebellion against God, the dethronement of God and the judgement of God. Those are his desires, to be like God. Humanity's problem is there own desire to be like God to do what we say God can ... anything. But God is incapable of doing evil, because he choses not to do evil. As much as he is all knowing, but choses to forget one's past disobedience when they come under the lordship of Jesus Christ. He does not cause harm, injury or misfortune, mankind does that, the devil instigates it because it helps him in his lost battle against God, he is an individual interested only in overthrowing God, even though he already knows he has lost the war. Thus he everytime he influences someone to disobey God it boosts his ego and makes him feel better. Yet he knows that God has won. It says that every devil in hell knows that God exists and shakes at his awesomeness. As for the quality of being morally bad or wrong ... again if God create us, he create our morality and thus he is not evil, because if he was then that morality would serve no purpose to be created into us. Its like adding a light to a room that is suppose to be dark. The first thing God created was light, and he seperated the light from the darkness. God is not evil, he keeps his word and if he was then we ourselves would have no semblance of good, because we are created in his likeness.

 

M:  Only because we are the toys of a criminal sadist. And I would question the value of any "salvation" granted by a being that evil.

 

Again your defining God using the mind and morals God created in you, and I have covered the fact that he is not evil. However, lets look at this salvation you seem to despise according to the construction of your post. Where else do you get forgiveness of all your wrongs against an individual simply by repenting truefully and falling back under their leadership. Your civilized society? No, you do the crime, you do the time there is no way of circumvention besides further corruption of the judicial system. Your Highest Law? No, you've already condemn God using your manmade moral principles so that means the rest of us are hopeless, because we were created in his likeness. From you neighbor, from your brother, your wife, your best friend? Your crimes mark you for the rest of your life, but God choses to forget them. He choose to die and serve your sentence, so you don't have to. He is the perfect father, the perfect mother. He is God.

[ThetaOrionis01]

He rules from love

.

 

No. He rules by threat, intimidation, coercion and the odd bit of genocide.

 

 

You forget, God has the right to judge humanity, he has every right to kill us all in fact. He created us, he gave us life, he formed us and breathed into us an eternal spirit. God has the right, he is not evil he is God. You create a painting, you have the right to rip it up or to touch it up, repaint it etc.

 

By that logic every mother-to-be has the right to abort her unborn children, every parent has the right to kill the children to whom they gave life. But unlike god, most people do not act that way.

 

When one of my children takes a biscuit from the cupboard after I told them that they must not, I don't kill them or throw them out of the house. When one of my children annoys me, I don't go out and kill every single child in town. However, god does PRECISELY that - he is immoral, sadistic, murderous, genocidal.

 

 

Knowing the difference between obedience and disobedience is not the same as being capable of exercising free will. Animals can be taught obedience, yet animals do not have free will.

I dispute the fact that the humans in paradise were fully mature mentally. Quite simply, I do not believe that a: they were able to apply the concept of death to themselves, b: they were capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and c: aware of what they were doing. If, as you say, they never knew the shame of disobedience before then CLEARLY they had no idea of the consequences of their actions. They were thus not able to take responsibility for their own actions. The whole fact that only AFTER their 'disobedience' they became self-aware tells me that while they might have been able to hold 'intellectual' discussions they were not able to make an informed choice about 'good' and 'evil'.

 

 

 

 

((((((((Theta - You state that if God knew we would disobey and turn to evil why create us, but he also knew of those that would return back and obey him. You have a children, if you knew before hand that one of your children would be come a murderer, one a rapist but the third a repectable individual in society. Would you still have children? If you didn't what about that third child? Is one good child worth the inevitable risk of two bad ones. We are the children of God, he created us and in us created the ability to procreate. As a mother, would you kill of your child now today this instant, if you knew that one day they would kill someone. Then what if you knew that years later as they sat in a cell and truly realized they were wrong and wanted forgiveness but they are condemned to die. Would you give your life so they might go free? Would you take the consequence of a crime they truly in there heart were remorseful for and sought forgiveness. I don't know my answer, I have never beheld a child, something that comes from the binding of two beings to create a wholly unique individual. But God does, and he answered that question.))))))))

 

Totally, utterly WRONG:

 

I am not all-knowing and all-powerful. I cannot KNOW before conception how my children will behave, nor do I have the power to CHANGE my child's future before conception. If what you say about god being all-powerful and all-knowing is true (if it isn't then god is not god, and all your arguments are invalid) he has both the KNOWLEDGE and the POWER not to create humans which will disobey him. The fact that he creates them anyway makes him responsible for every evil action ever committed.

IF I knew in advance that I would give birth to a child which would turn out to be a genocidal sadist, mass murderer etc, AND IF I had the power to change my child's future behaviour before conception, and I still went ahead and gave birth to such a child, then I would be responsible for all the child's future actions.

 

THEREFORE GOD IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL EVIL ACTIONS EVER COMMITTED, AND PUNISHING HUMANS FOR THE DEEDS HE KNEW IN ADVANCE THEY WOULD COMMIT, THAT HE IN FACT CREATED THEM TO COMMIT, IS IMMORAL AND SADISTIC.

 

 

However, the fact remains that god created us in the full KNOWLEDGE that we would act precisely as we do. Therefore, by creating us he already knew PRECISELY what we would do. Therefore we have no free will - everything we do, god CREATED us to do. We had no choice but to disobey - we were infact CREATED TO DISOBEY.

 

If god is all-knowing and all-powerful, humans have no free will.

 

If god is not all-powerful and all-knowing, he is not god.

 

 

This, IMO, invalidates your arguments.

[Malchik]

"Thou shalt not commit adultery". When you are god and arranging for a minion to impregnate a married woman appears not to count. "Thou shalt not covet." Unless you are god and are envious of some other idol getting too much attention when it has to be whacked. "Thou shalt not kill" So as god I'll create a 'son' especially for the purpose of having him killed (which is the same as killing him).

 

Since god breaches his own laws how can he punish his creations for doing what he does himself and be regarded as GOOD?

[Greywolf]

Okay then, when was the last time God caused whole sale genocide, when was the last time he said, okay kill off all the idolaters, they worship another god. You state he is a God that rules by force, is sadistic and a genocidal killer. You also forget that every culture uses God as an excuse to commit terrible crimes, why because then the blame is shifted to God for there own disobedience.

 

Your definition of free-will does not coincide with that of the dictionary, its a voluntary action, we have the choice to obey or disobey. God doesn't want robots, he wants free-thinking individuals who have the capability of understanding, communicating and loving him as much as he loves them. If your correct then we must wipe out all human envolvement in all of these crimes God commited, and then blame him. He showed us he could wipe the slate when he flooded the earth WHEN the evil upon the earth had reached such a degree that the thoughts of men were evil continously.

 

Again my arguement is based on the fact that you are judging God with the same moral system he created in you. If he was evil, such a system wouldn't exist, because you wouldn't need it. If he was interested in complete genocide, murdering and power abuse, he'd of struck you down dead before you wrote the first words of your posts. The fact that he has not kill all the atheists etc. that deny him and spit in his face shows that he is not as evil as you state, or as sadistical.

 

The ten commandments were a law sent down to man, and there was more to it than the ten, that gave individuals rights. America, Canada, England, Most of Europe, Russia, Most Independent Nations of Africa, all have within there current legal system the same moral values as given us by God for among men. If your talking about a minion impregnating Mary, then reread your bible. She became pregnant but no man knew her. It was not an angel, God created man, he can simply cause her to become pregnant. Ever see Star Wars Episode One, same thing, I wasn't then I was. Mary didn't understand this but she began to later in life, and it wasn't adultery as Mary A: wasn't married, B: there was no sexuality to the entire situation. This also rules out fornication. Your again thinking in terms of humanity, and I am argue back in terms of humanity.

 

God didn't kill Jesus, he knew that Jesus would die yes, and he knew that it was the only way to save mankind yes. But he was not the one that nailed Jesus to the cross, he was not the one that whipped him, flogged him, spat upon him and hung him like already dead flesh upon a wooden cross beam. Someone earlier said we worship the cross, we use it to remember the horrendous death that was placed upon our savoir, the death that we rightly should of had but he took upon himself. We still die physically but we know that despite this there is eternal life waiting for us with God, and not seperate from him because we decided that our self-righteous hypocrisy is greater than God. Your stating again that God, should conform to the ways of man when you don't even know or understand God. I have heard only philosphies and unfinished quotes from a bible that seems to have not been thoroughly understood or read by the debators hear, INCLUDING myself. The bible stands as a message of what we are, what we do and how God has provided means for us to return. Reread your bible, I know I need to.

 

Theta - he doesn't abort us, we are an eternal spirit, only our physical body dies. Again, I haven't seen those that hell at God and curse his name struck down dead where they stand. You read this history of a culture and people that represents a symbol of humanity more than of God, showing us the way to salvation and you blame God for the actions of the people. It states this "God is Love" but God can not allow that which is disobedient/evil to ruin that which is obedient/good. If God let every man into heaven then heaven would be hell in a matter of minutes. Thus why the two exist. We make the choice, we suffer the consequences. Again, God made a way back to him, he stated clearly that you can come back. He took on the consequence himself, but if you don't go back then you have to face the consequence because you are not allowing him to take that burden for you.

 

Again, this whole arguement isn't knew. Its what started in the Garden of Eden and will last till the end of time. Humanity will constantly seek to drive God out of the picture with their petty trials based upon the morality that God created. And in the end they will lose, "and every tongue shall cry that he is lord."

 

It is inevitable.