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God is not a person, he is a spirit. Unless, you speak of the Son of the Trinity. Further clarification please. Obviously, Simon Cowell is the most evil because he gave us One Direction.
Creating something or someone doesn't make you responsible for their actions. Would you blame the mother of a serial killer?
Do you think life is bad? Assuming God is real, he did plenty of good. Plus, the tree of knowledge of good and evil suggests that evil existed prior to humans... and angels are supposedly incapable of sin (except for Satan, for some reason)... so who was evil? You can't have knowledge of something that doesn't exist. Maybe God didn't actually create evil.
Good point, unfortunately for you though, the mother isn't omniscient; she doesn't know everything that is, has been and will be. Thus, she doesn't carry the burden of knowledge when creating the monster that she ended up nurturing to adulthood.
I cannot disprove the theory that God might not be omniscient other than the fact that the very entity we termed 'God' is defined as the omniscient, omnipotent creator of all that is.
Firstly, I don't think this is what exactly happened and even if it did happen and he genuinely asked 'Where are you?' it was merely as a symbolic test to see if Adam would reply immediately or hesitate indicating a lack of obedience to the almighty ruler and perhaps a deviance to the way of the devil; withholding information to your saviour is the same thing as indirectly deceiving him (even though he already knows the answer)
Firstly, I don't think this is what exactly happened
Genesis 3:9 "And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?"
and even if it did happen and he genuinely asked 'Where are you?' it was merely as a symbolic test to see if Adam would reply immediately or hesitate indicating a lack of obedience to the almighty ruler and perhaps a deviance to the way of the devil
The Bible is full of verses that suggest that God is not omniscient. Here's another example:
Genesis 18:21 "I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know."
Also, most people assume that the serpent who tempted Eve was Satan, but in the Bible, God specifically says to the serpent, "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life".
What you just read is the Bible's way of explaining the creation of the snake, not the punishment of Satan.
This is the winning argument in the God debate. All of the stories of his power and his attributes are based off of humans' eyes and they relate it to what they know. What was the strongest thing back in the biblical times? An elephant maybe. If God was stronger than that, it would have been easy to mistake him for being omnipotent. Same for his omniscience, another potential mistake based on relative knowledge.
God evolves throughout the Bible. He goes from being visible to humans (Adam and Eve) to eventually just becoming pure spirit or without form. In polytheistic religions, the gods were obviously more powerful than humans, but they also had flaws. When polytheism started to die out and monotheism began to take it's place, all of a sudden, God changed. He became less flawed, as well as omniscient and omnipotent. Basically, an all-loving, all-powerful god was more likely to draw in followers than a religion with flawed gods.
Creating something or someone doesn't make you responsible for their actions. Would you blame the mother of a serial killer?
Maybe that's why we have serial killers. No one wants to blame the mom. She gets on TV and says "Oh, he was such a nice boy. I don't know what made him like this. I never thought he would do anything like this." If she is such a great mom, how come she doesn't know?
Maybe that's why we have serial killers. No one wants to blame the mom. She gets on TV and says "Oh, he was such a nice boy.
Well, there are exceptions... but ultimately the serial killer is to blame. Maybe a better analogy would have been the mother of someone who killed only one person. Think of Casey Anthony. Her parents seem like decent people, but Casey is pretty screwed up.
If she is such a great mom, how come she doesn't know?
It's not rare to see a good mom with an asshole child. Once that child grows into an adult, there's really not much she can do.
Yeah, I could have done that better. I just always think it is funny when they interview the family and friends and the serial killer seemed like a great person.
Yeah, sometimes people just make up shit to improve their image. Like that 16 year old mom in Omaha, whose toddler was in a video cursing like a thug. She argued that all kids cuss (a toddler? Come on...) and that she's still a good mom.
Well, she had the kid when she was 14, she lives with her grandma who was arrested for illegal possession of five guns, their home keeps getting shot up from drive bys and the toddler's father is a deceased gang member. Yeah, it sounds like that kid is living an exceptional life.
God didn't create evil. The very first humans Adam and Eve, they let sin get into this world and that is why the world is broken because of sin. If they followed what God told them to do then there wouldn't be evil in the first place or sin.
I do not understand your statement. I know i have to be this bastion of unquestioning perfection, but my own moral failures and questions limit me, and I don't understand God at all and why He allows evil and I am so afraid of Hell. I just want peace. :'(
People are going to start thinking that I'm a Christian, seeing as to how I've been defending them so much lately... But I think I may be able to help you here.
God allows evil, because he allows free will. The difference between good and evil is the same as obeying God and disobeying God.
Think of it this way, the word "good" is god with an extra O. The word "evil" used to be spelled "evel"... That's Eve with an L.
Eve introduced evil (disobedience to God) to the human race by eating the forbidden fruit. She introduced free will. God punished her and Adam, but he didn't annihilate them.
So time went on and God continued to allow humans to have free will, but he still wanted humans to obey him... But they have the option not too, which obviously doesn't make God happy. So when they got too out of control, he sent a flood... But he spared his only loyal followers, Noah and his family. God was trying to abolish evil from the earth and basically restart. After the flood was over, he made a covenant with Noah that he would never destroy the human race again.
Despite God's efforts to rebuild the human race, they eventually went back to their evil ways. If he were to destroy them again, he would be breaking his promise to Noah... So then we get the remainder of the stories from Old Testament, which were different attempts to make the human race obedient once again.
By New Testament, it seems that God has finally started to accept that humans are flawed. Disobeying the laws of Old Testament were it... If you messed up, you weren't going to be forgiven... So God decides to introduce a loophole to his laws. That loophole was Jesus Christ.
Jesus comes to fulfill the law. By dying on the cross, he circumvents the law. He allows people to be forgiven for their sins. However, there is still a law that is required to get into heaven... And that is to believe in him.
Sinning is no longer a sure-fire way to be condemned to hell. There is only one sin that is unforgivable... And that is not believing in Christ as Lord.
So if sin is now forgivable, so are acts of evil. To sin is to do something evil.
God doesn't abolish evil, because it is part of human nature... And as long as humans have free will, evil will always exist.
So lemme get this straight: God is all good, all powerful, all knowing, evil exists, and it's not His fault? That sounds like circular reasoning to me.
If God exists then he would have to be all good, because he decides what is right and wrong. To be good is to be like God. To be evil is to disobey God aka to be like Eve. God cannot disobey himself.
Evil is only his fault in the sense that free will is his fault. Would you enjoy being a mindless robot? Well, he might have actually wanted that... Because as we know from the Bible, Eve introduced free will to the human race... But God and his angels already had it. After Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God said something along the lines of, "behold, man has become like one of us".
Is God all-knowing? I don't know. There are many verses that contradict that, for example, when God was walking around the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and saying, "where are you?" An all-knowing god would have known where Adam was.
Is he all-powerful? That I also don't know, but you have to remember the promise he made to Noah. He vowed to never destroy the human race again... And getting rid of all the evil people would eliminate a huge chunk of the human population, if not ALL of it, because everyone has sinned and to sin is to commit an evil act.
You have to understand that to humans, evil is a subjective term. We think Bin Laden was evil, he thought we were evil. Perspective matters. But what is truly evil is up to God (assuming that he exists), not us.
If God were to put an end to evil, he would only be able to do it by removing our free will.
God permits evil because he can use other people's testimony of how they got saved from some of the evil action's of people and taught them new things through what had happened to them. He can also turn something negative into someone's life into a positive. You also have to understand that God has a purpose for all things even the evil in this world.
Agreed. I guess it is worth it if I can help one person. If Jesus can die for me, I can drag my bum to therapy and help people. It just hurts. The PTSD makes me feel out of control.
It isn't a "love fest" anyway. I like her as a friend and not that kind of like. I don't like anybody right now at the moment because God hasn't shown me the right person yet.
Evil came about when humans let sin into this world. God was the first to exist but there was no sin when God was existing in the world. It only came when Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
The tree of knowledge of good and evil suggests that evil existed prior to humans, and what could have done that? God. Sorry. God is the only one who could have created sin. Humans only let it out.
I am not ultimately sure why there was a tree of knowledge of good and evil but I assume that God wanted to test them. But then again, I am not God but there is an explanation of why He put it there. Why does everyone think I can answer every single question when it comes to explaing about why God did this or that? I am not God!!
Okay. Seems like you cant read. The tree of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. KNOWLEDGE. KNOWLEDGE. NOT THE MANIFESTATION OF EVIL. When Adam ate the fruit it didn't release sin. It gave him the knowledge of whats good and whats evil. The act of disobeying is what set fourth to rolling stone. Obviously the knowledge of good and evil existed before god created anything. He had to know about it to create it. Then he did. Woopdedoo. Read. Like totes read.
Evil is the form of knowledge? As in moral codes, general norms ordained by God? Yes. Evil as in the manifestation of sin and corruption of life on Earth? No. It manifested when man separated the bond between himself and God. Nobody was evil before humans. No person could be evil before humans. Angels would be the only ones. They would most likely be given understanding of morals and edicts that follow positive and megative traits. This gives tyem the ability to choose.
Angels are supposedly incapable of sin. Same with God. So if evil didn't occur prior to humans, then how could anyone (or anything) have knowledge of it? Arguing that God created it is arguing that God had knowledge of something that never occurred anywhere...ever, prior to Adam and Eve.
To understand good, you have to understand evil... which Adam and Eve did not, until they ate the fruit... but apparently God did, which contradicts the argument that God is without sin. If he always existed, then he must have been alone at one time and if angels are also without sin, then when did he witness evil and attain knowledge of it? He has to know that it exists in order to make a fruit containing knowledge of it.
How are angels incapable of sin? Where in the bible does the claim become present?
So if evil didn't occur prior to humans, then how could anyone (or anything) have knowledge of it?
I don't think you are understanding. The moral code is composed of the subjective connotation of good and evil. God gave this moral code to all intelligent beings. Angels included. He didn't manifest evil within the sect of angels.
To understand good, you have to understand evil... which Adam and Eve did not, until they ate the fruit... but apparently God did, which contradicts the argument that God is without sin
That is illogical. For one your warrant doesn't even explain how it ties to God. God is without sin. However he is full of the knowledge of sin. Two different things. Adam and Eve disobeyed which caused a separation between man and God. This created sin. The knowledge of sin is not sin itself.
If he always existed, then he must have been alone at one time and if angels are also without sin, then when did he witness evil and attain knowledge of it?
God is revered as all-knowing. Meaning he knows the basis of everything since he is omnipresent. Angels were created without sin, but that doesn't mean they were incapable of sinning. God already possessed knowledge of evil. He must lay this in his moral code if he is the use thi to enhance the understanding of the angels.
He has to know that it exists in order to make a fruit containing knowledge of good and evil.
Not at all. All that is required is the knowledge of evil. He created a fruit that contained this knowledge.
How are angels incapable of sin? Where in the bible does the claim become present?
Hey, I don't believe it! It's just a common assumption. I figured that since we were going off assumptions, I might as well bring that one up.
I don't think you are understanding. The moral code is composed of the subjective connotation of good and evil.
Subjective connotation? That's just another way of saying that the fruit gave them an emotional response to good and evil... in other words, knowledge.
God gave this moral code to all intelligent beings. Angels included. He didn't manifest evil within the sect of angels.
You're just coming up with shit now. Does the Bible ever explain that angels have this moral code?
He didn't manifest evil within the sect of angels.
I never said that he did.
God is without sin. However he is full of the knowledge of sin.
Do you know what sin means? It's going against God. God can't disobey himself. God is not only without sin... he's completely incapable of it.
Which brings me to a new idea... Good=God. To be like God is good. Evil= Disobeying God. Evil exists because God exists.
Wow... I think I just enlightened myself... you spawned the thought though lol.
Good is just another way of saying "obeying God"... And evil is another way of saying "disobeying God".
Actually, I think the word "evil" might actually have it's origin in the name Eve... which would make sense, because she's basically the symbol for disobeying God. That's strange though... she sinned before she obtained knowledge of it.
Oh damn, I just remembered... after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God said something along the lines of, "now they're like us"... which is even more strange. Why say "us" if he can't sin? Apparently God wanted Adam and Eve to remain obedient. Once they ate the fruit, he lost control of them. Oh man! This is some crazy stuff!
God already possessed knowledge of evil.
God knew what he wanted and didn't want intelligent beings to do.
All that is required is the knowledge of evil.
Oh, I agree! But why did Eve disobey God if she hadn't attained that knowledge yet? Well, I think I've figured it out!
Eve only knew how to be obedient. She could only follow orders, no matter who was giving them. The serpent used that to his advantage. She wasn't sinning... she was just following orders... and once her and Adam ate the fruit, they gained the ability to obey or disobey anyone.
Wow... thanks for spawning some interesting ideas! Does all of that make sense to you as well?
Subjective connotation? That's just another way of saying that the fruit gave them an emotional response to good and evil... in other words, knowledge.
No. It means that the moral code is full of subjective interpretations of good and evil. Its depends on the person.
You're just coming up with shit now. Does the Bible ever explain that angels have this moral code?
I don't make up information. This is just logical reasoning. If Lucifer could rebel and wish to take the throne he had to have knowledge of good and evil. Along with all the angels since some of them also rebelled.
Do you know what sin means?
Yes. It has a couple of meanings.
Why say "us" if he can't sin?
What does that matter? Saying us is the reference to the trinitarian rule.
God knew what he wanted and didn't want intelligent beings to do.
Okay?
Eve only knew how to be obedient.
They have an natural born sense of right and wrong. Her act of disobeying apawned sin. She could have denied. If your theory held true Eve would only be able to obey God since he gave the initial command. Eve was convince.
No. It means that the moral code is full of subjective interpretations of good and evil. Its depends on the person.
I think the fruit just contains the ability to gain free will.
If Lucifer could rebel and wish to take the throne he had to have knowledge of good and evil.
I really wish people would stop using the name Lucifer when referring to Satan. That name is mentioned only once in the entire Bible and it doesn't say whether or not he is Satan.
Anyways, I agree. They had the option to either obey or disobey God. That is the difference between good and evil.
What does that matter? Saying us is the reference to the trinitarian rule.
Ugh... I don't know if you noticed, but after a certain point, I basically started agreeing with you. You're past that point right now lol.
The Trinitarian rule? That is such bullshit (no offense). The only reason I say that is because I've heard that argument before. If angels have knowledge of good and evil, like you said, then doesn't it make more sense that he would be talking to them and not himself? Also, if you're like me, then you think that the Bible is likely not divinely inspired. When God says "us", that takes place in Old Testament. Jews don't believe in the Trinity.
Okay?
I really wish that you caught on, because I'm pretty sure I had an eye-opening moment that I thought you would enjoy as well. But you're turning the virtual high fives I expected, into virtual sucker punches.
They have an natural born sense of right and wrong.
Then what was the purpose of the fruit?
Her act of disobeying apawned sin.
Disobeying God IS sin.
If your theory held true Eve would only be able to obey God since he gave the initial command. Eve was convince.
My theory is that Eve could only be obedient to whomever was giving orders. That's why God gave Adam rule over Eve and that's why the serpent was able to convince her so easily. Assuming that Satan was the serpent, that would explain why he chose not to appear in his natural form.
However, Eve received two conflicting orders. Don't eat the fruit and do eat the fruit. Maybe that was her first introduction to choice.
God had to deliver a moral code before making humans. Logically in a moral code one must come to understand subjective good and evil and social good and evil. This knowledge was given to his angels. They have the ability to act freely. In order to even understand God you must have a sense of morality. So, God created the conceptual image of good and evil within morality. He didn't create the manifestation of evil which flourishes in equivalence to the distance between God and man. So if you say God did make evil as a concept then yes. I have to agree. He didnt however created sin or manifested evil.
Morals were required in his heavenly kingdom, which is known as heaven, so that the angel may understand God. To know good one must know evil and vice versa. Giving angels the ability to conceptualize their subjective moral codes so they may understand what good and evil was necessary if he wished to have such an intricate system of angels that perform certain tasks.
God made Adam and Eve and God made them in their own image. God made knowledge of good and evil a sin. Now everyone know's what's good and evil and that's why sometimes when you or I know we did something wrong we feel guilty for what we have done.
You feel guilty because you've been told that it's a sin.
No, deep down inside us all, we all know when it comes to doing something wrong everyone feels guilty for when something bad happens. Also deep down inside everyone's heart it groans for a relationship with the Creator.
What do you mean "their own image?" God made Adam and Eve, they didn't make themselves. Every part of them was made by him. Every part of this world was made by him, he created the evil and sin of the world.
"This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental."
There has to be people out there who would do worse things than Hitler if given the opportunity, but as far as people who succeeded in their evil plans (at least to an extent), I'd probably have to go with Hitler.
I'll have to wait and see what everyone else has to say. I'm sure there were some serial killers out there who were worse, but weren't responsible for as many deaths.
Anything can, in hindsight, be deemed to have been a succeeded plan from the beginning. Hitler's plan was world domination, his plan utterly failed. Killing off non-Aryans was just something he left his minions to do to stir fear. Hitler had zero attributes of the Aryan race he so deified other than the fact his ethnicity was Caucasian.
In a way, he did succeed by killing his wife and dog and himself with poison since neither of those three beings were strictly what you would call the Aryan race.
Anything can, in hindsight, be deemed to have been a succeeded plan form the beginning.
You can't deem something a success before you've accomplished it.
Hitler's plan was world domination, his plan utterly failed.
His ultimate goal was world domination, but he had smaller objectives within it. A checklist to lead to world domination. He successfully accomplished many of his objectives, as cruel as they may be.
Killing off non-Aryans was just something he left his minions to do to stir fear.
So what? They couldn't have shared objectives? He was their leader.
I said in hindsight, not before. Smaller objectives are irrelevant, he failed what he set out to do. So what if he was the leader; he never once killed a Jew in his life.
It doesn't matter if he killed them directly or not, he still gave the orders. Bin Laden didn't fly into the Twin Towers on 9/11, but you still consider him to be responsible for it, right?
Quite often the leader takes credit for things entirely constructed and devised by his inferiors who were more psychopathic than the leader himself/herself (such as the camps themselves).
Hitler was an utter failure and his strategy of war was pathetic. He ended up with only one loyal ally; an Asian island that got nuked by intellectually damaged Americans whom didn't understand the concept of negotiation.
That entire war a disaster beginning to end. The only thing that came good of it was some scientific and technological research, most carried out on Jews.
Hitler was an utter failure and his strategy of war was pathetic.
Uhhh... have you ever learned about WWII? The Nazi's and their allies took over most of Europe. Just about the only European countries that didn't fall to the Nazi's were the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain and Portugal.
He ended up with only one loyal ally; an Asian Island that got nuked by emotionally damaged Americans who don't understand the concept of negotiation.
He had multiple allies, but the two who were most involved were Japan and Italy.
Didn't Italy's fall have more to do with Mussolini being hung in the streets? After they switched sides, the Italian Social Republic still remained allies with Nazi Germany though.
What the hell is wrong with you? He clearly learned nothing about WWII when he said that Hitler killed himself because of how badly he fucked up. That was his first post. Hitler killed himself because he was surrounded by enemies.
Satan punishes evil people in the afterlife. He does the work that no saint would dare get their hands dirty doing. Satan is actually the very reason you fear giving into impulse; Satan is the reason you fear going to hell at all.
Lucifer probably isn't Satan either. The name "Lucifer" is only mentioned once throughout the entire Bible.
Isaiah 14:12 "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! [how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"
In many translations, it says "Lucifer, son of the morning star!" The morning star, if you don't already know, is the planet Venus. Why is that significant? Well, because the planet Venus was named after the Roman goddess (she's called Aphrodite in Greek tradition). Roman polytheism played a big role in that time period. In the Roman tradition, Venus had a son. That son looked a lot like an angel... his name was Cupid. We still use him as a symbol for love today.
Anyways, getting back to the "morning star" aka Venus... take a look at this verse found in Revelations 22:16: "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."
So now we have Lucifer and Jesus connected through a bloodline... pretty crazy stuff, right?
Well, Satan was supposedly an angel at one time. Apparently he was one of God's favorites. Satan ended up being a little rebellious and went against God's commands. That is strange to me, because angels are supposed to be incapable of sin... so how did Satan manage to do it?
Anyways, the modern interpretation of Satan was inspired by many different things, but the physical characteristics we associate with him are mostly from Roman polytheism.
When Christianity started taking over, they did what they could to make paganism appear evil. For example, Satan's pitchfork is actually Neptune's (Poseidon in Greek tradition) Trident. Satan is often portrayed as having goat legs and horns, those come from a Satyr (I believe they're called Faun's in Roman tradition).
Certain details from Roman polytheism were also adopted by Christianity and used in a positive light as well. For example, the sun often appears behind the heads of holy figures in Christian art and an important Roman and Greek god was adopted as the image for the Christian god... Zeus.
You remember how I brought up Venus in my earlier argument? Well, Venus has multiple symbols that represent her. One is still used today as the symbol for female, which is a circle with a cross underneath it. Her other symbol is the pentacle, also known as the five-pointed star, which is a symbol that is now associated with Satanism (there's is usually upside down). Also, in case you're interested, many astronomers say that every eight years the planet Venus forms a pentacle in the sky (each cycle stops at a different location, which when the dots are connected, forms the pentacle... or so they say). Apparently the ancients noticed that and that may be the origin of the symbol. The Greeks went off of Venus' eight year cycle for the Olympics, today we go off the half cycle (every four years). The five-pointed star was going to be the symbol for the Olympics, but due to it building up a reputation as a symbol for evil, they chose five rings instead.
Anyways, Venus had another symbol that is still important. Her sacred animal was the dove... which in Christianity, usually represents the holy spirit. It can be found above Jesus in thousands of Christian paintings.
Maybe the dove is actually "the Morning Star" watching over Jesus...
Actually the Bible never really describes the devil as evil. It doesn't really describe who the devil is. Satan is a word the bible, not a name. Satan means " adversary." The Snake is Adams first wife Lilith. Eve came later after Adam and Lilith had a falling out. That's why the earliest depictions of the snake in the garden are always of a woman. The "morning Star" is actually the biblical authors talking shit about another religions God. In the new testament, the devils only crime is offering Jesus food because Jesus had been starving himself for 40 days in the willingness.
There's a lesson to learn from this.
If your starving to death, don't except food from your enemy. Don't give that bastard the satisfaction of saving your life.
Stalin stood for communism, Hitler stood for racism, elitism and sexism (in Nazi Germany women could never get any job of a remotely high rank) sexism was already socially accepted so he never had to fight for that.
We are animals so our subjective interpretation influences us to be both good and evil. There is no person on Earth who doesn't see things in their own version of it and interpret a belief in their own way.
That is not nearly as important as how many people they killed and besides Stalin also was a racist, an example of this was the deportation of people of Kalmyk ethnicity to Siberia.
He was known as " The skurge of God. He stormed into Afghanistan and beheaded 90,000 people for the soul propose of making a mountain out of their skulls.
Are you sure it isn't one of those other corrupt leaders, like Mariano Rajoy? I mean, after all... Spain did score pretty bad on the global corruption index.
Corruption is more than just dishonesty. When referring to countries, it's usually a compilation of everything immoral about the country. Plus, we're talking about people, not countries... but after debating with you, it's obvious that you don't know the difference.