A stranger gropes you in a dark alley. In self-defense, you knock him out cold with your purse or an object nearby. That’s violence, but its necessary.
A bully tells your child to handover his lunch box. Your child complies, but the bully punches him in the face nonetheless. That’s violence, but its needless.
My turn, when extremist Muslims kill Christians in the name of Allah, is this evil?
Don’t hold your breath. Christian theologians have written extensively on the subject, defending God’s actions in the Old Testament. Yahweh is always right and that’s all they want to know.
A very good question.
Well, I would be the one putting blood on my doorposts since I believe in God.
Right, and I’ve asked you, if you think I’m sinning, how it applies to me. I’m not going to guess at how you think I’m sinning. Yes, I have been taught it in church.
He was referring to a different story - the good Samaritan - Luke 10:30-37.
I’m asking you. An all powerful deity would have a nearly infinite number of solutions to any problem that wouldn’t involve violence, so why pick a solution that causes pain, suffering, and death?
Pain, suffering and death were brought about by Satan and Adam. Until you become God yourself, you can refrain from questioning the motives and actions of a being infinitely greater than yourself. Suffering and death are a part of justice. Even our human governments enact suffering and death as punishment for crimes.
Do you not think that there is any lesson in the story for Christians?
I am, and have always been, referring to John 4:4-42.
It really appears as though you are trying to justify ignoring the teachings of Jesus.
Why can’t you answer the question? I will repost it:
So why did he create us with pain receptors if pain was supposed to be absent?
Why do we have an adaptive immune system (which remembers previous infections and specifically responds to them, quicker and more efficiently). It makes no sense to have it if we were never meant to fall sick?
Death occurs at several levels in biology. Cellular death must have occurred in Adam and Eve (else, why would they have apoptosis genes, lysosomes, and debris-hungry macrophages). At the level of the entire organism, however, it is possible for God to have kept them from death. Regardless, there was death in some form in the garden.
You are no greater than Zeus or Allah, but when they violently punish people, you call them evil, why?
What crimes did the first born infants of Egypt commit or the Israelites who died after David’s census?
This seems extremely problematic to me. If we can’t question or judge the motives and actions of an authority, even one infinitely greater than ourselves in every regard, then on what possible rational basis could we believe that authority to be good? I think the comparison you make to earthly authorities is useful, actually. Surely you would not think it wise for humans to obey any government absolutely and without question? Our obedience to and trust in authorities should always be contingent on our independent judgments of those authorities. There are many, many historical (and contemporary) examples of where unquestioning authoritarianism can lead humanity.
I am not suggesting that authority is always harmful or obedience to authority always wrong. I am suggesting that unjustified and unquestioned authority is harmful. This is not even an argument against theism or Christianity. An omnipotent deity might in fact be perfectly good, but how could we know whether he is or not if we decide, a priori, that this entity’s every action and very essence is the definition of goodness? It seems to me that if Christians adopted an essentially secular moral system that pinned moral goodness to human well-being, then we would have a rational basis for belief in a good God! We could observe his actions toward humanity (I’m granting the possibility of divine revelation through personal experience or the history of God’s actions recorded in the Bible) and then come to some conclusion about his character based on how those actions affected the well-being of people. I really, really can’t figure out how this unquestioning obedience stuff can be anything other than damaging to people, both morally and intellectually.
No @Mercer, I was explicitly referring to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which is in Luke. I was wrong however in assuming that it was a story told by Jesus to his disciples (hence my reference to “neither of Jesus’ and his disciples’ two fellow Jews”) as it was in fact told to an interogating expert (so I should have said “neither of Jesus’ and the expert’s two fellow Jews”).
I stand corrected.
I am, and have always been, referring to John 4:4-42, the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, as well the following rebuke of the disciples who questioned Him about it. @thoughtful doesn’t seem to think that this story has any meaning for her.
That reminds me of this exchange:
God is the very standard by which good is judged. God is the ultimate authority for which there are no higher authorities. If you deem yourself in position to judge God, then that means you consider yourself to be greater than God. Unlike human authorities, which can be good or evil (relative to God’s judgment), God is always good.
God expects you to trust Him, not attempt to judge Him by your own standards. This was the message of the book of Job.
and then come to some conclusion about his character based on how those actions affected the well-being of people.
God’s perspective goes beyond the space-time we experience. You are not in a position to know how God’s actions ultimately affect anybody’s well-being on the eternal plane.
I’d suggest reading through this thread. God must be the standard of good or He or any other god cannot exist as God.
If there are harmful consequences to humans, then by definition of our command to love our neighbor, those actions were sinful.
See also the link above.
Yes, it is evil when extremist Muslims kill Christians because the religion can be proved false by logic alone but I could also give you other reasons. Again see link above.
The God of the Bible encourages finding truth.
Proverbs 23:23
Buy the truth, and do not sell it, Also wisdom and instruction and understanding.
So we as Christians should dig deep into the Bible and consider its claims. We should be intellectually rigorous. At the same time, faith in God is belief in His goodness and submission to Him - that Jesus is the Son of God who saves us from our sins. So it would be contradictory to then also believe He is evil once you are born again. There’s difficulties sure - they should be examined and be thought about. As @PDPrice mentioned, Job is in the Bible for us for a reason. I’m thankful we have the book.
All of scripture has meaning for me. Over and over again you have accused me of tribalism and of ignoring evidence without bringing the Bible to bear on what you are saying.
Galatian 6:1-2
Brethren, if a man is [a]overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. 2 Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
If I am sinning, then I ask you to be gentle. I also ask that you explain how you want me to apply that passage to myself.
I don’t see a rebuke here. They also didn’t question him out loud. Again, please let me know what you would like me to apply from this.
And at this point His disciples came, and they marveled that He talked with a woman; yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why are You talking with her?”
28 The woman then left her waterpot, went her way into the city, and said to the men, 29 “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 Then they went out of the city and came to Him.
31 In the meantime His disciples urged Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat of which you do not know.”
33 Therefore the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought Him anything to eat?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! 36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.”
You are yet to answer my question:
Imagine your first child was killed by a foreign God, simply because your king refused to let his slaves go, would that be okay to you?
Which God? My Muslim friends tell me this too and they certainly don’t refer to the Christian version of God.
You already consider yourself higher than Allah or Zeus, so why shouldn’t the atheist do same to Yahweh?
So if we lived in the time of Moses and God sent you to slit my throat, you wouldn’t question his command?
If God is all-knowing, then he would know ways that don’t require needless violence and he could use them to achieve his aims.
Very good. Since Jews killed people needlessly, then they committed evil in the name of Yahweh.
This is totally baseless. If logic alone could somehow invalidate any religion, there would be none at all. You have no way of proving that Islam or Christ-less Judaism is false. Even within Christianity, there are sharp disagreements on who has the right theology. Christianity is as confused as every other religion.
You are not being intellectually rigorous here and you are throwing away your moral compass in the bid to ignore the sins of Yahweh. You are thinking exactly like brainwashed extremist Muslims. As long as Allah says its good, including killing innocent people, then it is good.
If you were an extremist Muslim, it would have read:
At the same time, faith in Allah is belief in His goodness and submission to Him - kill the unbelievers and enjoy with Allah in Paradise.
Then Christianity is no different from any other man-made religion on earth, because you would never hear a devout Muslim, Jew, or Hindu call their versions of God evil. Thanks for confirming this.
The Book of Job is a big disappointment. God had a chance to give us his divine answers to Job’s queries on why he was suffering, but all he did was boast of his creative acts. Even when I was still a “born again” Christian, I was sorely disappointed by God’s response. He did not give any good reason whatsoever for why he would allow Satan wreak havoc on the man’s life. If God allowed Satan to just take away his wealth, maybe it would have seemed less extreme, but he also allowed his kids to be brutally murdered. That’s sick.
6 posts were split to a new topic: Roels and Michael about Islam
Why aren’t you following Him in this wrt biology?
You are correct. I misremembered it.
Why? I am not your guide. Why is your ego so enormous when claiming that you understand biology better than we do (based entirely on hearsay) and why so small that would you ask me to then interpret the basics of the Bible for you?
What teaching do you apply to your own life from the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke, for that matter?
Who is your neighbor, Valerie? What is the reason that that story is in the Bible?