Is the Judeo-Christian God evil?

This original post will not be very lengthy, but that is because I would like to start a discussion on whether or not God is Evil. I will ask some questions give a brief response, answer those questions and then please list whatever you feel backs up your perspective on the text, and the character of God.

The first question I want to ask is can God murder someone? In my opinion, no because if God is real he is the giver of life, and therefore can justifiably take it at any point in time simply because when you die here you don't end you just change locations.

Is hell an eternity in hellfire? Hell is separation from the presence of God. If you don't want God in this life why would you want him in the next? Hell is a choice. I believe that the reference to hellfire are metaphors describing how it feels to be separated from God completely. This in my opinion is where I belong. I am by no means perfect, and by no means of myself should I be allowed to go anywhere else.

Can a good God let evil exist? Yes. If there is an objective good, then there must be an objective evil. Free will is good, I do not believe anyone can deny that, but if free will exist that means one can choose to do evil rather than good.

In my opinion, God is the only one that is good. Why do so many seem to think he is Evil, give me some of your opinions, and maybe we can discuss it.

I would hesitate to place our concepts of good and evil on an omnipotent, omnipresent being.

But sure we could have an evil god (by our standards), unless we know his/her purpose & plan to the whole universe I would think it's difficult to judge good or evil intent.

Am I saying that god is evil? No...

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Just read the OT and you can clearly see why some people think this god is evil...

I think a better question would be, is the god of the OT really God?

My answer to that is absolutely not...

God would not contradict himself, Nor does he have any reason to "command" any of his children to commit the horrible atrocities found within those books...

Heres Another good question...

IS this so called god an actual entity? This I do not know...

The gnostics believed it was a false god... So it is either false god, or stories from the minds of man who either thought they were speaking about God or inspired by said God... OR... people with agendas using God as a method to control a people who didn't know any better

originally posted by: Elton
I would hesitate to place our concepts of good and evil on an omnipotent, omnipresent being.

But sure we could have an evil god (by our standards), unless we know his/her purpose & plan to the whole universe I would think it's difficult to judge good or evil intent.

Am I saying that god is evil? No...

Well I mentioned which God, and that would be the God talked of in the Bible. His plan and purpose is laid out quite clearly in there.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Interesting point of view there...and I don't particularly disagree with anything you said.

Here's my own two cents.

Let me address your last concern, first. People believe God is evil because of the state of life on this planet. "If God is so good, why does he let [x, y, z] happen?". The problem with that point of view is that we take no responsibility for our own state of affairs. God is not an almighty maid, waiting on us hand and foot, cleaning up our crap... He is a teacher, ruler, and Father first and foremost. I suppose if you look at how children are raised these days, you would think our heavenly Father would just let us have anything we wanted and bail us out of every problem we create for ourselves. God forbid!...

Can God murder someone? Let's look at the official definition of murder first. Now granted there are many definitions because people like to abuse the language. I will take the law definition, as it is the first and most pertinent.

murder
noun
1. Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder) and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree-murder)

The key words here are intent and malice. I believe God kills, however does not do so out of malice or intent, but simply because it was necessary; hence not murder.

To be honest, I'm not too sure where I stand on the idea of a "hell". I believe it's a tainted ideology. I believe a lot of the bible has been misinterpreted and sometimes "interpreted". It's a mixture of fiction and truth. In my opinion, the unpardonable sin is the only way to this "hell". Repentance entices the forgiveness of our Father; He can't help but forgive His children whose hearts have changed and turned away from sin. If I've learned anything, it's that mankind will distort truth to the nth degree, setting himself atop the highest threshold of power. What greater hubris in religion is there, then to say "You're all going to hell, unless you do [x, y, z]"? This puts you in the hands of a man, does it not?

Lastly, it is my personal belief that humankind be subject to all manner of perversion so that we can understand its fruits of destruction. What better way to teach us to behave, then allowing us to succumb to all the turmoils of this physical existence? As you said, we have a choice to make. It's easier to choose when you already know the consequences...will a child touch a flame after having been burned?

You could say this life is nothing more then a proving ground for His children. If we want His love, affection, and care, we need to earn it. The sins of the father become the sins of the son in this world. We reap what we sow. This is because humanity still doesn't understand how to forgive. How can a Father forgive his sons and daughters who can't even forgive their own brothers and sisters?

Anyway, that was my....more like 50 cents, but yeah... Just my opinion.

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Just read the OT and you can clearly see why some people think this god is evil...

I think a better question would be, is the god of the OT really God?

My answer to that is absolutely not...

God would not contradict himself, Nor does he have any reason to "command" any of his children to commit the horrible atrocities found within those books...

Heres Another good question...

IS this so called god an actual entity? This I do not know...

The gnostics believed it was a false god... So it is either false god, or stories from the minds of man who either thought they were speaking about God or inspired by said God... OR... people with agendas using God as a method to control a people who didn't know any better

I dont believe the OT contradicts itself at all. I dont see it thats why I asked for peoples opinions.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Believe whatever makes you happy... You're going to anyways

Though you might want to dig through it a bit before believing that...

this might help

bibviz.com...

a reply to: Aedaeum
Appreciate the thoughts. I do have one question, you said:

"I believe a lot of the bible has been misinterpreted and sometimes "interpreted". It's a mixture of fiction and truth. In my opinion, the unpardonable sin is the only way to this "hell". Repentance entices the forgiveness of our Father; He can't help but forgive His children whose hearts have changed and turned away from sin. If I've learned anything, it's that mankind will distort truth to the nth degree, setting himself atop the highest threshold of power. What greater hubris in religion is there, then to say "You're all going to hell, unless you do [x, y, z]"? This puts you in the hands of a man, does it not?"


Do you believe the Bible is misinterpreted or mistranslated? Interpretation can be fixed by paying close attention to the text. If you believe some of it was lost in translation or changed in translation, you would need some kind of documentary evidence in order for me to accept that as fact. The Christian religion doesn't say you are all going to hell unless you do x,y,z. It says your going to hell if you do not accept the pardon given to us by God. If you do not understand that you need a Savior, because you always fall short on being completely loving.

Plato or Aristotle both realized God's problem which is his own character. Which ever one said it said that He could see that a Just God could forgive sins, but he just could not see how. God's answer=His son. So the only way to Hell is by choosing to A ignore God or B to reject God.

Also you seem to misunderstand the use of the word repentance. The way you used it seems to imply that you believe repentance is a physical action(if I am wrong I apologize in advanced). The Greek word most frequently translated repent in the NT literally means to have a change of mind. Repentance is changing the way you think about how you are to be saved. It is not of yourself but by grace through faith. Just my thoughts.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

repentance
noun
1. deep sorrow, compunction, or contrition for a past sin, wrongdoing, or the like.
2. regret for any past action.

In order to regret or feel sorrow for something, a change has to occur. This is a change in the heart, not a mere change of the mind. This is an action, an action to change... It is a realization that you've been doing something wrong. In my opinion, this is a physical action/reaction. The idea of a physical action comes more into play when you've delayed or procrastinated with something you knew was wrong and finally decide to move away from it. It is an ongoing struggle and battle as you know from reading Paul.

As far as "interpretations" go. I don't care how closely you look at text, everyone has their own opinion (yes opinion) of what scripture means and the ones in charge of translating the scriptures are just as guilty. If you want an over-arching contradiction, just take a look at the character of the Word (who I believe to be Christ) from the old testament and compare him to the Christ in the new testament... Something doesn't quite sit right... There is something lost in translation in my humble opinion

I find it interesting that you described exactly what the unpardonable sin is, which is to completely reject God. This is of course, after having known Him. As far as ignoring God... You can't ignore something you don't believe in, unless you knew Him in the first place, which brings us back to rejecting God as the only way to be cast into "hell".

a reply to: Aedaeum

The key words here are intent and malice. I believe God kills, however does not do so out of malice or intent, but simply because it was necessary; hence not murder.

It may just be that none of those things ever happened, and it was said that they did because the Jews did not want to admit to being essentially Canaanites, so invented an explanation for why those people conveniently went away.
What you had in actual verifiable history was Jews who came from Babylon claiming that only they were of the pure bloodline, so they got all the land and power, being patronized by the conquering Persians, who these Jews had convinced that only they knew the God of the Israelites, and they needed all the money to rebuild the temple to that god in Jerusalem.
The convincing thing was all the documents they had written up in Babylon, made up to seem very ancient, complete with a genealogy going right back to the very creation of the world.

a reply to: jmdewey60

Like I said in my post, I don't believe the bible to be entirely accurate
However, I do believe God allows death.

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

In other words death is necessary, but not unavoidable. In the end times there are also those that will be transformed from mortal to immortal. We could live eternally as flesh, if He wanted us to (almost did, in the garden). I believe there is a plan and certain people are "allowed" to die for that plan; that is what I mean by "God kills people".

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Believe whatever makes you happy... You're going to anyways

Though you might want to dig through it a bit before believing that...

this might help

bibviz.com...

well I am obviously not going to spend a lot of time on that website seeing as how the first few things I have come across are incorrect.

"The Genesis 1 creation account conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. In Genesis, the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. The order of events known from science is just the opposite. 1:1-2:3"

This is the first thing I see.

In Genesis 1:1 we read that God created “the heavens.” In the original Hebrew, the word, which is translated “heavens” in the King James Bible, is shamayim. This word has at least three meanings: The heavens, which refers to where God lives (this usage is extremely rare in the Old Testament);
The heavens, which refers to everything in the universe;
The local heavens, or the sky.

It is a relatively easy matter to decide which heavens is referred to in Genesis 1:1. A quick look at the context (i.e. the words which precede and follow heavens) gives us the clues we need. Genesis 1 cannot be using shamayim to refer to the heavens where God is, simply because the God who created “the heavens” of Genesis 1 pre-existed it and brought it into existence.

In the beginning God created the universe and the earth.

God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them? 1:3-5

Get into quantum theory and it makes a lot of sense that light is the first thing that was created. All matter on a basic level is quanta which can be viewed as energy(light) and sound(God spoke everything into existence). I believe the word day refers to a passing of a specific amount of time for a creator not the rising and lowering of a sun on a planet he doesn't even live on.

But wait a six day creation is crazy scientifically right?

Not entirely. Einstein's Theory of Relativity allows us to understand that time is a physical property, and it is subject to mass, acceleration, and gravity. When one takes the expansion factor of 10^12 used in the theories of the expanding universe that an assumed 16 billion years reduce to six days.

Also the speed of light has been found to no longer be a constant, and its been changing over the years. I could go into more, but dont really feel like spending the time.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

My...my...my! So many questions.

With all due respect. No, no and no.
I'll give no explanation. Just

ETA
I apologize to the religious people...I shouldn't even be in this thread...sorry, meant no disrespect. It's just irritating...you are all irritating, kind of like a "thorn in the side"!

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Well of course you wouldn't want to go though all of that site, that would take far too much time... and not all of said contradictions on that site are actually correct... but most of them are

Yet amazingly enough, you said you don't see any contradictions....

I dont believe the OT contradicts itself at all.

but you quote obvious errors within the text...

Contradictions are only a part of the issue... theres errors all over the place... and the man Christians call God contradicts the OT as well...

The OT god proves himself to be an inept tyrant... Nothing worthy of the title of God...

Especially since the NT calls God love... Nothing within the OT shows that to be true

He/she/it... only loves itself...

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

I think god is good and evil. We where supposed to be made in his image. I don't think that means the way we look but how we think.
The ot god seems to be able to be tricked by man so I don't think he is all knowing. He let's some people get away with murder and lying but others he destroys.
He murders people in the ot, or sends in his angels to murder people or whole cities, that would have including innocent people until he is talked out of it by a man. A man showing god how he is wrong and god agrees.
To me the ot god is a real dickhead and would not like to worship him.

I don't have much to discuss on the matter but would only add these 2 vids for anyone that might be open to understand some of the confusion about how to judge good and evil and how we might be looking at it from the wrong position or perspective . Knowing today that we do about false flag attacks and all of the intrigues into the political/religious realm we do have to stop and learn some history to understand how we can sometimes look at good as being evil and evil being good ...

I have run up against what seemed at the time contradictions but to have realized after much study into the subject found that they made perfect sense ...Sometimes you have to try and take in other factors that may have been playing out that you were not aware of at the time .A simple review of once contradictions not long ago can bring to light much in the way of our learning .When the archaeologist finally turns up a once thought of myth to reveal the truth of the matter we see that the Bible is a reliable source for history ... Putting together and finding out that most cultures share a common myth has some valid point to make . a reply to: Akragon

God is evil.

God killed Uzzah for a honorable action.

- If god knew the future: then god would have known that Uzzah would touch the Ark of the covenant to keep it from falling. God would then, being so loving and merciful, changed the course of the future to one where Uzzah wouldn't have to touch the Ark. But god, knowing what would happen, didn't do anything to prevent it and killed Uzzah.

- If god was loving and merciful: then at least he would forgive Uzzah for his honorable action. Since god knew the future and didn't change it then at least he should have planned to forgive Uzzah so he could have learned a lesson of completely obey god. But that didn't happen.

- If god knew everything: then god would have know exactly what to tell Uzzah to avoid any problems. But god's words were not efficient.

- If god was all powerful: then god himself could have taken the Ark of the Covenant all by himself to the city to prevent all of this.

People truly have to be brainwashed to see this god as loving and merciful. It's like trying to justify Hitler's actions against the Jews.

originally posted by: ThePublicEnemyNo1
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

My...my...my! So many questions.

With all due respect. No, no and no.
I'll give no explanation. Just

ETA
I apologize to the religious people...I shouldn't even be in this thread...sorry, meant no disrespect. It's just irritating...you are all irritating, kind of like a "thorn in the side"!

You call us religious I would call myself informed. We irritate you? I doubt you even know what the majority of us believe. I do not know what the majority of people believe until I ask. Before we get into a conversation though I'd like to ask you if Christianity were true would you become a Christian?

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Before we get into a conversation though I'd like to ask you if Christianity were true would you become a Christian?

I want to answer it to see where it leads.

I would become a Christian if Christianity was undeniably true.