Why can't God have an evil side or be flawed?

Originally posted by jeramie
Don't forget that Satan and his angels were cast to this planet only. To believe that God has an evil side because of the way this world is, does not make sense. To believe that this world is corrupt, evil, sinful, lustful, etc., because it is headed by the biggest liar, sinner, and murderer in the whole universe, makes a lot more sense.

God gave us a way out of the demonic grip that would easily take hold of every human being had He not intervened. Satan was kicked out of Heaven because God is a hater of iniquity. When Satan and 1/3 of the angels were cast out of Heaven, that is when humans were created (we know this because Satan was there to tempt Eve). The void in Heaven needed to be filled. The Bible says that sin will not be able to rise up again to take control of the world:

Nahum 1:9(KJV) 9What do ye imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.

Humans are subjected to temptation and other sinful things while here on earth. Those who turn to Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and love God with all their heart, soul, body, and mind, will be those who make it to Heaven. Because those who make it to Heaven will have overcome sin while here on earth, that insures that iniquity will not rise up again. Those who make it to Heaven will thereby perfectly fill that void that was left by the 1/3 of the angels that were cast out of Heaven thousands of years ago.

Well it doesn't make sense to believe that God is perfect, simply cause your religion, church, or Bible says so. That is not evidence.

Check out my essay here about your circular reasoning and lack of foundational basis:

www.debunkingskeptics.com...

Can an all-good/all-powerful God allow evil/suffering?

First, here is something inescapable. It is a valid and logical argument that Atheists and Anti-Christian writers (e.g. Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Mark Twain, Bertrand Russell) have used throughout history that Christians and theists have never been able to debunk or explain away logically.

75 percent of the world’s population lives in poverty, hunger and suffering. This amounts to billions of people, most of whom are innocent, both now and throughout history. And the world is mostly run by evil sociopaths, who largely go unpunished. Most positions of power are attained by evil people rather than good people (since power attracts the evil and corruptible rather than the good). So how can the majority of the world continue to belief in a God who is all-good and all-powerful, yet allows all this to continue to be? That is odd. Yet most people don’t think about it. They simply believe, not because of proof or evidence, but because most people around them believe it. To them, truth is whatever authority says and whatever the majority agree upon. However, if you think about it, it is logically impossible for there to be a God who is both all-powerful and all-good, as orthodox Christians claim, yet allows all this to be. Logically, such a deity would not allow the suffering and unjust treatment of billions of innocent people (and all creatures in nature in fact) throughout history, nor allow evil sociopaths to constantly attain the majority of positions of power and go unpunished (while the good die young, as they say). There is no escape from this dilemma.

To put this in perspective:

1) Most of the world’s population, billions of innocent people, are suffering in hunger and poverty, now and throughout history.
2) Evil is allowed to exist, run rampant, go unpunished, and attain positions of power more often than not.
3) God is all-powerful and all-good, yet allows #1 and #2 to exist, both now and throughout history.

All three of the above CANNOT logically co-exist at the same time. The only logical possibilities are:

1) God is not that powerful. (if so, then how did he create the whole universe?)
2) God is evil, or not good, or doesn't care.
3) God doesn't exist.
4) God is nothing like what you think he is, or is something beyond your comprehension.
5) God lets suffering and evil exist for reasons beyond your comprehension, and/or does not have the same morals that you do. Thus he does not do what you would do if you were him.

Excuses and Copouts

The standard Christian explanation for the above, which makes no sense at all and is a ridiculous cop-out, is:

"God allows evil and suffering to exist in the world because Man chose to Sin in the Garden of Eden. God gave Man freewill, and Mankind chose Sin. Hence death, pain, decay and evil entered into the world. God is 100 percent just and righteous, so all this is Mankind's fault, not God's. It says so in the Bible."

I'm sorry but these are mere words and just do not cut it. They make ZERO SENSE and the implications of it are 100 percent ridiculous too. Anyone who takes such an explanation seriously must either be completely insane and lost his marbles, or is completely brainwashed and mind-controlled, in order to accept something that makes zero sense as Gospel Truth.

What the standard Christian explanation implies is that:

"A good and all-knowing God allowed billions of people throughout history to suffer, die, and go to hell (if they died unsaved) simply because two naive people named Adam and Eve took a bite of the fruit of a forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden. In other words, one little mistake (or bite) caused a lifetime and eternity of pain for billions of people, and deservedly so, which all-wise and all-good God allowed."

Um excuse me, but even if I were on crack, I wouldn't buy such an insane explanation. I'd sooner believe that Santa Claus visits every home in the world in one night on Christmas Eve than that! Come on now. Gimme a break. Get real! I mean, I know you don't have to be intelligent to be a Christian, but really... Anyhow, that's their version of reality, which they take seriously, believe it or not.

Not only is this explanation 1000 percent insane, but it is 1000 percent UNJUST as well. I mean, what kind of a parent would allow their children to suffer pain and death (not to mention damnation) as a consequence of taking a bite out of a fruit that you told them not to touch? It doesn't make any sense! Wouldn't such a parent be the most evil and sociopathic parent in the world? (Yet a God who is 100 percent perfect and righteous would do that?!) There is no escaping that. There is no way in hell (pardon the pun) that one little mistake could be worth a lifetime or eternity of pain. No way. No Christian in the world could justify that. It is completely unjustifiable, insane, nonsensical, and there is no logical reason to believe it either.

Yet Christians take this explanation seriously?! And they believe in a 100 percent righteous and just God too?! WTF?! This is nothing short of pure and total mind control. No question about it.

Hard Questions and Common Sense

Besides, how do they know that God is 100 percent righteous and just? Because the Bible says so? And that alone makes it true?! Gee, what low standards. I mean, how do they know that Satan isn't the good guy and God the bad guy? They don't! All they can do is believe whatever someone TELLS them, and labels the rest as "lies of Satan". But life teaches us that things are not always what they seem, life teaches us. They simply take it on faith, that the Bible is all true because it is, and that's that. It's the weakest logic of all.

Also, why does Lucifer/Satan wanting a little freedom when he was an angel of God make him 100 percent evil? Teenagers naturally want some freedom from their parents too, but does that make them 100 percent evil and demonic? You see how nonsensical all of this is? Nothing in the Christian fundamentalist version of reality makes the slightest bit of sense...

Plus, if I were an all-knowing God and knew BEFORE I created the world that the majority of the people on Earth would suffer through life and end up in the eternal torment of hell afterward (since most people do not become Christians in their lifetime), I would certainly not create such a world. No sane person would create something knowing in advance that the bad that would come out of it would far exceed the good. No sane person would go through with that, let alone an all-wise God. Think about it: If you knew before setting up a business that you'd incur a loss of $75,000 and reap only $25,000 in profit (based on 1/4 of the world's population claiming to be Christians), would you go through with it? Get real.

So you see, nothing about the Christian version of reality makes any sense at all, in any way at all, once you look at it with a clear mind free of fear and mind control. There are way too many irresolvable problems with it.

In fact, many ex-Christians report in their deconversion testimonials that while they were believers, such logical impossibilities and unresolvable questions as the above, kept entering their minds from time to time. But since they could not be satisfactorily explained away, they had to be mentally filed away on a mental shelf labeled "Unresolvable". However, eventually, such unresolvable questions accumulated until they became too heavy to ignore and deny any longer. At some point, their "mental shelf" simply broke and they could no longer live in denial anymore. It was only then, that the mind control imposed on them by Christianity broke down, and they were finally set free from it.

(One great example of this is my friend Darryl Sloan, an aware skeptic, freethinker and author who described many such logical impossibilities in Christianity in his YouTube videos, which you can see at www.youtube.com... And my own Christian deconversion story is at www.debunkingskeptics.com...)

reply to post by randyvs


Most people deal with the Judeo-Christian since:

1. He's rigid enough to have habits.
2. It's the prominant/most recent European belief.
3. Everyone thinks they have mastered what He i--whether they believe or not.

Originally posted by FreezingVoid
reply to post by randyvs

 

It its fairly well known, that when someone says "God", they are speaking of the Judeo Christian god.They are the only ones pompous enough to give their god the name "God". I think I was told that there were over 10000 names for their god. And yet they don't give him one of those...

At the very least I have never heard of a religion without ties to Judeo Christianianity that refers to the supreme being as 'God'

And I wonder if god existed, does he find it offensive? The same way a women might find it offensive when you refer to her as "Women", or a boy might get offended when you call him "Boy". Or is it used not as much to describe the nature but used as a form of title? The way we might call a professor, "Professor", or the president, "President."

He's called God because his real name is taboo to speak. He's translated as Jewhova or God to protect you from using his name in vain. He's capitalized because it's a name, not just a description, and also because it's what the royal We is derrived from. Very little of it is actually from Arrrogance, although plenty use it that way.

Originally posted by JR MacBeth
In fact, many have come to the sober conclusion that this kind of "childish" religion serves the State almost too perfectly, almost suggesting that some PTB at some point, who get the most mileage out of such an arrangement, perhaps created these inhuman servile religions to begin with.

Our ancestors, thousands of years ago, the Greeks, wrote about these very things. It was explained clearly that religion is there to serve the rulers.

Greeks and Romans used religions that were malleable enough to associate with their own belifs when they could. Rome tried doing that with Judiasm, and they wound up having to sack Jerusalem to stop the rebellious nature derived from their religious beliefs.

Religions can and are used to control the masses, which is why the Republican Party sucks up to Christianity, and Democrats to Jews. Individuals within a religion are gullible, not necesscerily the religion.

Also, they almost didn't give Catholics the right to vote in this country for fear of outside control of the United States--and it was Protestants who were eggging that on.

The day to day laws in Christianity are for submitting to whomever is ruling over you, but not to blindly submit. There are times you stick it to the man, but generally it's only when the man REALLY deserves it.

Originally posted by WWu777
Well it doesn't make sense to believe that God is perfect, simply cause your religion, church, or Bible says so. That is not evidence.
Check out my essay here about your circular reasoning and lack of foundational basis:
www.debunkingskeptics.com...

It's also cirruclar reasoning to believe the opposite. It's lacking in reason to do a lot of things on both sides of the issue.

But anyway, to use the Bbile as an authority requires validating it's authority--which can be dealt with. Jsut is a pain in the bottom.

reply to post by randyvs

Religion being of man and Christ being of " The Father" . Papa ? uhah! So God wears a wife beater ? Is that what you're trying to communicate and lead astray with ? Any one who accepts your assessment,
of a Father, trying to prevent his chidren, from playing on the tracks ? Deserves to be lead astray . But you know what ? That's my opinion. Not the Fathers.

Hi randyvs.

Not sure anything I contribute could possibly lead any of the sheep "astray", you know, as long as they truly trust their shepherd.

Obviously, more and more are starting to wonder about their shepherds, which I think is why the OP started this thread. He/she's clearly ranting against the "Christian" (more or less) perspective, and I for one want to encourage his/her courage in that pursuit.

Now, does anyone "deserve" to be "led astray"? Maybe. There are by all appearances legions of people around the globe who believe a thousand different things, many that are preposterous on their face. So, maybe some people just "deserve" to believe whatever, who knows?

The problem with this idea is that it almost makes you think that we have to be "intelligent" enough to "outsmart" the devil. Well, I'm pretty sure most Christian thinkers would warn against such a notion. The devil is supposedly smarter than we are, so trying to outsmart him wouldn't be wise.

Really, I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that there are very big problems with Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. Each system does indeed have an "Achilles Heel", that is, they posit a "good" god, in an ugly world.

The "Problem of Evil" continues to be the biggest problem that religion hasn't really explained away. The more honest "apologists" actually admit that it remains a "mystery". Indeed, "iniquity" is mysterious, but only if your god "must" be "good".

I'm not saying there can't be a "good" god. Could be, but we haven't figured out why things "down here" aren't so good. One person shared the gnostic perspective, mentioning the demiurge, but even that is just pushing the problem back one more level.

In short, NO ONE has the answer. This sets up an interesting situation of course. Anytime we fail to have an answer, we could become vulnerable to someone who comes along with "an" answer. Religion does this. No one knows what happens after death, but they tell us what happens, and many of us want to believe them. Not "knowing" is seemingly harder to bear, again, for "most" of us.

I think it's commendable that you and others see the problem with religion, but I don't share your "faith" that somehow god is still OK.

I actually agree with traditional religious ideas that insist that "if" god cares, then he would care enough to ensure that his desires for us are communicated, without ambiguity. This is rational at least. It is the foundation of the old Catholic infallibility, and the Protestant Scriptural innerrancy. It is why Muslims are so darn sure they are right! No, they can't all be right, but makes for easy division, and control, by our masters, so no worries!

But then we get the "spiritual" people today, who don't like "organized" religion (disorganized is fine though!), who somehow believe in a Jesus, or whoever, that operates "personally". A clear recipe for chaos, but obviously logic doesn't work on these folks. Sadly, they are legion today, largely because of the increasingly obvious failure of what religion had been, for so long. But, maybe it's a start back in the right direction.

Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too!

Is the Christian god as bad as a "wife beater"? Well, actually I was being kind. Not to mention, most people today understand that concept, they are far from being able to appreciate the kind of monster their god really is. Obviously, I'm going to be accused of "leading astray" again, but religious folks need to read, REALLY READ their bibles. Read the Old Testament, it still counts! Yes, that ancient Middle Eastern god really is that blood-thirsty! Yes, he really does kill kids! Yes, rape is so cool with him! And on, and on.

Anyway, good luck to you, and all, who are beginning to question, whether it be "organized" religion, or other things in between, don't give up until you get to the end. On "your" god's desk, remember this, there is a sign, and it says, "The buck was passed to Adam! Now don't let the door hit you in the ars on the way out!"

And we in the pews can all offer up in unison, "Thanks Papa! We knew you were innocent! Thou art such a great Dad!" Later, another part of the service, "Have Mercy on us Oh Lord! Mercy! We are SO terrible! Please spare us!"

OK, enough leading sheep astray for today. Got a meeting with the devil in a few minutes anyway, gotta go.

JR

Evil and flaws are never strictly based on the action or even the outcome - its more about intent, I think. We would really have to know God's intentions in order to know if he's evil or flawed.

You have to ask if God made evil in order to make us sad, and if so what is the intent of sadness. Was grief created for good or bad reasons.

I think the greatest evil in reality is sadness itself - death and all else are just relative. Without grief everything would be good.

reply to post by JR MacBeth


Obviously, a very well read retort. I may be hounded by it for a few days, but I know when I'm outmatched. So this
I do conceade. I 'll play it safe and sort of, tip toe off to the side and then back step through the curtain, from hence forth I entered, a far less humbled persona.

DEFINE good and evil...

A person on a bike that suddenly gets caught in a downpour would see this as a terrible thing, that god has given him struggle in his life, WHY him, and overall a very VERY Negative experience.

A farmer down the road who's crops haven't been rained on in awhile, regards the sudden downpour as heaven sent. That god has granted him happiness and prosperity and could possibly see this as a miracle of some sort.

There is no RIGHT or WRONG, evil or good..only through our observations and point of view does RIGHT and WRONG/GOOD and EVIL come into play.

If your daughter was on fire, suffering and withering in pain...would you help ease her pain?
One could call that "humane", where as another would call that as EVIL murder...

It's all how you look at it. Either case i've given this quite a bit of thought in the past, and my overall answer was...
Keep your point of view good and happy, and all the rest will follow. Theres no point in bathing in the opposite. But at the same time recognize the bad/evil/hate/hunger/suffering...and recognize it as it is and be humbled and grateful. =]

What is the GREATEST creation man has EVER came up with?...

GOD...

(really just sit there and think about that one)

Check out this chapter in a book about Gnosticism. It depicts the Fall of Man in the reverse way that the Bible does, with Lucifer being the liberator and God being the oppressor. This seems to make more sense, since God lied in that story about Adam and Eve being sure to die if they ate off that forbidden tree, while the Serpent told the truth, that they would not die but have their eyes opened, knowing both good and evil. How can that be? lol

www.theforbiddenreligion.com...

It also describes the Bible God as a tyrant and a lower level deity, not the highest one.

If God had a flaw, he wouldn't be the All-Good. God's flaw is, he has no flaws.

God's only limitation is he can't interfere with free will.