Proverbs 16:4

[Statler Waldorf]

---

Why do you assume that just because you don't understand why God does something a certain way it automatically makes it unjust, or proves he is not real? I don't see the logic in that at all my friend.

I'm sorry if my feeble mind can't wrap my mind around a god who supposedly loves man yet places him in such an impossible position. God: "I demand you love me and believe in my son or face the fire." This is spiritual blackmail.

Or ...

God: "I created man, and it was good. Now, I'm going to put you in the garden where the devil will inevitably tempt you. I will allow the devil into my wonderful garden so you can prove your obedience to me. Unfortunately, you will fail. I knew you would fail beforehand, but I chose to create you anyway. Even though I have cursed you and every other human that will come after you, I love you and Eve. But take heart, I'm sending my son to die a horrible death for you. That makes it better, right? In retrospect, I guess I could have prevented the whole ugly scenario in the first place, but I, in all my lucidity, chose to begin the slow death march of humanity. Some of you, I admit, will think on these things and probably reject me. Oh well. Sorry about that. I'm all-powerful and all-loving, but there's nothing I can do there. My omniscient hands are tied. But I do love you. You know that, right?"

What am I not understanding? What other reasons could God possibly have for knowingly placing us in this spiritual gauntlet? Pronouncements saying that God has his reasons or that God's ways are not our ways, makes "God's ways" very peculiar and cruel indeed. In any case, such pronouncements get God off the hook far too easily.

I don't say all this absolutely proves he is not real, just that it makes it highly unlikely. Or, at the least, makes this god, like all others, unworthy of worship.

---

You keep appealing to a sense of justice, fairness, and love and saying God is not practicing these. Where are you getting these from? How are you determining what is just, fair, and loving?

---

---

- The "predestination" seems to be foreign to the Old Testament too (as far as I remember, there is no verse to clearly suggest/specify predestination in the Old Testament, i.e. the Jewish Bible).

---

What? I think the Old Testament teaches the idea that God chose to save a group of people since the foundation of the world just as or even more strongly than the New Testament.

Deuteronomy 10:14-15 "Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it. (15) "The LORD delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day.

Exodus 6:7 ‘I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I [am] the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

Deut 7:6 For thou [art] an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that [are] upon the face of the earth.

1 Kings 19:18 Yet I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him."

Psa 33:12 Blessed [is] the nation whose God [is] the LORD; [and] the people [whom] he hath chosen for his own inheritance.

Psalms 106:4-5 Remember me, O LORD, with the favor You have toward Your people; Oh, visit me with Your salvation, (5) That I may see the benefit of Your chosen ones, That I may rejoice in the gladness of Your nation, That I may glory with Your inheritance.

And the list goes on and on…
Maybe when you said predestination you were not referring to God’s sovereignty in election? My apologies if I did not follow your point.