God Is Evil

[ronedee]

...confession is NOTHING w/o a "contrite heart".

So... no, it won't help you in the end. Unless of course.....

Then may I ask what the point of confession is, in that case?

I mean, religion has a single "product," in broad terms, and that's salvation; how does confession aid toward that goal if you can do it and it won't help you into heaven?

well... lets get personal for a moment here. What forgiveness would you give to someone who has no remorse? Whether through a confessor or to God Himself, there needs to be remorse.

[Bad Writer]

By your admission, it seems you're thinking outside the Catholic box, ronedee. I congratulate you.

[Michael Schubert]

In which case it isn't love. Whether or not it is evil is still open - it could be total indifference, or it is merely the implementation of God's agenda on us which has nothing to do with any of these things (assuming his existence of course).

So, if your 14 year old daughter wants her 22 year old boy friend to move into her room in your house and you tell her no, then proceed to call the cops on the child predator, is it because you do not love her? What if she says "if you love me you won't call the cops and will allow him to stay?" Does that change your love for her even though you do not meet the CONDITIONS of her specific understanding of 'love?'

Of course it doesn't, because no matter how her mind has been twisted to only understand a love that serves her selfish wants and desires, the absolute standard and meaning of agape in this case does not change. Which brings me back to my orginal point. Perhaps God's love is not your version of love.

The fact that they're boyfriend and girlfriend does not prove that he is a child predator. that's only if they have sex. Some couples practice chastity, and in that case the parents' consent is required if they are to marry. How does that love only serve her selfish wants and desires?

[John V]

In other words:

God's a glory hound who doesn't mind staging some tragedy so that he can swoop in and be the hero.

"Enduring with much longsuffering" isn't "staging some tragedy," and there's nothing wrong with desiring glory if you're worthy of it.

[Drich]

Maybe God is simply not bound to your definition or understanding of the word love.

Okay then, let's look at a definition of love that I agree with:

love
ləv/
noun
1. an intense feeling of deep affection.
synonyms: deep affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, attachment, endearment;

Let's see how that holds up in the Bible:

1 John 4:7-8 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Okay, that sounds nice. Let's try another word:

e·vil
ˈēvəl/
noun
1. profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity, esp. when regarded as a supernatural force.
synonyms: wickedness, bad, badness, wrongdoing, sin, ill, immorality, vice, iniquity, degeneracy, corruption, depravity, villainy, nefariousness, malevolence

Let's see how this holds up in the Bible:

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
—Isaiah 45:7

Wait, wait, wait! Hold the phone! I thought "God is love." How can God be love and yet be a creator of evil? How can someone that is supposed to, by a standard definition, be "an intense feeling of deep affection," and yet create "profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity?"

You make some really good points! IF the bible was originally written in English. (FYI it wasn't originally written in King James English.)

Konie, Greek is what we will look at because this is the language the NT was written. So it is to these words we must look to define the terms in question. After all It is the Bible's word for 'Love' that is actually beingdiscussed here and not the modern English understanding of the term.

There are 4 very different words the bible use in the Orginal Greek, that all get translated into the English word, "love."
Eros, Phila, Agape', and storge.
In short, Eros is passionate/feeling/physical love.
Phila, is a brotherly/Intelectual form of Love.
Storge, is the form of love a Father may have for a son
Agape, is God's love for man. This form of Love is express however God wishes to express it WHEN He offers it to us. Know not all receives God's Love.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love

So when I originally said God's definition of Love and your definition of Love may not be the same.. This is exactly what I meant, in that you simply do not understand the Love/Agape God offers.

This statement from a website (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightath...ates-evil/) says it better than I can:

"The text offers numerous occasions where God could have intervened to turn events to good and chose not to. He could, for example, have obliterated Satan and the rebel angels entirely, or at the very least confined them to Hell and not allowed them to escape, so that they could never have escaped to lead humanity into temptation. And God’s behavior in the whole Eden affair, in any case, smacks strongly of either extreme incompetence or deliberate malice – not least, his choice to transmit the curse of original sin to all subsequent generations rather than letting every human start off with a morally clean slate."

Again God is not offering Phila He offers Agape'. (Phila is what you are trying to describe.)

You say God is not bound by "my" interpretation of love. The Word of God says that he is love.

No. It says God is Agape'.

How else am I supposed to understand it? What other definition is there?

See above.

I've asked this on other threads: why would God make the Bible so confusing?

It's a translated text. there are two primary forms of translation. A Literal translation (Where the message is pretty well in tact, only correcting for grammar and syntax.) and a Contextual translation, where the original message is not presented, but an interpretation of the text of the message is presented.

Most translations of the bible are considered literal. Which means all 'commentary' is omitted or posted along side the original text. The only draw back here is cultural distinctions, sayings, poetry, and intended literary meanings are sometimes lost.

The world did not revolve around the English speaking world 2000 years ago. All it take is a mid intrest and a lexicon and concordance to get the understanding that you seek.
Blueletterbible.org is an easy one to use.

Shouldn't he have written it, or at least guided the human writers so that it was clear, concise and unable to be debated?

The 'debates' generally found in Atheist argument rarly go past a look to the Original Greek or Hebrew. The vast majority of debates are based on the presumption that the whole bible was originally written in the King James English. Once the fallacy of that presumption is Broken then an intelligent Can potentially begin, but few do.
What generally happens next is the atheist argument from a position of faith. Faith in that the 'website' that they have spent all of their time pouring over, that has somehow justified their break from Christianity is not wrong. and has not just been proven wrong with a simple turn to Greek or Hebrew texts.

Once they the newbies do some checking they generally discover that there is a whole field of study dedicated to understanding the original texts better. Then the argument has to shift in disproving that all 25,000 hand written manuscripts are ALL wrong.

If I am in error in some way, please, tell me what your definition of the love of God is, because if you think that I don't understand something, I honestly want to know what that is!

Careful what you wish for Ole' Sport.

---

So, if your 14 year old daughter wants her 22 year old boy friend to move into her room in your house and you tell her no, then proceed to call the cops on the child predator, is it because you do not love her? What if she says "if you love me you won't call the cops and will allow him to stay?" Does that change your love for her even though you do not meet the CONDITIONS of her specific understanding of 'love?'

Of course it doesn't, because no matter how her mind has been twisted to only understand a love that serves her selfish wants and desires, the absolute standard and meaning of agape in this case does not change. Which brings me back to my orginal point. Perhaps God's love is not your version of love.

The fact that they're boyfriend and girlfriend does not prove that he is a child predator. that's only if they have sex. Some couples practice chastity, and in that case the parents' consent is required if they are to marry. How does that love only serve her selfish wants and desires?

That's why one calls the cops. To sort these types of things out with a cool head. If anyone needs to goto Jail and be labled a sex predator of a minor under the age of 16, then that decision is best left up to law enforcement..

If it were left up to me and I were the 14 year old's Father. I would be judge jury and executioner. So again, better have someone like a cop figure things out than a angry Father.

[Drich]

Of course it doesn't, because no matter how her mind has been twisted to only understand a love that serves her selfish wants and desires, the absolute standard and meaning of agape in this case does not change. Which brings me back to my orginal point. Perhaps God's love is not your version of love.

Isn't it funny how willing you are to tell us what god's love isn't, yet you're remarkably coy about what god's love actually is?

Please do: I'm in need of some new argument to chew on.

that is because I suspect that no one has asked me what God's love is. The gospel writer John sums it up simply in the words of Christ in chapter 3 verse 16.

For God so Agape the world, that He willingly gave His Only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

In short God's love is to provide attonement to everyone willing to accept it so they can live with Him(and all that is included with that) for eternity. The whole of the Old Testament points to this sacrifice, and the whole of the New Testament teaches us how to live under this new attonement once we accept it. Everything in the bible revolves around this expression of love.

[Esquilax]

well... lets get personal for a moment here. What forgiveness would you give to someone who has no remorse? Whether through a confessor or to God Himself, there needs to be remorse.

But doesn't god already know if I feel genuine remorse for my actions or not, regardless of the number of confessions I've attended? And isn't that a much better indicator? I mean, people could go to confession specifically to project an image of remorse in order to enter heaven, while not genuinely feeling it. God, on the other hand, knows my heart better than I do, to hear many christians tell it; one would think that a dishonest show of contrition to get into his good books would piss him off more than a real, yet silent, remorse.

---

that is because I suspect that no one has asked me what God's love is. The gospel writer John sums it up simply in the words of Christ in chapter 3 verse 16.

For God so Agape the world, that He willingly gave His Only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

In short God's love is to provide attonement to everyone willing to accept it so they can live with Him(and all that is included with that) for eternity. The whole of the Old Testament points to this sacrifice, and the whole of the New Testament teaches us how to live under this new attonement once we accept it. Everything in the bible revolves around this expression of love.

Okay, I got it; the only way you can define god's disposition as loving is to completely twist the meaning of the word into something it's not. Again, there's this selective interpretation of the details of this story; god's the father who can't stand being around his children unless they're constantly groveling at his feet. His "great gift" that's so perfectly loving and all... is simply being around him. And you call it a sacrifice?

That's not love. That's ego. I'm really not surprised that a christian would mix those two up, but come on; the english language puts up with enough already in the age of YOLO, let's not torture it any more.

[Beta Ray Bill]

Careful what you wish for Ole' Sport.

---

Bravo! You responded to my requests in a professional, respectful fashion. You did not insult me, and you put forth a strong case. Thank you!

Of course, you do know that I have to point out the flaws in your logic.

You did not address my quote from the Bible where God flat-out says he creates evil. Is that a translation problem, too?

Your Christian defense says that translation is the problem, that if we could read the Bible in its original writing it would be perfect. How can you possibly verify that? Read my other thread about the census at the time of Jesus' birth. Would all those facts be different in its original writing? What about all the Bible quotes regarding the acceptance of slavery? God approved of it, Jesus approved of it, or is that different, too? I highly doubt it. Words like "love" or maybe even "virgin" may be screwed up in translation, but impossible dates of occurances and instructions on how to discipline people you own can't be mistaken. In any language, the Bible has some undeniable evils.

Faith says that God is perfect. But the Word of God is undeniably in error. A perfect being cannot create an imperfect source of instructions, unless he is maliciously causing disorder. But that is exactly what has happened. Speaking with reason and common sense, man made the Bible, and there is no God, just the imperfect abilities of the human race.

But if you still want to believe in God, again you must remember that he is perfect. He is perfect love (or agape) and perfect justice. I do not believe that any supreme being would damn me on my beliefs, but rather on my character (which is just fine, FYI). If beliefs are a factor, four billion people alive today were damned to eternal suffering at birth, and that is ridiculously beyond reason.

The God of the Bible is malicious, unfair and actually a bit ignorant (the world isn't flat, God!) so therefore he is not the perfect agape-filled being that you claim he is. If there is a God (which I doubt) then he is not the God of Abraham, because that god is evil. If you have created a new interpretation of God, then maybe he is the definition of agape: 'This love is selfless; it gives and expects nothing in return." But the god in the Bible says that he is subject to human emotions: anger, jealousy, disrespect and most of all He's unreasonably demanding. That is not "agape."

And no amount of perfect translation will change that fact.

[John V]

god's the father who can't stand being around his children unless they're constantly groveling at his feet.

Where do you get that?

[Esquilax]

god's the father who can't stand being around his children unless they're constantly groveling at his feet.

Where do you get that?

By being honest with my application of the concept of worship.