If everything has a purpose then evil doesn't exist

[h4ym4n]

I’ll bet the little child praying to god to take away the cancer that miraculously entered their body is evil.

Wouldn’t you R-Farmer?  One thing is definitely fact, god stills allow cancer to kill what it created.

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

Dude, you're an atheist, don't quote the Bible. Please don't. It's tasteless.

I’m assuming from farmers post that he live and dies by the bible

[Ahriman]

Dude, you're an atheist, don't quote the Bible. Please don't. It's tasteless.

I’m assuming from farmers post that he live and dies by the bible

I really don't think someone who lives and dies by the Bible would be posting on an atheist forum.

[h4ym4n]

R-Farmer, are you a god/bible believing believer?

[R-Farmer]

It's the bargain basement pitch.  "Fuck morality, fuck ability, you're going to die."

Morality is objective. What is moral in this country is not moral in others, here and now in the world today. So why assume your western values have any more mojo on the status of right and wrong than This country's ability to Force others to abide by this faux standard?

Then why would God then be obliged to follow this same set of standards the west can't even enforce on the rest of the world?

There's an interesting bit of narrative discontinuity/ambiguity there between old and new magic books.

which again can be accounted for by the need to protect Israel and the covenant God made with them and their Holy Land. Which again came to an end at the point of crucifixion. 

 The reward for fealty (and apparently nothing else) in new magic book...is exactly the thing that heavenly guards were stationed at to prevent man from accessing in old magic book.  

ala

The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.

Then what was the whole point of the sacrifice made on the cross?

[emjay]

This is another new one on me. Is that what you believe? And in this conception of God would he be able to permanently limit himself or just temporarily? If I was god I'd certainly want to turn off omniscience from time to time, just to stop with all the spoilers in my entertainment But as to permanent limitations... ie god giving up his powers... that would make an interesting and thought-provoking story, and it to some extent did in Superman 2, when he walked into that machine and gave up his powers.

That's exactly the story of christ.  When god became a man.  Without that, it was wondered how the magic was supposed to work.  To be an adequate paragon/sacrifice..it was believed... - god had to endure what we endure. Bloodgod is all about that blood.

Yeah, I saw the parallels... prefer the Superman version though But in both cases they eventually get their powers back, so though there is some sacrifice it can't really be said to be the ultimate sacrifice.

I'm sorry BTW, I can see this is a dark thread, and perhaps my 'input' in someway makes light of it... as it might tend to do since I often arrive late to the party and from the periphery... but that was not my intent.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's the bargain basement pitch.  "Fuck morality, fuck ability, you're going to die."

Morality is objective. What is moral in this country is not moral in others, here and now in the world today. So why assume your western values have any more mojo on the status of right and wrong than This country's ability to Force others to abide by this faux standard?

Then why would God then be obliged to follow this same set of standards the west can't even enforce on the rest of the world?

What you appear to mean up there, is that morality is relative.  The description you give is not the description of objective morality.  I don't personally agree with metaethical relativism. 

Ultimately, though, I really can't argue with you here.  If you believe that this morality stuff is all bunk, and that things like "no ethnic cleansing" and "no cross border child sex slave raids" are not objective standards, or worthy standards, or are standards that a god could not or would not meet or be obliged by - that's just you telling me what kind of god you believe in, and what you're willing to do to avoid death. 

If all of this stuff is true, this probably explains why I couldn't be a christian even if I wanted to.

There's an interesting bit of narrative discontinuity/ambiguity there between old and new magic books.

which again can be accounted for by the need to protect Israel and the covenant God made with them and their Holy Land. Which again came to an end at the point of crucifixion. 

What accounting do you think is required?  It's just a narrative discontinuity - not a challenge.  Presumably, god had a change of heart between old and new magic books.  One of many, really.  

 The reward for fealty (and apparently nothing else) in new magic book...is exactly the thing that heavenly guards were stationed at to prevent man from accessing in old magic book.  

ala

Then what was the whole point of the sacrifice made on the cross?

What I gather from you is that it was to help guys like you cheat death?  For me...no point at all - and that's kind of the point from the outside looking in, eh? What was the point of the sacrifice on the cross, if man must not become immortal?

[R-Farmer]

If god was shielding adam from it, then it or the possibility of it was already there..and that came from somewhere.

says who? Cancer is a corruption in our cells.. corruptions like when you make a photo copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.. 

God does not hand build us. in fact He has not created anyone or anything since day 6 of creation. Not even Jesus was hand built. God created man kind on day 6 and gave us the ability to reproduce. we are all reproductions of what God crated, and over time we are starting to degenerate.

Is cancer where you draw the line and retract your previously stated commitment to a shitty god?

My lines are drawn for me scripturally. If God did in fact 'bless people with cancer' then it would be something I would have to reconcile with my beliefs. As it is however the only entity 'blessing/targeting people' personal afflictions is Satan in the book of Job, where again God removes a shield from around one of his people and Sin and Satan plague an individual simply because he wanted to win a bet.

Not orbital bombardment of cities...but cancer?

we live in a world that was forged and directly benefited from firebombing civilians (The Old, women, Children, hospitals etc) literally living in wood and paper houses. it is suspected that tens of thousands of people died in the firebombing campaign of Tokyo over 2 nights... How can anyone alive today who lives and benefits from living in the west be critical of God destroying his enemy with sulfur when we used napalm to do the very same thing, but to tens of thousands time more than what God did??

I see, above, you're perfectly fine with soul forge ideology.  Maybe god gives infants cancer to forge their parents souls.

Or maybe it is like Jesus says in the book of Luke Where this world is not apart of God's immediate Kingdom and His will is not done here on Earth as it is in Heaven. Or like the almost 30 other verses in the Bible says this world is satan's domain, it is currently His kingdom. As satan is not like the antagonist of greek or roman mythology and rules the under world. satan in the Bible is the master of this world and everyone born to this world till we elect to be redeemed and serve God.

I have an armchair theory, btw, that a given believers level of comfort with attributing any disease to it's god is in inverse proportion to their proximity to said disease in their lives - any cancer in your family?

I hate to rock your arm chair or theory. As My Grandmother died of it on my mother side with intestinal cancer. (she had only been to the doctor 2 times in her 98 years. Once after a car accident where she was impaled on the gear shift lever, and for abdominal pain. This cancer killed her 1 week after she was admitted. My dad had it in his nose. my mother just completed 3 months of radiation in December for her pallet and optic nerve in her right eye.   

Is that what you guys die of?  Is that how god plans to kill you....?

I went in for a blood test and urine test some years back. and I showed blood in the urine and high white cell count 16K. Normal being between 4k and 10k. So this set off a series of specialists. my first urologist/hematologists. was very eager to perform as many procedures as possible and set me up for the gambit. at the end He concluded that I had "98% chance of None Hodgkins lymphoma." and wanted to start treatment asap.. so I prayed and more or less turned it all over to God. a "your will be done" situation. We sought a second opinion which included a DNA cancer test (like Angelina Jolie got) and a bone marrow biopsy and several more cat scans. They said in addition to the high white cell count I either did or did not have some protein or maybe it was some marker I was supposed to have \or not.. I don't remember now. but the point was that they said If I had this brand of lymphoma it was early enough to wait. to see where it will come up and target that. verses what the first guy wanted to do which was cook me with radiation and kemo. So over the next 5 years I was poke prodded scanned every 3 to 6 months.  Turns out My white cell count is not normal/doesnt fall in the normal range. 

So for that 5 years I was in limbo not knowing if I had cancer or not. Either way I decided it would not matter one way or the other I was going to live my life to the best of my ability[/quote]

[h4ym4n]

If god was shielding adam from it, then it or the possibility of it was already there..and that came from somewhere.

says who? Cancer is a corruption in our cells.. corruptions like when you make a photo copy of a copy of a copy of a copy.. 

God does not hand build us. in fact He has not created anyone or anything since day 6 of creation. Not even Jesus was hand built. God created man kind on day 6 and gave us the ability to reproduce. we are all reproductions of what God crated, and over time we are starting to degenerate.

Is cancer where you draw the line and retract your previously stated commitment to a shitty god?

My lines are drawn for me scripturally. If God did in fact 'bless people with cancer' then it would be something I would have to reconcile with my beliefs. As it is however the only entity 'blessing/targeting people' personal afflictions is Satan in the book of Job, where again God removes a shield from around one of his people and Sin and Satan plague an individual simply because he wanted to win a bet.

Not orbital bombardment of cities...but cancer?

we live in a world that was forged and directly benefited from firebombing civilians (The Old, women, Children, hospitals etc) literally living in wood and paper houses. it is suspected that tens of thousands of people died in the firebombing campaign of Tokyo over 2 nights... How can anyone alive today who lives and benefits from living in the west be critical of God destroying his enemy with sulfur when we used napalm to do the very same thing, but to tens of thousands time more than what God did??

I see, above, you're perfectly fine with soul forge ideology.  Maybe god gives infants cancer to forge their parents souls.

Or maybe it is like Jesus says in the book of Luke Where this world is not apart of God's immediate Kingdom and His will is not done here on Earth as it is in Heaven. Or like the almost 30 other verses in the Bible says this world is satan's domain, it is currently His kingdom. As satan is not like the antagonist of greek or roman mythology and rules the under world. satan in the Bible is the master of this world and everyone born to this world till we elect to be redeemed and serve God.

I have an armchair theory, btw, that a given believers level of comfort with attributing any disease to it's god is in inverse proportion to their proximity to said disease in their lives - any cancer in your family?

I hate to rock your arm chair or theory. As My Grandmother died of it on my mother side with intestinal cancer. (she had only been to the doctor 2 times in her 98 years. Once after a car accident where she was impaled on the gear shift lever, and for abdominal pain. This cancer killed her 1 week after she was admitted. My dad had it in his nose. my mother just completed 3 months of radiation in December for her pallet and optic nerve in her right eye.   

Is that what you guys die of?  Is that how god plans to kill you....?

I went in for a blood test and urine test some years back. and I showed blood in the urine and high white cell count 16K. Normal being between 4k and 10k. So this set off a series of specialists. my first urologist/hematologists. was very eager to perform as many procedures as possible and set me up for the gambit. at the end He concluded that I had "98% chance of None Hodgkins lymphoma." and wanted to start treatment asap.. so I prayed and more or less turned it all over to God. a "your will be done" situation. We sought a second opinion which included a DNA cancer test (like Angelina Jolie got) and a bone marrow biopsy and several more cat scans. They said in addition to the high white cell count I either did or did not have some protein or maybe it was some marker I was supposed to have \or not.. I don't remember now. but the point was that they said If I had this brand of lymphoma it was early enough to wait. to see where it will come up and target that. verses what the first guy wanted to do which was cook me with radiation and kemo. So over the next 5 years I was poke prodded scanned every 3 to 6 months.  Turns out My white cell count is not normal/doesnt fall in the normal range. 

So for that 5 years I was in limbo not knowing if I had cancer or not. Either way I decided it would not matter one way or the other I was going to live my life to the best of my ability

“Not even Jesus was hand built”

When did god invent jesus?

2000 years ago?

[R-Farmer]

And if God is not an omni everything... But Rather an Alpha and Omega Which means he has the power authority and ability to limit Himself if His will so desires it?

This is another new one on me. Is that what you believe?

Yes the God of the Bible never once self identifies as omni everything God. but Does self identify as the Alpha and Omega.' The beginning and end to all things. This description describes a God so powerful He can simply call creation into being and has the power and authority to end it all. meaning nothing in this universe has the power or authority to stop him. Making God's will is supreme attribute not his omni everything ability. This also answers the age old question Can god create a rock so big He can not lift it? No matter what the omni everything God does he finds himself in a paradox.. But the God of the Bible being the alpha and Omega can in fact create a rock so big He can not lift it if He wants or Can't if He doesn't want to. As again His will harnesses and limits his power so that He can accomplish anything He desires to.

And in this conception of God would he be able to permanently limit himself or just temporarily?

Let's say, you love peach cobbler. You love it so much you would eat it everyday every meal so long as you lived.. Now let's say you had the will power to make peach cobble a 'sometimes' food. (only on special occasions.) Now do you have the ability to make this discipline a permeant or temporary change? why would God be limited to one or the other is you yourself are not?

If I was god I'd certainly want to turn off omniscience from time to time, just to stop with all the spoilers in my entertainment But as to permanent limitations... ie god giving up his powers... that would make an interesting and thought-provoking story, and it to some extent did in Superman 2, when he walked into that machine and gave up his powers.

[/quote]
funny you said that.. when I started reading I thought of the exact same thing.

[R-Farmer]

All we have are the 6 days of creation for what God created. none of those days did god create cancer. He did say because we/Adam had sinned he would be subject to all the negative stuff God had previously shielded him from.

No God does not 'bless' people with cancer. At least no where in the Bible has God 'blessed' people with cancer.

I’ll bet the little child praying to god to take away the cancer that miraculously entered their body is evil.

The cancer? or the child? 

Evil being defined as the love of sin. Neither the cancer or the child are evil. If you define evil as calamity or mis fortune you can classify the cancer as evil.

Wouldn’t you R-Farmer?  One thing is definitely fact, god stills allow cancer to kill what it created.

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

I know you can't be responsible for everything that has already been said here but we have already touched on that verse. In fact that verse or rather my appraisal of it is one of the reasons we are talking about this now.[/quote]