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| God: Good or Evil?; (Assuming he exists) | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 17 2008, 01:29 PM (474 Views) | |
| EmperorBobV | May 17 2008, 01:29 PM Post #1 |
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Morphumax
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Earlier this year, I wrote a paper arguing that God was evil. I wish to see your views/arguments on this topic. If you are going to post your view, please provide some sort of evidence (Note: You can use stuff from the Bible as evidence, but just saying that the Bible says that God is good will not do). For now, I will just provide part of my argument. The bible says that God is perfect. In my argument, I assume that this is true. Perfection is defined as A ) being without flaw B ) accurate, exact. If you are completely without flaw, then you can never make a mistake. In the same way, God can never make a mistake. If God can never make a mistake, then God must be able to determine the results of his actions before he makes them. In other words, he can predict the future, and because he cant make a mistake, his predictions must always be true. Now that i have that established we can move on. Now, the Bible also says that God created man in his image. Psychology tells us that in order to be perfect, one must view themselves exactly how they are. Therefore, God created man exactly like him, both physically and mentally, because God is perfect. Now, when man ate the forbidden fruit, God cast them out of Eden. Because god is perfect and can predict the future, God must have known that Man would sin if he gave them the ability to choose. The Bible also says that God created the heavens, the Earth, and everything on the earth. the last thing he created was mankind. All of this took six days. Now after he “finished” creating the Earth, he took the seventh day off. Yet the Earth wasn’t really finished, it has many problems still. There are really only two reasonable explanations for why he would take this final day off. The first possibility is that he is lazy. The second is that he did not wish to remove them, because he wanted the creatures of Earth to suffer. Because God is perfect, God cannot be lazy, because laziness is a flaw. Therefore, we must conclude that God wished the creatures of Earth to suffer. Since the time of Earths creation, man has done significant damage to the Earth, starting by eating the forbidden fruit and getting themselves and every other being cast out of Eden, and more recently, pollution, nuclear bombs, and the destruction of most of Earths forests. And again, because God is perfect, he must have known that mankind would damage the world that he created, and eventually will be the cause of its destruction. Now we have to ask ourselves, why would he create something, just to have it destroyed by another of his creations? Now, the bible also says that God is good, but can’t be true, unless of course he isn’t perfect. But since we are assuming he is perfect, than the only reasonable possibility is that God is not good, but he is in fact evil. NOTE: All of my arguments are from a Lutheran point of view, because most of my family is Lutheran, so that is what I know best. EDIT: Crap, I forgot the : in the title. It should read God: Good or Evil. |
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| Immortalblade | May 17 2008, 01:42 PM Post #2 |
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Why so serious?
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There is no God because as you said everything in the bible contradicts itself. However the reason God is such a paradox is because he was created by man. Man is naturaly flawed and everything he will create is flawed. The reason for this is not because we where created but because we evolved. Evolution is the body adapting to circumstances. The only reason God exists is because A) the comman man needed something to believe in and to allow the smart to rule over the stupid.
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| EmperorBobV | May 17 2008, 01:44 PM Post #3 |
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While I completely agree, this topic is assuming that God does in fact exist. Also, I myself can disprove this portion of my argument. I posted it because I would like to know if any of you can, and because it is the easiest (in my opinion) part of my argument to disprove. EDIT: That is great. I just got an ad that said "How Evil Are You," while viewing this topic. |
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| cah318ery7 | May 17 2008, 01:55 PM Post #4 |
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Hughug, the destroyer of worlds.
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I have an opinion on whether god is evil or not, but I have no evidence to support it as of now. I would like to argue that god is not perfect. If he exists, he created us. And all the human race has done is fuck everything up in this world. Yes, we have done some good, but only to fixed what we have messed up. God's intentions may have been good, but if he was perfect he would have seen this coming. So in conclusion, if god is perfect, he is evil. If he is imperfected, then he is either good or evil. It should be noted that this is the opinion of someone struggling to choose between Christianity or Atheism. |
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| EmperorBobV | May 17 2008, 02:08 PM Post #5 |
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Morphumax
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I like where you are going, but I want you to show that God cannot possibly be perfect. (I would, but I'm arguing that God is Evil, and that would be counter-productive) |
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| Led371 | May 17 2008, 04:40 PM Post #6 |
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Unregistered
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Mmm. Led has arrived. Now to begin to discuss this, I must first tell you of the only way God could have missed humans eventually doing this. If we follow the perception of God as described in the Bible we see he basically has control over everything. What you are putting forth says he must always see into the future. The problem with that is the word 'must' which implies that it overrides God. Since God is... well God, we can reason that he isn't subject to his own power and can therefore not look into the future when he sees fit. Now onto the six days. That is symbolism, each day equals a large amount of time. I believe the scripture (whose verse I forget) relates that to God 'a thousand years is but a day (or maybe it was a blink of an eye, I forget). Therefore, the six days were an extensive amount of time but not much at all for God. As for resting, the Earth was not left unsupervised, Jesus was the first thing God created, he naturally worked along side of him. Many misconceive Jesus as just a baby in a manger or a man on a stake. Therefore, Jesus and all the angels would of had full control over a so called 'incomplete' Earth. As for the perfect image. They were created perfect, however, the one angel decided to make a path of greed, and desired the worship God was to receive. We know this fallen angel was Satan. Now you ask, if the humans were perfect, why did they eat the fruit? That can be answered by experience. They were the first humans ever, therefore, they've never been tricked before. It's just like tricking a child or an animal, they don't have experience, it's easy. Satan easily tricked them because they had not seen "the oldest trick in the book" because there was no book, they didn't know of lies, because they were told the first one. God, however, has been around for eternity, such a trick wouldn't work. That was one of the differences between the two perfections. Now, as to why the human race is a mess. Have you noticed that when you want to walk you can, when you want move, you can? That's called free will. Since we became imperfect, free will has been abused. It was a precious gift from God, to make us different from animals that act on instinct, and more recently, machines, which do nothing of their own accord. Therefore, God cares about us because of this gift. How much do you think we'd enjoy life without being able to do anything. If life was perfect as it was intended, how much more would you think free will would help us. There's your answer. No. EDIT: I mistakenly pressed submit instead of preview, there may be a few mistakes. |
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| TheSnickersPuma | May 17 2008, 09:17 PM Post #7 |
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The Great Dramatist (according to Bob)
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God was created to explain the world to ancient people. Since they had no science or technology, they had to turn to religion, which at the time was the only thing that sufficiently explained why grass growed, birds flew, and why things were the way they were. So all the stuff we've done in his name is just in blind following of the religious leaders who decided for us, since we trusted them. If God does exist, which I do not rule out, he is asleep at the wheel, and I cannot blame him. I went from one religion (Judaism), to three (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism). If you want more proof of this, look at the Jews (althoguht I don't feel exactly right going into detail about it, as I am one myself). |
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| MikeV37 | May 17 2008, 09:29 PM Post #8 |
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Destroyer of The Void
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Atheism all the way! |
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| Led371 | May 17 2008, 09:32 PM Post #9 |
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Unregistered
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The discussion of this thread involves assuming God does exist. You're not an atheist while you are participating in the discussion. |
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| King of Solomon | May 17 2008, 10:36 PM Post #10 |
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According to the Bible, God is omniscient, which - as I'm sure you know - means he's all seeing and, more importantly, all knowing. Because of this, regardless of any control he may have, God must know the future, else he would not be omniscient.
There cannot be any difference in perfection. You are either perfect, or you are not.
Personally, I like to think that it's because of our free will that we're not perfect. I don't have much to argue on this case, save for the fact that we're capable of consciously choosing to do evil is what makes us perfect...at least, in my opinion. |
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| Numa | May 17 2008, 10:41 PM Post #11 |
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Brother
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Good or Evil? Niether. If there is indeed a God in this universe, I think that he must be childlike. The Abrahmaic God seems to suffer intense mood swings, a lack of understanding of his own creation, and indeed seems to have created the universe on a mere whim. A good example of the first two traits would be the story of Cain and Able. For those of you who haven't read the old testament, new testament, or the Q'ueran, the story goes like this; God gave Able more attention than Cain, so Cain killed Able, causing the first murder ever. God finds out, and punishes Cain by forcing him out of his home where he lived his parents; Adam and Eve. All of this could have been avoided if God simply knew how to be a good parent, and was able to put the blaim on himself every now and then. Its like what happens when you give Sim City to a five-year old. He builds the city, but because he doesn't understand how to manage it, he soon becomes frusterated and burns the whole thing down. In other words, I don't think that God knows what good and evil are. |
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| TheSnickersPuma | May 17 2008, 10:49 PM Post #12 |
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The Great Dramatist (according to Bob)
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It's a good point, Numa. The question now might be more "Did he know what he was doing?" than "Is he good or evil?" |
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| EmperorBobV | May 18 2008, 12:24 PM Post #13 |
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So you are calling for the Neutral vote? I toyed with that idea before, but I don't remember what I came up with. I just remember that it is much easier to argue, which is why I did not argue it (more difficult=more entertaining).
The New Testament claims that God is perfect, all powerful, and good, and if he is perfect, then he could not have made such a mistake, unless it was not a mistake. The Old Testament does not claim that God is perfect (in fact it suggests that he is not, if it does not say it outright), just that he is good (it might say that he is all powerful, but I am not sure, I do not think it does though). I do not know about the Q'ueran, because I have not read or seen any of it.
The child does not intentionally burn the city down, whereas God intentionally created death and diseases, as punishment for the sin of Adam and Eve.
But he did cast Lucifer into Hell, which tells us he has some sense of right/wrong (The punishing of Adam and Eve gives this impression as well). And if he knows the difference between right and wrong, which leads me to believe that he has a sense of good/evil. |
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| Led371 | May 20 2008, 09:09 PM Post #14 |
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Unregistered
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You said we could use scriptural evidence right? Malachi 3:6
You can argue that since the quote above is from the Old Testament, it represents the words of the "Abrahamic God" or the more wrathful one, but the Bible is supposed to be used in its entirety. Not just New Testament, not just Old. 2 Timothy 3:16
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| EmperorBobV | May 21 2008, 01:49 PM Post #15 |
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But the old and the new testaments contradict each other fairly often...and yes scripture is allowed, as long as it is not just something like "The Bible says God is good, therefore he is", this is not allowed, because it defeats the purpose of this debate. |
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to allow the smart to rule over the stupid.


1:58 PM Jul 11