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Does God enjoy evil? / man is more moral than God?
IMO, if there were a "GOD" I would believe that to him/her "evil" (moral) is no more a good or bad thing than a rock is a good or bad thing. Evil (morality) is simply a thing made good or bad by men. We sit here and judge the world by what we see as good or evil (moral) but who truely knows what good or evil is? Its all relitive and where I sit is from where I judge.
This is serious stuff. Do we trust love now for meaningful relations? Should we be blind of the consequences of our decision to go through with our loves, or should we mean that our ethical autonomy is judged poorly by God? No. God cannot be so poor a judge that He believe our materialistic appearance of a detached Soul could make the judgment itself; maybe God is just an excuse for that. Maybe we fail to recognize Him when the time comes for true Communion.
On first view of this thread I believed it was about how God can have us marked by the immediate pain we must somehow gladly accept in the name of His 'misunderstanding', our 'misunderstanding' for justice. There are great men to do the judging of for instance sports events.
You cannot trust love. Not something you can trust in and of itself.
Love is something shared.
Trust goes to the one you choose to love.
When God said this is good, what was not good was evil (the absence of good is evil).
When God formed light the absence of light was darkness.
In moral terms, the terms Good & Evil are only useful on a graph & are Inseparable.
I see that many just look at these terms as opposites.
Black white.
Hot cold.
Whatever.
It does not matter because, in moral terms, good and evil must be on a graph to be of any use to any discussion of moral issues.
That is why the ancients wrote them into the Bible as the tree of good and evil.
It’s fruit symbolizes that good and evil cannot be separated.
As nouns, forget it. For morals, they do not stand well alone.
As adjectives, they are good.
It is what goes between these two adjectives that is at issue and how and where we place them on the graph.
Ideally, the good and evil line will have a top and a bottom because issues often times have both within their character.
Like God for instance.
Basically, if you are arguing good and evil in any other way than described here; you are IMHO, wasting your time.
If you look to God for our moral sense you are also wasting your time because it is to mankind to set the rules of our dominion.
The absence of light is darkness, yes...........and the absence of heat is cold..........
but the absence of "good" would be inaction because "good" is a certain type of behavior/action that is interpreted by someone (rightly or wrongly) to be beneficial to somebody besides the doer.
Evil is also a behavior/action that is interpreted by someone (rightly or wrongly) to be harmful to somebody besides the doer.
God committed many evil acts in the old testament. Believers just refuse to acknowledge them.
If God is analogous to water, ice and vapor then the Holy Ghost is vapor, Jesus is water and the Father and God of the O T is ice.
O T God deserves to have lost our love and it is no wonder that He was replaced by Jesus.
Or at least the Bible writers hoped that we would be forgiving enough to accept Jesus.
I am not.
I do not mind Jesus so much even with his unworkable sayings as a Rabbi and fully human but if he is the O T God then I have a bullet with justice and his name written on it.
That is justice for any that would use genocide on man.
Not to be crude.
Okay, then why did 'God' allow evil to flourish? It certainly has, more often than not in those who proclaim themselves 'His' acolytes. This 'God', being ominpotent, certainly had it within its power to refrain from allowing evil to come about to begin with.
But God found something that He lost or never created which means another creator.
It would appear so. I'm damn sure that if I was omnimax and claimed to hate evil then I would do something about it.
But wait!! He is doing something about it isn't he? He's blaming us for it!!!
I agree.
Belivers tell me it is all about free will.
I just laugh, point out the fact that God's free will is a threat, link them with this and tip my hat on the way out.
If they do not get it then what else can I say.
Well, I personally feel that "GOD" was invented by man so that man can shed his responsibility of the uncontrollable and the "Devil" was also invented by man so man could blame an outside (and uncontrollable) entity as being evil. It’s a repetitive cycle that places very little blame on man. "Its "GOD"s will" or "The Devil did/made me do it".
Does god enjoy evil? no, he blames it on the devil. Does the devil enjoy evil, sure, god made him that way.
There very well may be a "God" we all hear of but I hardly feel he/she is so shallow that summing up events in a life that takes place in a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of time in a universe that is 14+ billion years old justifies an eternal hell or heaven.
Scaled down example of gods justice system
Sending a newborn (1 day old) to heaven for a cute smile or
sending a newborn to hell for pooping in there diaper.
Relatively speaking, we, mankind, have the same experience in life and love as a newborn does yet we consider that an all knowing all seeing and forever existing "being" thinks like we do?
Mankind is indeed arrogant.
Just my thoughts.
To define God as other than a set of rules, is idol worship.
Regardless of your religion, Christian, Muslim or any other religion, have you ever wondered why people began personifying God?
Why did we start giving Him a name when the Bible begins by telling us that He is the word. Word meaning rules.
The reason to me seems clear.
Our first God was a man.
Who but man can give voice to the will/rules of God?
There is only man.
The word God should then never be personified. When we do, it becomes idol worship.
God should be considered a title only. Somewhat like king or law.
Regardless of your religion or lack of it, to tie yourself to any Word is also idol worship.
We all label ourselves according to the set of rules we follow be they Christian, Muslim, Democrat or Green.
Our political Gods = rules.
Our religious Gods = rules.
Our natural Gods = rules.
Seek God yes. When you find Him, raise the bar of excellence for both Him and man.
Whoever you are, you live by one or two or three of those sets of rules mentioned. More than likely, a combination of all of them.
In this, none of us have any choice.
My question is aimed primarily at literalist and fundamentals who believe that their WORD is the WORD of a personified God. In other words, to my mind, idol worshipers.
Do you agree and see that to lock yourself to any WORD, including a personified religious God, is idol worship?
Am I wrong in saying that our first God was a man and that our last God should be a man as well?
"Am I wrong in saying that our first God was a man and that our last God should be a man as well?"
That's interesting: If God is above God for our faith against evil being overcome; it may perhaps mean pessimism for the true God in totality. It may also mean we never had a chance, but what is chance anyway in the virtues of being sons of Men. It meant already it was by chance; you are referring to Bertrand Russell.
Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and createevil: I the LORD do all these things.
Ephesians 3:8-10
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Colossians 1:15-17
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast createdall things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
God thus seems to have created evil, as He created all concepts, for his pleasure, including evil.
How does God get pleasure from evil and is He allowing it to happen?
Hell is demonstrably an immoral and evil construct.
Translations can lead to confusion. God does not create or love evil. He does however, create calamity or destruction to punish evildoers.
Isaiah 45:7 (New King James Version) 7 I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the LORD, do all these things.’
Why stop there?? It's quite clear from the following that your god loves 'evil' rather well.
”Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come?” (Lam. 3:38).
”...that I may repent of the evil, which I purpose to do unto them because of the evil of their doings” (Jer. 26:3).
”...all the evil which I purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin” (Jer. 36:3).
”I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live. And I polluted them in their own gifts....” (Ezek. 20:25-26).
”For thus saith the Lord; as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them” (Jer. 32:42).
”...shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” (Amos 3:6).
....and before you start screaming 'No! No! The word "evil" in the Bible doesn't actually mean 'evil'. It has been "mistranslated". The Hebrew word translated by the KJV writers as "evil" in Isaiah 45:7 is "ra" Clearly, in the Bible this word does mean evil in a moral sense but of course, modern theologians and people like you, who don't like to think of their 'loving' god as being responsible for evil try to soften the blow of what the Bible actually says by claiming it actually means something else.... 'disaster' or 'calamity' being the current favourites.
In Genesis 2:17, your god instructs Adam and Eve not to eat from "the tree of good and evil"...(ra). The tree of good and disaster? The tree of good and calamity? Clearly not: it is the tree of good and evil.
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