Does God still fit into our ethical views?

As far as the God in the bible goes, he really seems as shallow as the Egyptian gods or the Greek gods, except he proclaims himself to be all good.

A small qualm I have with the Bible is that god seems like a familiar. He only communicates with one party. He follows only one of Abram's descendants at a time, and when Joseph is thought to be dead, god supports only Joseph. Where is the support he used to give Jacob? He was about to die out of worry, yet God didn't think to mention Joseph was alive?

Now I've only got general knowledge of the New Testament, but when Jesus goes around healing, why does he always need to see the person? God is all healing. If he is willing to help those in need, why not put a blanket "Heal" over the Earth, curing people?

For what he is said to be, he seems very Olympus-ised.

 

God can make other humans...>.>

The satan thing...(I'm not sure) but satan can turn to ANYTHING...he can be a sexy women...he can be a snake...he can be the computer Ur seeing right now...

the destroying the two cities...god saw that there was no hope..like they were eXtremely sinning..it came to a point where god was disgusted..and I guess he had no choice...

Creation of Sin: God didn't invent sin(well that's what I think)...wasn't the first sin created when adam and eve ate the fruit of that tree(The bible never specifies if it was an apple)...anyway..i think Adam and eve set an example of of Y U shouldn't sin(Since they were punished by kicking them out of the garden of Eden...)

U know why there are faults in the bible...cause the bible U hold does not even hold half of the real story...cause during history some things were changed(To they're convenience..>.> *cough*catholic*cough*)and some parts were burned..so not everything is in there....

I think some1 is a dumbass here and it's U...U don't flame on people because of they're beliefs


@Pika Powah: I'm guessing Ur an athiest...don't worry I'm not gonna flame U or derep U...I think U were great in trying to decode the bible...but U have to examine it several times to understand it

 

Satan can be anything, as can God. Where does it say Satan is the snake?

Yes, the people inside were sinning. My question is why not shower them in love to convert them? Why destroy? We use punishment like that because we can do nothing else to reform behaviour. God can just alter the behaviour, or implant subliminal messages in their head to avoid sin. I can think of a thousand better things that destruction.

I never mentioned apples in any of my posts. Anyway, god created everything, right? God is all knowing, right? Therefore he created sin. You cannot have all powerful and all knowing and sin.

 

Sin is simply an evaluation of our ability to choose what we want in this life; it is a product and interpretation of free will, and by extension created by God who gave us free will

As to Pika's earlier, and very long post God is simply a figurative representation or essence of what humans would like to consider as being ethical and good. You could easily have ethics without a god, it's simply that throwing in a deity makes it all the more meaningful to people that want to believe that their actions are doing more than just benefiting their fellow humans. People are selfish that way.

 

You make god seem like an actual person. You see, thats why I believe that the God in the Bible is really Satan, but the real God is out there. Satan can take any form right? Well, what if the real God was doing something off in another galaxy fixing problems, and Satan saw his chance. He turned himself into the image of god, and started proclaiming lies. Then Moses wrote it down, thinking it was the real god. Then when the real God "got back", he saw everyone being sinful, got really pissed and started punishing everyone. I believe some of this, but its only a theory.

U are ridiculing mine and flaming (by calling me a dumbass). Hypocrosy.

Have patience in your reading, think things over, READ CAREFULLY. If you miss a word it could throw everything your reading off. I think your simply misunderstanding what your reading Pikachu.

 

That entire "theory" falls down at the very definition of "god". God is supposed to be everywhere all the time, able to see and do anything and everything.

 

I dont believe in a material god. I am into the theory that any material god that humans have ever seen as a material thing are really aliens (sounds crazy I know, but when you think about it, it kinda makes sense...). The true god, if any, can only be explained by an ideal, and that is truth and justice. righteousness.

 

Wow...U think god is Satan?....God is not a person..he is a spirit...U see...why would satan tell moses all those things eh?...the bible's mostly about hope...It doesn't really make sense...and if he was really telling lies to moses than he would've stopped him immedeatly..satan (and demons) are AFRAID of god....I think life is a test...he's testing us if we are worth bringing to heaven....as for Ur "theory" do U have any proof or anything? If U don't...it would be pretty hard to believe U...Ur "Theory" could've just popped into Ur head...like a guess or something....Ur probably just mixing sci-fi and Christianity

Aliens? dude!!..stop mixing sci-fi and christianity...as for the gods that appear..I believe that their demons...also ghosts are demons too....god is so great it's impossible to explain about him...remember that in Apocalypse the apostol talks to god...when god appears...the Apostol falls to the ground..cause he's so great our eyes can't resist..(like the sun, U can't stare into the sun can U?)

 

Okay, can we have a new thread for Sci-fi Christianity? I'll throw in a ray gun for Jesus if you want, but I'd prefer to keep this thread for debating the point of God being a cruel being.

 

I'll make a Sci-fi Christianity thread then and explain it soon.

 

I've read the Bible numerous times and well, it's probably the main reason I am not a Christian, though certainly some people, with how they act, certainly deter me from that path as well. I was raised Christian, but when I first sat down at 13 and read the Bible, I have to say it opened my eyes. The painted lovely benevolent God that was shown to me in church school was not the same one I read about. I probably never would have bothered with the book and just would have gone on naively with what was taught to me in church school had I also not stumbled on a book on The Crusades and thought the whole thing was the most outlandish and barbaric thing I'd ever read. It even beat out Edgar Allan Poe's collection book I was reading for how scared it made me. I'll also note that during and after reading The Bible through, I had the worst nightmares for a few years about the end of the world and for some reason, I had a front seat on a mountain to watch it all. I was not happy. xD

To get to the point of the debate though, to me, Yahweh is outdated and that is why Jesus had to be made. He was a violent god that punished people, ordered the deaths of people in cities and used others to accomplish his goals. He tested out people's loyalties in a way that most of us today would think were outlandish, such as telling Job to kill his son and then at the last second revoking it. Also, some of the tales were just really out there. As a kid I could believe them. As an adult, I can't, and if I did choose to believe them, I'd demand an apology from Yahweh for his mistreatment of humans for all these years.

For example, Adam and Eve. Why put a tree that is forbidden to eat from in a lush garden of beauty and love with animals of peace and two humans that are childish in mentality? Why have it there in the first place so that Lucifer can tempt Eve, who then says 'why not', eats it and then goes off to share with her husband? Would a parent leave out a bunch of cookies on a table that look great and smell delicious and tell a 5 year old not to eat the cookies, and replace them each day with new cookies that smell and look scrumptious and yet the kid is told the same thing? On the same note, if an older friend comes by the house and says 'it's ok to take a cookie' and the kid does after some convincing and it's found to be absolutely as delicious as they had hoped, if she takes another for her friend or sibling, and shares it, is she being bad? I'd say the parent was really kind of cruel for putting the cookies there and never offering any to the child. Also, I'd say if the parent knows this other guy coming over is kind of a jerk and would tempt the kids more, that this person shouldn't -be there-. Who gets punished though? The kids. Adam and Eve get told they are now mortal, Eve must bear pain in child birth and have periods, Adam is told he's in charge of Eve because she's basically stupid, so that starts off the males are superior to females deal.

Let's go on to Job. He nearly kills his own child, despite the pain of losing his son, all because God wants him to, in order to test his loyalty. Let's say you are a parent of a kid and some mafia guy wants you to show your loyalty to the family by killing your child. Or some king wants you to kill your child? Or some gang member? Or some grand parent? .. When God is 'humanized', this crime is rather hideous. Of course, it can be noted that the son lived, but really, that's a cop out and I'd still be really mad to have someone forced into such a thing. There are women that have had to kill their children for years because men weren't happy with them. There are men and women that were ordered to kill their children by higher authorities. Some may have been calls that were taken back and the parents were grateful, but really, was the pain needed in the first place?

Noah's tale became one that grew a lot worse too. Apparently, to rid the world of the evil and the fact the world was not how God wanted it, he found the one group of people he would spare, had the guy build an ark, made a giant storm and raised the waters to cleanse the earth, and all to get rid of other humans who were not what he wanted. How cruel. That's no different to me than someone dropping a nuke about now to wipe out a city or nation because the people are 'bad' and not thinking about the ones who aren't. I find it hard to believe the whole of life on the Nile etc was so horrible that all those people deserved death. (Let alone apparently around the world according to the Bible).

And onto attacking cities in the name of Yahweh. Because they were different. And attacking others of other cultures in smaller settlements. The men there that were victorious, Yahweh apparently felt it was right to kill all of the men, kill many children and women, take virgins or the good looking women for wives through forced marriages and rape them, because women were just tools for bearing children. We have a Geneva Convention today for a reason. To stop the extra brutality that happens during wars. This behavior also happened in the Crusades, as people that weren't Christian were considered pagans and therefore beneath them. Of course, then many women weren't married but instead just raped and murdered.

I could go on and on about how Yahweh today would not fit right with the way society is. We are a bond of gentler societies today who gets mad if we see others abusing members of their societies poorly, whether for religious reasons or not. Of course, in saying this, I will also note that Christianity is hardly the only religion to have such a bloody past and Yahweh is hardly the only god that can be attributed to have been used as an excuse to kill in droves, encourage rape, murder, seizure of land, sabotage etc. The difference though is most of those religions are now reduced to being known as mythologies and were wiped out by Christianity and Islam. Those that survive today do so with a few scant members or the religions themselves grew to be more peaceful as societies also did so.

In saying that, Christianity too had to do the same thing and evolve, as did Islam. Jesus was a way to make the religion more kindly. Some of the saints were also kinder, such as St. Francis and how he walked about and was kind to both humans and animals, giving animals more recognition than they had ever had formerly. We've seen some incredible cruelty still, sure, but it's not as bad as it was and still the influence of the Old Testament reared its head, even in the times when people were trying to make Christianity less bloody. The Inquisitions, cleansing of 'pagans', the Crusades, the way the Spanish dealt with the Aztecs and Mayans, the way the Puritans and Protestants dealt with the Native Americans, etc. Today, we still see violence motivated on by using religion as an excuse. We can see cultures oppressed by religions but again, is it as bad as the Dark Ages, where saying anything against God could get you murdered in some hideous way?

So, in the end, the God of yesterday was definitely not a God that today should be to me held in sacrosanct. Christianity had to adapt and still does as we change in our views on violence and what is an inexcusable crime versus what isn't. It's the reason it survives today. To many Christians, Yahweh is a kinder deity that would never do such things as was shown in the Old Testament. Many Christians don't even read the Old Testament and though violence and such can be found in the New Testament as well, the portrayal of Jesus himself as a martyr, who died for the sins of mankind and did benevolent acts of healing, roaming around and talking, was kind to a prostitute, liked children etc, is what most Christians try to use as a guideline for modeling themselves after. The 10 Commandments themselves are not so great, but the way today it is taught is different than how it was intended, and even Jesus said he stood by the 10 Commandments of old. However, these have been shortened to mean different things today than they did back in his time.

Christianity is a mutating thing and has absorbed other cultures into it as well. Christmas is not Jesus's birthday. It's Horus's and a few other deities' and also is Winter Solstice or Yule. It was a celebrated holiday long before Jesus came about. In order to make it easier to not have to war with 'pagans' however, the holiday was taken up and altered. The same with Easter. Easter is even a goddesses' name. So there's the other reason Christianity thrives. It adapted to permit things of other cultures to be done on holidays that weren't there's to begin with, and as long as the people taken over could have some of their former cultures still intact, rather than fighting, they ended up accepting it. So, though the old Yahweh certainly doesn't fit in today's societies though some people definitely still do try to make it so, Christianity has evolved, absorbed and changed and continues to do so today with its many factions so that somehow it survives and goes on. Some groups are more violent than others and less tolerable. Some are more peaceful and giving. And there are quite a few people that are independent of organizations who believe in God in their own way, which is what many Deists do or Christians that wish to be free of organized religion. Some Christians and Deists pretty well declare that the Bible is rubbish and written by man, so therefore is full of errors. Mythril Roxas is not the only Deist also that I've heard say that the God in the Bible is presumed to be Satan. We all have our views.