DBT
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Just saying the obvious, that as described in the narrative, God is said to be the author of evil.
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Is the Bible a magic book?
- Thread starter Elixir
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Just saying the obvious, that as described in the narrative, God is said to be the author of evil.
ideologyhunter
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It must just be me, but...if I was reading a book by and about some fabulously powerful being -- this book being made for the fans, to keep the movement going -- and this entity had created the human race, but on page 6 said he was "sorry that I have made them" and on page 7 just drowned them all (youngsters? toddlers? infants? unborn? the elderly? the sick? the paralyzed? ...check, check, check, check, check, check, and check.)...I don't think I'd waste a lot of time debating his connection with evil. Words tend to lose their meaning at that point. I'd find a better story book.
DBT
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It's not just one verse. It's the whole set of books and the picture they paint of their version of God.
Politesse
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Good point.
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
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Perhaps the earliest sins did have roots in the love of money after all...
Adam in the Garden of Eden: "Hey Eve, when you go to the grocery store run by that snake, please pick up some apples, too. Here's $5." (Slaps her on the ass on her way out).
Later on...
Abel: "Dude. I just made a cool $50 selling two sheep to some wolves!"
Cain: "Bro, I hate you."
Adam in the Garden of Eden: "Hey Eve, when you go to the grocery store run by that snake, please pick up some apples, too. Here's $5." (Slaps her on the ass on her way out).
Later on...
Abel: "Dude. I just made a cool $50 selling two sheep to some wolves!"
Cain: "Bro, I hate you."
Politesse
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It's funny how they gloss over the fact that "a love of money is a root to many kinds of evil" is still a pretty firm condemnation of capitalism, to a reasonable mind. If an invention is fundamentally a motivator for cruel and malicious behavior, that is still a bad thing even if there are other evils in the world. And making its accumulation the center of public life is at best chaining people to a process that is an inherent temptation to wickedness.
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Lion IRC
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You could give me 50 versions of this same concept and I'm still not seeing why I should be bothered.
Material cause of evil. Efficient cause of evil. Formal cause of evil. Final cause of evil. Omits to prevent evil...
Why is it a problem that this very concept is stated by God Himself ????
Now steelman the position you think you are arguing against and post some verses about what God does in opposition to evil.
Here. I'll get you started.
"Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good."
"The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers."
DBT
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What, are you saying that God is in opposition to the very same evil that He creates?
"The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.'' Proverbs 16:4
"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things." (Isaiah 45:7)
''Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?" (Amos
3:6)
"Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? " (Lamentations 3:38)
Don2 (Don1 Revised)
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Not merely a creator of evil either...Also, a doer of evil. Why is that?
Pride and jealousy: "thou shalt have no other gods before me"
Angry, like in a genocidal way, killing babies, first born sons, pregnant women, puppies and kittens...
Not to mention commanding in the OT people to murder both directly and as a consequence to various "sins."
While this Mosaic law is alleged to be overturned with new hippy peace and love of Christ and people now are "saved," what about all the past murdered people? Do we just forget that it was said to execute someone one day and the next, "it's okay now?" It also still says it and some people follow that. There are enough contradictions to provide ambiguity that allows the original commanded evils to continue.
Elixir
Made in America
Yeah? What about ‘em?
They’d all be dead by now anyway, so no harm done.
Really glad I started this thread. It has been very illuminating to see how theists think:
* the Bible is not a magic book
* supernatural stuff isn’t magic
* contradictions are only contradictory because of your mortal inability to resolve god’s complexities.
* anything that follows logically and actually makes sense, is probably the work of de debbil.
ideologyhunter
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Yes, when we can harmonize God's reported actions with our own moral code, it's proof that God inspires all morality and is brimming with love and forgiveness and a (strange) need to commune with us. When his reported actions would be considered demonic if performed by a human, it's because we have no idea of his purposes and have no right to a moral judgment on those actions.
Lion IRC
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Do I really have to repeat what I've explained about evil being the ontologically created opposite of good?
Yes, God is in opposition to evil.
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Yes no socialist has ever loved money have they? I would have though that it is a pretty firm condemnation of greed myself. Which is found in any monetary system.
Tigers!
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The Bible is written with prose, metaphor, rhetoric, simile, parables, allusions, symbolic etc. No different to other written works.
I will note that myths is your term not Learner or 'Lions. Sometimes symbolic, sometime prose, sometimes metaphorical etc.
There was a huge amount of water on the earth?
An account of how the Israelites entered the Promised Land once they crossed the Jordan river?
Metaphor for the death, burial, resurrection of Christ as an example.
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Maybe it was just a story that people thought was funny....
Hey Joshua, did you hear the one about the whale? I busted a gut laughing.
Do you think the ancient Hebrews were stoic wooden sullen cutouts like in movies, like Charlton Heston as Moses. or did they have a sense of humor? I go with the latter.
Hey Joshua, did you hear the one about the whale? I busted a gut laughing.
Do you think the ancient Hebrews were stoic wooden sullen cutouts like in movies, like Charlton Heston as Moses. or did they have a sense of humor? I go with the latter.
Politesse
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The premise of capitalism is that greed is not just present, but is made the very center of the social contract; people are given the option of either participating in the exploitation of their neighbors for the bottomless monetary advantage of a small investing class, or starving. Not the same thing as a socialist system, in my view.
ideologyhunter
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You do have a point. Perhaps this should be a separate thread, to explore the vertex of holy scripture with the Three Stooges. My favorite nyuks:
1- Good old Onan, always good for a laugh. Yes, he gets killed by God, but c'mon, it was over a splooge dispute.
2- God forbids Moses to see his face, but, at the end of Ex 33, lets him see "his back" as he passes. You'll never convince me that Moses didn't get a view of God's buns. If he has a face, he has buns.
3- The absolute peak of Hebraic craziness, in Ezekiel chapter 4. God sentences the E-man to lie on his left side for 390 days, then his right side for 40 more days. Don't worry about why, I couldn't explain away the crazy if I tried. It gets better. By the end of the chapter, God is telling E to bake his bread over a fire fueled with human excrement, and E argues for cow dung. (He actually wins the argument with God.)
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Hmmmm.
I think it's more like capitalism fits with human nature. I'd have to fact check, I think that is what Adam Smith said in Wealth Of Nations. Competition makes things go and grow.
Russia and Chinese communism sought to forcibly level things and it resulted in a dull, lifeless system which stagnated.
All the technology you see and use evolved through competition of ideas and methods.
We think highly of ourselves, but in the end we are just advanced screeching violent chimpanzees.
We are the same old superstitious humans we have always been despite education and science.
I think it's more like capitalism fits with human nature. I'd have to fact check, I think that is what Adam Smith said in Wealth Of Nations. Competition makes things go and grow.
Russia and Chinese communism sought to forcibly level things and it resulted in a dull, lifeless system which stagnated.
All the technology you see and use evolved through competition of ideas and methods.
We think highly of ourselves, but in the end we are just advanced screeching violent chimpanzees.
We are the same old superstitious humans we have always been despite education and science.