Is There Something Wrong with the Concept of God? (Page 7)

chay chayi: I only replied to your saying "if" God would do like this, then simply its evil, but he will never and cannot do evil because his self existence is totally pure good

CoIin: I think I understand you.

Supposing our hypothetical scenario did actually happen, then what should we say:-

1. Look! The God I believe in is doing evil. I'm very surprised.

or

2. That's not the God I believe in.

CoIin: There is no contradiction because THAT'S NOT MY GOD

Right?

chay chayi: There's no such a thing, like i said

CoIin: What you're saying, I think, (in philosopher-speak ) is that God is NECESSARILY good. God cannot NOT be good. He is good in ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS, as they like to say.

Correct?

But we're still left with the two issues I mentioned earlier:-

1. All the bloodshed in the Hebrew Bible for which God is directly responsible, is for you "good". It HAS TO be good. No investigation of the circumstances is required. You can infer from the necessary goodness of God to the goodness of any of his actions, no matter how superficially appalling they might appear .

The rest of us use independent norms of morality to judge God's actions. An examination of the circumstances would be required to determine whether or not any particular putative divine felony was just or not. And it's hard to escape the conclusion that by any reasonable standards of right and wrong, the God of the Hebrew Bible is a moral abomination.

Anyone else perpetrating the mischief Yahweh does would be branded a monster.


2. If God is necessarily good, if God is the "root of all goodness" as you put it, then the statement "God is good" is quite vacuous.

It's like me declaring "My dog Spot is canine. I've never known him not to be canine. Isn't he amazing? "

Is it true that Spot is canine? Well, yes, but it's a trivial truth, a truth devoid of substance.

Do you see this? If God is indeed the root of all goodness, then we should not be in the slightest impressed by statements like "God is good" and "God never does evil".

On the other hand, a person WITH THE CAPACITY TO DO EVIL but who abstains SHOULD impress us.

Any thoughts?

Zanjan: Ghost: “It seems a lot of people have trouble explaining how evil can exist in the world if, as is assumed, God is good and just.”

I’m not sure what you figure “a lot” is – it’s always been easy to explain so what’s this lot’s problem?

You see a lot of evil in the world when a lot of people have turned their backs to God. When they stop doing that, evil will shrink like a shadow in the noon day sunlight, into thoughts that don’t germinate because a lot of heat from that sun has fried them. But the lot that faces God is immune and protected. This is the story Lot told.

Humans are all spiritual beings. The Prophets are spiritual beings. God is a spiritual being. Evil isn’t a spiritual entity – it has no light or life - it’s a void where the spirit of truth is not.

“it is obvious that many of these spiritual entities are seen as being in opposition to God.”

Yes, they’re seen by some folks to be that way but how did things actually happen?

God has said that all do His bidding – those who deliberately oppose Him don’t realize how powerless they are to do that because their vision is blocked by the shield of doom. You see, in my experience, those who oppose God have always unwittingly given me material to rule over them. In this sense, they could be seen as friends.

Obviously, it wasn’t their intention to be friends or give me a gift so, why did they do it? There’s a string-puller, wouldn’t you say?

A soul with a lifeless spirit is a sleeping entity; like dreamers, they moan, are confused, helpless and frustrated. Perhaps they shout or punch the air with their fists in an effort to control, but the further they reach to possess, the further the object of desire moves away from their grasp. Who’s pulling those strings? In which direction?

Zanjan: In essence, this answers Colin’s hypotheses that God can do evil.

You see, I oppose the ways of humans because those ways don’t favour me; consequently, I’d say those human ways are evil. Therefore, I don't oppose the ways of God, finding that God's ways favour me. Consequently, I say God is good.

While God is doing something good for me, that same act of goodness is obviously a very bad thing for God’s opposer. Consequently, the one who’s in opposition to God would see evil in God’s ways because those ways don’t favour him.

Inasmuch as the opposer fights God, it may seem he's not making any headway. But that's just an illusion. Remember the strings. Eventually, the opposer must concede this expense of energy isn't worth it. Thus, the opposer weakens and is pulled by this force, kicking and screaming until he finally gives up.

At that point, he'd be smart to embrace the One Who's bettered him.

ghostgeek: It seems to me that in the Bible account of the Exodus somebody is describing an active volcano.

Exodus 19

13 There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount.

16 And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.

18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

Exodus 24:10

And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.

chay chayi: Its not described as a volcano, and it was not a volcano

1) A volcano does not have a voice of a trumpet
2) The millions Israels were surrounding the Mountain, they were not covered by lava
3) A volcano is not altogether with smoke, it only shoots up high on top of the Mountain
4) Smoke of a volcano is heavy dark black, and the smoke on Mount Sinai was white and visible like water, they could see through it and see what's on the Mountain
5) The Mount Sinai has no hole on top like a volcanic explosion have

orkanen: Are you sure "trumpet" is translated correctly, Chayi? Hebrew was a dead language for over 2.500 years, surely there must be room for one or two translation errors since it was rewritten.

Have you never seen a volcano, Chayi? I suggest you seek out a couple on Youtube. In a couple, I mean more than one. But careful, you might learn something.

Where does it say that the smoke on Mount Sinai was white and visible like water, Chayi?

chronology: ghost.How many 'natural events' do you think can occure 'coincidentely' with the Exodus of the Hebrews? There have already been a number of studies that clearly demonstrate the 'Red Sea' or wherever the Hebrews could have crossed over to Canaan can be parted by either strong overnight winds, or a tsunami. After the Hebrews crossed, say the people studying the records, a pursuing army could easily have been drowned by returning water after the winds died down. Personaly, it seems far more reasonable to think God parted the waters than an overnight wind that just happened to spring up at the precise time the Hebrew people needed to escape.

orkanen: You're still assuming the Bible to be an accurate history, Chronology. What if it is a mix of many different stories, with a whole lot of wishful thinking added to it?

chay chayi: The Torah and Hebrew was never dead to the Jews, even Jews speak other languages, but always learned and prayed in Hebrew, all the Jewish books are written in Hebrew in all generations, the Torah and Tanach is written in Hebrew, the Talmud, Midrash, kabalah are written in Hebrew and Aramaic (Aramaic is basically like Hebrew)

The Torah and Tanach was written in Hebrew, and they are no two verses on them, only one original verse written in pure Hebrew

I grew up in Hebrew language even if i was born and lived in USA,and the Jews of USA speak other languages in their life relationships, but their learning and prays are in Hebrew, the Hebrew that was written as given

chay chayi: The Torah says clearly "a horn" not a trumpet, (shofer - שופר) a horn of a Ram, and what's used on Rosh Hashana

chay chayi: I did see volcano's on youtube and photos
The smoke was white and visible, it was "clean" smoke. It says that the Israelites saw God on the top of the Mountain, and the Mountain was surrounded with smoke, how is it able to see what goes on on the Mountain if its surrounded by black volcanic thick darkened blackened lava, and volcano's are not "smoke" they are lava and thick ash

chay chayi: The freeing from Egypt is not about wishful thinking, its about the facts that Israelites got out from Egypt by miracles

ghostgeek: A new island appeared off the west coast of Yemen following a volcanic eruption, Nasa announced in 2011.

ghostgeek: Exodus 13:21 ( New International Version )

"By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night."

orkanen: Hebrew was a dead language for 2.500 years because no one spoke it. Only priests read from Scripture, only they had a rudimentary understanding of what it meant, until revived into a new Hebrew. All vocabulary not included in Scripture, all variations of words used in Scripture, but not expressed there, are lost for ever. I asked a friend about Aramaic and Hebrew. He included Arabic, saying you may understand the occasional word in the other languages, but you certainly won't understand them, unless you learn them in advance. I trust him and his judgement. He is after all from Jerusalem. If Hebrew is the Sacred language, reserved for the Holy people, why did people stop using it to begin with? Why did languages like Yiddish later arise? Your claims make no sense in light of reality.

chay chayi: No, ALL Jews spoke Hebrew all generations when learning and praying, we are thought Hebrew as we start to talk, the Hebrew alphabet and its words

So ork, you see, you ignore the true facts, and you urge to repeat and stick to what you read on "websites" etc., i'm telling you the facts, who knows the facts of the Jews else than the Jews

I told you clearly that Hebrew is learned and used all generations, and you repeat your Non Jews false knowledge

Arabic is a broken twisted Hebrew, Hebrew was the first and the only language in the beginning, Arabic is from Ishmael, he spoke a broken twisted Hebrew, he was not intelligence like Abraham and Isaac, he was born from an Egyptian woman, Hagar

The reason why Hebrew was not spoken as the living language, is because they got expelled in other lands, and had to do with those nations, so they began to speak the languages of the land they were in, but they always learned and knew Hebrew, from when a child started to speak

Modern Hebrew, began as Israel was established in 1948, they started to add words to enrich it to the objects and species and emotion to today's time, and comparing words from English to Hebrew, but even this modern Hebrew is not changed or conflictional to the Hebrew till today, its only "added" words, all the old words remained, and the new words are not new, its only trasnlated from English on the basics of the Hebrew words

Yiddish was created when and because they were expelled in German, Yiddish is basically Germany with the Hebrew alphabet, with slight changes

orkanen: Why do your words differ from most others, Chayi, Jews included? Are you the sole holder of "total truth"? Is everyone clueless but you?

chay chayi: I am a true Total Jew, studied Judaism all my years, from as child till today, lived in the way of the Torah, unlike the Jews you know, are not real like me, you know there are all kinds of Jews and situations

orkanen: So? That doesn't make you all knowing.

chay chayi: All knowing is because, if you really listen to God and follow him truly, then God's spirit dwells in you, and you acknowledge, know and realize and recognize the total truth, truth is all knowing, because everything has to do with the truth, and lies contradicts the truth

orkanen: So when you listen to the voices in your head, you assume it's your god, and you act on them?That would explain why you're as wrong as Zanjan on claims you make up.