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[MOVED] I Don't Believe that God is Good Anymore
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Because I know that good exists, it follows that it's existence is contingent on God. That being so, I can know that God doesn't possess good but is good.
God doesn't do this or that because it's good, this or that is good because God did it.
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longwait
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Son, God is very, very good. He keeps warning us and warning us and warning us about danger ahead but its us in our stubborness and wickedness that rejects it and hates His discipline. Besides there are many itching ear doctrines going around these days that turns us against God when things don't turn out as preached. It was not like this in the past. People used to preach the real, tough truth. Now everything is sugar-coated.
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Abide with me.
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Only a guess, but maybe life is a test of faith? Maybe God wants angels who have been through a baptisms of fire on earth first like the christian martyrs? Maybe his goodness is revealed in heaven?
Is it because you are thinking God might not be good because righteous people and Christians have suffered so much?
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aiki
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Oh? And what things in the Bible are you thinking of, exactly?
Remember: God is not just a super-powered human. He is far more unlike us than like us. And His singular, divine nature entails certain prerogatives unique to Him. As the Creator and Sustainer of Everything, the Ground of All Reality, He has a right to judge, to command, and to take life as He wishes. He gives all life, after all; why should He not have the right to take what He has given? Why is God not free to do as He wishes in the universe He has made?
By what standard, exactly, are you judging God to be good? If there is no God, there is no objective, universally-authoritative standard of moral right and wrong to which He - or anyone, really - can be held. Without God and the Moral Law He has given, all you can really say about God's conduct (or anyone else's) is that it isn't what you'd prefer, what you like. But why should anyone care particularly about what you do or don't like?
Because His goodness is essential to His divine nature. If God is not good; He is not God. Certainly, He has proven His goodness in a vast multitude of ways. He has made a world of beauty, humor, music, and love. He has given us good food, sunsets and sunrises, and sex; He makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the just and unjust; He has taken on human form and lived and died in atonement for our sin, offering to us joyful, holy fellowship with Himself. How does this sound like a not-good God?
It's not hard to imagine an evil God. He would, it seems to me, be the exact opposite of the God revealed in the Bible. Such a God would be devilish, in fact, deceiving us, capricious in His commands and nature, cruel, cold, uncaring, creating a world of unrelieved darkness and pain. It's doubtful He'd even bother to create a universe at all. And if He did, why would He put joy, and love, and beauty in it? Why create coffee, chocolate, and humor, and give us the capacity for music, art, and literature if He is evil?
No, God is very good. And I suspect, despite your questioning, you know it. In fact, this is exactly what the Bible says:
Romans 1:18-22
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
The chapter goes on to describe the degradation of those who "suppress the truth in unrighteousness," the horrible course into sinful perversion, corruption and death that awaits those who spurn God for Self-worship. It is a dangerous game you're playing, suppressing the truth of God within yourself. Your choices carry consequences; in the case of God, eternal consequences. Be wise.
Romans 1:28-32
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips,
30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,
31 without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful;
32 and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.
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I believe the bad things that happen in the world do because the world is fallen and we have an common enemy, the devil. When the time was right God sent His Son to redeem us (Galatians 4:4-5). God has allowed this time of turbulence to be, I believe so as many as possible can be saved. For God has set a time when He will judge the world (Acts 17:31) to end all evil.
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The Transcendentian
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Not sure if this is the correct solution but, if you stop thinking God is good, just change your definition of good. God defines what is good and what isn't.
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chad kincham
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If you’re basing the claim that God is not good, on what God did in the Old Testament, like destroying evil cities, you have a fundamental misunderstanding and lack of knowledge of why God did things that He did.
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We conceptualize paradise wrong. We tend to think there was nothing painful in the Garden of Eden. Paradise, even before sin was a place to go from perfection to perfection. That means as we grew in perfection a time would come that conditions we live in would lack the good we need to grow in perfection.
Adam suffered loneliness.
Gen 2
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone;
Adam suffered loneliness.
Gen 2
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone;
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HopeInJesusOnly
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The God, as found in the bible, is not a good God. He is full of contradictions, and everything is our fault, even our unbelief.
You get paradise, but here's a tree for good measure, and yes, you'll fail the test. I know, because I am God. Abraham finally gets a child? Sacrifice him...okay, okay, here's a lamb. Poor Isaac. Hope he doesn't retain that memory. The world has devolved? Drown everyone. And the survivors can build their own ark and watch the others drown. You looked back? Salt you become, Lot's wife. Sorry. Free will and all.
We can commit the unforgivable sin, but aren't told what it is precisely, so we can worry endlessly about having broken it. Fun, right?
You don't believe? Your fault. Worst still, you weren't chosen, sorry. Just not one of the elect, I guess.
You believe with all your heart and obey every commandment? Well, the devil now gets God's permission to destroy everything you love, kill your children, cover you with boils and make you want to die (sorry, Job). Of course, the devil is given free reign to do everything but kill you, because that would actually be merciful! Wait, what? That's right. There's a double blessing in it for you, though, with new children, 'cause the others are dead.
Jesus dies for your sins, but you can still go to hell. Judas betrays with a kiss (like the Godfather), but he was selected for the job, poor soul.
The paradoxes, "first shall be last, last shall be first." What? If you don't get the parables, you aren't part of the club. It's not ambiguous, you're ambiguous!
And my personal favourite, as if the threat of hell weren't bad enough, the last chapter you read is about how the world ends, just to terrify you, and if you're a Christian, be prepared to be tortured and die. But I thought Jesus sacrificed so we may have life more abundantly, no? Wasn't that sacrifice enough? No? Let's all read into every ambiguous sign, then, and worry about the end days, cause that's not anxiety inducing, or anything. Throw in a secret rapture to keep you terrified daily. Throw in denominations that don't believe in the rapture. Now throw in religions that don't believe in Jesus, including the one that starts the bible, Judaism. Yeah, I feel real good about things now. But why all this anxiety?
I now find the trinity really difficult to digest, and the fact that Jesus doesn't just say he is God, but makes others say it. Then no one wants credit for crucifying him. And he is mocked with a crown. It's too much now.
Actually, my child brain couldn't understand the trinity at all and it messed with my sense of logic. That's child abuse. It also made me paranoid to believe I was being watched all the time and being judged at every turn. More child abuse. Should I be killed without repenting my last sin, hell awaits, I was told. Also, you must honour your parents, but nothing in there about child abuse. Odd, since the more vulnerable one depends on the other JUST TO SURVIVE.
Mind control. Brainwashing. You turn the other cheek. Pray for others. Forgive when they don't seek it (for your health, of course), and worry you are not good enough all the time, and when you are, don't you dare take credit! You can do nothing on your own (wow), you filthy sinner (more condemnation). Add in songs that call you a wretch saved by grace. Wait, saved by grace? So now don't worry. Sin until the last moment and then ask for forgiveness. Those law-abiding atheists are all in hell (they didn't believe in the finished work of Jesus), and you can be in heaven with the rapists and the murderers. Or something. No, no that's not right, faith without deeds (works) is dead. But once saved always saved. Um. Here, wear a cross of torture around your neck instead of a crown, or something royal. It will all make sense eventually. In the meantime, argue amongst yourselves, yes?
Sorry for the long post. I admit I could have gone another five minutes, so....
TL; DR: I am convinced you are right and we've been played. The God of the bible sounds more like the one for this fallen world. The real God is pure love, and He loves you and your neighbour equally, always and forever. So love each other already and go do good things. Because just praying for someone to help doesn't make sense - you are the help. The end.
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aiki
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Of course your unbelief is your fault. God gave you the freedom to choose what you will do. You've chosen unbelief, apparently. That's on you, not God.
Eden without the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil would have been a place where Adam and Even had no real choice but to do as God wished them to do. Such constrained obedience would have been the obedience, not of loving children, but of prisoners. The Tree gave Adam and Eve a genuine free choice between God's will and their own, a crucial feature of expressing real love toward God.
It is a mistake in logic to think that foreknowledge is tantamount to causation. Knowing a thing will happen is not the same as making it happen. God did not make Adam and Eve choose sin, though He knew they would. And the redemptive plan He enacted as a result of their sin has displayed in bold relief all of His excellent qualities: love, patience, mercy, grace, holiness, faithfulness and, yes, goodness.
Did Isaac die? No. Did he see the provision of God? Yes. Did Isaac witness the incredible faith of his father in God? Yes. Did Isaac bear an emotional scar from the incident? There is no hint that he did in Scripture.
"Devolved"? No. Embraced great evil and sin. The world had become vile and wicked.
Genesis 6:5
5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
Genesis 6:11-12
11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.
12 And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.
And so, God, being the Giver of Life, and the rightful holy Judge of the creatures He had made, punished those creatures for their great and continuous evil - just as He should have done.
Did Noah and his family "watch others drown"? That's not what the Bible says. Instead, it tells us that the wicked who drowned had the entire time Noah was building the huge Ark from scratch (and with primitive tools) to turn from their evil and join Noah and his family in the safety of the Ark. The construction of the Ark would have taken years to accomplish, its slow formation serving as a constant warning of the coming judgment of God.
If anything, God showed incredible patience toward the wicked, giving them long warning and far more time than they deserved to choose the safety of the Ark.
Yup. She had been warned. Should God have made her a puppet? Should He make a puppet out of you?
Nonsense. Scripture makes it quite clear what the "unforgivable sin" is. Have you bothered to read the Gospel accounts of the instance in which it occurs? (Matthew 12:22-37; Mark 3:22-30) They both plainly indicate what the "blasphemy of the Spirit" is.
So, you've just fumed over free will and now you fuss over election? Interesting. Why protest election if you have such a problem with free will? You will not be satisfied whatever the circumstance, eh? Telling.
Yup. The scary reality is that God is actually God. Not some mythological character you can shape and control to suit yourself, but God Almighty who does as He pleases in the universe He has made and sustains at every moment. His utter sovereignty is the one thing above all that self-willed humans hate because we want so desperately to be our own god, to have the power and authority of our Maker for ourselves. But the story of Job confronts and shatters our belief that we are God's near-equal, that we have any sort of control over our Creator, or that He must or will act in accord with our personal agenda. And God makes not the slightest apology to us for being who and what He is. Why should He?
Yup. You choose where you go. God won't decide for you.
Was he "selected"? Where's that written in Scripture? God knew Judas would betray Christ, but that doesn't mean God made Judas do so. In fact, the Bible says that the devil had hold of Judas's heart, not God.
Not ambiguous; spiritual.
1 Corinthians 2:12-14
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,
13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
If you want to understand, you can. But God's way, not your way.
At the hands of people just like you who hate the Christian faith and the God Christian believers worship and serve.
But Jesus also said in this sin-cursed world, populated by God-haters like yourself, believers would necessarily encounter suffering (often at the hands of those God-haters). The abundant life Jesus offers us, though, is not a life abundant with happy, comfortable experiences free of suffering, but with the Creator Himself, Jesus Christ our Saviour. He is the "abundant life" that he offers to us.
1 John 5:11-12
11 And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
12 He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
John 1:4-5
4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
I don't find the prophecies of the Last Days anxiety-producing. They make me expectant and hopeful, but not anxious. What is there for me to fear? My Saviour returns and makes all things new! That's good news! Of course, his return will have a very different effect upon those who deny and hate him. And why shouldn't it? Why should Christ-haters and the wicked feel anything but fear at the thought of the return of their holy Creator and Judge?
The doctrine of the Trinity doesn't give me any problems...
"Child abuse"? Yeah, right. You are God's creature but you aren't His child - not given the way you've been talking about Him and His truth. Anyway, God's not in the least obliged to make you feel comfortable with His divine nature. Certainly, it is more in keeping with a God not made by men that He should be beyond our capacity to fully comprehend in some fundamental respects.
Well, you are being observed at all times by God. And He isn't in the least moved by your discomfort with this fact. You're in His universe where He does as He pleases (as is His right). One day, you will have to give an account for all the things you've done - even those you did in secret.
Indeed. God isn't messing around when it comes to sin. He hates sin and will judge it severely. But, He has also made a way for sinners to avoid hell, if they'll take it. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "the door to hell is locked from the inside."
??? Obviously, you haven't read much of the Bible...
Do you know what a Strawman argument is? You're making one here. Your contorted version of the faith explains, though, at least in part, your antagonism toward it.
And... more Strawman stuff.
And how do you know this, exactly? I mean, if you're just making up the God you want, He doesn't really exist except as a reflection of yourself. In other words, you have made yourself your god, which is always the heart of the problem between humans and their actual Maker.
If God doesn't exist, why should people love each other? Why should they do good things? Who decides what is and isn't a "good thing"? Why shouldn't people just love themselves as they naturally do and live to maximize their pleasure no matter the cost to others? They've only one life; why shouldn't they squeeze as much fun and self-gratification out of their short existence as possible? And if others get in the way of doing so, why shouldn't one act aggressively to stop them? Really, without God, there is only "survival of the fittest," and "might makes right," and "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die."
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- Dec 17, 2017
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Finally we are calling it how we see it. Everything we are told about how God's word describes Him has been smeared over with confusing doctrine. Traditional Christians say the wide road leads to everlasting death which is consciousness in fire somewhere.
God determines what is good and what is evil. Satan's original sin was to do evil just to see if it was good instead of trusting God. The sin of the partaking of the fruit of knowledge, in Eden, was the same sin. Where are we today? We are still deciding good and evil for ourselves and the devil is ruling this world. We call ourselves Christians but do we really know Christ?
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Did Jaeden get struck down by a thunderbolt? Just asking because he never replied after his first post.
God is good, then there are our questions is how I see it.
God is good, then there are our questions is how I see it.
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We call ourselves Christians but do we really know Christ?
To answer that question: let's look at Jesus and why He came to earth. 1 John 3:8 "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil."
He came to destroy the works of the devil (introducing evil as good). Isaiah 5:20 "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
Are the works of the devil destroyed as of today? No, Satan still runs things down here. But the real gospel pertains to Christ coming to bind Satan and show us proper government. So, wide is the road that leads to the first death which we all have to partake of. I believe that after the millennium the Judgment will have the wide road to life but some love evil so much, they still won't choose it.
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"Many people have more respect for movie star than they do for God. If George Clooney says something, it must be true. Utter garbage."
Honestly, I would believe something more if it came from George Clooney rather than God. Clooney is a real, physical person who has an audible voice. God is a "person" who can very easily just be my mind fooling with me (or the "devil").
"If George Clooney says something, it must be true. Utter garbage."
If God says something, it must be true. Utter garbage too. People have been saying that God has been saying things to them for centuries. Look where that has taken us. A lot of confusion and turmoil found in so-called "Christian politics," personal struggles, and etc has been caused by someone thinking "I think God spoke to me. It must be true!"
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