Fools call me a God hater!

servant_wayne · Posted: Fri May 09, 2003 7:03 pm Post subject: Fools call me a God hater!

Fools call me a God hater, not because I say hateful things about God, but because I question the validity of Biblical claims that say God commanded the butchery of men, women and children; that God endorsed the enslavement of the conquered; that God ordered the robbery of the treasuries of others and the theft of their lands. After all, with a god like that who needs a devil to blame?

Throughout history man's belief that there is a God has been universal, yet the fruit of what they have believed of God has been responsible for the persecution and slaughtering of one another in the name of God. Thus, in the end it matters little that men believe that there is a God, for what matters is what do they believe of God? For it is what one believes of God that determines what they shall sow, be it good or evil.

Although man's knowledge of God is an ever-evolving knowledge, the ways of God are fixed. His ways are perfect, and being perfect in His ways, His ways do not change. Yet the Bible portrays a deity who is an evolving deity, one of circumstances whose morality changes with the times.

Prophet: One who interprets the things of God

If one is said to be a prophet of God and evil is done as a result of what he has said is inspired of God, it is then self-evident that what he has said is not inspired of God, but of his own self. God inspires no evil. And evil cannot be the results of what is inspired of God. Whatsoever is inspired of God sows only good. Neither the New Testament nor the Old Testament can be truthfully said to be the inerrant word of God, for both Testaments have been used to justify evil in God's name. Common sense should tell one that God weighs and measures His words more carefully than a man; and thus, the words that He would inspire one to say could not be used for evil, for God would know the effect of His own words upon one generation to another.

I think any good and reasonable person would agree that butchering people is evil. Yet this evil is done in God's name throughout the Bible, and the irony is that many of these very same people unquestioningly believe that God commanded men to do that very evil. Having put all common sense aside they do not realize that if God had wanted the end of a people He would not need men to do the dirty work.

In my writings I often refer to 1 Samuel 15:2-3 as an example of what is perversely said of God. It is by no means the only vile thing the Bible claims of God, nor is it the vilest; but it serves my purpose. Any man who claims that God has personally told him that 1 Samuel 15:2-3 speaks truthfully of God is a liar! And anyone claiming to love one who would command such things is either a liar or is depraved himself.

Dung is dung regardless of where it is found; those who claim to be called of God yet preach that God commanded things such as 1 Samuel 15:2-3 are the self-called. They hinder the truth of God because of their vanity by foolishly thinking that if God had any new thing to say on this matter surely God would have told them first! Many of them know that it was not God who told them to feed the sheep, but would rather continue preaching such things than to have to admit that they have falsely claimed to be called of God.

I have found that the more religious one is the less likely they are to listen to sound reason, or to think logically in matters concerning their religion. Yet maybe through embarrassment or shame they'll be forced to honestly confront what 1 Samuel 15:2-3 is saying of God. For I am convinced that no child of God can truthfully claim to love that perverse one of 1 Samuel 15:2-3, nor can they truthfully claim that God Himself has personally affirmed to them that the things of 1 Samuel 15:2-3 were commanded by Him. The only truthful thing that they can say on this matter is that they have believed it because they are afraid not to, which is the bondage that I preach against.

Know this: It is through false claims made against the goodness of God that others have and are encouraged to justify their own evil in God's name. For those that will willingly believe that God commanded the Hitlerian-like atrocities in 1 Samuel 15:2-3 would do evil themselves.

1 SAMUEL 15:2-3 Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. (3) Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, CHILD AND INFANT, ox and sheep, camels and donkey, and stomp on the ants!

How can any sane person not see the utter depravity of saying God commanded the slaughter of men and women, which of itself is evil enough, but that He even commanded the slaughter of their children? What can be said of the mentality and spirituality of those who will say that mocking 1 Samuel 15:2-3 with my ants is a sin, yet consider it to be righteous of them to believe that God commanded the slaughter of children? What I have mocked and will mock throughout my writings has cried out for generation after generation to be mocked! For who but a fool or a servant of Satan would say that God commanded the butchery of defenseless defeated men, women and children.

How does it serve God that men are taught to think that faith in God requires belief in the unbelievable? One's faith should be in God alone, rather than in what men have said of God. Faith in God does not require one to crucify their mind and deny what is before their very eyes. God is not the God of primitive mumbo jumbo, but of logic and reality. Any belief of God that must be upheld with demands and threats is unbelievable to begin with. And any religion that demands that one cast aside sound thinking in order to believe what they would otherwise consider to be ridiculous is not of God.

Although I am a former Bible-thumping Fundamentalist, I still have more respect for their view of the Bible than those who try and pretend it doesn't really mean what it is says. If one can't be truthful with the obvious they can't be trusted period!

The Bible says what is means and means what it says. In an age of superstition and ignorance what the Bible claims was taught and accepted as fact, not as allegory or metaphors. It is only due to embarrassment that in these latter times that the self-called try and rationalize irrational Biblical claims by calling them allegories or metaphors.

A servant of God will neither pander to those that have itching ears, nor play paddy-cakes with the faint hearted, but will call a spade a spade, and let the chips fall where they may. For those of you who have read my message shall no longer be able to stand before God and claim that no one has ever told you that God is not that wrathful one of bloody sacrifices; that one of primitive minds who is said to have commanded the butchery of children, that perverse one of 1 Samuel 15:2-3, that inspirer of things like 9/11.

Harrington Sites - Revealing the Spiritual duality of the Bible.

http://members.cox.net/galatians/

Eugene Shubert · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2003 8:50 am Post subject: The problem of evil

You have posed a popular puzzle.

“Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane — like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell — mouths mercy and invented hell — mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!” — Mark Twain, Mysterious Stranger

Eugene Shubert · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2003 2:21 pm Post subject: Answers to the problem of evil

What is a righteous God supposed to do with the sinful progeny of beings who chose to sin? I say, try to save as many as possible. If the power of Satan is so great that many must be lost so that a few may be saved then let us accept what must be with humility and faith.

God could have easily sterilized Adam and Eve, to prevent their explosive contagion from becoming epidemic. But God had a bigger problem. How could He eradicate sin permanently and restore perfect peace to His universe?

Consider God’s predicament.

If God had annihilated Adam and Eve for the sin of eating forbidden fruit (i.e., a very small sin) then doubts about God’s goodness would have plagued the universe. There would be at least a few loyal angels that would tend to worship and serve God from fear and not love. But then again, if God pardoned Adam and Eve’s sin without an atonement, it would mean that the violation of His law was no evil, seeing that sin could easily be passed over. If sin could be forgiven easily, what would prevent sin from becoming immortalized and perpetuated with boldness, without restraint? If God provided an incremental atonement for the sins of His creatures, how could sin be perceived correctly in all its hideous deformity and be accurately viewed for what it is? Why would sin ever end? Consequently, any initial sin, however small, would require opening the floodgates of evil and accomplishing one colossal atonement.

God has been maligned. His testimony and character has been questioned, His sovereignty, challenged. Can you even fathom the subtle arguments that the most brilliant of all created beings introduced in the heavenly courts to undermine God’s trustworthiness and authority? God has allowed a heart-rending cascade of evil to flourish as a demonstration to the whole universe of the horrible consequences of sin. God has been vindicated. The penalty of disobedience is seen to be just and fair. The end of all things is surely near.

It’s easy to believe that God can see the glory of the coming restoration as eclipsing the tragedy of the fall. And it’s not as if God Himself didn’t suffer in human history. God revealed His unselfish love in the atonement. Jesus died for me.

slaveofOne · scholar Joined: 23 Mar 2003 Posts: 6 Location: L.A.

What, servant_wayne, is your Epistemological basis?

You say God is good…and yet how do you know God is good?

You say one thing is good and one thing is evil…but how do you know that the definitions you give are correct?

I hear a lot of your opinion and I see no rationale to back any of it up, and yet in the same breath you accuse those who think differently of being irrational. Isn’t this irrational?

Several times you show what your Epistemological basis is. You appeal to the common sense and reason of man. You say

“Common sense should tell one”

and

“I think any good and reasonable person would agree”

and

“How can any sane person not see”

I can go on…

The point is: you are defining what is good and what is evil, what is sane and what is not sane, by yourself – by your reason, by your understanding, by your common sense, by what is self-evident to you, by your sanity.

This is exactly what Hitler did….Hitler thought it common sense and self-evident that the Jews should be killed. And yet you are furious at Hitler for killing people? This is irrational.

But, of course, Hitler was wrong wasn’t he? At least that’s what you would claim. You would claim Hilter was wrong and he wasn’t seeing things properly—he was self-deceived. He wasn’t sane. And how, then, do you know this? Because you aren’t self-deceived? Because you are sane? Because your reason and common sense are higher or greater than Hitlers? This is exactly what Hilter thought about you and why—and you call him irrational…thus, by rational definition and reason, you call yourself irrational.

Get a rational epistemology and you can start talking reason and common sense, or keep believing that others are self-deceived and be happy in your own deception.