• You are currently viewing our forum as a guest, which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community, you will have access to additional post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), view blogs, respond to polls, upload content, and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free, so please join our community today! Just click here to register. You should turn your Ad Blocker off for this site or certain features may not work properly. If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us by clicking here.

Is God Evil?

Barmaley

New member
Joined
Jul 3, 2010
Messages
6
I was challenged to a formal debate by a conservative. The topic is:

Is the God as described in the Bible moral according to any reasonable standards of morality?

Our side is the negative - That the biblical God is amongst the more despicable of all fictional characters ever written about.


I am working on the draft of my opening statement. These are some bullet points.

Christians do have a few gems in the otherwise bleak seas of their holy book, and one of them gets paraphrased as "You can judge a tree by it's fruit." We use this very often to condemn people who claim they are great, for instance the fruit of the 'Glorious leader' of North Korea falls short of any glory.


Likewise, one must do so for the God as described in the bible. To examine Gods true character, we must look at 3 aspects of his actions: His worst deeds, his greatest deeds, and the relative frequency with which he partakes in the said deeds.


To kick start this discussion, I will begin by diving into the evil actions of God. Now, we all know that God either personally kills or has his chosen people kill multitudes in the bible, ranging from evildoers (list reference), to mocking kids (list reference), to innocent babies (list reference), however today I would like to look at what I feel is among the most despicable acts. Specifically I am referring to Numbers 31. I listed only the chapter and not the verses for a reason: to truly see how horrid an act this is, one must read the full chapter for context.


In this verse chapter, Moses, under the command of God, leads his people to destroy the medianites, and it lists the evil deeds that these medianites do. First, they engage in armed combat with the men of the other tribe. Fair enough so far, it's not the 'turn the other cheek' mentality most Christians embrace as being the will of God, but I can understand fair combat. Moses's men beat their opponents and collect all the prisoners of war, namely the women and children.


So, what commands do they get for the women and children? Do they send them packing? Jail them with Geneva like conventions? Provide them with proper food and medical attention, and educate them about a better life and invite them to join in a grand utopia headed by God? No, they decide to slaughter them. Kill every single prisoner in cold blood, from the grieving mother to the innocent child. All of them, except for the young virgin girls. No, these young virgin girls have a life of being raped by their captors ahead of them. And I am not talking about a dozen of them, no it actually gives us a number for how many of these young virgin girls are to be given to the brutal men who just took their baby brothers and killed them in front of their eyes: 32,000!


God does however give one condition about these rape victims: Some of them must be given to his holy elect, and not just to the war heroes.


I don't know about you, but killing thousands of children in a genocidal slaughter, and raping thousands of young girls seems like something that can only come from horrendous dictator, far short of any ethical beacon. How could you call got moral when he engages in an act we consider to be upong the worst possible one, one that makes Suddam Hussain look like a saint?
Any criticism?
 

swordpath

New member
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
Messages
10,547
MBTI Type
ISTx
Enneagram
5w6
I'd like to think that if the God of the Bible exists, he is not an evil force; however, I've been unable to reconcile with that notion.
 

Pixelholic

New member
Joined
Jun 20, 2010
Messages
550
MBTI Type
ENFP
Enneagram
8w7
I think you'd do good to point out that the golden rule is not Christian specific. As they'll most likely use that to prove that Yahweh is not evil. The golden rule isn't specific to Christianity and without that the Christian god doesn't have much to stand on morally.

Another fun thing to do is make a chart showing the number of people Satan kills in the Bible and the number that Yahweh kills.

Everything you reference that is immoral in the bible they will have some kind of apologist rebuttal as to why it is actually a good thing. Nine times out of ten this will be some kind of logical fallacy (no true scotsman and appeal to authority are fun ones) so be ready for that.

Otherwise it looks good.
 

ragashree

Reason vs Being
Joined
Nov 3, 2008
Messages
1,770
MBTI Type
Mine
Enneagram
1w9
I was challenged to a formal debate by a conservative. The topic is:

Is the God as described in the Bible moral according to any reasonable standards of morality?

Our side is the negative - That the biblical God is amongst the more despicable of all fictional characters ever written about.


I am working on the draft of my opening statement. These are some bullet points.


Any criticism?

Several occur off the top of my head, but first I want to ask this: This is your first post on the forum, so I don't have any prior experience to go on regarding your likely intent. However, it does appear from what I'm reading that you're posting in order to get feedback that will facilitate a debate elsewhere, not to hold one on THIS forum. Would you be able to clarify this?
 

reason

New member
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,209
MBTI Type
ESFJ
It seems clear that God, as described some parts of The Bible, is responsible for heinous acts. Anyone who attempts to defend such actions by contemporary moral standards is inviting ridicule, so a more sensible response would be to challenge the accuracy of the description.

The Old Testament was the product of a primitive people--the God described by modern Christianity would have been an absurd, almost incomprehensible muddle to them. Thus, the acts and directions of God were simply misinterpreted. People knew gods to be petty, vengeful, and capricious, and falsely imputed such motives, desires and characteristics to their God when describing His acts (or other events which weren't actually God at all).

(Afterall, why would God have such people write a text that would only make sense to people living 2000+ years in the future?)

The apparently evil God described in the Old Testament merely reflects the ignorance of its authors, who only dimly perceived God's true nature from their primitive, polytheistic understanding of the world. The seemingly contradictory nature of God is reconciled as a productive of mankind's gradual discovery of who God really is, and The Bible records some of this progress.

Just a thought.
 

Barmaley

New member
Joined
Jul 3, 2010
Messages
6
Several occur off the top of my head, but first I want to ask this: This is your first post on the forum, so I don't have any prior experience to go on regarding your likely intent. However, it does appear from what I'm reading that you're posting in order to get feedback that will facilitate a debate elsewhere, not to hold one on THIS forum. Would you be able to clarify this?

Yes, you summed it up about right. I am having a formal debate on another forum and I am going around too see what other people think. I am moreso asking the question so I can see how people would answer it so I can get a feel for how my opponent will respond.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
I would have to answer emphatically no, he's not evil.

To play devil's advocate, and in this instance I think its quite apt and possibly literally the case (I'm even interested that this is posed in a class at all), I would suggest that instead of engaging in what appears to be fairly derisory descriptive remarks, such as describing God as "fictional", or selective citations from scripture I would examine what is meant by "reasonable standard" means and what "moral" means and then consider God "as described in the bible".

God could be moral by a reasonable standard but not ethical, if you make the distinction between morals, governing the self, and ethics, actions towards or involving others, there is not a consistant description of God in the bible text, not surprising given the diversity of authors and books, but I suspect you could find some disparity between the devinated intentions of God in an ethical sense and his moral conduct, ie if God has provided ethical mandates for his clerics and people why does he not personally intervene to enforce these, which is basically the old "problem of evil" when there is an omniscent, all loving God.

To be honest there's going to be major differences depending upon whether you concentrate upon the old or new testament.
 

Moiety

New member
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
5,996
MBTI Type
ISFJ
I don't know how anyone can base their world views on conflicting texts written by numerous different individuals with their conflicting views of God and Jesus and whatever else.

If God exists he believes in free will. But back in the Old Testament he was testing all his rules.
 

Lark

Active member
Joined
Jun 21, 2009
Messages
29,569
I don't know how anyone can base their world views on conflicting texts written by numerous different individuals with their conflicting views of God and Jesus and whatever else.

If God exists he believes in free will. But back in the Old Testament he was testing all his rules.

Hmm, I dont believe in solo scripture so I dont have as great a problem with the first part of that as some Christians would, particularly literalists, although I would say that in addition to the bible there are other books which I consider are divinely inspired too, Dante's Divine Comedie, Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, works of Shakespeare, Faust by Goethe.

I also believe some of the explanations for apparent contradictions which where provided by Jung, Jung described how he believed that with each life and death God directly experienced his creation, most completely in the instance of Jesus but equally in terms of each and all of us, in the process God and man develop simultaneously insights into one another.

That's a pretty vulgarised version of what he was trying to describe I'm sure and Mystic Tater can dash in and correct me if he wishes to because he's bit more of an authority on Jung than I am.

This would account for the apparent changes spanning the bible, both in mans expectations and interpretation of the nature of God and also in his apparent intervention, non-intervention and incarnation and life and ministry, persecution, torture, murder and death as JC.

I personally see God as providing the law, it didnt work, he appeared in person, that didnt work either, I wouldnt blame him if he simply gave up on man and left the earth spinning in space to no purpose and no end but I believe instead he endures because abandoning something that's frustrating is human not divine behaviour, in each generation he tried to redeem the world, the tale of "one good man" and even Johnny Cash's songs on this note make a lot of sense.

Its not fuel for the negative argument but to be truthful an uncaring, unloving, complicit God wouldnt have experienced directly the shit that JC did through the incarnation, this humble, suffering, martyred God contrasts with other faiths I believe and as a result those other faiths strike me as more the projections and wishes of mankind. Human, all too human.
 

miss fortune

not to be trusted
Joined
Oct 4, 2007
Messages
20,589
Enneagram
827
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
as the type of kid who tended to like the villains when growing up, I found Sunday School class (mandatory thanks to my mommy!) to be delightfully interesting with all of the stories of smiting, plagues, raining of sulphur... I'm going to have to agree with Stewie Griffin on this... God comes across as pretty evil in the Bible :yes:

this probably is part of the reason I never really beleived in such things :laugh:
 

Stol11

New member
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
43
MBTI Type
ENTJ
I don't know how anyone can base their world views on conflicting texts written by numerous different individuals with their conflicting views of God and Jesus and whatever else.

If God exists he believes in free will. But back in the Old Testament he was testing all his rules.


The whole idea of free will is open to speculation. I mean if god is all knowing then surely he already knows what you are going to do hence you do not have free will as your entire life can be plotted and observed by god. if he is not all knowing then that means he is imperfect and therefore flawed going against most monotheistic concepts of a deity. (In Hellenic and ancient cultures the gods were all fundamentally flawed, which makes a lot more sense in my view)

The question of whether god is good or evil though. Firstly as it is most likely that he doesn’t exist that is an erroneous statement anyway. The only evidence however is from the bible and to me it shows a God that is a complete sociopath. No need to go into the details. Also it is clear that he is happy to allow suffering from non man made forces (if you don't believe this is the wages of sin) where is the free will argument for that? As i have already said he already knows about all the evil that is going to happen, so he is quite happy to sit and allow things like the holocaust to transpire, showing that his empathy is somewhat limited. In the bible he often intervenes, why not in modern times? Surely he wants to limit the total ration of suffering? He does often interfere with free will and did so regularly, often for trivial matters, why was there not an equivalent of Jonah or Paul in 1933, 39 or even 44? He/she/it can after all apparently do anything. Its almost as if the books in bible were elaborate fabrications written by men!
 

Amethyst

¡MI TORTA!
Joined
May 9, 2010
Messages
2,191
MBTI Type
ESTP
Enneagram
7w8
Instinctual Variant
so/sx
God seems more grandiose or has a severe case of BPD that he/she/it's not treating correctly more than evil.

Get ready, the drastic mood swing is coming soon!
 

Moiety

New member
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
5,996
MBTI Type
ISFJ
Hmm, I dont believe in solo scripture so I dont have as great a problem with the first part of that as some Christians would, particularly literalists, although I would say that in addition to the bible there are other books which I consider are divinely inspired too, Dante's Divine Comedie, Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, works of Shakespeare, Faust by Goethe.

I also believe some of the explanations for apparent contradictions which where provided by Jung, Jung described how he believed that with each life and death God directly experienced his creation, most completely in the instance of Jesus but equally in terms of each and all of us, in the process God and man develop simultaneously insights into one another.

That's a pretty vulgarised version of what he was trying to describe I'm sure and Mystic Tater can dash in and correct me if he wishes to because he's bit more of an authority on Jung than I am.

This would account for the apparent changes spanning the bible, both in mans expectations and interpretation of the nature of God and also in his apparent intervention, non-intervention and incarnation and life and ministry, persecution, torture, murder and death as JC.

I personally see God as providing the law, it didnt work, he appeared in person, that didnt work either, I wouldnt blame him if he simply gave up on man and left the earth spinning in space to no purpose and no end but I believe instead he endures because abandoning something that's frustrating is human not divine behaviour, in each generation he tried to redeem the world, the tale of "one good man" and even Johnny Cash's songs on this note make a lot of sense.

Its not fuel for the negative argument but to be truthful an uncaring, unloving, complicit God wouldnt have experienced directly the shit that JC did through the incarnation, this humble, suffering, martyred God contrasts with other faiths I believe and as a result those other faiths strike me as more the projections and wishes of mankind. Human, all too human.

I never battled or researched too in depth into religion because I believe in arriving to my own conclusions with lack of bias. I'm perfectly agnostic.

What you consider projections and wishes of mankind....I agree with you, but would still say the same thing about the Christian God.

I don't claim that if God exists, he is evil. I don't think he's good either though. Or if he is either of these things, he is them in relative isolation. Sounds like beating the dead horse...but he IS omnipotent, so if the point was to directly influence us...he could with but a thought.

I don't quite get what an omnipotent would want with an experiment like us though. He would have foreseen where we would arrive....he is all-knowing as well... Maybe he can switch those abilities off....but why would he? Out of boredom? Does God even feel though? And if he does does he suffer with our own pain via empathy? And if so why does he continue with the experiment?

EDIT: Stol11 Only read your post after writing this one but I basically agree with you. Yeah...how can empathy, free will, intervention....all live together? And I share the cynicism of your last statement. That aren't always conscious fabrications though.

EDIT2: Just reread my post. My god...my english syntax is getting atrocious. I'm becoming dyslexic and lazy about it. Lazy enough to not correct my post even though I'm complaining about it :p
 

Stol11

New member
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
43
MBTI Type
ENTJ
hahaha point taken. I agree with you entirely of course. I do not believe the many authors were part of some sort of literary conspiracy; it’s just unfortunate that modern historical scholarship was not around then. I would be more inclined to believe the bible as a historical text if it was properly referenced with footnotes and citations!
 

Eric B

ⒺⓉⒷ
Joined
Mar 29, 2008
Messages
3,621
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
548
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
In the Old Testament, God was demonstrating the Law, where man fell short, and received the punishment, and He was working through one nation, to whom the Law and the temple system were committed, but even they ultimately failed in that.

So in the New Testament, after the lesson of the Law was written in history, God then reveals grace.

Also, the capture of women in conquered people were not "rapes" like in modern war, but rather common arranged marriage. Back in those centuries, women usually were "taken" in marriage ("given" by the father or tribe) anyway.
 

foolish heart

New member
Joined
Dec 26, 2008
Messages
470
MBTI Type
ISTP
You can't analyze the behavior of omnipotent God through the human viewpoint, because you could not understand who He is with such a limited understanding.

23"(AH)Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked," declares the Lord GOD, "rather than that he should (AI)turn from his ways and live?
24"But when a righteous man (AJ)turns away from his righteousness, commits iniquity and does according to all the abominations that a wicked man does, will he live? (AK)All his righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered for his (AL)treachery which he has committed and his sin which he has committed; for them he will die.
25"Yet you say, '(AM)The way of the Lord is not right ' Hear now, O house of Israel! Is (AN)My way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right? (Ezekial 18:23-25 - before Christ)

8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.

9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)


If you want to do that and see what God "is" in human terms, you have to look at the life of Jesus... there was no evil in him whatsoever.

8Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."
9Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. (John 15:8-11)



To interpret... God is eternally just and fair. This quality remained unchanged both before and after Jesus, except that afterwards God's law had been fulfilled and all of humankind was justified by their faith in Jesus' saving action.

Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30)
 

onemoretime

Dreaming the life
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Messages
4,455
MBTI Type
3h50
If setting humanity up to fail isn't evil, it's at the very least a dick move.
 
Top