Why Is God Always Innocent?

[josephdc]

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there is no free will if to exercise it in certain ways produces punishment. that makes a mockery of free will and renders it counterfeit.

You mean you don't believe in free will bro?

[josephdc]

deranged? malevolent?? how can you know which is which? who is who?
how sure are you them church heads are not deranged? malevolent?

does your GOD even speak to his churchhead?

bottom line is, you'll pull out the FAITH card.

how do you know you really dont.

Are you saying then bro that the leaders of the Church are deranged or malevolent?

[[PROTOTYPE]]

God cannot be proven either INNOCENT or GUILTY

why?

because GOD is responsible for everything. just don't think too much about the death of many people in Haiti and Chile. It happened to provide OPPORTUNITY for others to DO GOOD. why? because much of society is working for their own benefit rather than for others. the mere fact that many people are helping the oppressed means that there is INDEED a GOD who is willing to help the people for their own salvation. don't think too much about the dead... their souls are already prayed for.

[treize]

I dont know why God would allow these sufferings. If He created us, why do he wants us to suffer? We humans are his toys...

what makes you think that God wants us to suffer?

[josephdc]

there is a substantial amount of verses in the Bible that are similar to Greek mythology and are better viewed metaphorically. i don't have to feed the verses here because i don't cherry-pick the Bible; i view it in a generalized manner.

Oh, okay. So you mean that some of the events in the Bible ought to be understood metaphorically while others should be read literally? Do you think these include the events surrounding the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth? Do you think all of those events are best understood symbolically or literally?

again, what could be his motive other than testing Abraham's faith? i like what AmorsoloX said, if GOD was the all-knowing GOD he claims he is, why test other people's faith when he already knows what that person is thinking? wouldn't THAT contradict his all-knowing attribute? if that's the case, the question would then be, was he really testing Abraham's FAITH, or, was he really playing with Abraham/Isaac's emotions after all?

But wasn't that your claim? You said something to the effect that God was simply toying with Abraham's emotions. That's why I asked why you think so. It seems that now you're not quite sure whether He is really just toying with his emotions or He is testing his faith.

[josephdc]

well, Lazarus coming back from the dead is scientifically possible. it's a rare occurence called the Lazarus Syndrome.

Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for that bit of information.

I looked it up and it seems that it's not really similar to the account of Lazarus in the Gospel of John. In the gospel narrative, Lazarus has been dead for four days. Isn't that unlike the so-called Lazarus syndrome? Is it still possible in theory for a person to spontaneously resuscitate after several days given the factors that can contribute to a phenomenon like the Lazarus syndrome?

But Lazarus voluntarily waking up from a dead state as commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ is scientifically impossible.

So you're saying then that if the event did happen, it would've been literally a miracle? Are you saying then that miracles cannot happen?

but then again, FAITH dictates the divinity of Jesus. so we're gonna go in limbos here.

Why do you say that Jesus' divinity is dictated by faith?

[josephdc]

didnt joshua the successor of moses did just that in founding the state of israel...... they even had Gods guidance...

tell that to the jews of the old testament.... so the ancestors of christ were really wicked.. they burned down whole cities!

So you believe that account in the Bible, that God commanded Israel to commit atrocities?

[josephdc]

yeps, follow the blood trails from the Old to New Testament.

Can you expound on this bro?

[josephdc]

back to the thread's first question.

why is God always innocent?

maybe because we were conditioned to always think that God is always innocent and good.

why is the Devil bad?

for the same reason that we were conditioned to always think that the Devil is evil and that nothing good can come from him.

bottomline is, we are all SO conditioned by our religions that from God comes goodness and that from the Devil comes evilness.

but you know what, they're all just LABELS to me. all relative terms.

By that bro do you mean that good and evil are just relative terms and are not really objective?

So when things like tsunamis and earthquakes happen and people suffer, one can't really say it's evil because "evil" is just a label?

If that's the case, why do we assess whether God is innocent or not when "evil" is just a relative term, so that some people may see God as "guilty" while others may see Him as "innocent", but in the end no one is really right about his or her own judgment?

[josephdc]

in short, it's all brainwash. i know someone here will then ask: why do you consider it brainwash? because it IS brainwash. what else could it be? oh, it's for your own salvation. pfffttt...

Are you saying then bro that religious people are just "brainwashed" or that religion itself involves "brainwashing"? How do you know that?

It's just reasonable to ask these questions bro because when you make a claim, you shoulder the burden of proving your conclusion.