TizzytheTormentor:
Also, he flooded the planet, killing people in a horrific, gruesome manner to kill the nefulum (not sure about spelling) who weren't doing bad shit anyway.

The Nephilim had literally nothing to do with the flood. Try reading the Bible sometime if you're so eager to comment on it.

Moth_Monk:
This is directed at Christians mainly :)

Okay so let's assume that the Bible, in general (the argument is not affected by what type of Christian you are e.g. Catholic, Protestant etc.), is correct in what it claims about reality. As you are going to see, even if this was true, it STILL would not be desirable to worship/serve God.

Here's why:

1) The Bible says that God created the possibility for moral evil to happen. The evidence for this is right at the start of the Bible;

Genesis 2:9:
In the fertile land, the Lord God grew every beautiful tree with edible fruit, and also he grew the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Source - http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%202&version=CEB

The scripture says that God planted the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" this means that God has the knowledge of evil and was able to bring evil into the world - and he did. In planting the tree it allowed for the possibility that humans would learn how to be evil and would be able to be evil.
Now even if you don't take Genesis literally i.e. you think that it is metaphorical, the metaphor still indicates that God, in some form, made it possible for humans to be evil.

So far so good?

2) Satan the Devil is in principle similar to God in the same way. At different points in the Bible the Devil intentionally creates situations in which it is possible for a person to be evil. For example, Satan tries to tempt Job and later Jesus to do something which is supposed to be immoral. At NO point in the Bible does Satan force someone to be evil or punish someone for being good, in fact after tempting Jesus, Satan just leaves!

3) So far we have established that, for this particular point on creating situations where it is possible for people to be evil, God and Satan are equal however this is not the case since God intends to punish Satan for creating such situations for people.

Revelation 20:10":
Then the devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet also were. There painful suffering will be inflicted upon them day and night, forever and always.

Source: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation%2020&version=CEB

This is hypocritical of God since it means that God thinks that he should not be accountable for creating situations where it is possible for someone to be evil and yet thinks that it is MORALLY WRONG for Satan to do the EXACT SAME THING.

Conclusion: God must therefore be more morally corrupt than Satan.

Captcha: shaken not stirred XD LOL indeed!

You could argue that you believe that Satan is not real and is just metaphorical but this does not excuse God thinking he should be exempt from punishment for creating evil.

Thoughts?

In the very verse you quoted you undid your argument. It said the devil who had deceived them. How did God deceive them? He didn't condemn satan for creating a situation he condemned him for trying to make people sin.

Also tons of people say that God putting the tree in the garden of eden makes him evil. He said very clearly after providing them with the garden of eden do not eat this or you will die. If he says don't do x or y happens, and you do x and y happens how can you be upset with him? if I said don't shoot someone, and you shoot someone how am I evil?

Most of you would say that your free will is one of the most important things in the world to you if not the most. So God gave us free will without it there would have been no point in all this. He created us for love, and we can probably agree that a robot can't love you.

We had to have a chance to fail other wise there is no victory.
How wonderful would it feel for him for us to love him of our own free will.
How sad it must feel for him when we reject his work.

The escapists are pretty hardset in their opinion though. I can't force them, the ache for light has to come from them. From you.

Did someone say context?

Also, sillytori-kun, of course stories are proof of a character's existence! But, only proof of existence in the reader's and author's minds. ;)

This whole argument is silly, Satan never actually shows up in the bible, he was invented around the 3rd century based on a fallen Babylonian king that was mentioned in the bible. In fact, most likely Satan is an adjective, not a noun. That aside, in all religions, gods usually do some pretty fucked up shit, this is not unknown by any means.

Apparently God also really hates gay people, if the church is to be believed.

But I think I'm gonna let the guys at Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal take this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1tg46ScP8w

In what context could these lines ever be considered benign? The only possible context, frankly, is that of: "It was a barbaric time and it was written by barbaric people and we should ignore it."

the way ive always looked at it is you have a giant pissing match over humans. one side says when tempted humans will do what we see every day that they are selfish and self absorbed only thiking of them selves the give them enough rope argument and the other side says no humans are fundementally selfless. they will take the good path

The edition of the Bible I was just reading in Church was full of shockers. I was reading Job and it begins with passages such as, (paraphrasing) G-d to Satan: "what you been up to?" Isn't he supposed to know? Then they want to mess with Job to see how he takes it. Again, isn't he supposed to know already?

My own thought on G-d differ from most traditional teaching, but this was the traditional teaching: the Bible itself.

G-d didn't seem more evil than Satan in this book, but he did seem kind of oblivious in this particular interpretation. Odd.

Whenever someone gets riled up about God and how kind and benevolent he is, I redirect to the book of Job. Seriously, God fucks up a hard-working man's life over a bet with the Devil to see if Job would still worship God even if things went to hell for him. God destroys Jobs life, kills his family, and hounds him to the point of Job being blind, sick and homeless on the streets. And because Job still believes in God, God wins his argument and gives Job a new set of wives and stuff.

Seriously, we're supposed to worship and love someone like that? Count me out.

Cakes:

TizzytheTormentor:
Also, he flooded the planet, killing people in a horrific, gruesome manner to kill the nefulum (not sure about spelling) who weren't doing bad shit anyway.

The Nephilim had literally nothing to do with the flood. Try reading the Bible sometime if you're so eager to comment on it.

They're mentioned in Genesis 6, and while it's true that there's no mention of them beyond that they were living with men, it does beg the question of why they're even mentioned in the first place.

Katatori-kun:

drmigit2:
This whole argument is silly, Satan never actually shows up in the bible, he was invented around the 3rd century based on a fallen Babylonian king that was mentioned in the bible. In fact, most likely Satan is an adjective, not a noun. That aside, in all religions, gods usually do some pretty fucked up shit, this is not unknown by any means.

Not really true.

Ha-Satan appears in Job, behaving in a character completely differently from how he is portrayed by Christians. Here The Accuser is fully subservient to God, effectively he is God's prosecuting attorney. His purpose is to test Job's faith.

And this shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has sincerely studied the Bible through commentaries and in-context analysis. Just as the Hebrew (and later Christian) understanding of God evolved from a single War god out of a pantheon of many to the highest god out in a world of other gods to the only God in existence (who retained his war god roots through his vengeance and anger) to a 100% benevolent God who sent His only Son to teach humans how to turn the other cheek, so too did the Hebrews' (and later Christians') understanding of Satan evolve.

I may have this wrong, but isn't it held that Job is much older than the rest of the books that precede it in the OT canon? The reason why God/Satan appear so "out of character" in Job all of a sudden is because they're aren't placed in chronological order and they believed in a different dynamic when it was written.

I think it's important to look at the whole deal from a historic point of view.
The old testament consists of tales passed down through the generations in a nomadic tribe. A nomadic tribe which most likely used to worship several gods. These stories were created with the purpose of explaining the greatness of the god that they after a while started worshipping exclusively, and who most likely initially was a god of war.

If you look at the stories in the old testament as stories of the greatness of a war god, they all make sense. The stories are there to make the point that he is powerful and merciless, but with a preference towards this particular nomadic people.

In early Jewish tradition, Yahweh appears more like a ritualistic god; one that you make deals with. You bind him to your will by performing the necessary actions and acting a certain way. If you do, he will have to do you well.

The notion of this whole all caring, kind, benevolent, unconditionally loving father figure is a fairly new one, and with Yahweh having morphed into this form he is so far removed from his original roots that the old testament really is completely useless theologically speaking.

It's an interesting historical document, but the dogma presented within really has very little to do with the modern versions of christianity and judaism.
Sure, some of the rules have carried over; the modern religions are of course influenced by the stuff they grew from, but most of it really takes a back seat to the whole "love" message of Jesus and all.

Personally, I find the god of the old testament far more "worshippable" than the modern idea of this god that incorporates stuff from both testaments.
The old one is powerful and is willing to reward or punish me for my actions, and his mannerisms don't contradict themselves.

Zekksta:
I think it's a bit weak.

God actively told people not to fucking touch the tree.
Satan tries to get people to willingly commit evil acts through temptation.

You could argue that saying *don't touch it* is temptation, but it's not encouraging temptation or anything, it's saying "don't fucking do it". The devil was tempting people and saying *do it* to the evil acts.

A father with two sons leaves a loaded gun in the living room and upon leaving the house tells them not to touch it. His younger son are tempted by the older one to pick it up, does so and BANG.

Who do you blame. The older brother or the father?

Flawed argument. God told Adam and Eve they had possession over EVERYTHING except the tree. A simple command. They followed this command WILLINGLY until the Devil in the form of a snake persuaded Eve to eat an apple from the tree. They had freewill from their conception to eat of the tree if they wanted to do so.

Your other point is the entire concept of good and evil. Personally, I believe that one cannot exist without the other. You can't say God is good without knowing what bad is. Adam and Eve before they ate of the tree, did not possess such knowledge, only knowing what God told him directly. They were never tempted to go against Him because they had no reason to.

I think the 'fruit' essentially symbolizes the first fall to temptation. After which, man started going against God's commands.

The one thing that makes me go "God was a douche" is the ten plagues. I mean, the version of Bible I read went like God telling Moses that he (God) would "harden the Pharaoh's heart so that he (the Pharaoh) would still refuse to let the People go free".

...what the hell? Is there a non-douchey reason for that, did something get lost in the translation? Why would God insist of going through all ten, and actually actively interfere with the Pharaoh to prevent him (Pharaoh) from actually releasing the Israeli before he (God) got a chance to murder all first-borns of Egypt?

So really, I don't see how I can be misenterpreting what I read unless what I read was an misinterpretation in the first place.

Rastelin:

Zekksta:
I think it's a bit weak.

God actively told people not to fucking touch the tree.
Satan tries to get people to willingly commit evil acts through temptation.

You could argue that saying *don't touch it* is temptation, but it's not encouraging temptation or anything, it's saying "don't fucking do it". The devil was tempting people and saying *do it* to the evil acts.

A father with two sons leaves a loaded gun in the living room and upon leaving the house tells them not to touch it. His younger son are tempted by the older one to pick it up, does so and BANG.

Who do you blame. The older brother or the father?

Depending on the age of the brothers, I blame all three.

This metaphor is still irrelevant to whether or not Gods actions could be considered "evil" though.

I've already said saying "don't do it" might be indirectly tempting them towards the apple, but it's still not directly tempting them "do it". I could say "don't break my Xbox today" to my friend as I left for work, it might indirectly tempt him to break my Xbox, but he'd still be the dick who broke my Xbox.

Rastelin:
... A father with two sons leaves a loaded gun in the living room and upon leaving the house tells them not to touch it. His younger son are tempted by the older one to pick it up, does so and BANG.

Who do you blame. The older brother or the father? ...

Not really valid: Adam and Eve were not children in terms of their mental processes, as the boys in your argument are, nor were they what we perceive to be a typical human until after they had consumed the apple. That's kind of the entire point of the story.

Neither Eve nor Adam were directly or indirectly tempted to eat the apple. Until the serpent came along and tricked Eve, they were content to simply follow God's instructions and live a peaceful existance. Temptation never entered into the equation.

Zeh Don:
Not really valid: Adam and Eve were not children in terms of their mental processes, as the boys in your argument are, nor were they what we perceive to be a typical human until after they had consumed the apple. That's kind of the entire point of the story.

Neither Eve nor Adam were directly or indirectly tempted to eat the apple. Until the serpent came along and tricked Eve, they were content to simply follow God's instructions and live a peaceful existance. Temptation never entered into the equation.

You missed the analogy. The younger son was Adam and Eve. The older son was Lucifer. Both children of god were they not?

And the bible speak to you as you are a ignorant, unworthy child and "need" god. You can hardly take a shit without him they expect people to believe. So I strongly disagree. The term born again Christian comes to mind. They do not want you to grow up.

God is more evil than Satan the Devil

Evil is relative. As I understand it, the Christian (and Jewish, and Islamic, they're the same God) god, isn't so much a "be nice" god as a "do as I say" god.

Now, Jesus, he's a bit different, he was a 'be nice' deity, who's name get's used an awful, awful lot for the purposes of not being nice.

*shrugs*, let the silly people believe in their silly god(s), everyone who pays attention knows that the Norse pantheon are the only true gods - after all, as the old saying goes:

'Jesus promised to rid the world of sin, Odin promised to rid the world of frost giants. I've not seen any frost giants around lately'.

On a more serious note though - what worries me about the whole Genesis storyline, and people who take it as gospel (see what I did there?) - They basically believe (and are okay with the fact) that Humanity is completely inbred.

I mean... Adam and Eve start the human race all by themselves. Who're their sons and daughters going to breed with?

I mean... Adam and Eve start the human race all by themselves. Who're their sons and daughters going to breed with?

Yeah...and? Have you -seen- Humanity, Stu? It's a wonder we manage to put our pants on in the morning.

id say its more evil if he doesnt give you the choice to eat fromt he tree or not.

besides... you never hear talk about all the other gods that killed people in their name (pretty much Everyone). I dont see why christianity is so terrible above the others. especially since no one is denying Old testament god is a dick.

The problem with "evil" is just how subjective it is. Here's the thing. God is supposed to be omniscient, all knowing, and created everything. Including evil. But... Why?

And for what matter, why does God not LIKE evil? WHY does he label things as evil? He's omniscient and all powerful, nothing should be able to affect him in any way whatsoever, so why does he call things evil? For that matter, if he doesn't like it, why does it exist? No seriously, why does it exist? WHY is it evil? WHY does he care? It doesn't affect him in any way! Does he think of some random thing, think "You know what, I don't like that" and then create it anyways?

Ablagh.

If the Christian god does exist, I wanna know what the heck is going through that mind of his.

I actually knew all of this. Satan played a very small role in the actual text, the fire and brimstone elements of Christianity, if not the entire concept that people still go to hell, is nothing more than a scare tactic invented during the crusades. Look this up, but i've heard some historical texts claim that Christians used to burn people alive to show them what "Hell was like" during early recruitment methods. Obviously, the people behind the book had some major issues.

Elcarsh:

IamSofaKingRaw:
Flawed argument. God told Adam and Eve they had possession over EVERYTHING except the tree. A simple command. They followed this command WILLINGLY until the Devil in the form of a snake persuaded Eve to eat an apple from the tree.

Again, the snake had nothing to do with the devil! The snake was just a blood talking snake! There is not indication whatsoever in the actual Bible that the snake had any connection to the entity that later came to be called satan (not that there ever was one single such entity. Basically everything you know about satan was made up afterwards).

Yes it did. Adam and Eve were incapable of overthinking commands given to them by God. An outside source would have had to convince them to do otherwise. The only 'beings' capable of such abstact thought were God Himself and the Devil (who was the first to disobey God in the first place).

Elcarsh:

IamSofaKingRaw:
Yes it did. Adam and Eve were incapable of overthinking commands given to them by God. An outside source would have had to convince them to do otherwise. The only 'beings' capable of such abstact thought were God Himself and the Devil (who was the first to disobey God in the first place).

You are making stuff up that isn't actually in the Bible. Not that that differs in any way from what various christian churches have been doing for the last 2000 years, but it doesn't really work as an argument.

Heck, what you're saying is far more in line with the Silmarillion than the Bible.

I don't read and interpret every sentence in the bible literally.

PlatonicRapist:

Zekksta:
I think it's a bit weak.

God actively told people not to fucking touch the tree.
Satan tries to get people to willingly commit evil acts through temptation.

You could argue that saying *don't touch it* is temptation, but it's not encouraging temptation or anything, it's saying "don't fucking do it". The devil was tempting people and saying *do it* to the evil acts.

But hang on, Adam and Eve didn't know the difference between good and evil. If you give an order to people who don't know right from wrong, and you know that they're stupid, and they do the wrong thing, who is to blame ?

Consider the following scenario...

Parent leaves retarded children with a babysitter they know is a completely untrustworthy drug dealer. For a laugh the drug dealer gets the kids stoned, even though the parent told the kids not to take drugs. Who is to blame here ? The drug dealer ? Certainly. The parent ? Yes, them too, they took a stupid risk with their kids. The retarded children ? No, they have no knowledge of good or evil.

God knows everything, god bestows the gift of prophecy and can therefore see what is going to happen next. God has no excuses whatsoever.

He told them you will surely die. We could also safely say they understood the concept of death. Besides God gave us something every single person alive including atheists really really appreciate, Choice.

Mr.logic:

PlatonicRapist:

Zekksta:
I think it's a bit weak.

God actively told people not to fucking touch the tree.
Satan tries to get people to willingly commit evil acts through temptation.

You could argue that saying *don't touch it* is temptation, but it's not encouraging temptation or anything, it's saying "don't fucking do it". The devil was tempting people and saying *do it* to the evil acts.

But hang on, Adam and Eve didn't know the difference between good and evil. If you give an order to people who don't know right from wrong, and you know that they're stupid, and they do the wrong thing, who is to blame ?

Consider the following scenario...

Parent leaves retarded children with a babysitter they know is a completely untrustworthy drug dealer. For a laugh the drug dealer gets the kids stoned, even though the parent told the kids not to take drugs. Who is to blame here ? The drug dealer ? Certainly. The parent ? Yes, them too, they took a stupid risk with their kids. The retarded children ? No, they have no knowledge of good or evil.

God knows everything, god bestows the gift of prophecy and can therefore see what is going to happen next. God has no excuses whatsoever.

He told them you will surely die. We could also safely say they understood the concept of death. Besides God gave us something every single person alive including atheists really really appreciate, Choice.

.
God gives and god takes, so is the infamous Jewish saying to mourning mothers - Free Will is an illusion. When god wants, he takes it away from you at his whim.