Did God create good and evil?

by THE SHOOTIST 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Deputy Dog
    Deputy Dog

    CD

    The problem isn't that God created evil, and I agree that he did. It seems to me that you are beginning to understand total depravity! We want to judge God because we are evil. How many of us as children have said to our parents "I hate you for forcing me to obey!". Then as adults we go our own way. This is "human nature".

    We judge God, so we can feel justified in our own minds in hating Him. We really have no way of knowing what it's like, ruling the universe or creation, so why should we try to judge God?

    I'm with you Shootist, if we were to take the bible as the supposed word of God, then we'd be putting our faith in a god who, if he were a parent, would be universally denounced as unfit.

    The bible agrees with you to a point, God is universally denounced. (I'm not talking about WT/ JW god, the witnesses really hate the true God, He sends people to hell)

    Rom 3:10

    As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13 Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17 And the way of peace have they not known: 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes. 19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

    D Dog

  • PoppyR
    PoppyR

    Now I'm finally free I can actually acknowledge the question that had always plagued me.. why did god create the earth knowing what we were going to do? The dub explanation that he CHOSE not to know is utter crap. he could not choose not to know, I cannot choose not to know things, I either know them or I dont.

    Also that Adam, eve and zillions of angels all perfect were tempted.. what does this say about the perfect human? That they are much like the imperfect one! They want more, and they want what they cant have! They were clearly flawed from the very beginning, if god wanted robots then he should have made them.

    Poppy

  • hamsterbait
    hamsterbait

    Evil is something only an intelligent being can do.

    God created intelligent beings.

    These beings were created and declared very good by God. He created them with the ability to carry out evil intentions if they chose.

    According to WT wolves were created to eat grass. Yet in a very few years of that flood thingie, they had developed highly structured hunting repertoires. So I can only conclude God put the potoential to rip Bambi to shreds inside them.

    God forbid that evolution would do this in just a few hundred years.

    If God were answerable to modern health and safety laws, he would have to pay hefty fines for negligence, and now be serving a LONG prison sentence.

    HB

  • Cognitive_Dissident
    Cognitive_Dissident

    D Dog

    We judge God, so we can feel justified in our own minds in hating Him. We really have no way of knowing what it's like, ruling the universe or creation, so why should we try to judge God?

    Deputy, I'm not judging God any more than I would judge a character in a movie for acts perpetrated by its writer. I'm not judging God at all. In my opinion, God is a construct which gets anthropomorphized by individuals to serve or salve emotion, and to anaesthetize reality.

    But that obviously is my completely unprovable opinion. For all I know the bible actually is the inspired word of God, and I am one of history's current graduates from the School of Romans 3:10-19. Me and all my fellow alumni will surely catch an express lift south, right in to the middle of an Hieronymus Bosch painting, should God ever decide to show up and punish us for our agnostic and atheistic hubris.

    I'm not really sweating it.

    CD (of the "If Hell is God's Penalty Box Then That Post Will Surely Put Me There" class)

  • Deputy Dog
    Deputy Dog

    CD

    Deputy, I'm not judging God any more than I would judge a character in a movie for acts perpetrated by its writer. I'm not judging God at all. In my opinion, God is a construct which gets anthropomorphized by individuals to serve or salve emotion, and to anaesthetize reality.

    I'll give you credit for living up to your name Cognitive Dissident. I won't deny that Christ allows me to make sense out of things. How do you deal with or "anaesthetize" evil, pain or "reality"?

    D Dog

  • LittleToe
    LittleToe

    DDog:There ya go again with that Hyper-Calvinist twaddle

    Shootist:Did God create evil? I don't believe so.

    I think that Adam was imbued with the qualities of God including creatorship. Adam was the author of evil, and by implication that turned Satan into a liar by virtue of the implications of his conversation, and caused him to be ousted from the penthouse down to a basement flat beside the boilerhouse - not a wonder he's p*ssed with mankind!

    Why do I lay the blame on Adam? Because I think he created the first human law, regarding "touching" the fruit, which was forbidden. Adam became the first Pharisee, putting a hedge up around the single command of God, and once Eve had transgresssed it she tipped head-long into taking it all.

    I've recently been considering what the two trees represent. The tree of life I think ultimately represents Christ. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad I think is "Law", which makes the distinction between those opposites. This would dovetail with many of Paul's later comments on Law making sin manifest, Judging others, etc.

    Whether you take the story as being a literal Adam living 6000 years ago, or a myth to explain the origins of man, it still works.

  • tetrapod.sapien
    tetrapod.sapien

    yo LT,

    here we go again, blaming the little crappy humans for all the evil....

    ...er, actually, yes, this works according to my worldview too. lol

    TS

  • LittleToe
    LittleToe

    It can work for the Atheist, Theist, and Deist, alike

    Merry Christmas to ya - have a great weekend

  • Deputy Dog
    Deputy Dog

    LT

    You don't have attach Calvin to any of that. Just going with the flow of scripture

    D Dog

  • Deputy Dog
    Deputy Dog

    LT
    I think that Adam was imbued with the qualities of God including creatorship

    You turning word faith on us? Seems to throw God's sovereignty right out the window.

    Maybe the dub Jesus could have been a junior partner in creation?
    D Dog

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