Posts by GWEEDO

63

Does Knowledge of Evil Condemn Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

ordinarily i would post this topic in the "bible research" forum, but i found the following on the "friends" forum, in the "tree of what" thread, so i will leave it here.. achristian explains,.

[when] free people have a knowledge of evil they always, at least briefly, consider doing evil.

and, even having evil thoughts for a brief fleeting moment makes people less righteous than god.

GWEEDO

Achristian

Let me ask you this. If a good God does exist, would you really believe He exists if you saw less evil in the world, if you saw people suffering less?

I dont really see the point of the question. What does it matter whether I believe he exists or not. God could easily prove his existence to me...all he has to do is walk into living room and show himself and I'll believe. Yet he refuses to do so.

Anyway...

The point is, God calls himself a God of love. How can anyone reconcile the suffering and pain we see around us with a God of Love?

As I see it, we have these options

God exists....hes Omnipotent but refuses to get rid of evil and suffering. He's really not loving at all therefore.

or

God exists...he is hardly what you'd call a God...he doesn't have the power to remove suffering even though he may wish to.

or

God just doesn't exist

or

There is some way of reconciling the Suffering in the world with a God of Love. In which case, do tell?

You say we are to learn a lesson from all the death and disease and evil around. What lessons? how? This is a pretty vague answer.

Suppose for arguments sake there are lessons to be learnt. I might have accepted this a few years ago. But surely God doesn't need to let suffering go to the extreme lengths we see in this world to teach these lessons. Surely these lessons, whatever they are, need not require the extreme amount of suffering we see around us. Surely God could do away with disease and earthquakes etc. Surely he can minimise the amount of suffering in the world and still teach us a lesson. He doesn't need to break the stick like he's doing...he only needs to bend it a little. I mean, to teach a kid not to go near a stove I only need to reason with him/her a little, and perhaps dish out a little punishment like a smack. I DONT need to belt the living crap out of the kid to within an inch of its life....thats not teaching a lesson, thats child abuse.

I see no need for for God to allow disease, genetic deformities...things like cerebral palsy, earth quakes. The rape, torture and murder of children. I see no reason why these are necessary. What lesson could possibly be learnt from them. Perhaps a little hardship is good for the soul...but certainly not the extreme hardship we see in this world that is utterly soul destroying for many people.

Also...

I certainly cant understand a God that seems to take an active involvment in evil. A God that says he will punish sons for the crimes of a father..for generation after generation. I cant understand why God punished 1000's of people for something King david did in taking a census, and then turns around and commands the following:

Deuteronomy 24
16 Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.

What reason is there for evil and suffering?

You admit you have no answer:

Of course, to us at this tiny moment in eternity, this process seems to be unnecessarily long. After all I am saying that God deliberately designed a world in which pain and suffering was an integral part for millions of years. Why for so long? Obviously I don't have all the answers. However, I do have faith. Faith that God arranged for things to take place as they are now taking place and as they have always taken place, for a purpose. I believe that purpose was most likely to teach us many great lessons. I believe we will learn all of these lessons when, in the future, we all have the ability to completely view and completely understand all that has taken place over the last fifteen billion years. Some of these lessons I have here mentioned. However I'm sure there are many other lessons which remain for us to learn, lessons which we will probably not understand for a very long time.

Basically your answer is Trust in God. Trust there are answers. Not really an answer though...

*heck I'm tired. Joseph just made a pretty good point above dont you think

63

Does Knowledge of Evil Condemn Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

ordinarily i would post this topic in the "bible research" forum, but i found the following on the "friends" forum, in the "tree of what" thread, so i will leave it here.. achristian explains,.

[when] free people have a knowledge of evil they always, at least briefly, consider doing evil.

and, even having evil thoughts for a brief fleeting moment makes people less righteous than god.

GWEEDO

Faithful

>>>> Of course there is no mention of Satan in Genesis for some strange reason.
"So the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this ... And I will put enmity
between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.' " (Genesis 3:14,15)
With this passage from Genesis in mind, do you really think that anyone ever missed the idea that the snake in Eden was far more than an ordinary snake?

Obvioulsy it was more than an ordinary snake. IT TALKED. The guy who wrote genesis believed a talking snake corrupted adam and eve. He made no mention of Satan for some strange reason...The reason being that the concept of Satan was a later evolution because people eventually realised how dumb the taking snake idea was.

>>>>>> Well, I thought you guys were saying God was the one who set up the test. So I thought by that logic you'd be saying God made the snake talk. But it was Satan. Was Satan a paid agent of God or something?
God no doubt knew Satan would try to talk Adam and Eve into disobeying Him. He knew Satan's nature. So God probably arranged to have a snake and no other animal near "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" the first time Eve was alone near that tree. That way Satan would have to use a snake to quite fittingly speak through.

why would he need to speak through a snake. Why didn't he just materialise or something...or just project his voice some? Hell...why the need for any animal or reptile??????????? weird!

63

Does Knowledge of Evil Condemn Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

ordinarily i would post this topic in the "bible research" forum, but i found the following on the "friends" forum, in the "tree of what" thread, so i will leave it here.. achristian explains,.

[when] free people have a knowledge of evil they always, at least briefly, consider doing evil.

and, even having evil thoughts for a brief fleeting moment makes people less righteous than god.

GWEEDO

Achristian

You read the story of Adam and Eve as saying "eternal life" was something Adam and Eve already had, and would continue to have so long as they stayed away from that tree.

Yes...

Wanna know why?

here it is:

8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground-trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God plants a lot of trees. Notice in particular the planting of the tree of life

And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

God permits them to eat of all trees except one. That would include the tree of life.

God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."

The tree of life was a tree that allowed them to live forever

I read it as saying that "eternal life" was a gift God said He would give to Adam and Eve if they stayed away from that tree for a predetermined, but unmentioned, period of time.

you read it as saying that?????

where does it say that in Genesis?

I think "unmentioned" is the key word here!!!!

If they had managed to do so, God would have then allowed them to eat from the tree of life. Doing so would have then made them immortal, something they obviously were not, since we know they both later died.

They were already permited to eat of ALL the trees except one, that includes the tree of life which the bible clearly tells us gave Adam and eve eternal life.

Your making stuff up!!!!!!

The difference in the way we understand the story comes from the different ways we understand the words "eternal life."

you think so...

I think our difference here stems from the fact one of us is reading the bible a little more clearly. The other person seems to be making stuff up to suit himself. The latter is you, just in case you aint clued in...

As a former JW, you still have the JW understanding of "eternal life." JWs say that in the new world, even after the 1000 years have ended, some people who have been given "eternal life" might still sin, and when they do God will then ZAP them. This kind of "eternal life" does not sound very "eternal" to me.

Trying to attach me to the dubs is irrelevant. I'm reading it for what it says...forget the dubs

As a Christian, I have the Christian view of eternal life. "Eternal life" to Christians means "immortality." (1 Cor. 15) Having "immortality" means a person possessing within themself the ability to live forever. Adam and Eve were able to die and so obviously they were never given "eternal life" by God as Christians understand it, immortality.

As a """christian""" understands it.... blah blah blah. I think most Christians wouldn't understand what your talking about. I guess they arn't true Christians then...unlike you...

Trying to align me with the dubs and paint yourself as a true "Christian" really dont wash with me. Just words and labels...doesn't prove your point one bit.

I'm clearly reading Genesis for what it says here. My definition of Eternal life is living forever DUH!, they are so obviously one and the same. To live forever was something Adam and Eve were already permited, as I and Genesis keep saying.That was the default state of man.

start again...Try and explain myself as clear as possible.

Adam and eve live in a Garden where God has planted a lot of trees. God permits them to eat of ALL the trees. One of the trees is the tree of life that permits them to live forever. They are told if they eat of another tree they will die. They disobey God, eat of this other tree, grow old and die exactly as God said. God evicts Adam and Eve from the Garden and any access to the tree of life they initially had.

If God didn't intend for Adam and eve to live forever then it makes no sense for him to intially allow them access to a tree that allowed them to do so.

"You are free to eat from any tree in the garden"

They were granted the right to live forever, or eternal life. Simple...

You wrote: There is a big difference between the little bit of suffering I would allow my kids to endure and what God allows.

So you admit that you would allow your children to suffer for a while in order to learn valuable lessons or to achieve a greater good. Let's say, for instance, they had to undergo a long painful surgical procedure in order to avoid much longer and much greater pain later on in their life. Then you would most likely allow them to suffer for hours, or days, or weeks, or maybe even months. But if God, with our eternities in His view, for very similar reasons, allows some of us to suffer for similar or, in some cases, slightly longer periods of time you condemn Him for doing so.

Like I said, what I would allow my kids to suffer in no way compares to what God has allowed. If i had the power to erradicate disease, I'd do it in an instant. God on the other hand allows it...even creates it. He created some really great diseases didn't he. I, myself, wouldn't inject my kids with a disease...but thats exactly what God has done in effect.

To teach a kid not to go near the Stove, for example, I might tell the kid that it hot, it'll hurt big time if she touches it. If the kid goes near it I might give him/her a smack. God on the other hand it seems would want to rub the kids hand fair into the hot plate and then beat the living hell out of the kid, then kick them out of home with no medical aid...even if they went nowhere near the stove. Ones called being a good parent...the other is called child abuse.

The fact is, someone who didn't know and understand why you were allowing your child to undergo a very long and very painful surgical procedure might also question your love and compassion. In the same way that you now question God's.

The fact is there is no comparison between what I'd allow as far as suffering is concerned and what God has allowed. God is cruel in the extreme. Ever had cancer? That was a nice little invention of Gods huh! How about the Plague...Aids...Mad cow disease...I could go on. I coudn't even concieve of creating such things. I couldn't even concieve of allowing such things to exist if I had the power to erradicate them.

Seriously, what lesson is God trying to teach us. What lesson could he possibly be teaching us that requires such extreme pain and cruelty?

If a person came up to me and questioned why I allowed my child to undergo an operation. I would explain the reasons for it. I would say it is to get rid of the brain tumor that God so loving created. I'd be open with the person who asked me and I'd explain myself.

OK

Lets ask God

Dear God why is it that you allow such pain and suffering in this world. Please tell us. Maybe you could just reduce it a bit. Maybe you could give us a cure for cancer...certainly your omnipotent enough to do that. Maybe you could just provide us with a better painkiller than morphine or heroin. I mean, thankyou so much for the opium poppy...but it really isn't good enough

Please get back to me

Heres my Phone number:

0304 2789564

Thanks for your consideration....

63

Does Knowledge of Evil Condemn Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

ordinarily i would post this topic in the "bible research" forum, but i found the following on the "friends" forum, in the "tree of what" thread, so i will leave it here.. achristian explains,.

[when] free people have a knowledge of evil they always, at least briefly, consider doing evil.

and, even having evil thoughts for a brief fleeting moment makes people less righteous than god.

GWEEDO

Faithful

Gweedo: I think AC answered the rest of your questions very well. But he missed one. Maybe he did because he thought you were just kidding, not seriously asking a question. But just in case you were I'll answer it.
You said >>>>> He also took away the snakes voice as punishement too it appears.
The snake never could talk. Satan just used that snake like a ventriloquist uses a dummy.

Well, I though you guys were saying God was the one who set up the test. So I thought by that logic you'd be saying God made the snake talk. But it was Satan. Was Satan a paid agent of God or something? God pays Satan to do a job for him and then he punishes a snake...God is so logical.

Of course there is no mention of Satan in Genesis for some strange reason. I think a more logical scenario is that orginally the Jews had a snake talking to eve, and just the same way the greeks realised that their Gods were utterly ridiculous, the jews realised talking snakes are ridiculous and started bringing this weird concept of Satan into the picture...

[/quote]You know what a dummy is don't you? That thing you called me. Me, the guy who is so dumb that he puts an apostrophe between the e and s in the word "snake's" and so dumb that he spells "punishment" differently than you do.[/quote]

ahhhh.... we have a Grammar nazi. You always know when someone aint got nuffin to say when he/she starts pointin' out spellin' errors etc.

[/quote]Edited by - Faithful2Jah on 11 April 2002 16:6:36[/quote]

What did you have to edit for?

BTW dont take the dummy thing too seriously. If I really wanted to throw insults i could dude..

I'll get back to AC soon

[unedited because I cant be bothered...excuse spelling and grammar]

63

Does Knowledge of Evil Condemn Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

ordinarily i would post this topic in the "bible research" forum, but i found the following on the "friends" forum, in the "tree of what" thread, so i will leave it here.. achristian explains,.

[when] free people have a knowledge of evil they always, at least briefly, consider doing evil.

and, even having evil thoughts for a brief fleeting moment makes people less righteous than god.

GWEEDO

Dear faithful

Gweedo: You said >>>>>>>>But he did give Adam and eve eternal life. He permitted them to eat of a tree and live forever.
No, he didn't.He was only going to let them eat of that tree if they passed their test which they failed. He never gave them eternal life.

dear faithfu2JAH.

heres what i said:

But he did give Adam and eve eternal life. He permitted them to eat of a tree and live forever. He then said if you eat of this other tree you will die, you'll be deprived of the tree of life.

so...

He allowed them to to eat of the tree of life so long as they didn't eat another tree. THEY WERE GRANTED ETERNAL LIFE ON CONDITION THEY DONT DO SOMETHING ELSE

What book have you been reading? You cant give someone eternal life and then take it away. That's not possible. If they had eternal life they couldn't die. That's what having eternal life means. They died. So they obviously had never been given eternal life.

what are you reading? They were permitted to eat a fruit that would permit them to live forever. THEY WERE GRANTED THEREFORE ETERNAL LIFE DUMMY. It makes no difference whether eternal life was programmed into their DNA or whether they had to eat something to gain it. IRRELEVANT. Living forever is living forever no matter how you get it silly. So long as they didn't eat of a certain tree they would have been allowed to live forever. They were initially granted eternal life therefore...its very simple.

So your cookie jar analogy falls flat.

it holds perfectly

>>>>>>>>>Did God not punish the talking serpent also. The serpent seduced eve into eating of the tree they were told not to...As PUNISHMENT, as a consequence of this bad act God got angery at this highly evolved talkng serpent and made it crawl on its belly for the rest of its life.
The serpent was a belly crawler to begin with. Thats what serpents do. God probably just used a low down belly crawling serpent to picture that liar Satan. Then afterwards its belly crawling would act to remind us of his lies.

????????????????

probably probably probably.

He also took away the snakes voice as punishement too it appears. I've never run across a talking snake as yet...have you?

>>>>>>>>>> But a god that tells us he is a God of love and yet allows people to suffer disease and all sorts pain and suffering in this world, animals included...is hardly a god of Love, hardly lacking in darkness, hardly perfect. He's a tyrrant.
So you never allow your kids to suffer any pain to learn a valuable lesson for the future?

Ever been to a cancer ward? YOU SHOULD HEAR THE SCREAMING AT NIGHT....

I'd never give my kids, if I had any, cancer. If they did get cancer I'd do all in my power to relieve them of that fate. God doesn't seem to care however.

There is a big difference between a the little bit of suffering I would allow my kids to endure and what God allows. Your analogy is the one that falls flat dude

22

Brief History of Palestine

by Amazing in

jw
friends

i found this article and thought it was worth sharing.

president bush recently told the un that the usa supports a palestinian state.

this is a good move since it was the original plan.

GWEEDO

Thichi

Nice try:
The issue is the national existence of a state, not the size of the nation itself.

Hey Thichi...i'm not buying into this debate about Palestine/Israel Blah blah blah. Been there done that...it's goes on forever. I was going off on a little bit of a tangent. I'm not using it to justify anything. All I'm saying is the Great monarchy of historic Israel wasn't that great. The history of the region is a little different from what use to be accepted...Certainly different from what the bible tells us.

I personally think the ancient history of the region is kinda of irrelevant to the current debate...you cant get too bogged down in it and it can become quite ridiculous at times

snip irrelevant shit

63

Does Knowledge of Evil Condemn Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

ordinarily i would post this topic in the "bible research" forum, but i found the following on the "friends" forum, in the "tree of what" thread, so i will leave it here.. achristian explains,.

[when] free people have a knowledge of evil they always, at least briefly, consider doing evil.

and, even having evil thoughts for a brief fleeting moment makes people less righteous than god.

GWEEDO

Faithful

God also creates cows, chickens, rattle snakes and mosquitoes. Simply because he creates them does that mean he is morally required to give them all eternal life? Is he punishing them if he doesn't?

But he did give Adam and eve eternal life. He permitted them to eat of a tree and live forever. He then said if you eat of this other tree you will die, you'll be deprived of the tree of life. Thats punishment Faithful. It's a very simple concept. I think you'll find 99.999999% of people on this board understand that...all except you an AC it seems.

I'll try an analogy

A father who says to his kids you can eat of the cookie jar all the cookies that are brown....but leave the whites one alone else such and such will happen. The kids eat of the white cookies. The father takes away all the cookies and sends them to their room. Thats Punishment...and no different from what God has done to Adam and Eve above.

Also

Did God not punish the talking serpent also. The serpert seduced eve into eating of the tree they were told not to...As PUNISHMENT, as a consequence of this bad act God got angery at this highly evolved talkng serpent and made it crawl on its belly for the rest of its life. Strange story..?!??!?!Obviously myth...huh

God is not obligated to do anything, he can do whatever he pleases because he has the might to enforce his will . But a god that tells us he is a God of love and yet allows people to suffer disease and all sorts pain and suffering in this world, animals included...is hardly a god of Love, hardly lacking in darkness, hardly perfect. He's a tyrrant.

63

Does Knowledge of Evil Condemn Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

ordinarily i would post this topic in the "bible research" forum, but i found the following on the "friends" forum, in the "tree of what" thread, so i will leave it here.. achristian explains,.

[when] free people have a knowledge of evil they always, at least briefly, consider doing evil.

and, even having evil thoughts for a brief fleeting moment makes people less righteous than god.

GWEEDO

Achristian

Do I really have to provide "proof texts" for the fact that the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ was and is God? Forget about the fact that John 1:1 clearly says so in all non-JW Bibles. Isaiah 9:6 prophesied that Jesus would "be called Mighty God" by his followers. That's God with an upper case G even in JW Bibles. Why? Because the Hebrew demands it. Know any JWs who "call" Jesus their "God"? I don't. But Christians do. Thomas did. He called Jesus "My Lord and my God." (John 20:28) Jesus said that we are to "Worship God alone." (Matt. 4:10; Luke 4:8) Yet Jesus accepted "worship" - the same Greek word - numerous times. (Matt. 2:11; 14:33; 28:9,17; Luke 24:52; John 9:38) Of course, the JW Bible translates the Greek word for "worship" - the same one Jesus used when he said that we should "worship" God alone - as "obeisance" whenever it is used in reference to Jesus and as "worship" whenever it is used in reference to God. Tricky.

What you proved to me is that the bible is very ambiguous, vague and contradictory.

You know I could go on and on with this. But I doubt you really want me to.

No, actually I find it fascinating still. I use to do what your doing. Going through scripture, doing all sorts of twisting of things and logic. I think I sent myself nuts doing all that stuff. I had heaps of tricks to stop me from seeing it all for what it really is...

You know, I think Christianity in it's present form is dead. I think the only way forward for Christianity is a Shelby Spong view of things. I dont see why you cant call yourself a christian and at the same time believe that the bible is full of errors, contradictions, grosse inhumanity, and that Christ was a myth. I see Christianity moving from the view that the bible is Gods inerrant word to a view that it's mans attempt to express his spiritual nature...Same goes for the Islam, Buddhism (a much more mature religion than Christianity I believe at the moment) etc...I think religion should be viewed the same way we view a piece of Art: they are all just mans attempt to express something greater within. A person with this view isn't restricted to the Bible as a source of wisdom, though the he/she may predominately wish to use the Christian symbols as an expression of the transcendental nature that I believe is in all of us. A person with such a view can dismiss all the garbage in the bible and doesn't have to do mental gymnastics to try and explain everything too. I mean, why restrict yourself to one book as a road map to life anyway...seems rather foolish. There is a wealth of wisdom out there. Why put a straight jacket on your mind.

I mean take the crucifixion. The the story doesn't make sense. The story is so full of holes it's ridiculous to believe it's real. But if you suspend disbelief, the story itself has a certain beauty about it. The story that someone so full of love for people he was willing to suffer great pain for others is a good story. It does have a certain inspiring beauty that some people may wish to use to inspire their lives. But logically it doesn't make sense and cant be for real.

God, according to you, creates people destined to sin. When they do sin he deprives them of eternal life (which is punishment however way you look at. Deprivation is punishment). But anyway...he then decides he must save them. How does he do this. By killing himself as a ransom. EH? There is no sense to that. A god that requires that an innocent man die (that innocent man being himself in your belief system) inorder to save others makes no sense...The logic behind it is absurd. There is simply no need for him to do it to save anyone.

well theres my random views anyway. Dont know if it all makes sense or not???????????????????

nighty night!

63

Does Knowledge of Evil Condemn Us?

by JosephAlward in

jw
friends

ordinarily i would post this topic in the "bible research" forum, but i found the following on the "friends" forum, in the "tree of what" thread, so i will leave it here.. achristian explains,.

[when] free people have a knowledge of evil they always, at least briefly, consider doing evil.

and, even having evil thoughts for a brief fleeting moment makes people less righteous than god.

GWEEDO

AC

Jesus was God

And yet no man has seen God. But people saw Jesus. Jesus was of course God. So people have seen God. But, No, they haven't seen God...but they have seen Jesus...who is God...who was seen....

eeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

***headache***need****asprin****

You think a divine perfect being could have written a book that was a little more clear, and a little less contradictory.

22

Brief History of Palestine

by Amazing in

jw
friends

i found this article and thought it was worth sharing.

president bush recently told the un that the usa supports a palestinian state.

this is a good move since it was the original plan.

GWEEDO

THichi

You are wrong

umm no.

I'm not wrong that thats what a lot of Scholars are saying about the latest archeological evidence.

Someone posted something about it here awhile back.
I was also listening to some scholars talk about this on radio yesterday.

David may well have existed. But it was no great kingdom he had. This is what the scholars are saying now. It was just a minor backwater tribe that rose out of the many tribes that were there at the time.