Is god kind?

[slevin8989]

Well the worship of it is because it's just basically a big book of things you're not supposed to do. It still feels like an oxymoron to me as how the bible ask you to be a good person for the sake of being a good person but most people are just good so they can eventually go to heaven which is just self interest.

oh my god, thank you!
you're the first person i've met, other than myself, that has this belief.

how are you a good person if you're just doing it out of fear or self interest? what crap!

yup yup i always wondered that growing up most people i ask just blew me off. The biggest problem with religion with me is people aren't all nice and good and they only do things for themselves so how is anyone supposed to be good enough to go to heaven. Whenever I ever do something good i always wonder if i'm just doing this to go to heaven. The funny part of this is that if this is true the only people going to heaven are atheist since they don't believe in heaven XD

 

[Jedoro]

God didn't lie, because they did die. He would've been lying if he had said that they would die immediately. They died because he kicked them out of the garden for disobeying, thus removing the source of their eternal lives.

in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die

It's fairly damn specific. Dead within one day. Didn't happen, even according to the story.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means

Given that God is immortal, his interpretation of death is different from ours. When we die, we are separated from the physical world and sent to either Heaven or Hell. Thus, God's meaning of "die" could just be that they would be separated from him. Bearing that in mind, yes, they did die that day.

 

[la-le-lu-li-lo]

yup yup i always wondered that growing up most people i ask just blew me off. The biggest problem with religion with me is people aren't all nice and good and they only do things for themselves so how is anyone supposed to be good enough to go to heaven. Whenever I ever do something good i always wonder if i'm just doing this to go to heaven. The funny part of this is that if this is true the only people going to heaven are atheist since they don't believe in heaven XD

that's irony for ya.

 

[slevin8989]

yup yup i always wondered that growing up most people i ask just blew me off. The biggest problem with religion with me is people aren't all nice and good and they only do things for themselves so how is anyone supposed to be good enough to go to heaven. Whenever I ever do something good i always wonder if i'm just doing this to go to heaven. The funny part of this is that if this is true the only people going to heaven are atheist since they don't believe in heaven XD

that's irony for ya.

Yup it's gonna be kinda awkward up there in heaven though XD

 

[mrpenguinismyhomeboy]

Yes, but he doesn't wanna make it too easy.

 

[la-le-lu-li-lo]

Yup it's gonna be kinda awkward up there in heaven though XD

oh yeah. XP

 

[GloatingSwine]

Given that God is immortal, his interpretation of death is different from ours. When we die, we are separated from the physical world and sent to either Heaven or Hell. Thus, God's meaning of "die" could just be that they would be separated from him. Bearing that in mind, yes, they did die that day.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means

Why should we beleive your word over that of the divinely inspired scripture?

 

[alygishere]

Well the worship of it is because it's just basically a big book of things you're not supposed to do. It still feels like an oxymoron to me as how the bible ask you to be a good person for the sake of being a good person but most people are just good so they can eventually go to heaven which is just self interest.

oh my god, thank you!
you're the first person i've met, other than myself, that has this belief.

how are you a good person if you're just doing it out of fear or self interest? what crap!

Well I wouldn't say it's exactly crap , because most religions say to behave , because if you do so you will get something unimaginably good after your life , like 40 virgins or a pass to earth etc. and of course , self interest is the thing that motivates them , what else could you be motivated by?

 

[la-le-lu-li-lo]

Well I wouldn't say it's exactly crap , because most religions say to behave , because if you do so you will get something unimaginably good after your life , like 40 virgins or a pass to earth etc. and of course , self interest is the thing that motivates them , what else could you be motivated by?

that's what i was trying to say, that it was crap that people actually did that. not that the concept was crap. sorry for the confusion!

and you could be motivated by what you think is right or wrong? like... morally? it's what i do, since i don't do it because i'm scared to go to hell or because i want to be rewarded with a trip to heaven after i die. i just do good things because i believe it's the right thing to do...

 

[alygishere]

Well I wouldn't say it's exactly crap , because most religions say to behave , because if you do so you will get something unimaginably good after your life , like 40 virgins or a pass to earth etc. and of course , self interest is the thing that motivates them , what else could you be motivated by?

that's what i was trying to say, that it was crap that people actually did that. not that the concept was crap. sorry for the confusion!
and you could be motivated by what you think is right or wrong? like... morally? it's what i do, since i don't do it because i'm scared to go to hell or because i want to be rewarded with a trip to heaven after i die. i just do good things because i believe it's the right thing to do...

I agree with the morality part , that's basically the same reason why I'm trying to be good , but I soon after realizes that I don't need god to tell apart right from wrong , and from then on I stopped believing in god.
And for the people who stil fear the punishment of the lord , that you will burn in hell I would strongly advise them to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbrQI0r1B7w&feature=channel

 

[la-le-lu-li-lo]

I agree with the morality part , that's basically the same reason why I'm trying to be good , but I soon after realizes that I don't need god to tell apart right from wrong , and from then on I stopped believing in god.
And for the people who stil fear the punishment of the lord , that you will burn in hell I would strongly advise them to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbrQI0r1B7w&feature=channel

i haven't believed in god since i was a child... i think i was 6 when i gave up on religion.

 

[alygishere]

I agree with the morality part , that's basically the same reason why I'm trying to be good , but I soon after realizes that I don't need god to tell apart right from wrong , and from then on I stopped believing in god.
And for the people who stil fear the punishment of the lord , that you will burn in hell I would strongly advise them to watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbrQI0r1B7w&feature=channel

i haven't believed in god since i was a child... i think i was 6 when i gave up on religion.

Well I live in eastern europe and as such there is a greater lack of knowledge in my country , and virtually everything that cannot be explained is atributed to god if it's good or
to the devil if it's a bad thing. And when you are surrounded by extreme believers that are ready to point at you and talk about you behind your back if you do only as much as to question the veridicity of the bible it's actually kind of hard to get away from them and go against the flow. But I wonder if in the U.S. or western europe is the same situation , or are there more people that start to look at religion from a scientific perspective?

 

[la-le-lu-li-lo]

*snip*

it's pretty diverse in america. if you're in the 'bible belt' [wikipedia, i don't even want to try and explain] you're more likely to have the traditional christian beliefs. there are other areas that are more open to science mingling with religion, probably statistically in the cities. could be wrong about that though.

it really depends. america has lots of different religions, lots of different varieties of the same religion, and religious levels range from zealot to practically athiest. of course, athiests exist a'plenty here.

 

[alygishere]

thank you for the explanations , and my sincere apologies to the OP for sort of derailing his topic

 

[cobra_ky]

Can I just point out that "kind" is a human invention, sort of like Epicurus's philosophy?

i was hoping someone else would say this. Kindness is a human attribute, and any attempt to apply the concept to god is folly.

yup yup i always wondered that growing up most people i ask just blew me off. The biggest problem with religion with me is people aren't all nice and good and they only do things for themselves so how is anyone supposed to be good enough to go to heaven. Whenever I ever do something good i always wonder if i'm just doing this to go to heaven. The funny part of this is that if this is true the only people going to heaven are atheist since they don't believe in heaven XD

that's irony for ya.

[a href=http://dresdencodak.com/2005/11/29/secular-heaven/]God is powered by irony.[/a]

 

[Zyxzy]

So you think God enjoys damning those he loves to hell?

He (allegedly) created man and decided what things were going to be sins worth damning people to hell for. In short, he is in total control of who goes to hell and why. If he didn't like doing so, he wouldn't.

I mean let's get this in perspective here, the god of the bible has been setting mankind up to fail right from the start.

Consider the garden of eden, the god of the bible creates this garden, and creates man and woman as completely naive creatures with no concept of right or wrong, and then tells them "don't eat the fruit of this one tree, or you'll die" (Note this last bit, it's important later).

Along comes the serpent, tells woman that not only will they not die, but they will gain knowledge of right and wrong. (Note that first bit, it's important later).

So they eat the fruit, and the god of the bible gets in a hissy and kicks them out.

Now, where's the problem with that? Well, it's the whole bit that before they ate the fruit, man and woman had no framework by which to judge the moral impact of their actions. They could, therefore categorically not have made a judgement that eating the fruit was wrong, because they had no concept of wrong before they ate the fruit.

The god of the bible intentionally set mankind up to fail by creating a test where the only way to understand the concept of success or failure in the test is to fail it.

Oh, and those bits I told you to remember. The god of the bible lied. The serpent told only the unvarnished truth.

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Adam and Eve ate the fruit and did not die that day, or if the story is to be believed for 900 years afterwards.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

The serpent was entirely truthful.

The knowledge was not knowing the morality of their actions, it was being able to set up their own independent morality.

So because they didn't die immediately, instead only no longer living forever, they did not surely die?

 

[knight steel]

Wow such great responses with all different ideas.Now im going to tell you the idea im leaning toward's:
1.God is a wowmen
2.she is kind but after seeing how horrid human's can be she decided to leave us and hoped we could find peace by our selfes (she did this in order to keep free will)
This is just my thought's so far i would love to hear different ideas and thought's

 

[GloatingSwine]

The knowledge was not knowing the morality of their actions, it was being able to set up their own independent morality.

The language of the bible states otherwise. The specific language states that Adam and Eve would "know good and evil", this means that good and evil are objective qualities which Adam and Eve would be able to recognise subsequent to eating the fruit. And this is borne out by their reaction to their nudity when they did so, because suddenly they knew that they were naked and that this should be covered, they did not decide this, they knew it.

So because they didn't die immediately, instead only no longer living forever, they did not surely die?

in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die

In the day that thou eatest thereof. Same day. Specific timeframe. This is the book you apparently believe to be divine truth. And no, evasive nonsense about how god's days might be longer will not cut it here, because every single other time a day is referenced in the entire book, it means one revolution of the earth, one day.

Your god is a liar, among his manifold other crimes against morality. Let's not even get into the story of Job, who had everything taken from him, including the deaths of almost his entire household (though mostly just slaves and women, who don't count as real people in the bible anyway), and when he finally calls god out on it is basically told "I'm bigger than you, so what are you gonna do about it?"

Or the "noble" Lot, the one person worth saving in all of Sodom and Gomorrah, who went on to commit drunken incest with both of his daughters (who, incidentally, he had recently offered up to a mob to be gangraped, a story which is repeated in Judges with an entirely different cast, though in the second telling the poor woman is actually gangraped to death, and her master is still portrayed as a holy and noble man.

 

[Zyxzy]

The knowledge was not knowing the morality of their actions, it was being able to set up their own independent morality.

The language of the bible states otherwise. The specific language states that Adam and Eve would "know good and evil", this means that good and evil are objective qualities which Adam and Eve would be able to recognise subsequent to eating the fruit. And this is borne out by their reaction to their nudity when they did so, because suddenly they knew that they were naked and that this should be covered, they did not decide this, they knew it.

So because they didn't die immediately, instead only no longer living forever, they did not surely die?

in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die

In the day that thou eatest thereof. Same day. Specific timeframe. This is the book you apparently believe to be divine truth. And no, evasive nonsense about how god's days might be longer will not cut it here, because every single other time a day is referenced in the entire book, it means one revolution of the earth, one day.

Your god is a liar, among his manifold other crimes against morality. Let's not even get into the story of Job, who had everything taken from him, including the deaths of almost his entire household (though mostly just slaves and women, who don't count as real people in the bible anyway), and when he finally calls god out on it is basically told "I'm bigger than you, so what are you gonna do about it?"

Or the "noble" Lot, the one person worth saving in all of Sodom and Gomorrah, who went on to commit drunken incest with both of his daughters (who, incidentally, he had recently offered up to a mob to be gangraped, a story which is repeated in Judges with an entirely different cast, though in the second telling the poor woman is actually gangraped to death, and her master is still portrayed as a holy and noble man.

Genesis 2: 17 "except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die." Don't make up quotes.

God responded to Job with the fact that he was just a man, while God was omniscient and omnipotent, whose knowledge of the situation was limited. and thus Job had no grounds to question him. And Job was harrased by satan as a means of testing him and providing us with the Book of Job.

I don't reacall Lot being described as a holy and noble man, just Abraham's brother.

 

[la-le-lu-li-lo]

[a href=http://dresdencodak.com/2005/11/29/secular-heaven/]God is powered by irony.[/a]

oooh. @_@ me likes it! funnnies!