Friday, May 20, 2011

Is God Cruel?

This is a post to discuss God's acts of violence against man.  Are they always justified?

I created this post as a continuation of a Facebook post.

Everyone is free to comment but please use your own words.  Please don't quote the Bible or scholarly work.

25 comments:

  1. is cruel for creating our pain or indiferent for ignore our pain ... wait a minute ... theres no god =) ... silly me

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  2. Ok, I don't really follow the comments here, so maybe someone can help me out, but I'm confused by the stipulation that responses can't quote the Bible or scholarly work. Are you referring to God's acts of violence found in the Bible? Because it seems kind of ridiculous to ask that kind of question and disallow possible answers/explanations that come both from God Himself (assuming the divine inspiration of the Bible) and from people who have thought about & studied the Bible and God's character a helluva lot more than most of the people reading this blog (I'm assuming, anyway--no offense meant if there are serious Biblical scholars reading this). Strikes me as not entirely dissimilar from asking a question about rights in America and telling people they can't cite the constitution or any scholarly legal-type stuff.

    Just wondering.

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  3. I just wanted people to give their own opinion and not blindly quote Bible passages. Feel free to use a passage if it supports your case but please don't rely on ONLY the Bible.
    I hope that clears it up.

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  4. That does make a bit more sense, thanks. And I probably won't be offering opinions, so don't hold your breath; I was just curious about that little stipulation. Looking forward to seeing what people have to say, though.

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  5. God has been responsible for so much mass murder it is impossible for me to imagine that the least sinful of those slaughtered are more sinful (or deserving) than everyone who has lived a full life.

    Three examples that come quickest to mind is Moses (speaking for God, I assume) slaughtering women and babies who have already be detained after taking over a town.

    The second I just mentioned in the 2 Kings 6-10 where I don't see why the hundred soldiers were killed when the commander asked for Elijah to follow. There seems to be know difference between the 100 soldiers murdered and the last 50 who survived besides which commander they happened to be assigned to.

    Lastly, the Bible talks of God "hardening the hearts" of enemies so that they would fight and be killed by His favorites.

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  6. I'm new here, but I'll comment. I'm a believer. I simply believe in the existence of God and that the Bible is true. I can not prove or even explain my faith, I just have it. Some might say that is stupid; they may be right.

    You asked if God is cruel. Honestly, sometimes it feels that way. The Bible, the news, life itself, it all seems pretty cruel at times. Does this mean God does not exist. No. My option of God does not affect his existence. He either exists or he does not, but my feelings do not influence the matter.

    Do I FEEL God is cruel? Yes.
    Do I think my feelings are wrong? Yes

    I think God is justified in his actions because that is what the Bible teaches and I believe the Bible. So the questions I ask myself constantly go like this. What would it take for God's actions to be justified? How serious must my rebellion against God be for this to be right?

    I believe that God is good and I am wrong.

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  7. @Austin,
    Welcome and thanks for commenting.
    You illustrate one of my core curiosities with religion in general.
    You say you believe but you can't explain why.
    This "blind faith" is maddening to me. I don't even think Jesus would want you to just accept the writing blindly. I would imagine that he would want you study his words and understand them before following him.
    You say you feel that God is cruel but you then say that you are wrong.
    Again, you accept the Bible as absolutely true and just accept you're wrong without any critical thinking.

    I also think you may be a poe.

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  8. @Bruce,

    Who decides what is "cruel". Was God cruel? Nope, not at all. Who gave us "life" in the first place? God! (This is my belief as one coming from the Bible's true message.) My question to you is: who places value on your life? You and who else? Do you create value for yourself, or do others create it for you? (Sounds silly if you believe you came from a rock! Oh look at you, a bunch of chemicals bouncing around. :-D )

    And how long will you stay in their good graces? Until you do something that goes against "their" value system? Now say you have violated their value system, you have lessened your value because you have violated "their" system. So what do they do with you? Some put you in prison, others will kill you. Is it ok for man to do that and not God? Who placed the highest value on your life? From me to you, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh. He gave His life so that you may have life. (CDC doesn't know the walking dead are already among us.)

    So back to the question? Is God cruel, i again say no. He created us to have relationship with Him. Yet some of us don't want to, we live on His planet, eat from the plants and or animals that He created, use the raw materials that He placed here for us, and, some of us, want to live like He doesn't exist. And when He does show up and evicts some of us from His world, those left say He's cruel. How? Why? You don't think He created everything now do you? So all that is left is you, that chemical reaction with no purpose, creating value for yourself. And some poorly. :-D

    So @Vt Teacher, who said killing is wrong? HUM?!? Do you believe in evolution? If so killing is how you got here, is it not? The strongest survive? Who decides who's the strongest? It's easy, the ones not killed. If you were consistent with your "belief" system, you would say, it's totally okay for them to kill those people. They falsely attribute it to God, however it's really just evolution taking it's natural course. And don't come back with that lame, our morals have evolved. All your showing is that you're part of the weaker gene pool that should be eradicated. Right? By saying that, if you or others would, you would just be going against "millions or billions" of years of evolutionary processes that have shown the "kill or be killed" model works. However that's not the case now is it? You want to proclaim that God is wrong. How or why is He wrong? Use your own lumber to build your response, don't go borrowing any of mine from the Bible. ;-)

    One last thing. To be cruel i feel one would have to take pleasure in the suffering they inflect on others. However with God that is not the case. Ezekiel 18:23 Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?
    Ezekiel 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

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  9. @Edward, First off, your last point mistakes cruelty for sadism. Cruelty doesn't have to derive pleasure, rather an indifference to the pain.

    Now, if giving someone life gives free reign to do whatever you want to somebody (and impossible to be cruel) than wouldn't that be a Pro Choice stance and biological parents would be unable to be cruel to their kids.

    Even that analogy isn't fair because God created the rules, makes them confusing and conflicting, and only allows some of the world's population to be exposed to those rules. (BTW, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the three examples I gave of cruelty since it includes Him forcing some people to not accept Him so that they can be killed by His favorites).

    I'm trying to use logic within your rules yet you want me to explain my morality without allowing it to have evolved over time? Is the Bible really the only thing keeping you from killing everyone that you're not trying to reproduce with?

    I think your question is ludicrous so I'll keep this brief: We can survive better both as individuals and as a species if we work together (although if we get too lovey dovey, those who are selfish would take advantage and reset that balance). By working together, we've reached a point where our biggest threat is ourselves.

    If people didn't work together, we would all be trying our hardest to get enough food that day and staying warm rather than being able to have this discussion.

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  10. @VT Teacher,
    Cruelty doesn't have to derive pleasure, rather an indifference to the pain.
    And it can also bring pleasure. can it not?

    Now, if giving someone life gives free reign to do whatever you want to somebody ... than wouldn't that be a Pro Choice stance and biological parents would be unable to be cruel to their kids.

    Nice. So how did you give that child life? By using a system that was designed without your aid at all. By what power did you bring a life into being? Oh ya for some by banging in the back of their old car. Didn't want the end of the world to come and be a virgin. :-D Nice. No not the same. Not even close.

    The rules God created are not confusing and conflicting. It's just you don't want to keep them in context. To many years i guess of believing that man makes the rules. And they always make sense. :-D HEE!HEE!

    I'd like to hear your thoughts on the three examples I gave of cruelty since it includes Him forcing some people to not accept Him so that they can be killed by His favorites
    First your wrong. See man knows Gods rules, they simply decide not to follow them (Romans 2:15). Second i have covered your question before before, so i will refer you to that post you can read more of my first response on that same page, this is the meatier one. I think this is in response to harden heart. If not please clarify for me.

    Last on this list. God does not have favorites. Where did you ever get that idea? (II Samuel 14:14; II Chronicles 19:7; Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3:24,25; I Peter 1:17). And those are just about God. I didn't include the ones of His instructions to man to not respect persons.

    I'm trying to use logic within your rules yet you want me to explain my morality without allowing it to have evolved over time?

    How can you try to use logic? I have read this in a book what do you think? Logic is an invariant and universal truth. The laws of logic are nonmaterial, invariant, transcendent, universal, and necessary; they require God because He is nonmaterial, immutable, transcendant, and necessary.

    Is the Bible really the only thing keeping you from killing everyone that you're not trying to reproduce with?
    Boy tonight is like a bad record with a skip. Someone else asked me a similar question a few months back. The answer scared them. I looked up what they were talking about and it scared me as well. Here is the link of the frighten visitor. And here is my reply to that post. Look @ erp's link. sick stuff man.

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  11. From the rest of your comment, what you are saying is that evolution is a joke or better it's outdated and we have evolved past it? HEE!HEE! Because now we need to work together. I think you really need to get out more. I say that because i was at a talk given by Michael Dowd. And in that speech he said two things that caught my attention. He said many other things, however these two i still remember today. 1. Wants to do the common good for man. I asked: "Who decides the common good?" He did not answer me, another gentleman asked again. See he started out in the talk about a central government, then when this question came up, via the second man asking it, it went back to community government making decisions that were best for them. 2. (please keep in mind #1) Closing his talk he stated that he wants the population to stabilize and decline. Just think about those two together.

    So your dreamy world of working together. Ya, well there are others out there that don't desire that. It's my belief that there are those who still want to exercise the right to destroy other people they don't agree with, or believe they are bad for the gene pool.

    I think your question is ludicrous

    But really how is it ludicrous? Because it does not nor has it ever worked? I am speaking of evolution here. I have read before that evolution is sacrosanct. So is my question ludicrous because i dare challenge evolution and it's preached doctrine?

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  12. @Bruce

    Man can be quite cruel. Kids can be cruel. Nature can be cruel.

    Making us read Chronicles IS cruel !!

    The biblical god is (in the words of Twain) "cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust". Luckily he's also myth.

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  13. Oops! That's not Twain, it's Thomas Jeffeson!

    Still a good quote tho.

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  14. @Edward One last thing. To be cruel i feel one would have to take pleasure in the suffering they inflect on others.
    I agree that it can derive pleasure, I was correcting your use of it having to.

    When I quoted God hardening their hearts, I was referring to this passage: Joshua 11:20 (KJV) For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses. I read this as God making sure a group of people couldn't accept Him (or surrender) so that they could be killed by Moses and the Isrealites. That sure seems like favoritism and cruelty to me.

    So is my question ludicrous because i dare challenge evolution and it's preached doctrine?
    For how many people in the world that don't accept your God, wouldn't that leave the majority of the world rioting and raping?

    In my brief response, I tried to explain that there's a balance between working as a collective and pursuing selfish needs/wants. If everyone was on their own, those who grouped together would have the advantage. If everyone worked together, those who seeked purely selfish goals would have the advantage. This is why a balance is found between the two.

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  15. God?

    Sounds like a bare assertion fallacy to me.

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  16. @VT Teacher

    I take the correction. I just have seen people, from various medias' that are cruel, and it does bring them pleasure. I cannot recall, at the moment, someone that was cruel, and they didn't derive pleasure from it.

    As for the hardening their heart, my previous posts still address this. Again, it's you hardening your heart because God has set what is allowed, and you desire to do the opposite. By God not allowing it to continue, and requesting that you change your ways, you harden your heart.

    Yes you have a balance, yet you have people that want to get like minded people to eradicate others that don't agree with them. Each group designs their own morals. Or is my understanding wrong?

    For how many people in the world that don't accept your God, wouldn't that leave the majority of the world rioting and raping?

    Like i posted earlier, the laws of God are written on the heart of man. Even if you don't know God by the witnessing of a Christian to you, you still know about Him, you just don't know to acknowledge it. (Romans 1:18-25)

    I don't understand how because you don't accept God that everyone is left to rioting and raping. Some interesting things tho from my personal observations:

    My Teen's a Nightmare: I'm Moving Out
    Worlds strictest parents
    Wicked Attraction

    While i was looking for links to the shows above i came across this
    Tyra Show

    Now i know you can't believe everything you hear on tv or the internet or read in the paper. :-)

    My observation is not that everyone is doing this, yet so many are that they can create shows to inform others of behaviour that is going on. Now most of them i can't stand to watch, the kids act so bad it's disgusting.

    As you can read how much i write to those following this site, i talk even more to people in person. I met a man that drives a school bus for the district in the area i live. He was telling me how the kids act, and how even a little 7 year old has attitude. His language in the conversation was to rash for me to repeat here. :-D And he's not alone, i had a conversation with an art teacher that told me very much the same thing. He expressed to me something interesting about his solution for teaching math, by using drug distribution. He said it's something the kids all know about. It was really funny, however i think he was serious. Kids today are ignorant, i believe 3rd or 4th generation dyslexic, and totally ill equipped to govern themselves in the future. We have come a long way from the Old Deluder Act. If things don't change i believe your "rioting and raping" will be the norm. Heck i just checked the local newspaper website and several of the stories were about people robbing and terrorizing others. One last thing, do you consider raping only sexual or does physical and mental count as well? In the past i posted about the 10 commandments another commenter said that #5 is wrongheaded. I tend to think maybe the parents of these hellish kids won't feel the same way.

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  17. @Skepticali

    Yes your comment is. ;-)

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  18. @David,

    Luckily he's also myth.

    How do you know that? HUM? What have you lived forever to tell us all that? Have you searched to the furthest reaches of time and space and come back to enlighten us all? Or is it better to say, "Luckily i believe, he's also a myth"? If you can really provide something tangible for me to mentally digest to the non-existence of God i am very much interested.

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  19. @Edward I think I see your point that God affects people's morality even if they don't choose to follow Him. I don't agree but I doubt either of us expected that.


    As for the hardening their heart, my previous posts still address this. Again, it's you hardening your heart because God has set what is allowed, and you desire to do the opposite. By God not allowing it to continue, and requesting that you change your ways, you harden your heart.


    Did we switch roles? Aren't I the one that's supposed to argue that it's humans that are doing things and you're the one that is supposed to say that the Bible clearly states it is God who did it? :) I don't see any wiggle room in Joshua 11:20 to believe that it is humans hardening their hearts (although I do agree with your earlier example that it was the Pharaoh then). It specifically says the Lord did it so that they would be killed.

    As far as the awful tv shows, I don't think things are worse in this country now than they had been before. I think more things are out in the open and there are so many tv channels that things need to be shocking to get people's attention.

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  20. To answer the question at hand: Yes, God's actions are justified because He's God. As I believe Him to be the Almighty Creator of the universe, the giver of life itself, God can do whatever He wants and when He wants, so long as He does not contradict His own standards. To use a reference from the Bible, God is the potter and we are the clay vessel. The vessel had no say in the way it was shaped; it was all up to the potter. So, God's "acts of violence" are justified as He saw or sees fit because He is sovereign God.

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  21. @Scott,
    This argument from omnipotence bothers me. It gives God a free pass for ALL of his actions. God can do what ever he wants because he is God is also circular logic IMO.
    If God truly loves man, his prized creation, why does he feel the need to slaughter so many of us? To "whip us into shape? To make us appreciate him?
    Once again I have to say (and I've said this way to many times) that this is a classic abuser/abusee relationship. His followers accept God's violence against them because "He knows what's best for me."

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  22. Well, you know, God does have a free pass because...He's God. I don't know any other way to say it. Who are we, as creature, to set the parameters or conditions on the Creator? It's what I accept in a sovereign God and will also say that just as you view God as violent, abusive, etc., I view Him as loving, kind, merciful, and has extended to me the offer of eternal life in heaven. However, I can see your argument and these are things that I debate internally within myself at times.

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  23. @Scott,
    When you say God is loving, kind and mericful, I think of the Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus had a lot of good things to say but I find it very hard to reconcile him with the killing machine that is in the Old Testament. Very odd that he changes his tone 180 degrees.
    As for who are we as creatures to hold a god accountable for their actions? I would expect him/her/it to the live by the standard they set for the men they created.

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  24. @Bruce,

    If God truly loves man, his prized creation, why does he feel the need to slaughter so many of us?

    Dude Bruce be real! Do you think this love is going both ways? Huh? Do you love God right now? I think not, correct me if i am wrong, so really why should God extend any more blessings to you or anyone else that doesn't love Him? The only outcome you get from your kind of "love" is a stalker that just won't get the point. You don't love Him and don't want to have anything to do with Him. And then you want to write about how cruel He is, and because He is God, He shouldn't have special privileges, but be confined to the "love" that you define. No mention of if He does exist then i am living in His world, eating from things He created, and breaking His rules. So it's really okay for man to have laws and to be able to punish those that break them, but for God to do that is just not right? One issue the non-believer has is that they live as tho this life is the end all be all of existence. For me as a Christian believing in Jesus Christ as my Saviour, i'm just a stranger and a pilgrim here (Hebrews 11:13). This world is not my home, i'm just passing through. :-) Creating havoc on my way! HAA!HAA!

    I won't comment as tho you know what God went through to give you and i life and to shew His love for man. So here it is. God left Heaven and it's glory took on the flesh as the man Jesus Christ, lived a poor life, suffered a cruel death, all this just to save a wretch like you and i. Knowing all along that many would reject His free gift, and curse Him.

    Bruce do you know anyone that would die for man? With the knowledge that many would curse their name, and speak as tho they didn't exist? And then proclaim to the world that what is recorded about them is that they are a cruel, loveless, and some believe non-existent being? Just thought i would ask. :-D You might know some whack job.

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