Jimmy Higgins

In the first story of creation, god creates a whole bunch of stuff. The first three days he creates light, sky, and earth. Here is the point. In these simple creations, god sees good within them. On there own, there was nothing needed to make them pleasing to god.
However, when god creates man, he does not create man alone. In fact, man was just a minor part of what was made on the sixth day. Is there any meaning here that god could not alone make man and see good in him, but rather needed to make all land locked animals along with man to be "good" in the eyes of god? God created light in one day. So simple, yet it pleased him. However, man was not given such praise for god needed to create many things the sixth day to see "good" in it, for it to be perfect within his own eyes. Why didn't god create man alone?

Jimby

Hey,

Im really not sure if you have made a point at all...

Genesis 1:31 reads... "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day"

All that God made was good in his eyes, infact its obvious that man was the best and most delightful of his creations, since he created everything else before Adam, that he might then give it to him.

As for what is "good". Something is Good when God does it. All that God does is Good so to speak.

Jimby.

hezekiah jones

And oh boy, did He give it to him. Sans vaseline.

Amos

Hi Jimby, what does your bible say about the seventh day? Does it include evening and morning? I hope not, and so if not was the seventh day not a shorter day? or . . . you tell me what is what.

Amos

Seeker of the Truth

Jimmy,

Here is another one with Genesis.

Genesis 3:22-23

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

S O the Lord God banished him from the Gardne of Eden .....

Take the God and Satan stuff away for a moment :

At university, you are registering for your courses, a professor come up and said to you,
"You can take any course except Religion 101: Intro. to Good and Evil"

You asked, "Why ?"

He replied, "Because it would make you almost as good as I am".

Question :

What kind of university do you think you are in ?



Seeker of the Truth

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by Jimby:
<STRONG> As for what is "good". Something is Good when God does it. All that God does is Good so to speak.</STRONG>

The authorization of massacres is good (Joshua 6:21). The authorization of murder is also good, including the stoning of rape victims and non-hymenal women (Deut. 22:20-21, 23-24). The personal slaughter of innocent children? Good, of course! (Exodus 12:29, 2 Samuel 12:14).

What a wonderfully loving and compassionate god you have! Tell me, is it still "Good" to kill children and stone non-virgins to death?

E_muse

These are excellent questions!

Does God consider massacres good, from the point of view of his own value judgement, even if he commands them?

Jimmy rightly points out that God considers everything which he has made as good. However, this changes from the fall of man onwards. At the point of the flood, God is described as regretting his actions in making man!

So does God always derive pleasure from his actions? I don't think so.

However, there is another question I have.

I live in a culture which seeks to defend the right of women to terminate an unborn life - an innocent if you like.

So why is God suddenly considered evil when he is seen to exercise the same right? That being - to terminate that which he has brought into being. I haven't yet received an answer to this.

If we argue that an unborn child is simply a collection of cells, then why should a God consider us as anything more? And why should we insist that he share our values regarding the presence of personality anyway?

How can I accuse God of evil for massacaring people when I can happily terminate an ant colony in my back yard which may be causing me inconvenience?

This is probably more in place within the moral foundations forum I admit.

[ August 31, 2001: Message edited by: E_muse ]

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by E_muse:
<STRONG>How can I accuse God of evil for massacaring people when I can happily terminate an ant colony in my back yard which may be causing me inconvenience?</STRONG>

Would you kill yourself for the ant colony?

PJPSYCO

quite simply the first creation story is to say god is good. And the second story, which disagress with first on what order some things were created is to prove that man is better than everything else. Later we are also taught that the Jews are the only good people in the ten commandments. Killing is perfectly acceptable and good according to the bible esspecially if you do it to an egyptian, or someone living in Israel, and it is very very bad if you do it to a Jew who are the only real people according to exodus.

E_muse

All good analogies break down at some point

No I wouldn't, but then I don't place that greater value on them.

My earlier point is that, even if God does sanction killing, it is rather hypocritical to accuse him of evil when we uphold the right of individuals in our society to do the same thing!

I think that the parallels with abortion are good (in my mind at least) because it relates better to human emotion and a woman who has a termination may suffer enormous anxiety and grief and suffer real loss of the child she has terminated.

Also, our anger against God for sanctioning certain acts seems to rest on at least two assumptions:

1. That he should share our values.
2. That we have inherent rights which God should not infringe.