Is God evil - or just lazy?

As a Christian myself, the way I see it is that evil and suffering draws you closer to God; in a perfect world why would anyone turn to God? Evil, suffering and pain makes strong people, strong people who (god willing...) enjoy a deep joy and true happiness in Heaven.

Did God create Evil? Well maybe, who knows, though if we take evil as consequence of human free will (given by God obviously...) which led us to sin. Maybe it's arguable that if you take this stance it's indirectly created by God, but evil is just a consequence anyway of having a loving God who gives us free will, a choice.

Trust me, every earthquake and every Tsumani, every dying kid I read about in the papers, the beaten and raped kid you allude to in your opening post-they all make me doubt this supposedly "loving God". I can not justify God's inaction in these cases, I can't accept free will as an answer for everything, and I suppose it comes down to what you believe after the debate- do you accept God has a plan for everyone and he knows what he's doing, the suffering and torment people go through is not actually useless, he doesn't exist, or he does and allows suffering without purpose. Hmmm...the whole thing makes my mind hurt...who knows the mind of a God, huh?

Ally, I couldn't have said it any better myself (literally!!!)

Tinuviel wrote:God doesn't do the bad things to us, we do. And sure, he doesn't intervene most of the time, but partially that's because we don't listen to him or notice he's even there. Also, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, for sure! He can't hold our hands through everything.

By allowing natural disasters, criminals, and other catastrophes to cause untold pain and death, God is complicit in human suffering. He doesn't need to "hold our hands through everything", but any person who has the ability to stop the murder, rape, etc. of millions and does nothing is morally at fault, even if they are not at the same level of fault as the perpetrators themselves.

I think you guys haves misunderstanding of god. Hes not a magician, He doesn't do all this stuff you think. He can't just stop a robber or rapist. Just because he doesn't interfere doesn't mean he doesnt want to.

I'm not familiar with Mormon theology, but I'm talking about the generic Christian (and in particular Protestant, since that's what I'm most familiar with) God. And that conception of God can do anything, since he is omnipotent. Stopping robbers or whatever would require a miracle, but that's hardly unheard of.

Does God want to intercede to help an Innocent, but cant. Why?

The torment of Innocents, allowed by a "wanting" but "can't" God, is surely every bit as reprensible as if it was Me standing by allowing it to happen. If I said, "It's for the benefit of that Innocent's Eternal Soul", would anyone forgive me? I wouldn't.

"I think you guys haves misunderstanding of god. Hes not a magician, He doesn't do all this stuff you think."- Lorient

I'm basing my version of God in this discussion on the character of God which emerges from the Bible, that is still the main book of all Christians isn't it? And that God made everything right at the start including all the animals etc- in which case it was His choice to make so many deadly things, His choice to make disease and germs, His choice to allow crippled and damaged children to be born, His choice to punish humans with sickness, death and diffiuclty in child birth. He made the Serpent and by default the first lies, the first deceits. He created a predatorial universe for us to live in- hard to see that as loving and not psychotic.
I personally have never been the stand back and watch someone else suffer right in front of me type. If my moral code doesn't allow for that why should I be interested in worshipping a God whose moral code does? A God whose moral code condemns homosexuals to eternal damnation for how they are and who they fall in love with? A God who uses threats of punishments and pain to get His way? A God who until the time of Christ was perfectly happy to have animals slaughtered in His name as sacrifices (and indeed demanded it). A God who when some of His own followers showed doubt and fell back to worship of another God had hundreds slaughtered as a warning? A God who upon the invasion of the Holy Land orders the murder of "Every man, women, child and old person" (Deuteronomy).
No the Christian God does not meet very high moral standards at all. Is He deserving of worship? A God whose own creation has attained a higher moral understanding than He has? I don't think so.
Indeed even if undeniable proof of this God were made I would still not bend my knee to such a one. Scots don't bend their knee easily to anyone and certainly not someone who is threatening us if we don't!

Psalm 137 says it all for me. The Hebrews and their hopes for Salvaton by their Tribal God. Oh Our God will kill all our enemies, Man, Woman and Babe. (Evil babies, I assume!) "By the rivers of Babylon..."

(Allah's no different, nor any of the other Gods known to Man).

Lorient Avandi wrote:I think you guys haves misunderstanding of god. Hes not a magician, He doesn't do all this stuff you think. He can't just stop a robber or rapist. Just because he doesn't interfere doesn't mean he doesnt want to.

I think I understand where you are coming from; we are all God's children and he allows us to make mistakes. Without making mistakes how do children learn? Just because we make mistakes doesn't mean that God doesn't exist, or that God actually wants us to make mistakes, only that he wants us to learn. What would we be if God allowed no evil, a 'perfect world', no war, no disease, we would all be slaves with no power to make choices and decisions on our own!! God wants us to do good, he had said that it's the right choice, but I don't know, maybe sin is around is to show the wrong choices made waaay back with Adam and Eve!!!


Maybe...


or maybe not I guess.

Ally wrote:

Lorient Avandi wrote:I think you guys haves misunderstanding of god. Hes not a magician, He doesn't do all this stuff you think. He can't just stop a robber or rapist. Just because he doesn't interfere doesn't mean he doesnt want to.

I think I understand where you are coming from; we are all God's children and he allows us to make mistakes. Without making mistakes how do children learn? Just because we make mistakes doesn't mean that God doesn't exist, or that God actually wants us to make mistakes, only that he wants us to learn. What would we be if God allowed no evil, a 'perfect world', no war, no disease, we would all be slaves with no power to make choices and decisions on our own!! God wants us to do good, he had said that it's the right choice, but I don't know, maybe sin is around is to show the wrong choices made waaay back with Adam and Eve!!!


Maybe...


or maybe not I guess.

And piggy backing off of that, without bad things in the world (regardless of God) how can good people rise to the occation?? God isn't as involved as he used to be, back in the bible. In the new testament, he's hardly involved because he sends Christ down from heaven. Now asking for everyone to believe in Jesus as well as God is a stretch, but since Jesus Christ came here, we have a living God to worship and therefore God does not need to manifest himself as often.

Ally wrote:What would we be if God allowed no evil, a 'perfect world', no war, no disease, we would all be slaves with no power to make choices and decisions on our own!! God wants us to do good, he had said that it's the right choice, but I don't know, maybe sin is around is to show the wrong choices made waaay back with Adam and Eve!!!

How would we be slaves if God did away with natural disasters and took a hand in punishing egregious evil-doers? I think it's disingenuous to conflate "stop horrible evil" and "control everything". No one is saying that God, if he exists, should take away all choices from humanity. However, allowing criminals to destroy other people's lives does not protect free will, unless you think that criminals' "right" to choose to hurt others is more important than victims' right to live their lives freely and unmolested. And natural disasters have nothing to do with free will at all.

Tinuviel wrote:And piggy backing off of that, without bad things in the world (regardless of God) how can good people rise to the occation??

Can you imagine what would happen if someone who witnessed, say, massive genocide somewhere like Rwanda or Yugoslavia, when asked why they stood back and did nothing, defended themselves by saying that they allowed such massive evil to occur because it would give good people an opportunity to do good things during the rebuilding afterwards? Such a person would be condemned as sick, selfish, and out of touch with morality; and rightly so. Why should God, who is infinitely more capable of stopping such crimes, be held to a lesser standard.

I'm not trying to offend anyone here, but I think these are important questions.

Tinuviel wrote:ion
[quote="Tinuviel"]And piggy backing off of that, without bad things in the world (regardless of God) how can good people rise to the occation??

Can you imagine what would happen if someone who witnessed, say, massive genocide somewhere like Rwanda or Yugoslavia, when asked why they stood back and did nothing, defended themselves by saying that they allowed such massive evil to occur because it would give good people an opportunity to do good things during the rebuilding afterwards? Such a person would be condemned as sick, selfish, and out of touch with morality; and rightly so. Why should God, who is infinitely more capable of stopping such crimes, be held to a lesser standard?