God does not create, commit, or allow evil!

[Agnostic_Gabe]

For probably a little over a year I was 90% on board with the assertions of this thread. I had pretty much thought capital punishment was wrong, that violence always begets more violence. To be sure, I still believe that senseless violence is wrong, but am now in clear support of the death penalty (provided we are sure the person is guilty, as sure as one can be).

After stepping back from a forum and asking some hard questions, looking outside of Christianity, I learned some new things. Things that cast doubt on a lot of things in the New Testament. While I know that sits very uneasy for some in this forum, and will probably just assume the worst of me, I care not. I’d share an article that had a great influence on me, it was short, but interesting article from Robert M Price. A guy, who, upon face value appears like a lunatic hillbilly, but is actually a very kind, thought provoking. He is also quite charitable towards those who disagree with him… Something I wish others were. A lot of conjecture on his part about many things, but that is the work of a curious mind. One phrase that really stuck out from something he wrote was this:

Robert M. Price - I once believed in pacifism–until I heard an eloquent defense of it. We were at Princeton Theological Seminary. I was talking to a man who had given up ministerial training to take up the law. He wanted to serve the urban poor who could not afford high-priced lawyers. A radical Christian, to be sure, and, sure enough, a pacifist. Someone asked the inevitable question: if he was so opposed to using force to repel aggression, what would he do should he discover some intruder making ready to rape his wife? His answer? He would not use violence because that would show a lack of faith both in his wife’s ingenuity to extricate herself from the situation, and in God who might be planning some miraculous deliverance at the last possible moment. I had heard enough.

But I hadn’t heard it all. Not by a long shot. Because now I have heard of pacifist atheists. I must conclude that they have caught the Christian disease of undiscriminating moral decadence: they equate the victim and the victimizer, and they are just plain soft on crooks because they lack the guts to do anything about it. Fear masquerades as compassion.

Sometimes one hears atheists absolutely ruling out war because of the supposed rationalism on which they like to congratulate themselves. War is always a failure of diplomacy. True enough. But sometimes, as Neville Chamberlain discovered, diplomacy is a game one cannot win. Someone is cheating. Someone is taking advantage of the professed refusal of one side ever to resort to force. They are playing the pacifists for the fools they are, to get as far as they can before they have to start shooting, knowing we may well be intimidated into giving up the store before they have to rob it! This, too, is Christian decadence in disguise. It shows a stance of pure and unsupported faith which facts cannot penetrate until it is much too late. The liberal atheist, like his fideistic Christian model, simply refuses to accept certain harsh realities. As Freud said of the religious believer, the invulnerable liberal is remaking the real world into a wish-world by projecting his own values upon it. And the real world is one that contains aggressive people who want to take what you have and do not believe, as liberals do, that there are always two sides to every dispute. You can be sure that fanatics like Osama bin Laden do not think for a second that there is a rational “solution” to a “problem” that would avert war. Any more than Hitler did. Look at facts, empiricist! Nietzsche said “Faith is not wanting to know the truth.” Does your politics allow you to know it? As Hornbeck said to Drummond in Inherit the Wind, “Well, we’re growing an odd crop of agnostics this year!”

full publication here: robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_sheep_wolves.htm

Oh, and this is special shout-out to Randy- Robert M. Price has two PhD’s, one in systematic theology and one is new testament. I know Randy puts stock in only those with a PhD…

I think the reason I ever embraced pseudo pacifism is because I had become soft and cowardly. I didn’t want to do the hard thing, to make a decision about terminating someone’s life, who no longer has a right to it, because they gave it up the moment they took someone else’s right to life. If there is a God, he can sort it out. If there isn’t a God, good riddance of a human being who ceased to be a human being.There is no need to reform what isn’t eternal, anyway. Still on fence, still a doubting Thomas over everything, but no matter what vantage place I look at it, I am comfortable with the death penalty and violence to restrain people who wish to harm others. Zero guilt here.

[anon12438761]

Still on fence, still a doubting Thomas over everything, but no matter what vantage place I look at it, I am comfortable with the death penalty and violence to restrain people who wish to harm others. Zero guilt here.

Study everything, join nothing - my motto. (borrowed from MavPhil)
The problem of pain and evil - will not be solved by us.

[Paidion]

@PaidionThat doesn’t make sense. If A&E were immortal at creation then the verse you posted Gen 3:22 would not make sense. How can they be immortal if they had eaten from the ToL and achieved immortality there? If eating fruit from ToL makes one immortal then they would have been mortal to begin with.

Actually, the consequent of your final conditional sentence doesn’t follow from its antecedent. Adam and Eve were not mortal to begin with. They BECAME mortal when the ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God had said, “In the day you eat from it, you shall surely be dying.” The death process began at the moment of consumption.

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22-24)

[JamesAH81072]

@PaidionThat doesn’t make sense. If A&E were immortal at creation then the verse you posted Gen 3:22 would not make sense. How can they be immortal if they had eaten from the ToL and achieved immortality there? If eating fruit from ToL makes one immortal then they would have been mortal to begin with.

Actually, the consequent of your final conditional sentence doesn’t follow from its antecedent. Adam and Eve were not mortal to begin with. They BECAME mortal when the ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God had said, “In the day you eat from it, you shall surely be dying.” The death process began at the moment of consumption.

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:22-24)

If they were immortal(and that’s a different discussion)then what benefit would they have if they have eaten from the ToL if the fruit of ToL gives out immortality? You have to remember that God told them they could eat from that tree just not the ToKoGaE.

[Paidion]

He told them that they could eat from ANY tree except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. So they had God’s permission to eat from the Tree of Life. But there’s nothing in the record that indicates that they ever did.

I’m sure there were many good fruit trees in the garden but just ONE Tree of Life. Perhaps they never came across it.

[Hermano]

For probably a little over a year I was 90% on board with the assertions of this thread. I had pretty much thought capital punishment was wrong, that violence always begets more violence. To be sure, I still believe that senseless violence is wrong, but am now in clear support of the death penalty (provided we are sure the person is guilty, as sure as one can be)….

…Gabe then goes on to quote from “Robert M. Price,” who talks about, for example, what should be done if someone was about to rape your wife; the wrongness of equating the victim with the victimizer; the demonstrably poor judgment of appeaser Neville Chamberlain, etc.

But Gabe, I think you are misinterpreting me. I am talking about action, not passivity; living as victors, not victims. I am talking about the supernatural, versus the natural. Spirituality vs. carnality. Trusting in the Lord, instead of leaning on our own understanding.

I am not talking about the work of presidents and policemen and soldiers—although I thank God for them. I am talking about the unlimited resources of the Kingdom of Heaven, and our work, as Christians.

We should be supernatural. We should be prophetic:

And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” Numbers 11:28-29.

-We have the keys of the kingdom: we are to bind death and loose life. What about Psalm 91 angelic protection being loosed over our homes? --And prophets shouldn’t be taken by surprise by bad guys breaking into their homes (see 2 Kings 6:9-12).

-And as to the cost of feeding prisoners, instead of executing them, we Christians are to be channels of heavenly financial resources—the same as we should be for an unwanted baby to come full term, instead of being aborted because there is apparently not enough money to maintain it.

God is only about life, even abundant life (John 10:10). He is well able to care for everything His hand has made, and He wants to use us, the Church, to help do that. As for resources, the Father told the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son: “Everything I have is yours.” Luke 15:31. Believers are not to be limited by the laws of physics, the laws of economics, the laws of medicine, etc.

If someone breaks into my home and attacks my wife, I will certainly fight for her (although hopefully I won’t kill the attacker). But I am not called to be a policeman. If someone attacks my country, I will pray for the military. But I am not called to be a soldier. As a praying Christian, I know how to use my time better than being a policeman or a soldier. “Our struggle is NOT against flesh and blood,” and “The weapons of our warfare are NOT carnal.” Ephesians 6:12, 2 Corinthians 10:4.

As my friend Richard has said, “We have downloaded into our hearts a HUGE Satanic lie.”

Foundational to a correct understanding and practice of spiritual warfare, I offer you a refutation of the primacy of morality (from Richard Murray’s book, God vs. Evil):

QUESTION 2: IS THE “LESS EVIL” OPTION STILL EVIL?

We have been duped!

We have downloaded into our hearts a HUGE Satanic lie, a wrong way of thinking, a numbing mindset which dumbs us down to a place of NOT believing for God’s absolute best. This menacing mindset is akin to rearranging furniture on the deck of the Titanic. While the rearranged deck may temporally look improved, the ship is sinking.

So, what is this wrong mindset straight from the devil’s arsenal of deception? Merely this: rather than believing for God’s absolute goodness to overcome the evil in the world, we wrongly use evil’s fire to stop evil’s fire. Instead of believing for God’s flawless good to TOTALLY overcome evil circumstances, we start engaging in “lesser evil” thinking.

What is “lesser evil” thinking? It is a mindset which uses evil to stop evil. It uses violence to try to stop violence. It uses coercion to stop coercion. It uses lesser evil to stop or diminish greater evils. But what it doesn’t do, and in fact can never do, is eradicate evil altogether. And that is why Satan wants to keep us bound by thinking this way.

Let me give a few examples. WARS may be “less evil” than allowing tyranny or chaos to rule unresisted in their place. SPANKING our children with rods, belts, or our hands may be “less evil” than letting them run amok unrestrained and hurting themselves and others. EXECUTING murderers may be “less evil” than allowing them to live out their full life spans and possibly endangering other future potential victims. LYING may be “less evil” in the short run than telling a harsh truth. LUSTING in our heart may be “less evil” than committing physical fornication. PORNOGRAPHY may be “less evil” them committing physical adultery. HATING secretly may be “less evil” than committing physical hate-crimes.

But then again, all the above options may NOT be “less evil” than the alternatives. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made no distinctions between lesser and greater evils. All sin to Jesus was unbelief. John 16:9; Romans 14:23. And THAT is the problem. When we process reality through the lens of lesser and greater evil, we end up trapped “living off” the cursed and poisoned fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. **We end up never “living off” the blessed fruit of The Tree of Life because we are scurrying about frantically leaping at the “less evil” options. Unfortunately, governments, families, society and other institutions tend to all operate on the “lesser evil” principle rather than the dynamic of “God’s greater good.” **

All of us can come up with reasons to justify retaliation, revenge, punishment, lust, violence and cruelty. We call these reasons “needful,” “good” or “necessary,” but in reality we are just using evil to combat evil. We pick an evil which we deem less immediately destructive in our view, a lesser evil which in truth only slows down or replaces a greater evil. And while, on some pathetic level, destroying ourselves with a lesser evil in a “slower burn” is preferable since it gives us more opportunity to ultimately repent, this is not God’s best by anybody’s reckoning.

This is NOT God’s goodness. This is not God’s solution. This is not God’s way.

God never ordains a “lesser evil” to combat a “greater evil.” He is our loving Heavenly Father who never gives us a scorpion when ask for an egg, a serpent when we ask for a fish, or a stone when we ask for bread. Rather, God opens up the vaults of Heaven to give to every man that asks. Luke 11:9-13. In Him is light and NO darkness at ALL, no variableness or shadow of turning, the Father of lights from whom comes only good and perfect gifts from above. 1 John 1:5; James 1:17.

So, what are the reasons that God’s good and perfect “evil-free” gifts from above are NOT being released unto open and full manifestation? Why are so many STUCK in “lesser-evil” mode?

First, many men hope for God’s good WITHOUT ever actually “asking” for it from God. We have not because we ask not. James 4:2. Our actual ASKING yields OUR sphere of influence over TO Him. This enables God to then manifest His Spirit to overcome all our evil situations with His perfect goodness. God has given us freedom, and He will never force or coerce us into yielding to Him. Our asking is a way of allowing Him access to fully take dominion over the circumstances.

Second, many ask WITHOUT faith, but rather ask with doubt and double-mindedness. He that wavers in unbelief should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. James 1:6-7.

Third, many ask WITHOUT “importunity.” Luke 11:1-10 teaches us to pray with “importunity,” which in the original Greek literally means “over-boldness” or “shamelessness.” My own definition of importunity is “passionate patience.” Like the man in the parable of this passage, we knock louder and louder and louder, without regard to how we look to others, all the while knowing that our loving Father will open Heaven’s door at the optimum moment. We are patient, but with ever-increasing intensity and confidence. In our patience we possess our souls, and through faith and patience we inherit ALL the promises of God. Luke 21:19; Hebrews 6:12.

Fourth, many ask WITHOUT first “putting on” the mind of Christ. Romans 13:14. 1 Corinthians 2:16. As John Wesley said, “We have the mind of Christ, and ALL the mind of Christ.” Galatians 2:20 says that the life we NOW live we are to live by the faith OF, OF, OF, OF the Son of God. Jesus’ faith, His mind, His thoughts, His passion, His confidence, His love from and for the Father. It is all ours to “live by” right here and right now. Our faith will always fail, but Jesus’ faith will ALWAYS overcome all evil with the power of God’s perfect goodness. Or put another way, the Holy Spirit IS the gift of Jesus’ faith sent to indwell us to “live by” in all our ways. The sons of God are those led by the Spirit of God. Romans 8:14.

The bottom line is that we must not let the snare of LESS EVIL trap us, or we will never experience GOD’S GREATER GOODNESS! Don’t accept less than God’s perfect will and power toward any situation. Keep knocking louder and louder with importunity and faith. Don’t slum around with ANY evil. **Less evil is STILL evil. Hold out for the good and perfect gifts from above. “All Evil” can only be totally overcome with “All Goodness.” **

We need a daily OVERHAUL of God’s goodness, not just half-measures of “lesser evil” adjustments.

From the foregoing, allow me to offer another, possibly more accurate, name for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:

The Tree of Greater and Lesser Evil.

After all, it was a forbidden tree. So how could it offer anything genuinely “good”?

[JamesAH81072]

He told them that they could eat from ANY tree except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. So they had God’s permission to eat from the Tree of Life. But there’s nothing in the record that indicates that they ever did.

I’m sure there were many good fruit trees in the garden but just ONE Tree of Life. Perhaps they never came across it.

But if they had what would the fruit have done to them since according to you that they already had immorality and if they ate from the tree they would live forever(meaning they would become immortal)? If the fruit from the tree gives immorality again what would the fruit done to them if they had eaten from it while they were already immortal?

[Paidion]

I have never said that they had immortality to begin with. If they had been truly immortal then nothing could have caused them to die.

After eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they then had immorality, but they didn’t have immortality.

Before eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were in a state that was neither mortal nor immortal. It could go either way.
They made a choice that began the death process. Had they eaten thereafter from the Tree of Life, the death process would have ended, and they would have been immortal. So God prevented them from re-entering the garden and eating from the Tree of Life.

[JamesAH81072]

I have never said that they had immortality to begin with

Well here is what you said:

“God didn’t create them mortal, but they became mortal through disobedience”

So if God didn’t create them mortal then He created them immortal or are you backtracking here?

[Paidion]

“God didn’t create them mortal, but they became mortal through disobedience”

So if God didn’t create them mortal then He created them immortal or are you backtracking here?

I am not backtracking in any way. I still hold the same position I held from the beginning.

Have you not read what I said in my most recent post above? Here is your illogical clause:

So if God didn’t create them mortal then He created them immortal.

As I said earlier, the consequent of this conditional clause does not follow logically from its antecedent.
You presume incorrectly that “mortal” and “immortal” are collectively exhaustive. They are not.

As I said in my previous post, they were created NEITHER mortal no immortal. “Mortal” means “subject to natural death,” whereas “immortal” means “not subject to death of any kind.” They were created NOT mortal, and NOT immortal. They BECAME mortal immediately after they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil—subject to natural death. If they had afterward eaten from the Tree of Life, they would have become immortal—not subject to death of any kind.

[anon12438761]

You are not alone qaz; as you are aware, there are good and sufficient explanations for why the A/E story could very well be ‘true myth’.

[Hermano]

Am I the only one here who doesn’t think the story of Adam and Eve is actual history? The whole story is totally implausible to me. I feel so out of place reading you guys argue about this, like on this planet Earth there was a real garden with a real tree of knowledge of good and evil and a real tree of life.

You are not alone qaz; as you are aware, there are good and sufficient explanations for why the A/E story could very well be ‘true myth’.

Why is the story of Adam and Eve implausible? To me, everything fits–

-…The son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. Luke 3:38.

-Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come. Rom. 5:14.

-For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1 Cor. 15:22.

-*So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. * 1 Cor. 15:45.

-For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 1 Tim. 2:13.

-Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones….” Jude 1:14.
Once you start snipping at the miraculous historicity and the predictive prophecy, can you stop yourself

Noah? “You’re kidding, right?”

Samson? “Puh-LEASE!”

Daniel? “Historical events post-dated (ex eventu) to look like genuine predictive prophecies, with some fairy tales thrown in.”

Angels? “The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits.” Acts 23:8.

Satan? “A personification of human evil.”

Antichrist? a.k.a. “The one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders”—see above.
Blessings.

[anon12438761]

Hermano I was not sniping at anything. If you carefully read what I wrote, I said a case COULD be made that explained the story without taking it literally, but still encapsulating the Truth God wants us to know.*

And the slippery slope argument does NOT work. I think you know that. Using intelligence and scholarship and history, we can honor God’s word more than well…other ways, in recognizing things such as genre, form criticism, oral tradition, dating of the sources, history of surrounding societies and their mythologies - you are behind the curve, dude!

OTOH - we ain’t gonna convince one another. I think your fears are misplaced; no doubt I’m being deceived because I disagree. Wow!!

[steve7150]

Hermano I was not sniping at anything. If you carefully read what I wrote, I said a case COULD be made that explained the story without taking it literally, but still encapsulating the Truth God wants us to know.*

I think taking the Creation story symbolically is different then calling it a myth? Symbolically means it could be inspired by God but “myth” sounds like it’s “made up”, at least to me.

It’s possible the story is symbolic and to me it wouldn’t matter but Jesus referenced people and events in it specifically and in a way that sounds literal.

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

Hermano, I don’t believe in a worldwide flood or the Samsom story either. I have a hard time believing in angels too, as metaphysical beings that have existed outside of nature in some unexplained society. The universe is 14 billion years old. When was the angels’ universe created? What do they do when they’re not intervening in our universe? Sorry hermano, but the whole idea of angels is totally implausible to me.

Which raises a question, since the bible mentions angels. And angels are mentioned, in both the Old and New Testaments. Do you only believe parts of the bible? If so, which parts do (or don’t, depending on which is easier) - you believe or disbelieve.

[JamesAH81072]

Since the NT mentions Adam as a literal person it’s a 100% certainty that A&E were literal people. The NT debunks that the OT creation story is a myth.

[anon12438761]

Do you only believe parts of the bible? If so, which parts do (or don’t, depending on which is easier) - you believe or disbelieve

[steve7150]

Since the NT mentions Adam as a literal person it’s a 100% certainty that A&E were literal people. The NT debunks that the OT creation story is a myth.

Jesus mentioned “the blood of Abel” and other specific things about Creation so i take it literally but you can mention specific things that are symbolic simply as a point of reference.

[steve7150]

I have a hard time believing in angels too, as metaphysical beings that have existed outside of nature in some unexplained society. The universe is 14 billion years old. When was the angels’ universe created? What do they do when they’re not intervening in our universe? Sorry hermano, but the whole idea of angels is totally implausible to me.

I think Jesus told Peter that if he asked his Father to send 40 legions of Angels to help it would be done so if Angels don’t exist then Jesus can’t be trusted.

[anon12438761]

A tendency that most of us have, it appears, is to fall prey to the very easy but misleading ‘either-or’ fallacy. Wiki defines it like this:
“A false dilemma is a type of informal fallacy in which something is falsely claimed to be an “either/or” situation, when in fact there is at least one additional option.[1]
A false dilemma can arise intentionally, when a fallacy is used in an attempt to force a choice or outcome. The opposite of this fallacy is false compromise.
The false dilemma fallacy can also arise simply by accidental omission of additional options rather than by deliberate deception.”

I am always suspicious of an either-or situation; of course, some of those situations are warranted: “Either you told a lie or you did not”.

(1) “Either you believe the bible is the word of God or you don’t.”
If ‘believe the bible’ is a CODE for “believe every single word of the KJV of the protestant bible is infallible, to be taken literally regardless of obvious literary technique (genre, symbolism, metaphor etc.)” , then the question would be more accurately put:

(2)“Either you believe every single word of the KJV of the protestant bible is infallible, to be taken literally regardless of obvious literary technique (genre, symbolism, metaphor etc. or you don’t” - THEN it ceases to be fallacious.

(3) “You are either a Unitarian or you are not” - I think we all see through that fallacious question, no?

(4) “Either you believe the bible or not” - can be CODE for “that Adam and Eve were literally the first two human beings, there was a literal snake in the Garden, that spoke words” then the question really is:
(5) “Either you believe that Adam and Eve were literally the first two human beings, there was a literal snake in the Garden, that spoke words, or you don’t” - that’s a a well-put question, I think.

We have MANY ‘code-words’ that IMPLY much more than they state: Inspiration, Inerrancy, Reliability, Word of God, Divinity, True Man - there’s a long list, and using those code words in an either-or situation is just not fair, and not logically ‘honest’. In other words, if there is an hidden agenda behind the question, then asking someone to answer the question in an either-or manner using code words is, at minimum, not conducive to real communication or to a sincere quest for the truth.

My $.02