How do we know God is "Good"?

Gee...this could lead somewhere.The flood killed everyone on Earth....but babies weren't mentioned...so they weren't killed.Lets take that further.
Hmmm...men weren't mentioned specifically either...so they weren't killed.
Women weren't mentioned specifically...so they weren't killed.
And specific animal species weren't mentioned outright...so no specific animal species were killed...therefore no animals were killed.Therefore, according to the Bible, nothing was killed by a flood that covered the Earth.Well Mike....for once I agree with you and now the Bible agrees with the evidence in the rocks...Thank you!!!

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We're apathetic anarchists...we don't care who we blow up!

Mike,Have you a link to this thread, or would you consider inviting them here to debate the flood?I'd like to know what they said that you feel is more convincing that 1000's of geologist around the world putting in 100,000's hours of study of the earth with reams of interlocking evidence that falsifies the notion of a world wide flood at any time. And no I don't have confirmation of my numbers but have made my estimates extremely conservative.lfen

Then I guess my follow up question would be this:Why did God find it necessary to describe the punishment of a city in terms of the dismemberment and mutilation of a woman?

Hi Pink Sasquatch! I do not know.It is interesting to note, though, that the use of a woman to describe God's people is employed in the New Testament as well.Also, Jeremiah 6:2 says:

Well, yeaaahh. Well, if he could have flooded the entire world and then removed any evidence that a world wide flood had happened and rearranged the layers of the earth to make it look like it does now, then he could have given the babies wings and sent them to another planet circling another star in another galaxies. So yeah you can make up further stories that are no more believable than a world wide flood or all those other mythological tales from Greece, Judah, Persia, wherever.The point is not what God did. The point is what people like Mike and yourself imagine a "good" God would do based on your willingness to set science aside and choose to believe primitive myths as if they were science and then evade the logical consequences of that self delusion by a series of hypothetical events even more preposterous than the story you are rationalizing.lfen

Hi Ifen,While I realize that you have much zeal for your theories about the origins of life, earth, etc., please note that this is a thread about "How do we know God is 'Good'".

And that means we can only say good things about God? and flood and the babies? Your sequence doesn't parse a reply. You learned this techique in apologetics I presume and it's effective in that without sequence objections tend to just dry up and blow away? I am reprimanded for not noting the topic title? Or for not knowing what you will accept as being within the limits of what you wish to deal with? And what have I said to make you realize my theories about the origins of life and the earth? and the etc. being?I've offered my opinion in this thread on how I think we know God is "Good" and my objections were in sequence to your defense. Your point I take it is I've no right to raise objections even though I've said nothing about my theories of abiogenesis or planetary formation but have spoken about the metaphysics of good and evil and the source of religious beliefs.lfen

(jumpin in WAY late in the game)There's a LOT of things in your opening post that are simply ... strange ways of thinking to me. But here are two that I think are important: Are you actually claiming some sort of ethic to be "objective" ? I don't think I'd want to go there. What is it that makes you think there's an 'objective' ethic? Please, if do want to explain, define 'objective' AND ethic while you do it. That will help me respond to you better. Thanks! For Christians, God is the CREATOR of good and evil, and JUDGEMENT. God does, almost by DEFINITION, what is right. I think the only approach you can take is to show inconsistency in what God says, and what God does; i.e. you use God's own ethic to show that he does things against it. In other words, this 'objective' ethic stuff is NOT going to get you far. I think Mike the wiz is doing the best job of trying to follow this way.You can't PARTIALLY accept the Christian God. Either you make the leap of faith to believe in the Christian God and what that God represents, or you don't. I feel like you're trying to posit that Christians accept that there is SOME God, with unknown properties, and then to judge him with some ethic (which you've chosen to call objective). That's just not how it works with faith. You're either all in, or not in at all. So ... I think it's confusing because the problem you're stating is basically a straw man (and I'm guessing an inadvertent one)Comments?Ben

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No fellow servant is allowed to kill me, because of the commandment "Do no murder", and Jesus's teachings to not even get angry at someone without cause.

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I am not a servant.

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God didn't say there were any babies in Sodom. Please quote were he said there were children in Sodom, or at Noah's flood, and their names, thanks.

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waaaaahahahahahahahahaThats not worthy of any other response. Mike you're making quite a radical claim here - not only is the word of god inerrant, but also that the word of god is encyclopedic, and that anything that doesn't get a mention is by implication non-existant.In which case, where in the bible is India or China mentioned? Does that imply to you that these places do not exist?I was going to remark on the idsue dpardo raised - the bible generally uses male specific terms, as in "the men of Sodom". Now if the MEN of Sodom were wicked, does not Mikes logic imply that the WOMEN of Sodom were innocent? And yet, they were destroyed too.And I believe I can justify both the presence of women and children in Sodom biblically, mostly becuase Sodom is one of my favourite examples of the immoral god. So in the bit where the Sodomites are hassling Lot to give over the angles, he offers up his daughters to be gang-raped instead. Such a moral, god-fearing man:

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Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."

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If Lot lives in Sodom, and Lot has DAUGHTERS, and also sons-in-law, then presumably other children in Sodom were not that remarkable.Religion thus demonstrates yet again how the desperate defence of the indefensible makes otherwise rational adults into blithering idiots.This message has been edited by contracycle, 11-18-2004 06:16 AMThis message has been edited by contracycle, 11-18-2004 06:17 AM

riveRrat There is not only no evidence for this, the hebrew word for death is the same in the context of Adam as it is in the description of physical death descibed throughout the Old Testament.There is a hebrew word for spirit which is never once employed in concert with death as a description that would seperate the death of Adam from that of anyone else.

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"Calling Atheism a religion is like calling bald a hair color."
--Don Hirschberg

Pink, I couldn't remember your last name is all - it wasn't an insult, I just illogically assumed you were an atheist. No. I've claimed nothing. Really - they made the claims. I haven't said that there were babies on earth, or not babies on earth. I have said that the bible doesn't specifically say babies were killed in the flood, in opposition to a claim that they were killed.Technically, I can't be refuted for not taking a position.I can be refuted if the bible specifically mentions baby death at the flood. Since no specific quote has been quotes, and only insults or "mike this is ridiculous" don't count as refutations of logic, I remain in my neutral position, of claiming nothing.

He does, Mike. He said he killed everyone. Everyone includes the poor little babas. I see. Man forced poor little God's hand into killing all those babies.That must have been rough for God. Cool, looks like I win.

Contracycle - you've made the logical error of thinking I've claimed that thee were no babies on earth.Since I have only asked people to back up their claim of specific baby death - and since I'm so silly, I'll also laugh at myself and ask you for the quote that will finally shut me up. It will be so hilarious when you provide the specific quote to back up the specific claim that babies died in Sodom. Thanks. Can't wait for a chuckle, at erm - the position I've taken - which was to....erm, take no position.

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You said thank goodness you're not a CHRISTian. Christians believe Christ is the person of God.
I prefer the cross to the crowd.

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If agreeing with "the cross" as opposed to "the crowd" means denying logic, reality, and good sense, then I'm glad I don't follow the cross.Casting yourself as an outsider probably makes you feel more unique or special or something.If "the cross" told you to jump off a bridge, would you? The crowd isn't jumping off bridges.

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What? By telling what the bible says about sin?

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No, by making dumb arguments which change the obvious intended, very clearly written meaning of the words of the Bible.

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That we shall be punished according to our doings?

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Please quote the Bible verse where God tells every single person on the planet that he will drown them unless they shape up and fly straight. IOW, where do all the people n the planet learn the potential consequences of their actions?

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In evry event mentioned - God said he spared the righteouss.

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But do you really believe that the babies in the wombs of women were evil? Do you believe the 6 week old infants were wicked?

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Why should I believe you and not the bible?

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You aren't following the Bible.You are making up extra explanations not found in the Bible to make God into the "always perfect and good" entity you want him to be.

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Pink atheist said the first thing he thought is "what about the babies". This is an example, that you first try and blame God - and think of possible ways to make man's sin God's instead.

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Can you please tell me which verse in the Bible describes how God let everyone in the world know that he would kill them in a flood if they did not change their ways?

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Yet in every event mentioned, it was shown in the bible that man sinned. So I think the bible agrees with me somehow Shraff - that the wicked were punished and the righteous were not.

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The babies in women's wombs were wicked?

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"There is no peace sayeth the Lord, for the wicked". "Oh if thou hadst hearkened unto my commandments - then thy peace would have been as a river" - again, all biblical - and I agree with it.

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God is expecting 3 month old babies to follow commandments?All people in the world had heard of God's commandments? Even in North America? Even in India?See, mike, you are running up against the problem of context.The people who wrote the Bible didn't know the Earth was as big, and round, as it is. They didn't know that most of the rest of the world's people even existed.They had a very narrow, limited and terribly inaccurate view of what "the whole world" meant.Taken in this context, using the mindset of a uneducated nomadic shepherd from 2000 years ago, the stories read better and god doesn't sound quite as cruel.He is still cruel, but not quite as cruel.It is more realistic to think that "everyone in the world" would know about god's commandments, because a nomadic shepherd's "entire world" is miniscule when compared to what we mean by that phrase today.

Is this an appeal to my love of the lil babas? Linear's sarcasm didn't endeavour to exhaust all the logical pathways concerning what everyone means.Does everyone - in the scripture, mean Noah and his family?