God is evil if He has miracles and does not use them.

To judge God requires that we have at least as much knowledge as He does. Can anyone step forward and be such a Judge?Does God expect us to judge and even test Him?

Justified under what authority?

The whole problem with this whimsical approach to spiritual interference from deities is that you lump God and satan into one result.God is Spirit. There is only one(1) Holy Spirit.Humans are flesh(mind, will, emotions) and can be filled with the Spirit.satan operates as an antithesis. We basically can be filled with the Spirit(when we are humble and reverential, allowing the Spirit to fully live in us and through us.We can also choose to allow our flesh(mind/will/emotions to manifest.The rapist is freely choosing his flesh. He allows the twisted perversity of the addiction/mental illness to manifest and he purposefully violates the victim. God is only responsible inasmuch as He initially allowed freewill and satan to exist(as well as our decision to feed our flesh/illness/addiction.)The fact of the matter is that due to freewill, evil exists and manifests through humans. Hurricanes are not evil, nor our Tsunamis...they are simple actions of nature.One could argue that God is evil for allowing potential pain and death to result, but I doubt you would have enough of a case(nor sharp enough mind) to successfully challenge Him in court about it.

Good point. lets think about this.Rapists dont simply freely and innocently decide one day to become rapists.The addiction has to have been formed first. An addiction by definition is a maladaptive response to stress. Perhaps the rapist was in a sense "raped" themselves. We cant blame satan...since you lumped him and God together. This brings up the question---again--of human intention.Whose fault is it that the rapist became a rapist?

I can see your point regarding God as being defined and depicted through the lens of the culture,experience, and context of the individual.Raphael and other Christians, such as myself, regard God as alive and, though separate from the culture we live in in an absolute sense (Being eternal and supernatural) we believe that through Jesus Christ God becomes alive in communion with the worshiper. You will, of course, ask us how we know that it is God rather than a "bad burrito" and I can understand how your enquiring mind would very much like to know.Though I cannot speak for Raphael, I will say that personally, GOD (yes, the capital One) experiences the culture that I live in through being in Holy Communion with me.Again, I realize that you dislike the belief that some of us are special (peculiar?) yet not everybody experiences this Communion---but I find no evidence that the warlord(GOD) communes equally with everyone---unless they accept the terms of the communion.(Does that make any sense or is it word salad? )

Why not? Can you accept the idea that GOD chose to commune with humanity (the ants) by spiritually embodying one of them?Is it not possible that GOD (yes, again the Capital One) wants to be in communion with humanity and has provided a way for us to understand---despite the infinite difference between GOD and man?

It is more than logic, reason, and reality....that much I know.I believe that it is through Jesus Christ.It is tough to describe a territory...even with well drawn maps.To start with, can we agree that humanity-at-large would even want to commune with GOD? Some critics assert that the answer is "no".I can imagine that GOD...even through Jesus--has a unique go of it with you...since you always ask questions and never accept pat answers.

Through communion. Let me put it this way. Joe Wood believed that the Warlord(who had enough food for everybody rather than just those who believed in him) should have fed everybody.What is the difference between offering someone food and force feeding everyone so as not to exclude anyone?Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Perhaps by intervening, God deprives us of doing our best to prevent evil. Thus we...as His resource--are being prevented from fulfilling our destiny and growth by His intervention prematurely.Just a thought.

There are some problems with your analogy. First off all, the police are public servants. God is not at our beck and call, nor does He have to do anything to prove that He is not evil. God owes us nothing.The traditional argument is that God gave His sons life for all of evils power to consume us to be thwarted---vanquished---eliminated.While I will say that I agree with those who see this as unnecessarily dramatic--they ask how if Jesus is God dying is any big deal. What, however, if God had left us humans alone and let us play out our natural course of affairs--evolution---awareness--eventual transcendence as the human animal---we would have killed ourselves?In other words, what if God has already intervened to prevent the destruction of the human species---and here we are quibbling over why He wont prevent the pain of every victim. What if the pain of some is the only way that growth of empathy in the rest of us can be nurtured?Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

It is quite interesting to read the responses to this topic from many diverse individuals--all with differing and unique experiences with reality.For those of us who describe ourselves as believers--God is very real. We talk with Him, pray to Him, and hear from Him in many unique ways.What is interesting to me, however, is that God is also defined through non believers.The sub-title to Faith and Belief asks:

quote:

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Is God an objective reality or a subjective concept?

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In the phrase, I Love You *I* is the subject and *you* is the object.For believers, God is objective because they perceive Him personally and distinctly. I theorize that for non believers, God can never be objective and in fact is always subjective via description from believers...themselves subjective to the non believer. All of us--believer and non believer alike-- can only describe God subjectively through our own lens. Objectivism is very personal and cannot be adequately conveyed to others--nor perhaps should it. My jury is still out on this one.

quote:

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Objectivism:
noun
1.
the tendency to lay stress on what is external to or independent of the mind.
2.
PHILOSOPHY
the belief that certain things, especially moral truths, exist independently of human knowledge or perception of them.

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Food For Thought.

And yet if God exists, God is not limited by how society defines Him nor His actions.The issue is whether God is responsible or whether we are responsible or both.In my belief, God created potential evil which only became actual once it was chosen. Thus, why would God be responsible for our choice even if it was He who made the options?

Perhaps God is unconcerned with how we judge Him but only in how we handle the problems and challenges of society, regardless whether He initiated the possibilities or not.

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Perhaps we are His miracles and through our actions, His miracles are being used.

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Saying, "I don't know," is the same as saying, "Maybe."~ZombieRingo
It's easy to see the speck in somebody else's ideas - unless it's blocked by the beam in your own.~Ringo
If a savage stops believing in his wooden god, it does not mean that there is no God only that God is not wooden.(Leo Tolstoy)

Assume foir a moment that evil is carried and spread by humans. Tsunamis and hurricanes dont actually count. They are part of nature.My belief is that God wont stop evil---through humans---because it is our job to stop it ourselves.He set it up this way.He even told us that we would be hated because of our profession (In Christ)(Not to suggest a Martyr Complex... )

Name the other potential and/or possible ways that evil could be spread. I come up with 3. 1) God. 2) Humans 3) other spirits...well i suppose #4 could be viruses or bacteria. The only evidence we have suggests that the phenom known as "evil" is in fact spread by humans. Just read the news. It causes us to accept responsibility rather than blaming God or satan. For a believer, the best way to fight satan is to accept God, acknowledge that God is good, and take responsibility for the choices and behaviors that you make. evil cannot flourish without a carrier.

Who determines the dimensions of the field? Who determines what the game is about? Can not the author of a concept move their own goal posts in line with the game they are playing? Now if we can but agree what concept we are talking about, we can all construct this game together!Lets see.... we have a concept known as GOD, Creator of all seen and unseen.We have humans and decisions made by them. We have a society and laws and morality as defined by said society.I added "other spirits" to take the primary blame for evil off of GOD.I did emphasize to Stile, however, that evil was carried by and through humans.