by LoveUniHateExams 38 Replies latest social current
WokenfromJWcult
https://youtu.be/3nmYOQIidqo
That is Iglesia Ni Cristo, a cult that is very similar to the JWs. Definitely not Christian.
They got their beliefs from a single charismatic cult leader who claims to have a special revelation from God, and he actually got a lot of his views from JWs.
DisillusionedJW, yes, I’m a five-point Calvinist. But there’s really no point in debating the finer points of theology with an unbeliever when they don’t accept the very foundation — the gospel.
You say you’ve tried to believe but were never able. There is nothing anyone can say in an appeal to your intellect that would cause you to believe in stories such as animals of all kinds getting on a boat and escaping a massive flood, the sun standing still for a battle, a talking snake in a garden, a talking donkey arguing with a prophet, a burning bush that doesn’t burn up, etc. The ungodly mind is like a brick wall — it has been built to keep God out. Your carnal mind is at enmity with God, it lays up arguments against God, and it is the place of hostility toward God. In order to reach your heart, the only way in is to go around that brick wall and speak directly to your conscience.
First, you need to become aware of the holiness of God. You also need to see yourself in the mirror, in comparison to God, by seeing how you’ve measured up to his standards in keeping his law. God doesn’t demand that you just try your best or give it your best shot — God demands absolute perfection.
Once you have become convicted of your complete failure to live up to this standard and your total inability to do so, you might be ready for the gospel. If so, you might be enabled to believe by the power of the Holy Spirit.
But you will never get anywhere in this regard (except for maybe a false conversion) by debating the existence of God through logic and rationale.
Badfish
If he gave us all justice, we would all be condemned. He chooses to show mercy to some.
Let's see how just and merciful your God is. Let's look at his WORKS as written in the Bible.
And remember, these were Jehovah’s LOYAL FAITHFUL WORSHIPERS HE WAS DEALING WITH.
Consider the three choices God forced upon David for taking a census. These three choices were forced on King David, Not for murdering people, not for raping women, not for lying, stealing, or any crime we can think of in our modern world that is repugnant, but simply for taking a census or in other words, counting people.
For counting people, Jehovah forced a decision on David that involved the lives of thousands upon thousands of innocent people.
The choices all dealt with the “Way” Jehovah would kill thousands of unsuspecting loyal worshipers.
1 Chronicles 21
“These are the choices the Lord has given you. You may choose three years of famine
Imagine what that meant. Famine was going to be a three year project for Jehovah or YHWH. God would cause the crops to fail somehow. Either send a swarm of insects to damage the crops, or cause a disease to damage them.
Then slowly the storehouses would start draining. People would start panicking. After about a year or so, many would start feeling the effects of what Jehovah was doing to them.
Panic would finally rear its head on the face of the parents as they started seeing the hunger pains on the faces of their innocent children. Eventually when food started becoming really scarce, the children would start getting sick. Slowly but surely the lack of food would invite all kinds of sickness and maladies. The infants being the weakest would be the first to die a painful death as a result of famine. Next would be the elderly, and many would start seeing their parents and grandparents go through a horrifying painful death because of the lack of basic food supplies.
Finally, the foundation of the family structure in the nation of Israel was in danger of being exterminated as Husbands started losing wives and wives started losing husbands, leaving thousands of widowed people feeling the pains of the famine all by themselves as they slowly starve to death. How horrific!
The second choice was three months of destruction by the sword. God would send some army to invade the country and start slaughtering children, ripping pregnant women in their homes, killing all the fathers, raping all the young female children, and leaving thousands of children orphans. How wicked is this choice!
The third choice was three days of some type of severe plague. It was going to be worse than any chemical or viral outbreak in human history. Worse than the Black death.
Imagine these three choices forced on you. Imagine you having to choose which killing method would be imposed on thousands upon thousands of unsuspecting children, mothers, fathers, infants. All these people trying their best to do the right thing in raising a God-fearing family, and yet had no idea that the God they worshiped was about to murder them horrifically.
You probably would have calculated the same way David did. Three days is better than three years of famine or three months of the sword. So David picks three days of a plague.
David felt that it was better to fall into the hands of a merciful God. Did David not get it? This was not the character of a “Merciful God”
In three days God slaughters 70,000 people. Around 972 people were dying every hour for the next 72 hours. Imagine if that happen in the area you live. That means that there wasn’t even enough time to figure out what the hell is going on. There wasn’t enough time to bury the dead or even mourn them. 972 people were dying every hour for 72 hours until the total came to 70,000 dead in just three days.
King David tried to reason with Jehovah by explaining the situation in such simple terms that a five year old child would understand.
Bible quote;
And David said to Jehovah, “I am the one who called for the census! I am the one who has sinned and done wrong! But these people are as innocent as sheep—what have they done?
It did not matter to Jehovah aka YHWH. He forced David to choose the method of killing all these unsuspecting people whose only crime was being part of the Theocratic Nation of Israel.
This is wicked. This is worse than Demonic. This is the an example of a true Psychopath.
The real question is; why would anyone want to worship this kind of God?
This is wicked. This is worse than Demonic. This is the an example of a true Psychopath
By what standard?
If we all evolved arbitrarily from a primordial soup with no purpose or design, how is this “wicked,” as you say? How can you say God is “wicked” when you deny the Bible, the very book that defines “wicked?” Even further, in your atheistic, materialistic, and evolutionary worldview, such things are neither right nor wrong because there is no God in your view to establish what is right or wrong. Do you not profess to believe in a naturalistic view where animals rape, murder, and eat their own kind? Yet you attack the loving God of the Bible and try to call him evil?
But God does exist, and it is God who defines what is good and what is evil.
God permits evil to exist, but God is not the author of evil.
“Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.” (1 Chronicles 21:1)
In order to achieve his purposes, sometimes God sovereignly permits Satan to act. God can use Satan in various ways, with the result being the refining, disciplining, and purification of disobedient believers (Luke 22:31–32; 1 Corinthians 5:1–5; 2 Corinthians 12:7–10). Such might have been the case with David. God allowed Satan to tempt him, and David sinned, revealing his pride, and God then dealt with David accordingly.
Why, when he was the one who had sinned, did the people have to suffer? He even requested that God’s hand be against him and his family only, and that God would spare the people. But, as with the account of Job, God chose not to give a reason for His actions. Perhaps it was because of Israel’s multiplied sins and rebellion against God throughout the centuries. Perhaps it was a lesson to the people (and to us as well) that the people suffer when their leaders go astray. The reality is that God didn’t justify his actions with a reason, nor does he have to.
Of the three choices presented to David, the first two would have involved some level of dependency upon the mercy of man: the warfare, of course, would be as severe as the enemy wanted it to be; the famine would require Israel to seek food from other nations, relying on the pity of their neighbors. Instead of relying on the mercy of any human, David chose to rely on the mercy of God—the pestilence was, after all, the most direct form of punishment from God, and in the plague they could only look to God for relief.
As we see in 2 Samuel 24:16, God was grieved because of the things that were happening to his people, and he called off the punishment. Even in his rebuke God still shows his love and mercy.
The intent of many of those who make claims like yours — that God is “wicked,” etc. is to make a good God look evil in order to justify their rejection of him, his word, or even his existence. But if God really doesn’t exist and the Bible isn’t his word, then those who attack God and his word by calling him harsh and evil shouldn’t even care to attack him. By attacking him, they show that they know he exists and are simply suppressing that knowledge (see Romans 1:20–25). They are trying to justify their rebellion against God. Few that I have spoken with realize that when they attack God’s character in an effort to make a case against his existence they are refuting their own position.
Badfish
God permits evil to exist, but God is not the author of evil.
The intent of many of those who make claims like yours — that God is “wicked,”
Man, the least you could do is READ THE BIBLE.
God Himself tells you, RIGHT THERE IN YOUR OWN BIBLE—
THAT HE CREATES EVIL
BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE IT!
Isaiah 45:7 In several versions printed by Christians throughout history.
I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.
I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
forming the light and creating darkness, making peace and creating evil: I, Jehovah, do all these things.
I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things.
I made the light and the darkness. I bring peace, and I cause trouble. I, the Lord, do all these things.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil: I am the LORD that does all this.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
I form light and I create darkness; I make peace and I create evil; I am Yahweh; I do all these things.
But, as with the account of Job, God chose not to give a reason for His actions.
Perhaps it was because of Israel’s multiplied sins and rebellion against God throughout the centuries. Perhaps it was a lesson to the people (and to us as well) that the people suffer when their leaders go astray.
The reality is that God didn’t justify his actions with a reason, nor does he have to.
PERHAPS, PERHAPS, PERHAPS--------ARE ALL ASSUMPTIONS WITHOUT EVIDENCE.
You stick up for a MURDERER OF THE INNOCENT---EVEN WITH ALL THE EVIDENCE FOUND IN THE BIBLE.
Man, the least you could do is READ THE BIBLE.
God Himself tells you, RIGHT THERE IN YOUR OWN BIBLE—
You’re being very purposefully selective in the translations you’re quoting. This is a good example of what I said in my previous post—that your carnal mind is at enmity with God, it lays up arguments against God, and it is the place of hostility toward God. When you are at enmity with God, you look to find fault with God.
The word translated “evil” is from a Hebrew word that means “adversity, affliction, calamity, distress, misery. The Hebrew word can refer to moral evil, and often does have this meaning in the Hebrew Scriptures. However, due to the diversity of possible definitions, it is faulty reasoning to assume that “I create evil” in Isaiah 45:7 refers to God bringing moral evil into existence.
The context of Isaiah 45:7 makes it clear that something other than “bringing moral evil into existence” is in mind. The context of Isaiah 45:7 is God rewarding Israel for obedience and punishing Israel for disobedience. God pours out salvation and blessings on those whom he favors. God brings judgment on those who continue to rebel against him. “Woe to him who quarrels with his Master” (Isaiah 45:9). That is the person to whom God brings “evil” and “disaster.” So, rather than saying that God created “moral evil,” Isaiah 45:7 is presenting a common theme of Scripture – that God brings disaster on those who continue in hard-hearted rebellion against him.
Isaiah 45:7 contrasts opposites. Darkness is the opposite of light. However, evil is not the opposite of peace. The Hebrew word translated "peace" is shalom, which has many meanings, mostly related to the well being of individuals. Ra’ah, the Hebrew word translated "evil" in the KJV often refers to adversity or calamity. There are two forms of the word. Strong's H7451a most often refers to moral evil, whereas Strong's H7451b (the form used here) most often refers to calamity or distress. Obviously, "calamity" is a better antonym of "peace" than "evil."
You quoted 10 versions that render the word as “evil” in English. Notice these 20 other versions that translate it differently:
New International Version
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
New Living Translation
I create the light and make the darkness. I send good times and bad times. I, the LORD, am the one who does these things.
English Standard Version
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things.
Berean Study Bible
I form the light and create the darkness; I bring prosperity and create calamity. I, the LORD, do all these things.
New King James Version
I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the LORD, do all these things.’
New American Standard Bible
The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating disaster; I am the LORD who does all these things.
NASB 1995
The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.
NASB 1977
The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.
Amplified Bible
The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing peace and creating disaster; I am the LORD who does all these things.
Christian Standard Bible
I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I am the LORD, who does all these things.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I, Yahweh, do all these things."
Contemporary English Version
I create light and darkness, happiness and sorrow. I, the LORD, do all this.
Good News Translation
I create both light and darkness; I bring both blessing and disaster. I, the LORD, do all these things.
GOD'S WORD® Translation
I make light and create darkness. I make blessings and create disasters. I, the LORD, do all these things.
International Standard Version
"I form light and create darkness, I make goodness and create disaster. I am the LORD, who does all these things.
Literal Standard Version
Forming light, and creating darkness, "" Making peace, and creating calamity, "" I [am] YHWH, doing all these things.
NET Bible
I am the one who forms light and creates darkness; the one who brings about peace and creates calamity. I am the LORD, who accomplishes all these things.
New Heart English Bible
I form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and create calamity. I am the LORD, who does all these things.
World English Bible
I form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and create calamity. I am Yahweh, who does all these things.
You stick up for a MURDERER OF THE INNOCENT---EVEN WITH ALL THE EVIDENCE FOUND IN THE BIBLE.
Again I ask, by what standard?
The standard of what is good and evil as defined by God in the Bible?
As I said above:
If we all evolved arbitrarily from a primordial soup with no purpose or design, how is this evil as you say? How can you say God is evil when you deny the Bible, the very book that defines “evil?” Even further, in your atheistic, materialistic, and evolutionary worldview, such things are neither right nor wrong because there is no God in your view to establish what is right or wrong. Do you not profess to believe in a naturalistic view where animals rape, murder, and eat their own kind? Yet you attack the loving God of the Bible and try to call him evil?
The intent of many of those who make claims like this is to make a good God look evil in order to justify their rejection of him, his word, or even his existence. But if God really doesn’t exist and the Bible isn’t his word, then those who attack God and his word by calling him harsh and evil shouldn’t even care to attack him. By attacking him, they show that they know he exists and are simply suppressing that knowledge (see Romans 1:20–25).
Bad fish yes I would hope our standards are better then Yahweh. Read Joshua for a change. Or read numbers 31 or 1 Samuel 15 and tell me how killing and raping children is just? (Yes I said rape.. read numbers 31 carefully) and while you are at it read the book of Esther and tell me why ten sons of hemen are murdered. I haven't even bothered with revelation yet and the justice in killing a third of people and wildlife because some people blaspheme god.
Hindus admit bad was created by God. Good cannot exist without the bad. Evil is a Judeo-Christina concept.
Your mind is so messed up that your own book (Bible) condemns you.
Isaiah 5:20 How terrible it will be for people who call good things bad
and bad things good.
They think darkness is light
and light is darkness.
They think sour is sweet
and sweet is sour.
