This is a question I have always wondered when thinking about any religions stories regardign their god. It is always said that god is a perfect being flawless, just, kind and whatever else the person who thinks of god that he/she would consider perfect. Yet in the stories found in texts such as the bible why is it god is always portrayed as angry and spiteful? He does not hesistate to inflict harm on others who disobey him, he smites cities and floods the world if he does not like where things are going and he crashes towns to the ground and confuses the languages of man because he did not like the fact they were united in one area. Yet at the same time people say the reason god does not cure the ailments of man (war, hunger, disease, etc) is because he does not want to interfere with us mortals whenever. I recall one story I believe is of jewish origins; the story of job. In a nutshell god made a bet with satan that a man called job (who always prayed to him) would remain faithful to him regardless of the situation he was in (job at the time had a wonderfully comfortable life with a wife, kids, farm and a horde of animals) so in order to prove this job's wife and children were killed, his crops destroyed, his animals butchered and he was diseased with terrible conditions that cause great pain to him. Yeah, all this happened. Just to prove a point., to SATAN. Well in the end of the story we are relieved to find that after all this job was eventually cured when he proved his faith (after a LONG period of time in which he lost everything including his friends; who thought the reason for his ailments was because he did not worship god when he did or something like that) and yay! he got a brand new family, farm and life that was twice as good as his first! Seriously? This is supposed to be a happy ending? God let this man suffer to prove a point in a petty bet as as show of pride and let innocent people suffer in order to do it; andwe are supposed to be happy because his new life was twice as good in the end? I don't know about you guys but to me all of the examples I have listed seem to do nothing but prove god is not merciful, kind and just but rather mean, hateful, arrogant and spiteful and unjust (he let innocent people die and suffer to prove a point; how is that just?). So please someone explain to me how this god is meant to be portrayed as perfect? It seems to me that... A: God is not perfect B: God is perfect but the stories being written by man are not accurate to gods true nature. C: God doesn't exist and the reason he is flawed is because the people who created the idea of him were also flawed. If I missed soemthing I would love it if someone would let me know; because all I know as of yet is if the god people claim to be perfect and the god who allows all this harm to be inflicted are supposed to be the same, then the world has a seriously scary view of perfection and justice.
I am not sure what this has to do with anything. Are you trying to site the fact this is used in arguements for evolution? We are not discussing whether or not god does or does not exist but rather the fact that many faiths claim god to be a perfect, ultimate being yet their respective texts say otherwise.
We are not discussing the fact that the story was meant to teach a lesson. We are discussing the fact that story itself portrays the supposed perfect god as someone willing to harm others in order to prove a point. Why would any faith put forth any sort of tale that would contradict the perfection of their diety?
Pointing it out because it's a good example of something that if it was designed would be a poor design.
I think your idea is well thought out and written except for this part here.... I want you to consider an idea that war, hunger and disease don't have to exist in this very moment..... Not because of any desire or influence of God, but because there exists an abundance of energy, food and resource for every life...... The fact that war, hunger and disease exists in the expression of humanity is an insult to every aspect of sense and sensibility. This should be an applied aspect of knowledge within the minds ability to reason.... So now enter the concept of God in the equation, it would seem that the argument of curing man of his ailments would also have to cure the mind of it's ability to reason.
Whenever you encounter someone's depiction of what they call 'God', you are simply getting an examination of that someone's own personal world view. When the God is depicted as angry, that is simply just a reflection of someone's own anger. And they use this to justify what they want to arbitrarily argue is morally right. Here is a paper to further examine the claim that people just project their own views onto their idea of 'God': Believers’ estimates of God’s beliefs are more egocentric than estimates of other people’s beliefs
I don't think he understands the story. The Question seems to be, Why do innocent people suffer.. But its not. People had this crazy idea that if good things happened to you, you had Gods favor. If bad things happened, you must have committed a sin or displeased God. Remember... Job was blameless and didnt sin after all (his friends were wrong)
What I really want to know at this point is the logic behind a theist believing that god is perfect, While the text that founds the belief would imply the exact opposite. Is god simply meant to be so perfect that we mortals cannot grasp his reasoning behind acts would would make him seem to be imperfect? That seems like a weak excuse to say the least. I would really like to get some more theists imput on this matter as I am sure they have some sort of an idea behind it.
If you want actual justifications from theists on their beliefs, parables are the metric by which you are going to have to learn to find satisfaction...
The story of Job was to combat the common superstitious belief that if you were good and in God's favor only good things would happen in life.. and if something bad happened to you, God was punishing you for some sin. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robinson don't know that either.
Yet, you offer nothing to support your belief than do the Falwells and Robinsons of the world. You offer a parable as if that is suppose to establish facts. Sorry, neither you nor your fundamentalist counterparts have established anything other than to show to us your own personal faith.
Well i suppose gods can act however they want as long as they get what they want from their actions and would not prefer any alternatives i dont see why they would be wrong in considering themselves perfect regardless of what they do in that case
