"Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust? “Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!" -- Ezekiel 18:25 - 32
Even back then, people said that God was not just but God answered them. Note how he says that he takes no pleasure in the death of anyone.
"Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'" -- Ezekiel 33:11
Here, God says that he doesn't take pleasure in the death of the wicked. and would rather that they repent and turn from their evil ways. I am pretty sure that this only goes to show that God is not evil as some would state.
In the Psalms, King David sings that God destroys the wicked and there are many examples in The Old Testament where God directly kills someone. However, Solomon later speaks that he has seen evil men go on living till they die naturally and that he has seen good men die when they shouldn't have. Both statements are true. Once, God did directly destroy the wicked on the Earth, now he doesn't but that doesn't mean that the wicked aren't punished (Hell). Nowadays, what Solomon said seems to be true. There are tyrants who rule countries that they shouldn't rule and while they may be killed and while justice may prevail, it isn't by God's command for he doesn't interact nowadays...or does he?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." -- Matthew 28:20
Jesus states that he will be with the followers of God till the end. The New Testament also states that when one is baptized (I believe this is simply by one accepting Jesus as Messiah), they are filled with The Holy Spirit. So maybe God does interact with this world still but simply through us. After all, if God came directly down from Heaven and saved everyone from physical harm, everyone would obey him out of fear because they would see him. I believe that God wants people to obey him out of their own free-will and be good because it's in their hearts. If God was here, we would start being good out of fear. I believe that the Earth is God's testing ground for us humans and thus he needs to see if we're good because of our own desire to be good. When I was a child and I did a good thing, my heart felt warm. Perhaps that was God rewarding me for doing good. When I did evil, I felt bad which was perhaps God's way of telling me that what I did was wrong. Some humans have learnt to ignore such feelings and these people have become monsters. Those that listen, forge themselves into good men/women. So perhaps God still does interact in some way with this world but we just weren't paying much attention. People say that morals don't exist but when you see someone getting beaten up and you get that "gut" feeling that something is wrong, you know that morals exist. When a child first sees violence, they know that something is wrong. When they hear shouting, they know that something is wrong and when they see humans being nice to one another, they know that something is right and they feel warm. Evolutionists would say that this is the way we evolved and was needed for our development but maybe it was God who gave these feelings and a conscience to us.
In any case, some people would blame God for the evil in this world. I don't understand the reason for this. The Bible clearly states that God created us with free-will. The actions that a man does is SOLELY his responsibility NOT GOD'S. If someone rapes someone, people shouldn't look up and curse God, they should look at the man (or woman in some cases) and take appropriate action upon that person.
Today's generation still can't accept that society is wrong. Society has failed. We are improving all our technology and building bigger guns and racing against other nations but we still haven't improved our society. Take The Good Samaritan Parable which was told by Jesus, in the parable, Jews walked by a Jewish man who was robbed and beaten and then left for death. It was a Samaritan who helped the man when his own kind abandoned him. By this parable, Jesus was stating that people of your own nation (or race) might not help you in your time of need and that another person of another nation (or race) could and thus we shouldn't discriminate and favor our nation/race over another when we are all equal. Take that side of the story away and we simply see a man helping a dying man. In today's world, we hear similar stories of people walking past a dying man, thankfully some good people still exist and have helped dying people but sometimes, this doesn't happen. This only goes to show that society STILL HASN'T CHANGED from what it was 2,000 years ago, I'd even dare to venture and say that society has become worst!
Most humans are simply motivated by their own gain, greed and desire nowadays and this is because not many wish to follow the rules set by God for us. While there are billions professing their faith in whatever religion, there are many who aren't even true adherents. It takes actions to be a true adherent of a religion, not simple faith.
Fun is good but rules are better. Should we have fun in our lives? Yes but so many humans are simply thinking about having fun and caring not about anything else. I once heard the statement that all humans are lazy and wouldn't work if they didn't need too. This can be quite true for the majority. I have lived both lives. A life of fun and a life of rules and living a life of fun is far easier. However, I have decided to stick to living in a life of rules for it offers more stability and you're guaranteed to feel better in the long run.
I'd rather save the life of one person and live a life in Hell than to be responsible for the harm (or death) of many but have fun for my whole life. Others would choose the later. I'd always choose the first no matter what.
The point of all this, is that humans are to blame for evil. If more people followed religion more devoutly, then there would be less chaos and more order. Central aspects to all the world's major religions are love, care, forgiveness and to help your fellow human being. Gandhi noticed this but he also noticed that religion could be used for evil. However, if we were to simply concentrate on the love, forgiveness and help aspects, society would be better as a whole.
Religions need to stay but the world needs to unite.
God isn't evil because he "allows" evil in this world. God doesn't allow evil. He battled it and he gave the rules that we should follow. However, he had to let go of our hand at one point and leave us to our own devices. I have seen parents never let go of their child's hand and their child has suffered for it. I believe that tough love is the best love. It was The Bible that turned me away from a life of crime, not my family. I had to learn from my own mistakes and I was made better for it.
Now if I - a human - could work that out, then surely a wise, intelligent and magnificent being could too. God has done his part and now it's our turn to try and better society.
That was good, but I would argue with you about how evil came to this world...In my opinion evil first appeared in this world when Satan thought that he was better then God and so he questioned God's wisdom. In other words he wanted to be above God so that God would obay and worship him instead of satan obaying and worshiping God. (desire for power) now Satan's pride was his downfall (here's a good site on pride: Believers.org) after Satan was cast out then naturally he wanted revenge and so he dicided to hurt God, a lot! The best way to hurt God was to turn God's own creation against Him. So Satan tempted Eve into eating the fruit, by eating the fruit and giving some to Adam. They fell and in a way died. the penealty for sin is death…God said 'don't eat that fruit or you will surley die' so it is inevidible that they will die now since they both ate the fruit, however God had a plan for redemption!! And satan, unaware of God plan, thought that he was successful, but God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son so that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life. Jesus died in our place! For our sins. That is why I believe and follow God.
Well yes, The Bible does say that it was Lucifer who tempted Eve and made her eat the apple. From then on, humans knew what was right and what was wrong and were no longer innocent.
It's not God who is to blame for the evil in this world, even Lucifer isn't to blame at full extent, humans are to blame mostly for they are the ones who give into the desires that are evil. They give into the desire to lie, cheat, steal and kill. We need to overcome all of these urges if we ever have them and if we ever think of them, we need to cast them out of our mind. We are weak but we still have some strength to defeat such evil.
The New Testament says that The Evil One (Lucifer) rules this world currently and he does. It is filled with sin and it is our job to overcome sin and defeat it in all of its forms.
Society needs to be made better. Humanity wants to progress? They need to unite and learn to love one another and treat each other like brothers and sisters. Even science is saying that all humans can trace their ancestry back to one person. There's mitochondrial eve and Y-chromosomal Adam. So whether you believe in Creationism or if you believe in Evolution, we are all from the same family anyway.
It really makes me sick when I hear of humans hurting fellow humans for no reason or just for "fun" because I personally don't understand how anyone could do such a thing.
Lucifer (Satan) is called the father of lies for a reason. He originated sin and evil and then introduced it into our world in an attempt to hurt God just as Raven stated. Evil already existed but we were unaware of it until he tempted Eve and she then gave the fruit to Adam. However he did not "make" Eve eat anything he simply deceived her and she acted upon her own desires that he stirred up. What I find interesting is that Eve was genuinely tempted and deceived but Adam was not. He didn't even give eating that fruit a second thought or bother to question Eve as to where it came from. Satan started the process but WE kept it going so we are equally guilty due to Eve's naivete and Adam's lack of discretion.
I agree with both your posts as there is little difference between them. there is just one question that I will ask (i am a christian by the way)anyways the question that is will ask is why didn't God destroy satan?
God hates sin to the point that when Jesus was dieing for us and He took on all the sin of the world; God had to look away.
God hates sin but it wasn't hate He was displaying when He looked away. It was grief and sorrow. The only one that can answer your question is God Himself.
thanks for the feedback to my posts....and guess i'll have to ask God when i see him.
God will destroy Lucifer. However, God is honorable. Lucifer rebelled and is trying to make us rebel. God wants us to see the evil of The Devil's ways ourselves and then to break away due to our own desire to do so. Only then, will we become stronger in God. I'd be lying if I said that I never sinned, we all have and I once did live a life of sin but I realized that it was wrong and turned away. I could never go back to sin. God has won my soul forever and to him it belongs.
Agreed. There is probably a lot more to it but only God knows.
i never understood why ppl tell explanations. i read the bible and i can say that it has answers to all christian related questions.
Because there are those who ask the questions and don't read The Bible to find them and if they read The Bible, they only look at the verses that they think are bad. The Bible states that God killed many people and many call him evil for this reason but as the verses above prove, he doesn't like killing the wicked and would rather that they repented.
There's another verse in Ezekiel where God states that he ALWAYS saves the righteous before he destroys a town or nation. So if there are any righteous people in a wicked city, God will save them.
The Book of Jonah further shows how God would even break his own word if people repent. In The Book of Jonah, God vows to destroy the City and when they repent, he goes back on his own word because that's how forgiving he is.
Evil beings don't have love, forgiveness or compassion.
I don't remember who said this but..."Evil still happen when there is religion, what will happen if there is no religion"....My answer is utter chaos!
Well God gave human beings their own free will.
A very interesting thing that can be traced back to the polytheist religions is that evil is simply another aspect of life, with many forms and un-movable just as good is. Personally I find such ideal very much satisfying, for alas as human beings we can never truly forget the darker side of ourselves.
Furthermore let me state that there is always a reason for evil, as being evil for the SAKE of being evil is something that is beyond the comprehension of sane people.