God on Trial

The biblical account of God ..

God does not like homosexuality or sexual immorality,.

Man wrote the bible therefore it is mans word, not Gods.

How do you know? Jesus said love thy neighbour.

The thing is, God isn't 'getting away with things'. There is no moral standard above God, making Him good or evil depending on how He fares in light of this higher standard.
The biblical account of God (which I would hold is the true God), specifically, is not just good. He is Goodness itself. Goodness flows from His very nature. What is good depends on who God is. God does not like murder, therefore murder is bad. God does not like stealing, therefore stealing is bad. God does not like homosexuality or sexual immorality, therefore those things are bad.
It is often said that God murders in the bible, therefore He is evil. This is utter nonsense. Murder is the unlawful taking of life, not just any taking of life. And so, God is not murdering, He is killing. Why does He have the right to kill? Because He owns all life, and can take it and give it as He wills.

So since Adam had the perfect free will, he himself is only responsible for his and our current state not God.

With all do respect, this was utter nonesense.

You try and justify god killing people by saying he can do it because he is god!? I'm so glad that doesnt work ANYMORE in the real world. Thank god for the rule of law

God used men to write the bible, but it remains God's word..

and I won't say homosexuality is any worse than any other sin, but it remains sin.

How do you know?

Says who, only you. The bible was written by men who had these opinions of yours, there is no evidence that God was using them to write such predjudices.

How was it utter nonsense, exactly? Are you saying that the man's law is to subject God? Because that, my friend, is nonsense.
And yes, being God, He owns all life, and has the right to take it away. I fail to see the problem.

The thing is, God isn't 'getting away with things'. There is no moral standard above God, making Him good or evil depending on how He fares in light of this higher standard.

The biblical account of God (which I would hold is the true God), specifically, is not just good. He is Goodness itself. Goodness flows from His very nature. What is good depends on who God is. God does not like murder, therefore murder is bad. God does not like stealing, therefore stealing is bad. God does not like homosexuality or sexual immorality, therefore those things are bad.

It is often said that God murders in the bible, therefore He is evil. This is utter nonsense. Murder is the unlawful taking of life, not just any taking of life. And so, God is not murdering, He is killing. Why does He have the right to kill? Because He owns all life, and can take it and give it as He wills.

God used men to write the bible, but it remains God's word. Even so, I wasn't forcing the biblical account of God onto anyone in my post. I meant it in more of a 'for example, in the biblical account of God, this is wrong because of this' way.

So? I love homosexuals, sure, and I won't say homosexuality is any worse than any other sin, but it remains sin.

How was it utter nonsense, exactly? Are you saying that the man's law is to subject God? Because that, my friend, is nonsense.

And yes, being God, He owns all life, and has the right to take it away. I fail to see the problem.

The Scriptures testify to themselves. Still, I could never expect an unregenerate person such as yourself to be able to accept them.

But you would agree that if it was indeed God's word, then homosexuality would, in fact, be wrong?

God owns my life!? This shows my moral superiority in that I dont endorse slavery. Owning another human being is one of the most disgusting acts that anyone can do, and yet its ok with you and god? So much for our (supposed) god-given free-will ay?

Says who? Who told you this?

Who told you it's true? Have you investigated at all how the book was formed and who made the decisions? For you to say that God does not like something, I'd have to ask, "How in the heck do you know?". The only bad thing is blind people following blind people into war and hurting others in the name of their God. Not to mention condemnation.

There's a forum called TalkJesus.com where there are a bunch of folks like yourself that simply believe in all kinds of crap. That's where you want to go because here we use logic and reason along with history and none of the above validate the bible, it's teachings or some God that's a him. So for you to say you know, you're going to have to explain how you can be such an authority on mythology.

Oh really. Please do tell us the history of this because in all my research I have found nothing of the such. Man wrote the bible and then a Greek Emporer named Constantine put it together while forming his new found Religion. A number of MEN, not women that had political agendas assembled it and burned any of the old documentation on reincarnation. So, please refrain from 'Speaking the Word' of God without digging deeper into the history of it.

Truth is relative to what one believes. It's too bad there are so many blind people in this world who just believe yet they don't take the time or effor to investigate and research that which they dedicate their lives to.

Tell that to the preachers playing with little boys. If it's a sin, please provide proof of it and proof is not the bible.

Who is he? Are you sure God isn't a father mother? Who told you God was Male? Oh, was that was Jesus mentioned? Understand that what Jesus said was never actually documented. It took decades of nobody knowing a Jesus before they verbally passed on these stories. Not to mention, most of the stories of Jesus were written by one maybe two men.

It's wrong because you believe it's wrong. I'm speaking God's word right at this moment and God says that if he and Jesus Christ came here today in the flesh, you all would crucify him. The scripture is no testimony to anything because it's incomplete and not balanced and there are more scriptures out there and more bibles and more translations of the bible than we can shake a stick at.

I'm sorry pal, but this type of shooting from the hip crap about God and what he wants and what he thinks is bunk. We live in a world where the blind lead the blind and NOBODY has ever seen god or Jesus and likewise there has NEVER been any proof of the same. It's all stories and it always seems like it's the dumbed down version of humanity that buys into the crap.

I'd like to add as well that we are going to be opening some Religion forums to discuss this stuff even further and they will be opened very soon.

I think I should say here that I might come across as a little blunt or rude because of my beliefs, but I honestly don't have anything against anyone here and don't mean to be offensive. Still, if it's the beliefs themselves that offend, then I will not apologize for that.

Hi there,

Seeing as God is on trial here and not you, then your beliefs should not offend anyone. It certainly doesn't offend me.

As for evil and such, do you or anyone else thinks that God sees it as such? I am speaking from the perspective of someone who believes in some external God such as one who embraces Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. Also, do you or others believe that other religions, other than your own is evil? Would God agree?

Trying to stay on topic.

Rich

Alright, great, then!

As for your question: Yes, I do think that a non Christian religion would be evil, because it teach a twisted concept of truth. For example, if Islam is true, then Christianity and Judaism are evil. If Judaism is true, same thing goes for Christianity and Islam. Same goes for anything other than the Abrahamic religions. If a religion claims to be the only exclusive religion, and it is true, then all other ones are not true. Untruth is evil.

I think I should say here that I might come across as a little blunt or rude because of my beliefs, but I honestly don't have anything against anyone here and don't mean to be offensive.

Well, if God is to be transcendent, there can be nothing above Him, by nature. This includes a standard of morality.

I've not so much studied the origin of the Old Testament books, but as for the New Testament, they were written by the apostles, or men close to the apostles. The actual canon of the Bible was around from before the council of Nicea (I believe that's the one), but that's where they decided to try to figure out what the true canon is. They ended up with our biblical canon today. Some churches also use the Apocrypha as part of the canon too, but that was decided much later.

Actually, I never meant to argue, in this thread, that the biblical God is the true God (though I did claim to hold to that position), I just used it as an example. Also, I think it's kind of offensive to call my beliefs 'all kinds of crap'.

Not exactly. Constantine may have used Christianity for some political reasons, but he by no means made the religion.

Also, what historical evidence is there for your claim that the men who wrote the bible burned any old documentation on reincarnation?

I've done a fair amount of research. You act as if Christianity must be taken as false once research is done, when this is not the case. There are hundreds of people throughout history who had done the research and still wrote theology. Actually, doing the research strengthens theology.

Also, how can truth be relative? Is the statement 'truth is relative' an absolute statement? If it is, then is there not some absolute truth? If not, then why should I adhere to it?

Well, if the God of the bible exists, then it follows that, since He decides what sin is, and He says homosexuality is wrong, then it is wrong.

No one ever claimed that God was male. Still, I use 'He' when referring to Him because that's how Christians refer to Him. God does not have a sex or gender, He's God. Also, there are four tellings of Jesus' life, not one or two. Why would one person write four different documents?

In this period the roles of printer and publisher were not necessarily as now, and the accuracy of the information given on title pages cannot be relied on. The person named as translator might at most be an editor, since all Bible versions depended heavily on Tyndale's and/or Coverdale's work. Printers and others involved in the publication sometimes worked under pseudonyms. Dates and places of publication might also be given incorrectly.

Identification of a particular Bible as belonging to a specific edition is complicated by the flexibility of the whole production process at the time. The text, being set in movable type, could be corrected or changed in the middle of a print run; thus copies of a given edition may differ on some pages. Also, at the binding stage, a title page from one edition might be combined with text from another edition. The exact origins of a Bible can therefore only be determined by detailed examination of the text. Print runs for early Bibles were relatively short by present-day standards; typically perhaps 1000-2500 copies.

I would not crucify Jesus. Chances are, you all would. And in what way is the Scripture incomplete and not balanced? And what would the amount of translations have to do with anything? They're all translated from the same few sources, which are very close to the original?

How do you know that nobody has ever seen God or Jesus? And it only seems like the dumbed down version of humanity that buys into 'the crap' because you presuppose that religious people are stupid while atheists are all intellectuals. This is false.

I think I should say here that I might come across as a little blunt or rude because of my beliefs, but I honestly don't have anything against anyone here and don't mean to be offensive. Still, if it's the beliefs themselves that offend, then I will not apologize for that.

This doesn't make any sense, that statement is nothing other than delusional. It would be like digging a deep pit in a play ground and covering it over to blend in with the grass. Then when the children are playing and one happens to fall in, you say, well it wasn't the person who dug the pit's fault, it was the child for falling into the pit.

It is idiotic to make statements like that, so why do theists keep making them? Because they use backwards reasoning, they start with "god exists" and fill in all the gaps in the logic even if the answers make absolutely no sense. The areas in which they can not seem to fill get filled with a "god's will" statement and all further questioning get's abandoned.

For being a being with the ability to think and use reasoning, why do you abandon it? Just to keep from the realization that your invisible friend isn't real?

God owns my life!? This shows my moral superiority in that I dont endorse slavery. Owning another human being is one of the most disgusting acts that anyone can do, and yet its ok with you and god? So much for our (supposed) god-given free-will ay?

Tell that to the preachers playing with little boys. If it's a sin, please provide proof of it and proof is not the bible.