We cannot know anything about God, we can only believe some human who stated or states what God wants, so our faith is really based on who or what we want to believe. Humans tend to believe what they wish is so, or what they feel they need and accept what some other human tells them God said, did, etc. God nor Jesus wrote anything . And Mohammad’s stating that God dictated the Koran to him is also a belief in a human’s idea of what God wants We tend to believe what is easiest for us.
Monavis
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
As I said above, I am an agnostic. And you can pretty much take that to mean I am an atheist.
It is not just as valid to read Wisdom Literature from a literalist viewpoint. Wisdom Literature is a specific form of Ancient Near East writing that was never intended to be taken literally.
YHWH does not come across as uncaring in the Book of Job. Did you read his speech from the whirlwind?
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There is no valid reason to say that this is only Wisdom Literature. There is no proof that it is. The author of the book of Job did not signify that it wasn’t literal. Just because somebody wishes to place it in that category doesn’t mean that it belongs there. Wisdom literature doesn’t mean “lies.” It means literature from which we may garner wisdom.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
IIRC, Satan at the time meant a being that worked for God, not the devil.
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Cite, please? I see no reason to accept that claim.
[QUOTE=ralph124c]
Is St. Paul therefore correct, that God does not tempt-that all evil comes from inside a man, and not external?
If one were to accept the idea that God tests his believers, then, God would indeed cause confusion-how would one know the right path?
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And the right path is?..
[QUOTE=JohnnieEnigma]
No, God does not temp or test his believers; and evil comes from (possibly within) and definitely externally, from Satan. How would one know the right path? It’s easy… follow God’s commandmants. It’s that easy. God didn’t make it difficult or confusing one bit… He made it crystal clear. Christ even said it… if you love God, follow his commandments.
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This might be just me, but I don’t consider the commandments crystal clear. How do I remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy? What honour do I show my parents above and beyond that I do to others? What exactly does coveting entail - momentary thoughts, prolonged jealousy, or actively involving oneself?
Considering further that God has arguably broken three of them himself, i’m really not sure you could call it crystal clear.
Anyone who follows the will of God does so, not because of a sacrifice of will, but because that’s what they want to do just as much as others elect to do what they want. Show me a believer who does God’s will and would really prefer not to, and you can make that case; but believers do what they want just as much as the rest of us.
Actually, I think you’d be better off saying that if we were wise, our own will would be to do God’s will, and we would know it. Simply aiming to isn’t enough.
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
We have to look at this from the perspective of the Book of Job being a revolutionary piece of Wisdom Literature. The poetry section Book of Job breaks from the more traditional view of Judaism that fortune is tied to sin. The writer of the poetry section Job rejects that view. The writer is showing that sin is not the cause of misfortune. To show just how sinless Job is the writer has YHWH himself say that Job is sinless. The writer is tying to break the connection between sin and fortune.
The story is, in part, a lesson about virtue. The writer is saying that one should not be virtuous expecting great fortune. One should be virtuous for itself.
The story, also, is about the nature of God; however, it raises more questions about the nature of God than it can answer. Is there a way to reconcile a just God with the world we see? The answer of the poetry section of the Book of Job is that the answer is beyond human understanding. But the Book of Job does not say that God is uncaring or evil.
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If God said Job was sinless then that would mean he was free from original sin and would contradict the Teaching that people are all born in the state of sin and needed jesus to die to free them.
Monavis
[QUOTE=JohnnieEnigma]
No, God does not temp or test his believers; and evil comes from (possibly within) and definitely externally, from Satan. How would one know the right path? It’s easy… follow God’s commandmants. It’s that easy. God didn’t make it difficult or confusing one bit… He made it crystal clear. Christ even said it… if you love God, follow his commandments.
Mankind makes things confusing for themselves with their giant egos and insatiable need to do their own will. Mankind does this … not God.
God gave us a free will, but his will for us is clearly to do his will all for our own good and peace of mind. If we were wise, if we wanted a peaceful, happy life, our own will would be to do God’s will.
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There is no true way to know what God wills, as all we have are the words and teachings of humans who decided it was what God wanted, they also claim to know what God inspires, or what He did not. All beliefs about God or Gods for that matter are works and words of humans. There are many different concepts of what God wants and what he doesn’t.
Monavis
I’m aware the Koran borrows heavily from the Old and New Testament, and that it should be no surprise that Satan is mentioned there too, but it cheers me up a little that both sides can agree on who to allocate blame to. Perhaps there is hope still for religion!
[QUOTE=JohnnieEnigma]
No, God does not temp or test his believers; and evil comes from (possibly within) and definitely externally, from Satan.
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And it’s God’s doing that Satan has any power at all. At the risk of invoking Godwin, is Hitler not to blame for the actions of a concentration camp guard?
[QUOTE=panache45]
If God supposedly is the creator of ***everything, ***wouldn’t that include confusion?
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Rhetorical constructs of logic are not allowed in discussions of the divine. You’ve been warned.
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
YHWH never tempts Job. YHWH just allows The Satan to test Job’s faith.
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I didn’t bite you, I just let go of my dog’s leash.
[QUOTE=Two and a Half Inches of Fun]
Is there some reason you cannot see anything other the wrathful and vengeful side of YHWH? Do you think there is anything beyond the wrath and vengeance?
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My father beat my ass whenever I messed up as a child. That said, he actually only beat my ass two or three times, the rest were scoldings.
Based on what I have seen of DT’s reasoning in this thread that made him one evil and abusive asshole.
And one may say “Yeah, but your dad never claimed to be omnipotent.” but, in the eyes of a child, parents are gods whether they claim to be or not. Only in the adolescent years do they fall from grace.
As I understand Job, The Satan challenged God and God offered Job up as a cite. Satan, being a doper thousands of years ahead of his time, proceeded to pick apart God’s cite until, at the end, it still stood strong and faithful. The cite was then rewarded with many kudos and all errata was removed from it’s wiki page.
So no, God was not tempting anyone, nor was he authoring confusion. He simply allowed Job to do what Job did best - stand by his faith in the face of the judge (note - judge=Satan).
In regards to Paul, yes I do think he is stating that all evil comes from within. I tend to agree whole heartedly with this. As Job sat miserable, tortured, his family and home destroyed, and a bad case of the Herpies (thus the boils), no matter what Satan did it was not evil. Satan could not do evil to Job, he could do bad things, he could do wrong things, but it was up to Job to make a personal judgement call on good or evil. Had he chosen evil he would have fallen in his faith, had he chosen good he would have been the first recorded masochist. As it is he chose neither as a personal judgement call and, instead, deferred judgement to his beliefs.
All evil comes from within. Even when a fucked up individual ties you to the rails and lets rats gnaw off your nipples, he is not doing evil to you, he is doing wrong things in your perceptions but they may not be wrong to someone else. Evil comes when you let it get to you, when you let it get you down. Evil comes when you question your values, your beliefs, your faith. Evil comes from within.
In the outside world there is no good, there is no evil, there is only “is”. Job knew that, YHWH knew that, Paul and Jesus knew that. If the truth were known I’d wager that DT and any others who detest scripture for the value that man has applied to it without regard to any intrinsic value it may possess without our interference know it as well.
There’s a bit of something here which I feel I ought to mention. Satan is not unmitigated evil. He was made good, and fell from goodness. It may be that God knew Satan would do so. That does not mean God made an evil thing. We humans know that some men and women will choose evil, but we don’t stop producing childrne, abecause children are good. Nor do we kil them as they grow. Goodness is a hard path; it often requires we stand aside and allow evil to prosper for the moment, because we have no right to strangle it in its infancy. God never held Satan’s leash. But Satan himself isn’t wholly evil; he can’t be, because everything he is, is good, and only what he’s made from himself is evil.
God’s relationship to Satan is much to same as his relationship to mankind. He could stomp on us, force us to do good, or halt all the evil we have. But what is the ability to choose without consequences? Choices are meaningless - if they mean nothing. And so Satan and ourselves are free to act and wreck things, within the bounds of our power. We have met the Devil, and he is Us.
There’s never a shovel around when you need one, is there?
Is God the author of confusion?
Genesis 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech… Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth
I Corinthians 1:27: God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.
Yes.
[QUOTE=smiling bandit]
There’s a bit of something here which I feel I ought to mention. Satan is not unmitigated evil. He was made good, and fell from goodness. It may be that God knew Satan would do so. That does not mean God made an evil thing. We humans know that some men and women will choose evil, but we don’t stop producing childrne, abecause children are good. Nor do we kil them as they grow.
[/quote]
No, but we lock them up if we do bad. When we see evil in the world, and we believe we can do something about it, we do so - both in terms of trying to stop or reform that particular evildoer and in order to send a message to others who might do the same.
Satan’s only potential jailer would be God - what steps has God taken with Satan to curtail his continued evil? How has he reached out to try and reclaim Satan for Team Good? What message does he send by allowing Satan to continue with his evil acts unobstructed? It’s as you say; there’s no point having choices if there are no consequences. What consequences does Satan have for his continued acts of evil, that would endear him to change his mind?
I would also point out that while we certainly may accept that some people will be evil, God would know for certain. We can’t go locking people up willy-nilly a la Minority Report because we think they’re going to do something bad. We have to wait for it to actually happen, if it will. God has no such obstruction. He could have stepped in at every evil act Satan did and does, clapped him with the divine handcuffs, and steered him into the waiting celestial chariot. That he does not is morally equivalent to a policeman seeing a murder in progress and deciding “Hey, people have to live with the consequences of their choices!”.
[QUOTE=monavis]
If God said Job was sinless then that would mean he was free from original sin and would contradict the Teaching that people are all born in the state of sin and needed jesus to die to free them.
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So? The phrase “original sin” doesn’t appear anywhere in the bible, so why be concerned if its contradicted?