Is God Really Perfect?

Great Debates
1

(Sorry, I don’t know my Bible one bit, so correct me if I’m wrong, and please forgive all of the holes in the references I make.)

I think I read some place that God wanted to test the faith of Moses, (or was it someone else), and took away a lot of the things Moses found sacred. After that, someone persuaded God to stop… it was a human. Perhaps I’m getting two stories mixed up, but it doesn’t really matter.

The question is, if a man can persuade God to reconsider something, how can God be perfect? If God’s emotions CAN take over his rational decision making, how do we know his ‘judgment’ of us is not flawed?

There’s another recent thread on these boards, discussing people being damned to Hell for not having faith in God, or Jesus, (other religions say the same types of things). How Could God punish people who were brought up in other religions (then Christianity I guess, or whatever) that basically says the same thing will happen if you stray from THEIR belief system? What about those who aren’t even exposed to the “right” religion?

If God were perfect, wouldn’t he be content with people not believing in him, or some of his expectations of people? Wouldn’t he… understand!? I mean, some people think that you could murder someone and get into heaven, so long as you have faith. Why is the sin that will make or break you not having faith? Does God have a complex? Why would he want people to believe in him out of fear?

I myself pray, about 4 or 5 times a week. But I don’t KNOW if I’m praying to God, or just praying to nothing. I hope there’s a God, but I also hope he isn’t as bad as everyone makes him out to be.

Is God perfect? Is it even silly for a human like me to ask such a question… I mean, what do I know!?

2

my personal understanding of God is as confused as yours may be
He gave me Jesus to understand the relativity.
are you praying as a christian
the bible gives many God is’s …they are impressions only.
but no one really gets a clear feeling of Him
that is why He is God
and certainly not dependent on our understanding of Him
its relationships between each other that count
norton 2003 just clicked in for the weekly wash
:slight_smile:

3

Wrong forum.

4

better check this out
was just replying…:frowning:

5

everton meant that the thread is in the wrong forum, which is quite correct. Off to Great Debates.

6

Where did I put this thread?

I thought it was in GD.

Sorry!

8

Here are my own opinions:

  1. God, for anyone, really, is the order of the universe, whether that order is personified by a white guy with a beard, a man and a woman, some formless thing, an over-soul, or whatever. You can call all that “God” if you like, because I think they are all expressive of the idea that there is order, that is to say a metaphysical set of rules pertaining to the universe, and usually more specifically to human behaviour. In that sense, if you believe in God, then God is perfect, as XI (ks-EYE) mentioned.

  2. Jesus as a role model is manifestly fallible, because human beings are manifestly fallible It’s just that he overcomes his temptations. Though I consider myself to be pretty much a secular humanist, I think that the story of Christ is a very powerful one in this regard.

Note that I will never, ever try to make people believe in the above. In the end I think that religion serves a particular purpose for each person, and because of the inherent differences between people, it embodies different things for each individual. The above is a part of what makes religious sense to me. What makes religious sense to you is your decision, and yours alone.

9

I could have sworn that there was a story where God was influence by the devil to test peoples faith in him. Maybe it wasn’t faith, perhaps it was love. I think Satan said that people wouldn’t believe there was a God if they went through great hardships… what God would allow that!?

So this guy, (maybe it was Job), lost his family and a lot of bad stuff happened to him… but then someone had asked God for mercy on Job (or whoever), and God realized that he was causing this person great pain.

Maybe I have it wrong. I think I saw a program on this airing on the History Channel. It was a while ago. Even if a human didn’t plea for God to have mercy, the fact that God would do such a thing implies (to me) that he’s not perfect. Of course, I can’t claim to know what his, her, it’s reasons were for this.

mrcrow- if you are Christian

If you are like most practicing Christions I know, then it isn’t our relationships between each other that count. If our relationship between eachother is what counts, why is it you can wrongfully kill someone, and get into heaven? Why is it that you can do good deeds and be charitable, but go to Hell for not having faith?

10

In the Book of Job, Satan (the “Adversary”) makes a bet with God that Job would lose faith in him if God took away all his money and stuff. So God, at the urging of Satan, proceeds to systematically destroy every aspect of Job’s life, taking all his money and property, killing his family, and afflicting Job with boils. Job gets all pissed off, so God comes down from heaven in a whirlwind and gives a long self-aggrandizing speech about why no one has the right to question his motives (especially if his motives are as petty as winning a bet with Satan). Job gets all scared and obsequious and apologizes to God. Then God goes back to heaven and gloats to Satan that Job did not lose faith (well coming down in a whirlwind is kind of cheating isn’t it?) and he gives Job back a whole bunch of new money and property and kids to replace the ones that he murdered to win the bet.

IMHO, Job is one of the very worst books of the Bible. my OT professor in college actually thought that it should be read as satire, kind of a Biblical shaggy-dog story. It does seem to work a little better on that level.

11

my daily prayer bulletins are full of christian shaggy dog stories of epic proportions.
the only story which is going to cut it with anyone is how you live your life

12

The God described in the Old Testament is actually kind of a jerk, IMO.

“Perfect” by whose standards? If you believe that God is the ultimate arbiter of right and wrong, then He can make anything He does “right” just by saying so. (But I don’t see how any objective morality could actually be decided at the discretion of some entity.)

13

He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
Deuteronomy 32:4

As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
2 Samuel 22:31

14

I’m not judging God by passages in the Bible that praise him.

It’s humorous that you would do that His4ever.

It’s like that Twilight Zone episode, where a guy finds a civilization on a different planet, only they are quite tinny. He steps on a few of them, so out of fear, they build a statue of him. They think he’s God or A God. They probably, out of fear, worshiped him.

If God is perfect, no WAY would he’d be such and asshole.

It’s a pretty bias opinion in the Bible, I’m sure. Notice I declared it as “opinion”.

If the Bible jumped off a bridge…?

15

If there is a god, which just doesn’t seem likely (based solely on the availble physical evidence) then the question shouldn’t be, “Is god perfect,” but rather, “Is god any more than barely adequate?” Given his rather poor performance throughout recorded history, kudos are in order though for any work done on the physical creation (however unlikely) of the universe.

Where one might think god would be interested in our general well being you see, for the most part, only a childish desire for adulation and attention, coupled with threats if we don’t think, “God rules.” A child acting as god seems to would probably find themselves getting a good, and well deserved, talking to.

16

Not really saying he’s an asshole.
I guess if what I know about him is true, he CAN be. But we all can be. He just doesn’t sound “perfect”. It sounds to me that he’s learned, or is learning, from his actions.

This is considering that ‘he’ is not “everything”, but a real entity/spirit.

17

You’ll have to believe what you choose, of course. Later, we’ll all know.

18

There are a couple of places in the Bible where God negotiates with a man.

In the Sodom and Gomorrah saga Abraham bargains with God. God is planning on destroying the towns and everyone in them but Abraham says “Wait a minute! What if there are, say, 50 innocent people in the city? Surely you won’t kill those innocents along with the evil ones!” God says, “Well, OK, if there are 50 good people there I won’t destroy the city.” So Abraham says, “Well, what if there are only 45 good people…?” God says, “Well, OK, 45 good folks and I spare the town.” Abraham finally works his way down to 10.

Later on in Ezekiel (chapter 4) we have this even more bizarre exchange. God tells Ezekiel to stage an elaborate ritual. He is supposed to build a model of Jerusalem and symbolically act out a siege of it. This includes lying on his left side for 390 days and then lying on his right side for 40 more days. From time to time he is supposed to get up and shake his fist at the model and “prophesy against it”. God lays out a recipe for a special bread which is the only thing Ezekiel can eat during this “siege”. Finally God says, “You are to build a fire out of dried human excrement, bake your bread on the fire, and eat it where everyone can see you.” *(Really, I am not making this up.) * At this Ezekiel balks, “HUMAN EXCREMENT?!?!? Wait a minute! I’ve been your humble servant all my life. Isn’t this a little much?” God thinks about it and says, “Well, OK. You can use cow dung instead.”

So, yes, there are places in the Bible where man negotiates with God, and gets at least some of what he asks for. Each of these cases brings up the question you’re asking - if God’s so smart, how come he misses the obvious here? Why does he need some mere mortal to clue him in?