# Is the J-C God evil? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 17, 2002, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305 "2002-08-17T05:33:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/201 "2002-08-22T22:34:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by His4ever \* > **Everything was perfect when He created it until iniquity was found in Lucifer, who became satan. He saw his own beauty, was lifted up with pride and desired to be God. He was kicked out of heaven for his trouble and some of the other angels went with him. We call them demons today.** And just where did you get this? Cite? Because, as I said, the _only_ place in the Bible where Satan’s revolt is mentioned is in Revelations 12:7-9: [QUOTE] **And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.** [QUOTE] Not one word about beauty, or pride, or a desire to be God. ---
**Author:** ![dreamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@dreamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dreamer)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/202 "2002-08-22T23:33:45Z")
**Squish** … _“You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God and I expelled you, O guardian cherub from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth: I made a spectacle of you before kings.”_ As Ezekiel 28:14 states in unequivocal terms, Satan was created “blameless”. This is a critical piece of information, because through this scripture we are assured that his decision to sin was not some inevitable action originating with God, but was instead a free-will decision on Satan’s part. Satan was created without sin, and with no necessity to sin. He and he alone is the one who bears the complete responsibility for all the trouble he has brought upon his fellow angels, upon humanity, and upon himself. God bears none of the blame for Satan’s fall. Satan took the opportunity of using the free will God gave him to reject God and follow instead the path of evil. ---
**Author:** ![dreamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@dreamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dreamer)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2002, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/203 "2002-08-22T23:43:02Z")
One More… **Luke 10:18** He replied (Jesus), “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven” ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/204 "2002-08-23T00:15:16Z")
I’ve done heard that satan is referred to as in the King of Tyre in Isaiah I believe. You were perfect from the day you were created. A king couldn’t be created, he was born. But I dont really know. I will print this all out and try to reply tomorrow as my libraries computers were down all day and I dont have time tor ead it all right now. ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/205 "2002-08-23T00:17:00Z")
For some silly reason that line “from the day you were created” reminds me of the song from Rocky Horror. The one about Eddie. I know, I’m weird.🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/206 "2002-08-23T03:00:42Z")
**dreamer** , the chapter of Ezekiel you quoted from _specifically_ refers to the King of Tyre (a strongly fortified port city of the Phoenicians) and not to Satan. Luke 10:19-20 would imply that Jesus was prophesying, not recounting an actual event–and again, like the passage from Revelations, does not say _why_. ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/207 "2002-08-23T07:22:24Z")
Erislover wrote: ““What else do we source morality from that you feel God doesn’t have access to? Perhaps that would serve me well in framing a response.”” An eternal being who determines their own destiny in the ‘afterlife’ (knowing all things to boot!) who is, again, _eternal_ does not use the morality of suicide to make decisions like humans are observed to do (some much more acutely than others). The point still stands that this can be proven as a process to which God does not engage (by essence of His claimed eternal life). This shows beyond reasnable doubt that humans have a moral code that they can use and that they have exersized that God: a.) Cannot use (determinism) b.) Doesn’t understand c.) Can’t ever observe objectively I would argue, by evidence of history; that humans have used a completely different tool to gauge the breadth of morality, than God can possibly execute in the Bible as a supposedly ‘omniscient’ or ‘omnipitotent’ being. It is to say, that humans consider whether or not their own life is worth the eternal damnation of millions of lives (who can’t know what you know by the rules you must of necessity create in order to build a reality of ‘peers’ (which clearly they are not, by their lack of time to aquire knowledge, and their lack of infinite life lived entirely within their will.). Quite simply: God has omnipotence and omniscience _which in and of itself is a rediculous claim_; we however, have suicide; something God sweeps under the rug when we do it (barely even recieved a mention in the Bible except for being an act that allots one to eternal hell). We can conclude that God fosters ignorance on the entire subject of suicide; from action, understanding and the denial it entails of his own power to rape people from oblivion and force them into his game. People who commit suicide (in a Biblical sense) are those who say; “I’m not playing this crappy game.” Not even the Devil commits suicide; none of these players use this moral tool (except us), which charachterizes human nature as much as the ability to differentiate, charachterizes all conscious entities. All moral logic descends from the very idea that “We do not have to be here, we can choose to leave; is there an act where suicide is not a more logically consistant expression?; ok, now how do I go about doing that?” It is clearly a tool which God does not possess, and thus allows us a means to judge God with a perfectly valid leg to stand on. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/208 "2002-08-23T07:37:25Z")
Basically: God can’t know he’s eternal unless he knows all things. God can’t know all things knowable unless he commits suicide. God can’t commit suicide if he is eternal. If God is omnipresent; then we know that God never does commit suicide. If God does commit suicde, then we cannot ever exist (existential proof that an omnipresent God never commit suicide), unless something greater than God sustains us. If something greater than God sustains us, then God does not have any of the properties he claims; and is simply a liar. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/209 "2002-08-23T07:46:52Z")
“”“God can’t commit suicide if he is eternal.”""" Forgot to add: Which means, if God is eternal, God cannot be omnipotent. (probably omniscient either; but that’s a lengthier argument.) -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/210 "2002-08-23T07:52:01Z")
Argghh… one more add: This leaves us with a ‘God’ who can be eternal and omnipresent; but hmm… that sounds alot like the universe, doesn’t it? -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/211 "2002-08-23T08:18:12Z")
Does god have free will? If not, isn’t his love as empty and rote as people are always saying the “love” of an unfree being would be? If so, then it seems that having free will and always choosing good are not exclusive: so why are there any free-willed beings of the sort that would ever, even once, choose evil? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/212 "2002-08-23T14:11:40Z")
**Justhink** , I would imagine it depends on what you mean by suicide. I am fairly sure no J-C religion allows for suicide qua suicide, but there’s always being thrown to the lions if you really feel you have to split. If suicide is immoral, why should God experience it? Apart from that, all you’ve demonstrated is that, given choices, people make them. What does this have to do with God’s judgment of those choices? Do _I_ have to commit suicide before I can judge someone else who does so? > [@](#): > > God can’t know all things knowable unless he commits suicide. What would compell him to commit suicide just to know? Of course, if a human ever committed suicide, _God would or could be there_ to understand what is going on. Like his [possible] trip to earth as Jesus, he could have come to Earth just to commit suicide to see what it was like. Also consider that, given our eternal spirits, that means we cannot commit suicide either. We never really die just like God wouldn’t really die. So that means we can’t know what it is like to commit suicide either, if we look at it like that. Also: a god who was omnipresent would pretty much be all-knowing. Think about it: God’s science experiments wouldn’t be incomplete induction. 😉 **Apos** : Why shouldn’t God have free will? > [@](#): > > so why are there any free-willed beings of the sort that would ever, even once, choose evil? Because they don’t have complete knowledge? ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/213 "2002-08-23T16:44:15Z")
““What would compell him to commit suicide just to know? Of course, if a human ever committed suicide, God would or could be there to understand what is going on. Like his [possible] trip to earth as Jesus, he could have come to Earth just to commit suicide to see what it was like.”” The point being; it’s not suicide unless _God_ does it for himself. Our suicides are quite meaningful in the context of ‘what is at stake’ from our perspective. To be in Gods’ position and just deliniate us to eternal heaven or hell; shows no profundity of what the entire process entails for humans. It shows a denial of what humans are confronted with in their existences; an aknowledgment of something in life that proves there is a ‘greater’ than (maybe even a nothing); by the process of engaging of our own free-will. It is again, to state that God’s free-will is contrived from denial of a possible action, and that ultimately all of his claimed states are _less_ than absolute. His ability to judge the morality or immorality of the act seems quite biased; equally his request of our blind faith shows that he is not processing the profundity of what a concept like suicide entails; and how that emergent morality is used to process and judge his behavior from our daily reality of understanding that he never performs the act (if indeed he exists); and that humans _have_ performed it. What does it mean to God to come down to earth as Jesus “I think I’ll go down there and kill myself and then come back here.” “”"“Because they don’t have complete knowledge?”""" I was articulating this precise point earlier. Being judged to eternal damnation for not having complete knowledge; in fact, being forced not to be peers. How can one possibly ascertain any act or thought of a non-omnipotent being as meaningfull in the context of unknowns. If we use the incomprehensibility clause; it stands to reason that the jump from “almost omni-scient” to \_completely omni-scient is the difference between choosing Gods path or a different path through free-will (the rest would simply be a statistical crap-shoot determined by how God set the algorythm before creation started. -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![Justhink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/edb3f5/32.png) [@Justhink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justhink)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/214 "2002-08-23T16:57:19Z")
Part of what triggers suicide in humans is oppression, and inborn sufferring programmed without seeing other possibilities. God has nothing to be accountable for; nobody to be accountable for in a tangible sense. It’s like Bill Gates saying, “I feel their pain in Africa; I know what its like to be born with AIDS and starve to death at the age of twenty. That’s why I keep all this money, because I feel their pain. They would do the same; expression of aknowledging pain and suffering is evil, so I keep _all_ the money, because you know, I feel their pain. They however do not understand, because they are in pain. It clouds their judgement. So they are not to be given a chance, until they would do like me and keep all the wealth.” -Justhink ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/215 "2002-08-23T17:03:40Z")
I have always been under the impression that God could come to earth as a person and forget he was god. Then, after death: pop! Back to God again. And if God can also exist in all times, he could then even watch and judge himself, and never leave any faithful aside for long. I wonder where god would choose to be born? At any rate, I find it a little more than trivial that God can’t know everything because _HE_ cannot commit suicide. This presumes that he cannot do as I have indicated above. It also presumes him to be _like_ something that we are, which I think is an error in itself. I don’t see a logical reason that God cannot know what it is like for humans to commit suicide. That he cannot know what it is like for HIM to commit suicide… so what? So that’s an epistemological no-no. Big deal. It would only be a big deal if we knew what it was like for him to commit suicide but he didn’t. Which is absurd, if you don’t mind me saying so. What is more compelling to me is that, if God could do the above, what would happen if he sinned _in this state_? Would he send himself to hell? I think this brings out issues of in what manner can something be said to be omniscient, not problems that God cannot always be correct. I cannot quite imagine what it would mean to be omniscient and omnipotent. So it then becomes a question of what sort of things you are proving to me other than my own inability to be omniscient and omnipotent. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/216 "2002-08-23T17:05:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squish \* > \*\ ***dreamer** , the chapter of Ezekiel you quoted from _specifically_ refers to the King of Tyre (a strongly fortified port city of the Phoenicians) and not to Satan. \*\* Not exactly, since the _earthly_ King of Tyre was not in the Garden of Eden. See [http://www.geocities.com/ryan311109/Satan.html](http://www.geocities.com/ryan311109/Satan.html) for details. ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/217 "2002-08-23T18:02:48Z")
Also, before someone smarter gets it, omnipotence means being able to do all things doable. God can’t create a 2-sided triangle, He can’t create a wall that He can’t tear down or a burrito that He can’t eat, and He can’t die. Waitaminute. Didn’t he? (This is all only if you believe in the JC god, of course) ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/218 "2002-08-23T21:42:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JThunder \* > \*\*Not exactly, since the _earthly_ King of Tyre was not in the Garden of Eden. See [http://www.geocities.com/ryan311109/Satan.html](http://www.geocities.com/ryan311109/Satan.html) for details. \*\* I checked the URL, and I think it’s really stretching there. Remember that Tyre is not some mythical or long-lost city. Throughout ancient times, it was a very powerful city, _built_ for trade and _grown wealthy_ through trade. The writer may be using Tyre and its king as symbols of those who forsake the pure and spiritual life for one of trade and wealth, but saying that Tyre is literally Satan would be like a writer today saying that New York City is literally Satan. ---
**Author:** ![lynn73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@lynn73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynn73)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/219 "2002-08-23T22:23:49Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by Squish \* \*\* And just where did you get this? Cite? Because, as I said, the _only_ place in the Bible where Satan’s revolt is mentioned is in Revelations 12:7-9: [QUOTE] **And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.** > [@](#): > > Not one word about beauty, or pride, or a desire to be God. \*\* Isaiah 14:12-15 ---
**Author:** ![Squish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8797f3/32.png) [@Squish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squish)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2002, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305/220 "2002-08-23T23:52:01Z")
I concede that Isaiah might be speaking of Satan, but given the context, it’s equally possible that he’s speaking of the Babylonian empire and its king. Let’s assume that your interpretation is correct: - God tells Adam and Eve not to eat of the knowledge of good and evil and says that Adam will die if he does (of course, he doesn’t; he lives for over 900 years). - Satan tells Eve to go ahead and eat it. - In Job, Satan, acting in the role of “accuser” or “adversary”, tests Job’s faith on orders from God. - In Ezekiel and Isaiah, earthly kings/cities are compared to Satan - In Luke, Jesus says he sees Satan fall from heaven - In Revelations, Satan–in the form of a great dragon–gets into a war with Michael and loses, falling from heaven. So how are we to interpret this? That it was Satan, rather than God, who gave man free will (or at least the ability to distinguish between good and evil and make choices based upon that ability)? That Satan serves God, albeit in the role of the accuser of man? That Satan somehow possesses entire cities (and not lowly, poor ones, but wealthy ones)? Or simply that the Israelites equate their enemies with Satan, the adversary, much as some Arab leaders equate the US with “the great Satan”? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-j-c-god-evil/124305.md?page=12)