I wanted to share another Greg Boyd lecture. This one I think is very topical to this forum as he talks about the judgment of God. About two thirds in Boyd talks about something that for me is probably one of the biggest reasons both intellectually and emotionally that I believe if a creator God does exist that he must be the God revealed in the bible. I think this lecture will be very interesting for both atheist and theists a like.

http://media.whchurch.org/2009/2009-...ailing-God.wmv

After watching these are the questions I have:

1. Does God have control over natural disasters? or is it cause by man or the devil or what?

2. He often says that God doesn't show himself because we have rejected Him. How can we be blamed for rejecting something that refuses to show himself unless we don't reject Him?

3. In section two, he says that His punishment is "removing his protection". That makes no sense, even though His example is of the Romans doing the acts and not Him. Why? because in the OT, he often commands His people to do these horrendous acts. Thats not just being passive and allowing things to happen, thats actively taking part in genocide.

And his explanation of the the slaying of firstborns in Egypt is laughable. Its not God who is causing it, its the DESTROYER! yeah, and who and where did this destroyer come from, and who commands the destroyer what to do? How come we havent seen this destroyer who kills just firstborns since this event?

And there are *multiple* examples in the OT of God actively punishing people, and is indeed micro-controlling.

4. He talks about God's anger, and basically says "Oh I'm was just a little angry, but now I'm really angry, so I'm just going to let all this **** happen to you, since i'm angry!" Does this sound like an all loving God to you? A loving parent doesnt, out of anger, sit back and watch their child get run over a car or killed by someone just because they are angry with the child, i mean love is patient right, so shouldn't a perfect love have perfect patience? In addition, God is God, he shouldn't be getting angry so easily and over such petty beings as humans.

5. If your wife (or someone you claim to love) suddenly decided to stop believing, to what efforts would you go to keep her a believer? if you say you would try really hard, but if she kept pushing you away, you would give up, then obviously your love or concern for her eternal soul isnt as great as you think. Thats understandable, since we are humans afterall, but imagine if you had PERFECT LOVE and PERFECT WISDOM and knew exactly what you had to say or do to help her believe again. Out of love, wouldn't you do whatever you could to save her soul? To me, this is what love is, and as far as I can tell, a "passive aggressive" God that Boyd defines, does not strike me as loving. He strikes me as a powerless God who gives up easily (like a human) and has little interest in our eternal fates.

[QUOTE=dknightx;12162757]After watching these are the questions I have:


1. Does God have control over natural disasters? or is it cause by man or the devil or what?

2. He often says that God doesn't show himself because we have rejected Him. How can we be blamed for rejecting something that refuses to show himself unless we don't reject Him?

3. In section two, he says that His punishment is "removing his protection". That makes no sense, even though His example is of the Romans doing the acts and not Him. Why? because in the OT, he often commands His people to do these horrendous acts. Thats not just being passive and allowing things to happen, thats actively taking part in genocide.

4. He talks about God's anger, and basically says "Oh I'm was just a little angry, but now I'm really angry, so I'm just going to let all this **** happen to you, since i'm angry!" Does this sound like an all loving God to you? A loving parent doesnt, out of anger, sit back and watch their child get run over a car or killed by someone just because they are angry with the child, i mean love is patient right, so shouldn't a perfect love have perfect patience? In addition, God is God, he shouldn't be getting angry so easily and over such petty beings as humans.

5. If your wife (or someone you claim to love) suddenly decided to stop believing, to what efforts would you go to keep her a believer? if you say you would try really hard, but if she kept pushing you away, you would give up, then obviously your love or concern for her eternal soul isnt as great as you think. Thats understandable, since we are humans afterall, but imagine if you had PERFECT LOVE and PERFECT WISDOM and knew exactly what you had to say or do to help her believe again. Out of love, wouldn't you do whatever you could to save her soul? To me, this is what love is, and as far as I can tell, a "passive aggressive" God that Boyd defines, does not strike me as loving. He strikes me as a powerless God who gives up easily (like a human) and has little interest in our eternal fates.

My comments are above, I know I have long comments, I could have said way more but I wanted to spare you all. I may not have answered exactly the way you would like to here, but in order to get a better undertanding I have to lay some things down that are mis-understood and with out these things being explained AND BELIEVED you will never understand why the bible is written the way it is.

Believe me I could go on days sharing things that would help people understand the word more but typing words takes so long and with no immediate back and forth, like in a real conversation it really makes it hard to communicate and do these subjects justice.....

i'm going to just focus on this part, since the rest of your answers all lead to dead ends so its not worth discussion:

This makes no sense if you have read the Bible (which you claim to understand so well). Still, even if we assume what you say is true, it was God that allowed the devil to command the destroyer to do what it did. Obviously God has some control over what the destroyer does since the destroyer could not kill the first borns of households that had the blood on the door (regardless of who lived inside).

So the end result of this is that God is still held partially responsible for this horrendous deed. Turning a blind eye away when you are perfectly capable of helping is not loving, its cowardice.

also this:

has to be about the most ******ed thing you have ever said. You are telling me these actions:

1 Samuel 15:1-3
Genesis 6:5-7, Genesis 7:4, Genesis 7:21
Ezekiel 9:4-6
Numbers 31:7-18
Deuteronomy 20:10-14
(i could go on and on with about 100 of these)

were caused by the devil? So when it says explicitly in the verse: "And the Lord said unto him", a true division of the word "Lord" actually is "Devil". good luck trying to explain that one.

The bottom line is this; If you believe God's nature to be unchanging, then you have to admit that the God of the OT was one who actively judges using horrendous acts of violence that in no rational persons mind could be considered loving. Even if today we are in the "Age of Grace" and God is all about passive judging, this does not change the fact that the very nature of God, as shown in the OT, is one of a homicidal, jealous, maniac.

I will ignore your questions as you ignore my answers also, but just so you know, the devil HAS RIGHTS in the spiritual realm, legal rights that have been handed over to him by Adam. God set up the laws in the beggining and gave Adam rights who legally handed them all over to the devil. Adam handed the dominion of the earth to the devil and the power over the earth.

So God being a God of His word had to abide by his word and follow things judicioulsy. God did not as you speak just allow the devil, the devil had teh right to do what he wanted. God does however have His hand on things many times, meaning He protects things and people ect to a high degree but they by their choices and beliefs in life move further and further outside of the legal realm for God to protect them and that is when alot of bad things happen.

Or they happen because people have a lack of knowledge of the spiritual realm and people suffer the consequences of their lack of knowledge.

Or just simply because the devil decide to pick on someone which he has the right to do and IF they do not know their rights nor stand up for themselves with spritual power then they are suceptable.

The Christians have rights the unbelievers are owned by the devil and he can and does do what he wants for them, that is one reason all the countries taht are not Christains have such horrific things happen top their people at times.

But if you want to keep on believing what you want thats your perogative, this is one reason I cant stand to put my heart into answering a question, because the majority of questions asked here are sked for the sole purpose of not wanting an answer but to say "I dont believe, so answere this but no matter what you say I still wont believe" Meaning you really think you have it figured out already and you waste my time.

God changes the way in which he DEALS with man, not His nature. The bible covers at lest 8 different administrations of time. 2 of which are not here yet.

Each admin God deals with people differently. Its kinda like presidential administrations to give an example. We were in the Clinton admin at one time, then the bush, then the bush, now we are in the Obama admin, and the US Goverment handles things differently during each admin, sometimes there are drastic changes and sometimes not.

do you believe that the way God *deals* with man in one administration is a reflection of his nature, yes/no?

please expand on what these are, using the bible of course.

you are going to have to use the bible to convince me of this one too.

contradictory. either the devil has "the right" to do something or he doesn't. saying God can pick and choose when he interferes or "protects" isn't giving the devil the right do do what he wants.

what a loving God to set us up like this!

ah, more ignorant babble. sort of like "Obama isn't a black man, he's a muslim disguised as a black man", right?

im more than happy to start believe *again* (i was once a believer, so i already have the theological foundation to start believing again). The problem is people like you with your arrogance and ignorance of science and the physical world are a real turn off. Add it to that, most of your answers basically boil down to: "im right because i say im right"

Well if you have such a disdain for me then why would you want to ask me for any answer in the first place, I will help you out completely with this comment.

Don't ask me specifically anything else unless you are seriously going to endeavor to understand, dont waste my time. You are the one with an axe to grind with Christianlty not me.

I have no idea as to what Christian hurt you in the past or what group did, maybe you have a right to have anger, but I am sharing the word straight from the word, right out of the bible and if you think its arrogant then go look up what I say and see if its there then blame God for being so straight forward and blunt not me.

Many of the quesitons you asked really require more than foundational understanding and the foundational has to be right foundational understanding. There are obviously some wrong beliefs in your head about God and the bible.

I am more than happy to always share and teach but if you think my straightforwardness is arroagant then you can't recieve from me.

I am confident that I have the truth, that is honestly what it is, you may take it as arrogance but I am plainly and simply being honest and bold about it.

I am not going to hem and haw around the truth and pretend I do not know it. Its hard enough on these forums to communicate with each other let alone trying to beat around the bush about something.

first off, those questions were directed at Jib, but i'm glad you answered, since apparently he's too busy to look at the thread he started.

as for your answers, I obviously dont agree with everything you wrote, but as usual find your tone an attitude to be arrogant and dismissive (which you like to think is confidence/boldness, which is laughable).

Regardless, unless you actually believe God is all-loving, then we have no qualms to discuss in this thread. If you *do* believe God is all-loving, well then, we have stuff to discuss. so which is it?

Are you in my mind? Do you know my intentions and motives? Are you God, you have no clue what you are talking about regarding my confidence you are just blowing hot air and assuming. Its not my fault you lost your belief or quit believing in GOd an have become sour and bitter.

You well me!

1Jo 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

1Jo 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1Jo 1:5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

You really only have a few choices, either theses verses are wrong and GOd had his men write lies or your understanding of God's love is not mature. Meaning you think of mans love and confuse that with Gods love.

If God is Love, if thats His essence and nature and He is perfect as His word states then it is axiomatic that anything He says or does would fall under the catagory of being Loving from His perspective..........right?

dude, just answer the question yes or no, i dont need a dissertation for a simple question.

oh btw, mr hypocrite, question for you: Are you in my mind? Do you know my intentions and motives? Are you God, you have no clue what you are talking about regarding my beliefs.

You make your beliefs absolutely well known by your posts, unless you are lying in most of your posts?

As for the answer to your question, what does the word say about God in those verses? What ever it says is what I believe, how about you?

Dont avoid my questions, they are not hard, I have posted teh word on the subject ans since I believe the word you should logically be able to deduct that I believe the word. Do you believe what the word says about Gods nature?

Jib I'll watch this shortly, because I'm very interested in hearing your/his reasoning for saying that .

dKnight- If you bang your head against an actual brick wall you A) will stand a better chance of making progress and B) will be put out of your misery much more quickly than if you continue to argue rationally with pletho.

Exodus 24
9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up 10 and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, [b] clear as the sky itself. 11 But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

No one physically saw God ever, you need to read more of the word than 1 isolated bit of text. Plus you are reading some funky bible what are you reading? I forgot?

It is the NIV version King James is about the same.

9Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel:10And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.11And upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink.

NIV is definitely better than the KJV, but really it is best to use the NASB. The NIV is a thought for thought translation where the NASB is a word for word translation.

And the KJV is only good for strawmen arguments.(not that that is what you were doing in this case)

Ill try to use NASB if its the best, but no straw man was meant. It shouldn't matter if you can see him as a physical being or a spiritual being it's still seeing God.

No, you were doing nothing wrong. I only brought that up because a majority of the time people use the KJV because it uses antiquated language and is easy to attack and there is really no other reason to use the KJV other than this. You can actually tell a lot about a person or a website by what version they quote from. Most christian slamming sites will use KJV as well as most fundie sites.

As far as what you are talking about. People have seen many of the forms that God takes on, but no one as seen the true form of God.

I'm sure this is true of web sites (or people) with an agenda, but many people (both atheist and Christian) are simply under the false impression that the KJV is the most accurate and that other versions are used because they are easier to read for modern English speakers.

I didn't think you were saying i was using a straw man i was just making i clear i wasn't trying to.

I understand what you are saying and that is all Pletho had to say.

I listened to the whole vid. The guy is making an impassioned case for free will nullifying the problem of evil. He also makes the case that God does not actively punish people, rather he withdraws his protection from those that stubbornly won't allow him to protect them. Evil forces in the world are actually the vessel for all the nastiness.

He also experiences sorrow, not anger, as the primary emotion when he is rejected.


Here are my thoughts on this. The New Testament is really where the graphic descriptions of modern eternal fiery torture chamber hell comes into play. I'm not going to quote the relevant verses, unless someone requests them, because everyone has seen them enough to remember. I'm just being a little lazy here, I will look them up and post them if requested.

I think free will means the ability to choose, and choice is contingent on being well informed. The bible speaks of people in hell realizing it is too late to choose, cursing the day they were born. So in some way, shape, or form, they better comprehend the consequences of their actions than before they arrived in hell. At that point they don't have a choice anymore. I don't think anyone would choose to remain in the hell described in the bible. Even if God knew someone was hopeless, and would never love God, if God loves this person he could give them some decent form of existence.

I am an atheist, and you are going to have to trust me on this, but I can actually enjoy my life sometimes. I would even go so far as saying I prefer it to eternal suffering =) So if God loves me, let him show infinite mercy and forgive me for not loving him back, and give me a third option.

I mean, yes and no. That is not really the central theme here. Not being a religious person maybe this does not stand out as much for you. It was always said that free will is why people get punished, he adds nothing new there. It is about God's character more so and what sort of loving God he truly is versus how most people portray him.

I think that you need to re-evaluate what you believe the NT is really saying about hell. Keep in mind that Gehenna was a dump outside of Jerusalem. Ok, have to go to work, comment on the rest in a bit