JB,

What part of God is unchanging? You are assuming that God cannot change at all, which would preclude thoughts and emotions. Your definition of "unchanging" thus makes an omniscient God impossible. To claim that an omniscient being is incapable of emotions is without merit, because such a claim ignores the origin of emotions. Emotions are mental states entered when thinking about a particular event or entity. When God thought about the wickedness of man, God felt the emotion of anger. No contradiction.

God's character doesn't change, but God is capable of thought and emotion. Character dictates how events will be thought of and what emotions the event will engender. God's position as the only Necessary being means that God's character cannot change, thus God must react to the same situation the same way or God doesn't exist Necessarily. But to compare two events in the Bible and claim that God must react the same way to both is a logical fallacy. Such a comparison ignores the actions, emotions and thoughts of the participants. It also assumes that all relevant actions and preceding events are recorded for both events.

I will let JB reply to this one also but spider, you are trying to make the claim that god's character is unchanging? What the? Okay let me throw this one out there about "god's unchanging character".


Okay, first up, God is vengeful and mean. Of course we all know there are MANY of these passages denoting his anger and how he can turn on a dime but I will only copy one.

Genesis 4:15 (King James Version)

"And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him."

Real nice guy this god....now he's all about love?

Corinthians 13:11 (King James Version)

"Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you."

Oh sure, he NEVER changes character once in the bible. Come on...typical human male if you ask me.His ENTIRE character is based on contradiction. This makes him human. Why is that so bad anyway? Are you not human?

if each contradiction found within text was as put together, both as true, as a whole peace, as two sides of a coin appear as opposites, is it possible this could make for a new picture or meaning?

I just don’t know how much leeway you should need to cut this supposed "omnipotent entity". I’m just taking it at face value based on what is written. It sounds like a bunch of men. Some angry, some not angry depending on what is happening at any given point in the story. One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t turn my back on this god character in a dark alley. He changes his demeanor too quickly and he doesn’t appear all that trustworthy. “Shifty” might be the word I’m looking for?

In truth, I do not know if God is unchanging. But my concept of God is not the same as Spiders.

I feel that God is not human and does not have human emotions such a anger, fear, doubt, jealousy, vengeance. These things are the negative aspect of God if God indeed has these feelings. If Spider, you say that God is a HE and that HE does indeed have these emotions, then you are saying that God has a negative side to his nature, hence he cannot be perfect, and all good. He must then also embrace the negative aspect of himself which would be the dark side, or evil.

Then, if you say that God does have these negative emotions then God is both good and evil, embracing both aspects of existence, at least in this world.

If so, then God is unchanging, he simply expresses and manifest both good and evil.

If God is only Good, then he should not be doing things out of vengence and anger, but acting only out of love.

So which is it Spider? Is God only Good or is he both Good and evil? If God is only perfect and good, then this God you describe with the failings of human emotions cannot be described as perfect and good or is not the one true God.

JB

Fear and doubt would only be appropriate if something could threaten God or if God didn't know everything. God is omnipotent and Omniscient, so God cannot feel fear or doubt.

God expresses the following emotions in scripture: Love, Happiness, Anger, Jealousy (this is a special form of jealousy that is exclusively felt by God) and Pity. I can't think of any other's that are applicable to God or described in scriptures. What you mentioned about God being vengeful (vengeance is an act) is partially true. God is "vengeful" in that God enacts vengeance, but not in the sense that God seeks revenge. Vengeance is defined as "Infliction of punishment in return for a wrong committed; retribution", which God applies righteously. In God's case, God seeks to inflict punishment in the place of the wronged.

God is not evil, God does not feel all emotions felt by humans and quite possibly feels emotions, of which humans are not capable.

To your point that if God is good, then God shouldn't act out of vengeance or anger, I don't follow your reasoning. I think the problem is in the definitions. Because God is righteous, God's emotions are also righteous. Therefore, God isn't just angry, God is righteously angry. That is to say, experiencing sinless anger. In that case, God's anger is fully justified by the situation. So if God punishes someone because of his anger, that punishment is fully justified by all of the facts in the situation. God's acts of vengeance are spawned by God's righteousness, justness and anger, which means that God's vengeance isn't the same as man's vengeance. A man will seek retribution without knowing the heart of the accused or all aspects of the wrong committed, while God acts with full knowledge.

From my earlier post...



God promised to seek vengeance upon anyone who killed Cain for Cain's murder of Able. God promises the same for each of us, when God said "Vengeance is mine". There is no contradiction.

God is the God of love and peace, but God is also realistic. We live in a world with Laws, some man made and some established by God. When the laws are broken, the guilty must be punished. Humans believe in swift punishment and I suppose God does too, but God's swift would seem slow to human minds. God waits on the guilty to come to repentance, often waiting far longer than the victims wish to stand. Maybe God will wait seventy years without repentance from the accused. Those who refuse to repent must be punished, otherwise, God's laws are without teeth and to establish laws but not enforce them would be unrighteous.

Still waiting spider...sure is a lot of flip flopping going on here. God is nice, god is mean and evil. Hmm, just like man? Interesting. Still waiting for you to explain how that defines an "unchanging character" as you put it. Also to rebut JB. You have done neither. Im not really sure here who contradicts themselves more, god or you? That is assuming you are still trying to argue that the bible was written by this "omnipotent being" Sure is a LOT of evidence piling up here to the contrary.

"Fear and doubt would only be appropriate if something could threaten God or if God didn't know everything. God is omnipotent and Omniscient, so God cannot feel fear or doubt."

So he is omnipotent? Yet he seems to be angry enough to feel plenty of fear and doubt. Can you explain this one also? Those would appear to be very human feelings.

I said God was happy with his creation...He was happy with Adam & Eve.....they sinned......not God...then he wasn't happy....same with the world......they rebelled.....they sinned....not God.

Therefore...they pay the price.....

To me it's clear that as soon as the Bible is recognized as being nothing more than the unwarranted superstitions of men, it makes perfect sense. It's perfectly clear why men would make these things up. Moreover, most of the superstitions that are in the biblical picture of God were also in just about every other manmade superstition of the Mediterranean region. Including the idea of making blood sacrifices to appease the Gods. They didn't even come up with something new.

As a manmade superstitious myth it makes perfect sense.

However, as soon as we try to justify it as being from a genuine supreme being everything falls apart and there are contradictions galore. Why should a God who is supposed to be a fatherly imagine want blood sacrifices from men to make atonements for their sin? That flies in the face of the idea that God is supposed to be an all-wise fatherly figure. In fact, the entire bible is a grossly terrible picture of parenting skills. They constantly flies in the face of the idea of God being a fatherly figure.

In order to support the bible as being the words from a supreme being we need to go on the defensive and continually defend and make excuses for why God could be as screwed up as the bible claims.

On the other hand, once we accept that the bible is nothing more than a history of mankind's superstitious and patriarchal tendencies then it become perfectly clear why they made up these stories.

So to believe that it is just manmade chauvinism and superstition makes perfect sense.

To believe that a truly all-wise fatherly-figure Godhead wrote it requires an endless list of absurd far-reaching excuses to try to explain why God could be so screwed up.

So for me, it's an open and shut case. The idea that mankind made it up is crystal clear and requires no arguments at all. It's even supported by the fact that so many other mythologies contained the same types of stories. The only people who argue against it are the people who are still fishing for excuses to justify how a truly all-wise, all-powerful God could be as screwed up as the bible claims.

voil.....why are you yelling....

God gave chance after chance...just like he had with Pharoah........who blew it in both cases.....stubborn man that is who.......

Do I personally look at it as God loosing his temper...no I look at it more as God had had enough....He was pushed beyond his limit...


You can call it whatever you wish voil....it doesn't change the fact of what happen....



and the following has to do with anything HOW


I would hate to meet a judge whom would declare a 'murderer' justified,

'... because it is clear that his wife wouldn't obey him, in spite of the 'poor man's' clear and repeated 'laws & orders' to his wife!!!...'



It was not murder what God did......it was man paying the ultimate price for his disobedience....

Does that really make sense to you Spider?

Your points do not follow any logic in my view. But then I believe in the laws of Karma and cause and effect which are automatic and not vengeful acts by a single righteously angry God.

"Punishment" is simply the results of a specific action or thought as per the law of attraction. That is the reason for these laws of attraction, cause and effect etc.

If God had to personally keep track of every sin of every person and punish them accordingly with righteous anger, he would be too busy to hold the universe together or to do anything good or creative in my opinion. You may think that God can do all these things but it is not logical that one single conscious being could or would bare all that responsibility when there are others who can assist in the governance of the universe. That is just not how the universe works in my opinion, and it is not logical in the least.

JB

SHOW ME THE CONTRADICTION......GOD WAS VERY HAPPY WITH CREATION OF BOTH EARTH AND OF MAN.........IT WAS ONLY AFTER MANS STUPIDITY DID HE GET DISPLEASED.......


Reach people reach....we showed you]




so show us.....back up your lameness.

spider:

Fear and doubt would only be appropriate if something could threaten God or if God didn't know everything. God is omnipotent and Omniscient, so God cannot feel fear or doubt.


Tribo:

he has feelings but he cannot "feel fear"

then he is not omnipotent or omnisent.

He cannot doubt?

Then you have just limited your gods abilities.

Genesis 1
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.

11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

20 And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

24 And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

29 Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Footnotes: now for me God said what he meant and meant what he said....you could say blah blah a day for God was different......nope it was 7 days.....now believe it or don't.......It's already done so in the great scheme of life who cares.

Yes, perfect sense.



Ah, you are immediately ignoring the possbility that God would punish people, which is why my post doesn't make sense to you. You need to go back and re-read my post while ignoring any of your personal beliefs on the subject in order for you to be objective.



This is fallacious on two counts.

1) Omniscience means that God does not have to exert effort to remember anything, it is natural to God's existence.
2) Omnipotence means that God doesn't have to exert effort to do anything which God can do.
3) If God created the universe without help, then God would not need help in maintaining the universe.

You seem to be judging my statements through the lens of your beliefs. This is fine if you are trying to determine what you believe, but it is not appropriate in determining if the Bible is inconsistent. Throughout this thread, the majority of the "inconsistencies" mentioned have been in personal expectations, rather than actual contradictions

Omnipotence doesn't mean God can do anything, God can't fail for instance. God also cannot do things which are contradictions of logic or God's nature. Therefore God cannot create a square circle, no such thing can exist. God cannot die, God is eternal. The definition you are using for omnipotence is designed to make God, as defined in Judaism and Christianity, to be impossible.

Fine then, I don't want to be involved in a discussion that confines me to your limited interpretations. It would require that I agree with you on the nature of God. I don't and I can't. Therefore the discussion itself is a waste of my time. I think the Bible is extremely inconsistent and you rationalize the meanings of words as they apply to God vs humans.

Proceed with your discussions without me. Believe as you wish Spider. Peace.

Krisma,

You are applying JeanieBeans comments to me. I never claimed that God is evil.

The rest of your post is taunting and repeated arguments.

Let me be clear, fear and doubt come from two sources: The unknown and danger. Since nothing can endanger God and God knows everything, God does not feel those emotions. There are no scriptures that suggest God experiences fear or doubt. Therefore, if we are using evidentiary rules (which I know, you and others have thrown out the window), my argument is the strongest. If we aren't using evidentiary rules, my argument is still the strongest from the standpoint of what we know as the origin of fear and doubt in humans and animals.

JeanieBean,

All humans from the age of 12 on are capable of abstract thought. That's mental age, not physical. Unless your mental age is below 12 (I believe it's obviously higher than 12), then you are capable of imagining the God the Bible describes and talking about it without mixing in your own beliefs. If you don't wish to do so, that is your choice. But in all honesty, you cannot discuss contradictions in the Bible, by claiming that if an idea presented in the Bible disagrees with your own belief then it's invalid. That's not a fair discussion. If the only objection I could present to your beliefs was that they contradicted the Bible, then my objections would be invalid. I truly hope you can see that.