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The Nature of Evil

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LanDroid

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Re: The Nature of Evil

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To mirror the original question, how can theists believe in evil? Take the God of Abraham as one of many examples. As is well documented in the Bible and perhaps to a lesser extent the Quran, that Deity ordered numerous genocides. What can be considered evil once one accepts the Divine sanctioned mass slaughter of men, women, babies, animals, and indeed anything that breathes?
_______________________________________________________
When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.
Isaiah 1:15

But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Exodus 21: 23 - 25
youkrst

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Re: The Nature of Evil

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if i kill someone it's evil because i am a sinner :-D

when God does it it's fine because God is holy :lol:

like when you murder while in the army it's ok cause you are state sanctioned, then you come back from the war and it turns out your conscience doesn't care if the state sanctioned it or not, you been played.

so once again

when you do it it's evil because you are evil, when god does it it's fine because god is holy.

makes perfect sense to an apologist :wink:

if i kill someone it's wicked because man is made in God's image and i am destroying the image of God

when God does it it's somehow now holy.

Theology, it's able to get you to justify evil, including the evil of your (concept of) God. :-D

let us turn to word of God for comfort
I will dash them against each other, both the fathers and the sons together," declares the LORD. "I will not show pity nor be sorry nor have compassion so as not to destroy them.
everybody BOUNCE!!!
Last edited by youkrst on Thu Jul 30, 2015 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Flann 5
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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LanDroid wrote:To mirror the original question, how can theists believe in evil? Take the God of Abraham as one of many examples. As is well documented in the Bible and perhaps to a lesser extent the Quran, that Deity ordered numerous genocides. What can be considered evil once one accepts the Divine sanctioned mass slaughter of men, women, babies, animals, and indeed anything that breathes?
Well Landroid,that's your view of the bible as it is Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins among others.
I provided a response which you don't find convincing but others do at least see it differently from you.
It's very simple isn't it? The destruction of many though not all of the Canaanites is genocide just like Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds.

You seem to consider genocide evil or is it? from your worldview. I'll provide my response again which you won't accept but others will.
Do you believe genocide is evil and if so how do you explain such evil based on your worldview?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7B5jokJsqk Moral objections to the Old Testament. Peter J Williams
Last edited by Flann 5 on Thu Jul 30, 2015 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Flann wrote:Do you believe genocide is evil and if so how do you explain such evil based on your worldview?
well, where do i begin, to tell the story of how great a love has been...
Perils of the Self

Von Franz considered that "the dark side of the Self is the most dangerous thing of all, precisely because the Self is the greatest power in the psyche. It can cause people to 'spin' megalomanic or other delusionary fantasies that catch them up", so that the victim "thinks with mounting excitement that he has grasped the great cosmic riddles; he therefore loses all touch with human reality. [18]

In everyday life, the Self may be projected onto such powerful figures as the state, God, the universe or fate.[19] When such projections are withdrawn, there can be a destructive inflation of the personality - one potential counterbalance to this being however the social or collective aspects of the Self.[20]
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LanDroid

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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Interesting that this thread started out with a question on how atheists believe in evil. I asked how theists believe in evil given "the Divine sanctioned mass slaughter of men, women, babies, animals, and indeed anything that breathes." The response is to say you won't like my answer (probably true) and by the way, why do you believe genocide is evil? Weird!
The destruction of many though not all of the Canaanites is genocide just like Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds.
Not sure I understand that except you understand the concept of genocide although I'm quite sure Saddam Hussein is not the God of Abraham.

I watched 10 minutes of the video Flann5 provided, Moral Objections to the Old Testament - Peter J. Williams, PhD. Finally after about 5 minutes of frittering about technology and setting up his speech, he quotes the excellent description of the God of Abraham by Dawkins. Williams instantly references "different cultures" and "different times" as if that could in any way justify the outrageous slaughter commanded by that Diety. Obviously those two concepts are irrelevant to the Eternal Wisdom of a benevolent Diety. Williams then moves on to several cartoons such as Tom & Jerry, I have no idea why and that's where I lost interest in the 67 minute video. I'm becoming more sympathetic to starhwe's objections to videos w/o transcripts. :P
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When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even though you multiply your prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.
Isaiah 1:15

But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Exodus 21: 23 - 25
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Flann 5
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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LanDroid wrote:" The response is to say you won't like my answer (probably true) and by the way, why do you believe genocide is evil? Weird!
What I asked Landroid is if you believe genocide is evil how do you explain human evil based on your worldview?
What God does in judgement on human wickedness is not comparable to what a Saddam Hussein does though you might like to think so.
I provided Williams response before to one of your posts I think, and since you trot out the same line again that's why I said you won't accept it, not because it's unreasonable.
And by the way the forgiveness of the new testament as you put it, is available to you, so that's a lie. It's available to all who repent and believe the gospel.
And if you reject the gospel provided by an atonement by God incarnate by crucifixion, I'm not sure what you would expect from God. You seem to think Christianity is false and if you are correct you have nothing to worry about.
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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His Royal LDness wrote:Interesting that this thread started out with a question on how atheists believe in evil. I asked how theists believe in evil given "the Divine sanctioned mass slaughter of men, women, babies, animals, and indeed anything that breathes." The response is to say you won't like my answer (probably true) and by the way, why do you believe genocide is evil? Weird!
yes and interestingly predicted with 100% accuracy by a web page i visited.
youkrst

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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Flann wrote:You seem to think Christianity is false and if you are correct you have nothing to worry about.
and if you are correct Flann? what then? :-D
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Flann 5
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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youkrst wrote:Flann wrote:
You seem to think Christianity is false and if you are correct you have nothing to worry about.




and if you are correct Flann? what then? :-D
If I am correct then it's true,and if it's true you should believe it.
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Re: The Nature of Evil

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Interesting piece by Michael Shermer based on the famous Stanford Prison experiment, which has been made into a movie and about to be released. There are bad apples and good apples, but it's never quite so simple in the real world. In some circumstances, even good people are capable of doing evil. As Shermer says, "Because of the very real threat that strangers posed in the environment of our evolutionary ancestry natural selection also shaped us to have such emotions as xenophobia, competitiveness, and violence. These anti-social tendencies gave us an evil disposition."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-s ... 82356.html
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