From: ednclark@kraken.itc.gu.edu.au (Jeffrey Clark)
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Organization: ITC, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia
Distribution: world,public
Date:  4 Jan 93 00:30:59 GMT

brian@lpl.arizona.edu (Brian Ceccarelli 602/621-9615) writes:


>It grieves me to hear this kind of discussion.  God gets accused of
>things that are really not his to begin with.  Both Christians and
>non-Christians alike attribute the pain and suffering in the world
>to God.   This is not true.

>   I'll state my point first then back it up.  The point is this.  
>Ultimately, we as humans have chosen death over life.  We had preferred
>cancer and old age a long time ago.   The four year old girl gets what
>she has inherited from the beginnings of humanity.  Death.  Suffering. 
>It is sad.  Truly a pity.  But guess what?  God didn't create it that way. 
>He originally created us to live forever.  God doesn't dole out cancer
>to 4-year olds.  Such is a sad and major consequence of what we as
>humans chose for ourselves a long long time ago.  

What a ludicrous position to take! So If my grandfather chose to murder
someone I and my father (or mother) and my children should be held
responsible and suffer consequences for his decision? Is this rational? How
can an all-loving God possibly justify the removal of a privilege from all
of Adam and Eve's progeny, merely because deep in the distant past before
most of those who must suffer the consequences were born, they chose to eat
an apple (what the hell was such a temptation doing there anyway)? 


>   Do you remember that in the Bible, we humans chose to gain access
>to the knowledge of good and evil at the price of our lives.   Despite God's
>ample and clear warning. we chose to eat from that infamous fruit.  It
                          ^^
			  ||
			  Who is we? Shouldn't it be they?

>reaped death for Adam and Eve then.  It reaps death for us now.  We,
>through some sort of spiritual genetics, inherited death from the
>originators.  Due to Adam and Eve, humanity had changed ever after. 
>We now die.  80 year olds die. 4 year olds die.  There are old age, cancer,
>sickness, war, starvation.  All this stuff happens now.  But remember,

Thank our ever-loving super benevolent god! He deals such just sentences!
Hallelujah!

>this is not the way God created it to begin with.   God's will then is 
>still his will now.  For all to come to Him and have everlasting life.  


>  Here are some details from the Bible.   They, I hope show that even
>though God can work good from evil, that God is not the culprit behind
>suffering and death.  

>1.   Recall Genesis 1:16

>     And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from
>     any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree
>     of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it,
>     you will surely die."

I ask again what was this tree doing here in the first place? God created
humans, so he knew what was going to happen. He purposely condemned
generations of humans to death and suffering and a large proportion of them
to eternal torment. A pretty sick being this God, creates beings for the
purpose of eternal torture. At least when scientists bread microscopic
organisms they only subject them to tortures for breif periods of time, not
lik your god, no sirree, eternal damnation for most of them and suffering,
pain, plague and death for all.

>Genesis 3:6

>     When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for
>     food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
>     wisdom, she [Eve] took some and ate it.  She also gave some
>     to her husband.

Well then (though it was an unfair test) punish her not all of mankind for
eternity. Note also the implication here that women are corruptable and
detestable.

>Genesis 5:5

>     Adam . . . died.


>You may also note that the "serpent" had a major role in enticing
>Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  You may
>attribute some of the responsibility of man's fall to the serpent,  
>but God still held Adam and Eve accountable for the choice they made.

Oh well, there was mitigating circumstances I'll let you off with eternal
suffering, death, painful childbirth, menstrual cycles, plagues and for most
of you eternal torture and suffering in Hell, oh and all your descendants
will also suffeer the consequences. I mean it's only your first
offence. (sounds like something from Monty Python).

>The consequence of eating that fruit reaped death for humanity thereafter,
>and yet Adam and Eve knew that consequence behorehand.

Yeah, but you and I didn't.


>2.  Another example from Job.  This example shows that Satan
>    can and does instigate and cause suffering and death.  Without
>    God's intervention, there is no cork on Satan's evil.

>Job, as you may recall, was a properous man.  He was "blameless, 
>upright, feared God, shunned evil.  He had 7 sons, 3 daughters, 

Why should one fear an all-loving God?

>7000 sheep, 3000 camels . . . ."  And the hands of Satan, all
>material possessions and the lives of Job's family, perished.

>Recall the dialog from Job 1:9-12:

>    "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied.  "Have
>     you [Lord] not put a hedge around him and his household and
>     everything he has?  You have blessed the work of his
>     hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread 
>     throughout the land.  But stretch out your hand
>     and strike everything he has, and he will surely
>     curse you to your face."

>     The Lord said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he
>     has is in your hands, but the man himself do not
>     lay a finger."

>     Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

>Now read the next few paragraphs.  The Sabeans attacked
>and carried off Job's oxen and donkeys.  They put the servants
>to the sword.  The sheep were burnt up.  The Chaldeans swept
>down and carried off his camels.  They killed more servants.
>Then, a mighty wind swept in and blew down Job's house on top
>of his entire family.  They all died.  Satan then afflicted
>Job with sores . . . .

>     Who would you say caused all this?  God?  NOT!  God merely 
>allowed Job to be given "into Satan's hands."  Being in Satan's
>hands is not a great place to be.  Job suffered in them.  Satan
>caused the deaths of the servants, the death of his family, and 
>Job's sores.  These were the results of Satan's will, not
>God's will. 

Do you think God thought Satan would go and give Job an icecream? God knew
full well what Satan would do, and he gave Satan leave to do it (in this one
case mind you, how many times does God need to give Satan leave to prove his
point?). So God not only condoned but approved of Satans actions.


>     For some semantic hair splitters out there, some will
>note that during all this havoc, one may think along the lines 
>of how Job and Job's friends think, that is, that God is the one
>who is afflicting Job.  But from verse 1:12, the reader knows it is 
>Satan.  It is again confirmed in verse 2:7.  Job and Job's buddies
>are basically in the dark.  They do not know what is going on behind 
>the curtains like the reader does. The reader is given the
>perspective from the heavenly throne room.  Job and his friends
>have but a limited view.
>      
I think Job could see it more clearly than you could even without a heavenly
perspective. Job worshipped God as a protector from evil not as some
celestial extortionist, who would wreak havoc as soon as adulation from his
subject ceased. Job worshipped in the knowledge that God's pleasure would
protect him from the harm of Satan or any other evil influence. But God let
him down, he not only allowed it to happen, he endorsed it. God considered
Job's life and livelihood (and that of his family) as nothing more than an
experiment in human loyalty.


>3.  Consider Jesus' death.  Here was the only sinless man ever
>    to exist.  A perfect man.  God incarnate.  Who killed him?
>    Pontious Pilate?  Judas Iscariot?  Sure, they had their hands
>    in the pie.  Do you know of anyone else?  How about the
>    same dastardly being who enticed Eve to eat the fruit
>    and killed off Job's family?  What "possessed" Judas
>    Iscariot to betray Jesus?
>    
>    Luke 22:3

>    Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve.



>From the Bible you will see Satan ruining people's lives and
>enjoying it.  On the other hand, from the Bible you will see God
>fortifying people's lives, promoting the good, removing the
>evil,  loving, and encouraging love.  God wills that no one should
>perish but have everlasting life.  

>Here is a question you may want to ask yourself.  "Do I have the
>same affinity to the tree of knowledge of good and evil as did Eve?"
>Eve, remember, was a perfect human being before the fall.  And she
>fell into the trap.  We are in a fallen state already.  Are we
>better than Eve?  Can we handle the knowledge of good and evil?
>What does human history say?  What was Eve's option in the first
>place?  She could have eaten from the Tree of Life.

>That same stubbornness and self-will that led Eve into 
>thinking that she could handle the knowledge of good and evil, is 
>the same stubborness and self-will and over the same thing that 
>prevents people from eating from the Bread of Life today.  
>People are still choosing death over life.  

God made us this way, he knew we were going to react this way! If God does
exist as you think and acts like you think he does he is an absolute
asshole, the most giant bastard ever and someone I could never worship, even
with the fear of eternal torment (another example of his assholedness).

>So people, John 3:16:

>    "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only
>     Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
>     have eternal life."

>And John 6:35:

>    Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life."

Your religion has been slowly contrived by humans interested in just one
aim: mind control. Over thousands of years and much modification it has
proven to be the most successful method of mind control and a very flexible
one. Unfortunately you are one of it's victims.

Jeff.

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