God's violent ways

[OnceConvinced]

The god of the bible tends do deal with sin and evil in very violent ways. Ie, wiping out cities, sending floods, ordering violent deaths, ordering the slaying of animals for sacrifices, sending curses and plagues, etc.

Can you point out any instances in the bible where God deals with sin and evil in non-violent ways?

And I mean God here. Not Jesus.
And there are times God showed mercy and didn't deal with the sin and evil, sure. But when he did, were there non-violent methods used?

[OnceConvinced]

Hi Tam.

Good on you for taking up the challenge.

The ground/earth is cursed because of what Adam did ("cursed is the ground because of you")

Err no. Adam was a human being so being human he does not have any supernatural power to be able to curse the earth. The earth could only be cursed if it was in God's design for it to become cursed.

ie
He had to have designed it in a way where an act of disobedience would corrupt it.

So he has to take full responsiblity for the curse.

; Eve has greater pain in childbirth as a consequence (a natural consequence) of the different body she now possesses that has sin and death in it.

Once again a design issue. It can only be that way if God intended it to be that way.

It's like if a software developer designs a system so that pressing the X button delivers the user of the application an electric shock, you can't blame the user for pressing the X button even if there were warnings. You must blame the designer for putting in a button that causes an electric shock.

So that is a form of violence even if not an overt one.

And the fact that Adam and Eve are now going to die is a natural consequence of their having eaten of death (eating from the tree of knowing good/life and bad/death). You will note that the warning was not, "If you eat of the TOKGB, I will kill you..." No, the warning was, "If you eat of the TOKGB, you will die."

Once again a design issue. If you are a developer and design a system where if you access a certain subroutine it results in the explosion of the computer, thus killing the user... even if you place warnings about it, it's still the fault of the developer for putting in such a malevolent sub routine.

God also does not handle the sin of murder with violence, after Cain murders his brother Abel. In fact, God puts a mark on Cain which ensures no one else kills Cain either.

Okay cool. Heres one I guess. It's one of the rare times where he does show mercy.

What sort of method do you think he would have used if he had decided to punish Cain? A violent one?

[OnceConvinced]

Peace to you William,

tam: Well, we could start with the very first story from Genesis, with Adam and Eve. God commits no violence against them due to their sin - their own actions cause their harm. God uses no violence. He simply casts them out of the Garden (to just the earth).

William: Do threats of violence (you shall surely die) count?

If a parent tells a child not to play in the street or they will get hit by a car (and die), is that a threat of violence from the parent or is that a warning about a natural consequence?

It is not a natural consequence if the parent put the road there and made it so that cars were driving there with drivers who were fallible. It is not a natural consequence if the parent enables a system where the child can walk out onto the road.

Nothing in the story states that limbs were removed from serpents. And the "serpent" in the garden is a seraph; an angel; a spirit being (a dragon; drakon). We can see this from what the Adversary is described as being: that ancient serpent; the dragon.


He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. Rev 20:2

Nothing in the story states that the snake was a seraph or an angel. In fact it quite cearly states it as a wild animal:

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?�

Genesis 3:14
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

It says quite clearly its a wild animal not an angel and it also says they will now crawl on their belly. Why would it say that if it were already the case? They clearly must have had some kind of legs for this to be the case. Or wings maybe.

And if this was an angel why did God curse all snakes?

[William]

OnceConvinced: Until it can be shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is representing God then I don't see why he should be included in this topic.

William: Okay

OnceConvinced: I find it hard to believe that an all knowing all powerful god's only methods at his disposal are violent ones. He sounds like a very human creation made by violent and primitive humans who believed violent and primitive methods were the best ones to use.

William: Okay. I honor your right to believe whatever you want to.

[Clownboat]

[Replying to Clownboat]

You sure make a lot of claims about your god and what it does here in this post.
Can you point to one modern time that your god intervened, show how it intervened and explain how you can tell your god was behind it?

I must ask because you credit a god concept for things that I acknowledge societies doing. I fear you are just pretending that a god concept is behind what societies have done, thus this request.

Society is not capable of producing a stable society safe society without very strict and freedom restraining laws. James Madison wrote in the the federalist Federalist No. 51.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external or internal controls on government would be necessary.�

Jim Nelson Black in his book When Nations Die. "When we look at three thousand years of history, we observe that civilizations rise but eventually fall and die. The history of the world is the history of nations that are conquered by other nations or collapse into anarchy."

This is the way of man left on his own account always decays into anarchy.

There are many reasons for the decline and fall of a nation, but an important (and often overlooked) reason is its abandonment of religion. Russell Kirk has said that the roots of "culture" come from the "cult." In other words, culture (cult-ure) is based upon some form of religious or spiritual worldview. Egypt was a religious society founded on the worship of nature gods and goddesses. Greece and Rome had their pantheon of pagan deities. And the list of nations in India, China, and other parts of the globe all demonstrate the principle that civilization arises from religion.

And the opposite is also true. When the traditional beliefs of a nation erode, the nation dies. Religion provides the set of standards that govern a nation. Historian Will Durant said, "There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion." (Jim Nelson Black, When Nations Die (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1994)

Civilization cannot survive without religion, why cannot nations survive without religion.

Nation states themselves are an example.

You can even see this in our country as this country drifts farther from its religious roots. Laws have had to become stricter to keep those in this society safer.

That sure was a lot of un-needed words you typed.
All you had to say to answer the question was that you cannot point to one modern time that your god intervened and that your claims of godly intervention are assumed and not evidenced.

The lengths some people will go to in order to not answer a question...

[tam]

Peace to you OC,

Hi Tam.

Good on you for taking up the challenge.

The ground/earth is cursed because of what Adam did ("cursed is the ground because of you")

Err no. Adam was a human being so being human he does not have any supernatural power to be able to curse the earth.

But his actions could cause the earth (the physical realm) to become cursed. Adam was given the earth to govern and he allowed Death to enter into the world.

Regardless of what you can accept about how that happened, that is what the text states:

Cursed is the ground because of you.

God also does not handle the sin of murder with violence, after Cain murders his brother Abel. In fact, God puts a mark on Cain which ensures no one else kills Cain either.

Okay cool. Heres one I guess. It's one of the rare times where he does show mercy.

What sort of method do you think he would have used if he had decided to punish Cain? A violent one?

Did Cain not say that he was being driven away to be a restless wanderer on the earth?


Take a quick look back at the Adam and Eve story; their actions had natural consequences - which is a good design, unless of course you think we should be free to do whatever we choose without consequence, even if we know it is going to cause harm to others. What kind of people would that design create?


But there was discipline from God as well:

They were cast out of the Garden of Eden and no longer permitted to eat from the tree of Life. Had they repented and shown love to God and to one another; that would likely have been a different story; but they did not. In fact, Adam blamed both God and Eve for what he did. And he knew that he was doing wrong. Imagine such a person - with no thought or care for his wife or for the world he had been given or for his offspring - imagine such a person living forever without ever having consequences for his actions? Why would he change? Why and how would he learn? Adam would now learn through suffering (and it would be no different than the suffering that he subjected the world and his own offspring to suffer).


So there was a reason for the discipline - to teach (which is what discipline IS). They were not shunned by God, though.


**


And sometimes violence IS necessary; the very act of creation is violent - but that brought forth life and creation, so it was not bad. Violence is sometimes necessary also to protect life from being destroyed (and God is the One who would know). The flood is one such instance; Sodom and Gomorrah is another.



Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[tam]

Peace to you,

Nothing in the story states that limbs were removed from serpents. And the "serpent" in the garden is a seraph; an angel; a spirit being (a dragon; drakon). We can see this from what the Adversary is described as being: that ancient serpent; the dragon.


He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. Rev 20:2

Nothing in the story states that the snake was a seraph or an angel.

The serpent = drakon; it is in the etymology of the word. Regardless, we know from Revelation 20:2 that a serpent is also a dragon, and the Adversary is described as being such.

In fact it quite cearly states it as a wild animal:

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?�

Genesis 3:14
So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.

It says quite clearly its a wild animal not an angel and it also says they will now crawl on their belly.

Actually, it just says that it is more crafty than the wild animals.

Why would it say that if it were already the case? They clearly must have had some kind of legs for this to be the case. Or wings maybe.

Or it was no longer permitted to walk upright because it (its person; its moral character) was not upright.

And if this was an angel why did God curse all snakes?

I'm sorry, but where in the story does it say that God cursed all snakes? Or even all serpents?



Peace again to you!

[William]

OnceConvinced: So are you saying God is limited?

William: I am saying that I acknowledge that the God in the story is characterized through his actions as being limited. iow I am pointing to the obvious in the evidence the story conveys.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 213 by tam]

I can't tell if you are joking Tam.

What do you think, God thought, would happen when he left A&E alone with drakon, or whatever?

Is it about what you would expect if you knowingly hired a child molester as your baby-sitter?
If you did hire a child-molester as your baby-sitter, would you punish your children for being corrupted?

See, this is why Judeo-Christians are so messed up.

Slavery is wrong.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to post 207 by OnceConvinced]

For instance, if a bunch of kids mock one of God's people by calling him names would you deem it fine for God to send a bear to tear them all apart?

Are you okay with that type of violence?

What about if a man violated the Sabbath law. Would you advocate the stoning to death of that person?

It's all very well to say that evil needs to be dealt with and that sometimes it requires violent methods but it's not always necessary to use violent methods.

If we were to apply that type of reasoning to say raising children, we'd end up thrown in prison. Or worse have some of your godly violence unleashed upon us.

In modern society we are now taught that violence is not the way to deal with bad people. Why is God so primitive in his methods?

I am glad you are getting the point. God is a holy God small sin or large sin makes not difference the judgement is still the same. Like it says in James "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it."

And the same is still true today. Any one who breaks the smallest part of the God's law is guilty of breaking the whole law. You may say this is unfair, but you say that only because you live in a world in which there are laws enforced. Without the enforcement of law then you would see the depth of depravity that is in man. And that is what hell will be.

[Zzyzx]

.

God is a holy God small sin or large sin makes not difference the judgement is still the same. Like it says in James "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it."

And the same is still true today. Any one who breaks the smallest part of the God's law is guilty of breaking the whole law. You may say this is unfair, but you say that only because you live in a world in which there are laws enforced. Without the enforcement of law then you would see the depth of depravity that is in man. And that is what hell will be.

Is this to say that someone who ‘covets’ a neighbor’s Rolls Royce is guilty of breaking the ‘whole law’ just as is a mass murderer and ‘the judgment is the same’?

What kind of nutcase made such a policy?

Does rational person actually believe such a thing?