A question about the morality of God

[Evointrinsic]

This question has been plaguing my mind ever since I learned more about the bible when I was younger. No one seems to be able to answer it, quite soundly at least, and thus the reason why I am creating this topic.

In the bible God is said to be all knowing. During the creation of the universe, planet earth, Man and animals comes a troubling event. That is the additional - and seemingly unnecessary - creation of the forbidden fruit.

Surely, if God is all knowing then he would have known that the forbidden fruit were to be eaten. At the very least the fruit could have been something a bit less tantalizing. Perhaps "do not drink from the stinking bog of acid that burns flesh at the very touch of it's liquid."

It seems a bit irresponsible to place something that would essentially destroy that which man had at the time of creation and in the garden that god also knew they would consume, ultimately bringing their doom upon them. The same goes for the great flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. If he knew that these people would be so evil in their hearts and so wrong, why allow their creation in the first place?

The worst of it all is that the people who commit these acts - of which could have been prevented - burn in hell for their sins. For eternity! Constant torture day after day for ever. Infinity is quite the scale of time. So long that our minds have a massive difficulty trying to comprehend it's vastness.

What could possibly be so needed as to let these events and lives come to this level without intervention or preventative measures?

[Evointrinsic]

I don't understand a lot of what christians say and believe these days anymore....
It seems like everyone is making it 'their own' and saying they - and only they -are 'right'.
But to be fair, that happens with a lot of things, not just christianity

I agree. I guess that's why they have ten's of thousands of denominations.

[connermt]

I don't understand a lot of what christians say and believe these days anymore....
It seems like everyone is making it 'their own' and saying they - and only they -are 'right'.
But to be fair, that happens with a lot of things, not just christianity

I agree. I guess that's why they have ten's of thousands of denominations.

When there's little to no hard facts to support a claim, it's easy to make up most anything that no one can refute.

[Thatguy]

I don't understand a lot of what christians say and believe these days anymore....
It seems like everyone is making it 'their own' and saying they - and only they -are 'right'.
But to be fair, that happens with a lot of things, not just christianity

I agree. I guess that's why they have ten's of thousands of denominations.

When there's little to no hard facts to support a claim, it's easy to make up most anything that no one can refute.

It also helps to include magic in your system. When admittedly ineffable entities can, according to your system, act by unknown means for unknown reasons to accomplish anything that can be theoretically accomplished then you can feel pretty sure that it'll be hard to refute your position. So if you start by assuming your views are true I can't see any way they could be shown to be false if you just stick by your guns, no matter how unlikely the results of your world view become. you will always have something of an advantage when arguing against someone who feels compelled to defend a world view that attempts to be constrained by reason and evidence.

[Evointrinsic]

It also helps to include magic in your system. When admittedly ineffable entities can, according to your system, act by unknown means for unknown reasons to accomplish anything that can be theoretically accomplished then you can feel pretty sure that it'll be hard to refute your position. So if you start by assuming your views are true I can't see any way they could be shown to be false if you just stick by your guns, no matter how unlikely the results of your world view become. you will always have something of an advantage when arguing against someone who feels compelled to defend a world view that attempts to be constrained by reason and evidence.

I would say the best retort would be through real world examples. Most people who have the belief system you described aren't usually well educated in the technical aspects of the universe. almost all of their beliefs can be brought down from real world examples.

[Wootah]

I've been pondering this question.

Here are some thoughts that may or may not be answers.

* suppose I plan a holiday for my family but I know that the kids will hate the drive but love the destination. Isn't the trip morally valid?

* suppose we have to go to war. We know it is awful for everyone involved but we hope the end result is good.

These answers seem to reflect the idea that God knew some people would choose hell and is still moral in acting. By showing real examples of someone making a difficult choice and still being moral.

* To my mind it seems that God values having 1 or more people in Heaven over 1 or more people in Hell. What that means to me is that God thinks Heaven is so good that if even only one of us gets there it is worth it.

Isnt it true that embryonic stem cell research or animal research is morally justified by the result being worth it?

* if we are fully warned then why is it Gods fault if we choose against God?

* Unfortunately Heaven is so good and God so holy that none of us qualify. However God solved this problem from the beginning before creation.

Where I think the issue lies is in whether we get the opportunity to make a real choice in a finite life. I trust God judges justly. If he does then I can't see the problem.

[Jax Agnesson]

I like cnorman's take on this. It is Jewish literature. In the context of Jewish culture it makes sense as literature.
Exporting the ancient stories of one culture and grafting them onto others leads to inconsistencies like those outlined here and elsewhere.
The idea that God is entirely good but he orders genocides, that God wants us to all obey him but creates us sinful, that God is testing us although he already knows what we're going to do, etc etc, are based on Paul's interpretations of the teachings of a radical sect within Judaism, subsequently adapted to other (pagan) mythologies and world-views, many of which will have been considerably less subtle and informed than the culture from which the original stories sprang.
Western Christians struggling to make the Bible stories fit meaningfully into modern Western life might as well try to apply the teachings of K'ung Fu Tse literally.
In other words, I blame Paul!

[Wootah]

I like cnorman's take on this. It is Jewish literature. In the context of Jewish culture it makes sense as literature.
Exporting the ancient stories of one culture and grafting them onto others leads to inconsistencies like those outlined here and elsewhere.
The idea that God is entirely good but he orders genocides, that God wants us to all obey him but creates us sinful, that God is testing us although he already knows what we're going to do, etc etc, are based on Paul's interpretations of the teachings of a radical sect within Judaism, subsequently adapted to other (pagan) mythologies and world-views, many of which will have been considerably less subtle and informed than the culture from which the original stories sprang.
Western Christians struggling to make the Bible stories fit meaningfully into modern Western life might as well try to apply the teachings of K'ung Fu Tse literally.
In other words, I blame Paul!

Actually CNorman was quite rightly chided for posting an off topic answer.

[Evointrinsic]

Here are some thoughts that may or may not be answers.

* suppose I plan a holiday for my family but I know that the kids will hate the drive but love the destination. Isn't the trip morally valid?

* suppose we have to go to war. We know it is awful for everyone involved but we hope the end result is good.

I would argue that these are quite drastically nonequivalent issues. On one hand we have the kids who have to deal with some light annoyance during the drive where as in the war people are dying. The first example says that they know the result is good. The second states that they hope it's good. The trip is about a positive outcome already, there for it is for a positive outcome. The War we cannot tell what the end result will be, and for what reason the war started could not have been a moral reason to begin with. You're not going to go to hell for having your kids sit through a few hours of driving (my parents are going to burn if that's the case), you may probably go to hell for killing one to hundreds of thousands or millions of people due to political interest.

To my mind it seems that God values having 1 or more people in Heaven over 1 or more people in Hell. What that means to me is that God thinks Heaven is so good that if even only one of us gets there it is worth it.

This is the concept I do not understand. How can a billion, trillion, trillion life times of torture every amount to any kind of just reasoning? And that number is just the beginning! If this is gods true concept of just reasoning, then he/she/it/they have a massively obscure view on what is right and wrong.

Isnt it true that embryonic stem cell research or animal research is morally justified by the result being worth it?

Once again, this concept versus a constant and forever and always torturing of the worst kind imaginable, is not similar what so ever.

if we are fully warned then why is it Gods fault if we choose against God?

That would depend if he is all knowing and all powerful or not. If he is, then he knew we were going to make those decisions anyway, and yet he allowed them to happen. Essentially he created us to have no choice in the matter if we are bound by his all-knowingness. If he knows all that we will do and will carry out even before our birth and for the rest of our lives to our death, then he is immoral if he does not change the outcome yet allows us to burn in hell forever (try to conceive this word forever).

Unfortunately Heaven is so good and God so holy that none of us qualify. However God solved this problem from the beginning before creation.

I'm not quite sure I follow. Could you explain?

Where I think the issue lies is in whether we get the opportunity to make a real choice in a finite life. I trust God judges justly. If he does then I can't see the problem.

As I've already explained before, we are incapable of choosing at all due to Gods all knowing and all powerful abilities.

[Thatguy]

Actually CNorman was quite rightly chided for posting an off topic answer.

I missed the chiding. CNorman's answer addresses a lot of the concerns raised by the initial post. How can a story about God punishing mankind for eating a piece of fruit as portrayed in the story be fair? If the answer is that the story is literature, not to be taken literally, not to be taken at face value, capable of several metaphorical interpretations, then the main concerns of how to justify God's conduct is addressed. Added to that are a discussion of how God's conduct is not necessarily "good" and a clarification that the original authors did not have, as the OP was concerned they did, a Hell with eternal torment in mind and a variety of the OP's troubles with the story are potentially resolved. To consider that off topic and then go back to trying to justify God's conduct in the story taken literally at face value cuts off valid alternate paths to answering the question. That doesn't mean, though, that CNorman's is the only pathway for discussion. While it strikes many of us as a better way of avoiding portraying the Biblical God as morally objectionable, discussion's still open to people taking the Eden story literally at face value to defend the morality of God.

[cnorman18]

I would agree. As I've said elsewhere; Many hardcore atheists and hardcore fundamentalists seem to be, strangely enough, in full agreement on one thing, and that is that the Bible is either the absolute and direct Word of God which is to be read literally and with a totally fundamentalist "interpretation," or a book of meaningless fairy tales produced by ignorant Bronze Age near-savages.

If that's not a false dichotomy, I don't know what one would look like. That approach is a primary barrier to even beginning to understand what these ancient documents are, for BOTH sides -- not only to the study of the history and development of religion and religious thought, but to that of the history of the ancient Near East and of literature itself. It's rather like seeing two people who profess to be "scientists" arguing over whether Aristotle is to be considered the absolute and inerrant final authority on all matters of biology, physics, anatomy and philosophy, or merely a collection of superstitious old wive's tales and fables that ought to be given no attention or credence at all. What silliness.

Offtopic? When it comes to actual Biblical scholarship and taking the Bibilical texts seriously, as opposed to looking for easy answers and pat solutions that will allow humans to eschew actual THOUGHT with the brains God gave us and actual moral responsibility for our own actions, I think dogmatic literalism is "offtopic." And for the record, so is totally dismissing as worthless drivel some of the oldest and most widely studied and known documents ever produced by humans. You don't have to believe in God or religion to appreciate their value and importance, which has nothing to do with the aforementioned literalistic approach.