The Flood Myth - The Greatest Evil

[Danmark]

Assuming the myth of the flood as recorded in Genesis is accurate history, it is the greatest single evil act recorded in the history of man. It also is evidence the alleged god who perpetrated this evil makes mistakes, contradicts himself, and is capricious.
Consider that shortly after pronouncing all of his creation "good" he repents and calls the whole thing evil and decides to destroy all of it; man and all the other animals [except, presumably, marine life]. Then he changes his mind again and decides He'll just wipe out everything and everyone except a single family to represent each species.

Why he saved the death stalker scorpion, mosquitoes, the box jellyfish, the black widow spider, the poison dart frog, blue ring octopus, and Clostridium Botulinum is beyond me, except that it puts the lie to the idea he was trying to get rid of evil.

It's obvious the story of the flood is pure mythology, but even then, what is its purpose? To show man how evil and corrupt he'd become? The God of this myth certainly does not set a good example.

[Buy Oz Moses]

[Replying to post 868 by ttruscott]

[row color=black] [color=gainsboro] [/color][color=chartreuse]The Bible is a credible way to assert HIS goodness and so is the indwelling Holy Spirit - but if you mean that there is no credible PROOF of GOD's goodness, then I agree. ~ ttruscott [/color][color=gainsboro] How so? [/color][color=chartreuse] We can speculate and assume the messages symbology, but ultimately one persons views may alter excessively or minutely from anothers views. ~ Buy Oz Moses As I have been saying all along. ~ ttruscott [/color][color=gainsboro] Which is why I'm moving on to a more generalized discussion area. [/color][color=chartreuse]Since no singular definitive view on all of God's powers, limitations, motives and virtues can be reached by the whole of this debate group/the world we must discard all individual proposed ideas, ~ Buy Oz Moses Discard all you want, it fits with your personal views and without an overwhelming reason to change your mind I again encourage you to stay with your pov. Why you want to bother me with it, over an over an over is beyond me. I used to think you were interested in the logic of my construct, in my interpretation of spirituality, but now that you are clearly only asking to have a hook to fish me in, I'm getting bored since you are offering nothing new at all. ~ ttruscott [/color][color=gainsboro] That cuts deep. We had something special. So special I was actually bringing your points up to my Christian comrades, in person, for discussion. I admit that under a preconception ideology that God doesn't seem half as bad since he is not claimed to be as omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient as the average version of God. Your views, while extremely left field for most nondenominational Christians, are very intriguing and refreshing, and that is why I'm leaving them out of the rest of the debate. I have many questions concerning the origins of evil itself, the concepts as well as the manifestations of them, and I'm still a bit concerned with the un redeemable reprobate and salvation, but these are questions for another topic. I've got about 129 posts to go, and I don't want to annoy you with my but why? But why? But why? All day. I hope you can appreciate my appreciation and preservation of your view point. [/color][color=chartreuse]08:70 [/color]

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 870 by Buy Oz Moses]

I admit that under a preconception ideology that God doesn't seem half as bad since he is not claimed to be as omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient as the average version of God. Your views, while extremely left field for most nondenominational Christians, are very intriguing and refreshing, and that is why I'm leaving them out of the rest of the debate. I have many questions concerning the origins of evil itself,....

Please explain how a "preconception ideology" results in a God who is not omnipotent. I confess I don't even understand what that means. I also think questions about evil relate closely to this topic. In the flood mythology God is certainly omnipotent since he can apparently both create all life and destroy it all. It is his judgment not his power that I question. Was killing everyone and presuming everyone guilty, even the children, really the only solution to the corruption that vexed him so?

[Buy Oz Moses]

[Replying to post 871 by Danmark]

[row color=black][color=gainsboro] It doesn't result in a God who is not omniscient, but that is the limitation one would believe is required to absolve God of wrong doing. A willing, knowing agent can act with evil intent. A bewildered and baffled creator is just doing the best he can with what he has, which by the perceived belief system, is still not yet to be entirely determined. It's based off of faith. That's why I moved to a generalized version of the God we all recognize, because it cannot be debated if evil cannot be 100% defined as faulted to God. [/color]

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 871 by Danmark]

[row color=black][color=gainsboro] It doesn't result in a God who is not omniscient, but that is the limitation one would believe is required to absolve God of wrong doing. A willing, knowing agent can act with evil intent. A bewildered and baffled creator is just doing the best he can with what he has, which by the perceived belief system, is still not yet to be entirely determined. It's based off of faith. That's why I moved to a generalized version of the God we all recognize, because it cannot be debated if evil cannot be 100% defined as faulted to God. [/color]

But this rules out the God of the Bible. He clearly has agency and intent; he is all powerful. There are only two conclusions:
1. This male, anthropomorphic 'God' of the Bible is a man made myth, or
2. He is not good, but self serving. He is certainly immoral by our human standards.
The best one could say about him is that he is amoral because He claims to be the author and standard of goodness.

[Buy Oz Moses]

[Replying to post 873 by Danmark]

[row color=black][color=chartreuse] But this rules out the God of the Bible. He clearly has agency and intent; he is all powerful. There are only two conclusions: 1. This male, anthropomorphic 'God' of the Bible is a man made myth, or 2. He is not good, but self serving. He is certainly immoral by our human standards. The best one could say about him is that he is amoral because He claims to be the author and standard of goodness. ~ Danmark [/color][color=gainsboro] The preconception edition of God has a belief that has no Evil in the concept of anything other than human creation through no visible fault of God's own, as Evil is (as far as followers can tell) not created by God. Evil is an unforeseeable side effect of a creation by a God who is not omni-anything, leaving fault with the creation, as we chose it. It sounds like the equivalent of choosing to watch something on Netflix, and then being horribly mutilated mentally by the terrible selection of flick, forcing you to spread the word to friends and relatives about how bad that movie was, how you wish you could take back your lost and painful 2 hours, and even if you could you can now never unlearn the horrific-ness you have learned by watching said Netflix trash. The horribleness of that movie will live within you like a festering disease until you die. Then you try complaining about it being Netflix' fault, when it was [b]you[/b] that chose the mangle of a film, Netflix just gave you the option, AND it told you it Had zero out of 5 stars, with a brief summery of what it was about [i]before[/i] you still decided to choose it. Netflix even gave you pause buttons, and stop buttons...but No...you just kept on watching, hoping that some how the director, hell, the actors even, would miraculously send a savior down, a subplot to save the movie somehow...somehow...maybe in the third act?...No, this movie is not a gentle ride, it is the Titanic of all movies, and like Jack, you kindly wait in the throes of the film, while Rose lies happily on the door and you freeze to death. Yes, I agree by popular standards, this is not your daddy's God of the bible. In fact, since the most important part to me, the creation of his opposition, Evil, and who it's creator was, happens [b]outside of the bible[/b], I'd go so far as to say it's "the God with a bible", not "the God [i]of the [/i]bible". This view states that God is blameless, but it is unable to answer how it knows this. It's taken on faith. We cannot debate evil with this version as the believers cannot answer their view on the logistics of evil's origins, thus taking it outside the boundaries of logical debate for this subject. That is the problem with the God with a bible, instead of the God in the bible, for this topic. The God of the bible is who we are debating, the man, the myth, or the man made myth and legend. Ol' no preconcept-o, presto change-o. God the "alpha and omega" omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent average/majority view of Christianity's favorite God. 125 to go. [/color][color=chartreuse][b]08:74[/b] [/color]

[Danmark]

Buy Oz Moses wrote:

The preconception edition of God has a belief that has no Evil in the concept of anything other than human creation through no visible fault of God's own, as Evil is (as far as followers can tell) not created by God. Evil is an unforeseeable side effect of a creation by a God who is not omni-anything, leaving fault with the creation, as we chose it.

I agree, this is the only way out of the 'God did not create evil' claim. This of course necessitates the willingness to accept that God is not all powerful and does not know the future. This factor is completely at odds with evangelical Christianity in general and Calvinism in particular.

Stated more simply:
If God is good, he is not God.
If he is God, he is not good.

[Buy Oz Moses]

[row color=black][color=chartreuse] If God is good, he is not God. If he is God, he is not good. ~ Danmark [/color][color=gainsboro] Agreed. I try, very hard, to understand things from an objective viewpoint when it comes to most things. And in doing so my Christian/Muslim/Mormon colleagues seem to become frustrated with my attempts to understand the evidence laid out about God's "ultimate goodness". Here is an example: In studying the Ways of Judaism, we find that Satan, or more correctly HaSatan, the accuser, an angel well within its rights to speak with and question God and his faith in man, is a member of Gods messengers. His sole purpose, the reason for his creation by God, being that he is to tempt man, to accuse them of their supposed love for God. He has no power without Gods permission, and as such is as the other Angels, an extension of HaShem(God). Couple this idea with God saying in Genesis, everything that he created in heaven and in earth was Good or very good and in Isaiah, that he creates both good and bad, then you begin to understand one solid truth. God[b] is [/b]evil. In Jewish teachings, they have no qualms about HaShem being the all powerful being of everything. He is regarded with fear and reverence because, like a fearful child, humans do not want to anger their parent regardless if the punishment is cruel or sufficient in their eyes. HaShem is HaShem, and you bow your head, and pray for mercy against his wrath regardless or else. The difficulty with Christianity is, you have new wave theologians and scholars who need to pin evil on someone other than God, because it is too cruel an idea that one being can be masters of both good things and evil things. That, to these first century thinkers, is an old way to handle a pre-polytheistic pantheon squished into a monotheistic view of the world. At first you had many different God's of varying power levels overseeing their respective domains. John the God of lightning and Sarah the Goddess of bread. And usually there was a headmaster to the God's, a father figure if you will, who oversaw the council of all the God's, a monarch of the high beings. Now, with Judaism, you have a monarch of high beings, but the high beings have been reduced to Angels, or messengers of the most high being. How do we eliminate evil from his responsibilities to sell a more likable God? People are not going to easily accept the old idea that even if you prayed and paid your alms to the temple, if your house went up in an accidental fire, it was the will of the same God that allowed you to have a house in the first place. That's bipolar. So they add 30 or so newer scriptures evolving the adversary character into the responsible party for evil. The tempter, the accuser, becomes the villain responsible for your misdeeds and the resulting reason you go through troubling times in general. So evil is shuffled away from the high being to us mortals, or to this rebel angel and all should be well in the world. The problem is that in monotheism, if all creation is your responsibility then you are responsible for all of their outcomes. And with Christianity, they(without sufficient reasoning) blindly follow that God is absolved of the responsibility of evil and its creation. It is not a bad thing that God has dominion over both Good and Evil. He is the sole power in the universe, and as such should be both good and evil, as both exist, and cannot have one with a responsible, all powerful creator and the other with a responsible, less powerful creator. It illogically states that Good outweighs Evil in all aspects, but we have no viewable evidence that this the case, as Evil is presently just as powerful a force as good is in the universe, even in the bible. I sometimes get the idea that evil is even greater than Good is in our world, from the bible itself. Thoughts? 123 to go. [/color][color=chartreuse][b]08:76[/b] [/color]

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 876 by Buy Oz Moses]

I agree. For Judaism, as I recall, once we leave the first chapters of Genesis, Satan more or less disappears. It's as if its creation myth was adopted, adapted, borrowed from a completely different culture and tradition.

Then Satan is resurrected in the Christian testament to play a major role as the Snidely Whiplash in the drama. There's no story without conflict and Satan plays the perfect villain. As you say, he is necessary to explain the emergence of evil into the perfect world the God character created.

What has never made the least bit of sense to me is that God remains all powerful, yet he allows Satan to deceive and torture without God himself being tainted in the least. It's almost like Adolf Eichmann's defense, "I was just following orders." Pilate washing his hands and claiming to be powerless is probably a closer example.

Judaism in general recognizes these issues in its acknowledgment of the obvious:
Much of the Bible is recognized as literary, myths made to tell a narrative; never to be taken as literal history. We see this particularly in early Genesis. The story of Job is clearly a literary invention, a device used to make important points. The idea that the god character is somehow absolved from evil because he allows Job to be tortured, but not killed is preposterous.
But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face. And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.

The failure of evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity is in its insistence these tales actually happened.
Even when I was a Christian, I reasoned God could not possibly be all powerful and all knowing in the absolute sense that was insisted upon. Now I realize the flaw was in personifying God at all. If there is a god, it has no personality at all; it is beyond those human qualities, it is not a mere being.

[bluethread]

[Replying to post 876 by Buy Oz Moses]

I agree. For Judaism, as I recall, once we leave the first chapters of Genesis, Satan more or less disappears. It's as if its creation myth was adopted, adapted, borrowed from a completely different culture and tradition.

As with the term "evil" (ra'), your analysis of the term "satan", meaning adversary, is based on doctrine and not what is actually in the Scriptures.

Here are the facts. The term satan occurs 23 time in the Tanakh(OT) and only 2 times in HaTorah, neither in Genesis. The term, in Greek form, appears in the Apostolic Writings 33 times. The term is equated with the serpent and the Greek term devil in the book of the Revelation.

The first three chapters of Genesis are designed to counter to prevalent serpent mythology of the ancient near east. Therefore, it is not surprising that the symbolism is similar. By the time of the Revelation, the personification of Satan and association of that concept with the Serpent of Genesis was well established, but that was a developed doctrine after the fact, not the original point of the Genesis passage.

[ttruscott]

...

The preconception edition of God has a belief that has no Evil in the concept of anything other than human creation through no visible fault of God's own, as Evil is (as far as followers can tell) not created by God. Evil is an unforeseeable side effect of a creation by a God who is not omni-anything, leaving fault with the creation, as we chose it.

...

Contrary to your assumptive assertion, the possibility of evil WAS foreseen as shown by the choice of Christ to be the slain lamb before creation. How could HE give us free will to self create ourselves as either holy or eternally evil and not foresee that our choosing evil was possible???

And your take on PCE theology that it means GOD is "not omni-anything," is false and not necessary for "leaving fault with the creation, as we chose it."

He can be omniscient even by the pagan Greek wisdom and still the fall would have been totally our fault. The only blasphemy that the Bible definition of HIS all knowing contradicts is that it destroys the blasphemy that HE created some people knowing they would end in hell (either eternally or in annihilation), and has nothing to do with the creation of evil. Neither are omnipotence nor omnipresence contradicted at all.