Can we find evidence of a good Jehovah?

[marco]

God's anger fills the pages of the OT and his rage destroys many. Yet some believe Jehovah was gentle, merciful... a thoroughly just and good God. We could WISH he was but if we read his biograpjical details we woud find it very hard to conclude he's a nice being.


It is remarkably simple to find evidence of nastiness, savagery and spite. But can we redeem God in any way, and find convincing evidence that he's good and merciful FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT?

[Tcg]

He destroys those who are evil and make life suffering. I really dont see why that is bad. Perhaps you could explain why it would be good, if evil people would live forever?

If this is true, then according to the Romans 3, we are all going to be destroyed.

• 10 As it is written:
  
  
  There is no one righteous, not even one;
  
  11
  there is no one who understands;
  there is no one who seeks God.
  
  12
  All have turned away,
  they have together become worthless;
  there is no one who does good,
  not even one.

According to this assessment, no one is righteous, no one does good, not even one.


According to your assessment then, all will be destroyed by your God.



Tcg

[William]

We live in a world in which it is very easy for the individual to become a perpetual victim of.

This dis-empowers the individual, who - rather than finding genuine ways in which to rise above victim status, create all manner of device in which to proclaim their innocence whilst pointing at the thing that made them a victim and this inevitably leads to victims looking - not for ways out of the pit they were placed in - but rather dragging others into the same pit as if this gained them support..."we are all of us in this pit, victims of other peoples atrocities against us!" "Woe is us!" "Have pity!"

If one looks at Israel, one could see evidence of a people known to be victims of a Holocaust who have been able to invest in themselves regardless of what kind of idea of GOD they followed after, who put them through their paces and showed them how to rise above the state of victim-hood.

In that we have an example of human beings who can declare to have found a way to overcome the state of victim-hood and progress, even despite their 'bad' idea of GOD.

In that we also see a people who are unwilling to compromise with other victims - even victims they helped to create - because they have proved that in order to overcome the state of victimhood, they have to invest in something other than perpetual victimhood.

Ultimately is that not a good thing to achieve? To rise above perceived injustice and hardship and come out the other side so much better for the experience?

The alternative appears to be a dead end.

[1213]

...According to this assessment, no one is righteous, no one does good, not even one.


According to your assessment then, all will be destroyed by your God.

If all are unrighteous, then no one will get the eternal life. However, I think that scripture doesnt mean that no one ever is righteous.

[Tcg]

...According to this assessment, no one is righteous, no one does good, not even one.


According to your assessment then, all will be destroyed by your God.

If all are unrighteous, then no one will get the eternal life. However, I think that scripture doesnt mean that no one ever is righteous.

There is no question about it. That's exactly what it states:

• There is no one righteous, not even one;"

So once again, based on your assessment, according to this passage from the Bible, "no one will get the eternal life."



Tcg

[marco]

He destroys those who are evil and make life suffering. I really dont see why that is bad. Perhaps you could explain why it would be good, if evil people would live forever?

There is nothing wrong with destroying evil people and protecting the weak. Unfortunately this is not what experience shows: in the Holocause little chidren were destroyed and the evil people thrived.

Through history evil has swept across countries with no divine intervention. In the Bible we hear that people were bad and so God takes action. In history we hear that rulers were abominably bad, but God did not take action. So it seems that God's biblical deeds are fictional.

The question was: can we find evidence of a good Jehovah? You have given justification for God's apparent brutality but we are still to find evidence of a good God.

[William]

Marco: The question was: can we find evidence of a good Jehovah? You have given justification for God's apparent brutality but we are still to find evidence of a good God.

William: If one cannot find evidence of any good in this world, one will not see any good in any idea of a GOD who created it.

Narrowing ones field to "FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT" isn't helpful. The good that the GOD performed was for a particular group of Humans who didn't always appreciate at the time that it was ultimately a good thing, because they were still in victim mode.
Often those involved in the roles of victim, do not see any GOOD...as I pointed out in post#11
"justification for God's apparent brutality" is of course, apparent evidence for good.

[William]

marco: Through history evil has swept across countries with no divine intervention. In the Bible we hear that people were bad and so God takes action. In history we hear that rulers were abominably bad, but God did not take action.

William: So marco argues that because a GOD does not always intervene, the GOD is not good, and when that GOD has been reported to have intervened, marco 'sees no good' in the intervention?

marco: So it seems that God's biblical deeds are fictional.

William: Oh I see - marco's opinion is that the GOD is fictional because the GOD cannot be shown to have done anything GOOD...

[marco]

If one cannot find evidence of any good in this world, one will not see any good in any idea of a GOD who created it.

I see plenty of good in this world. I don't see God as the performer.

Narrowing one's field to "FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT" isn't helpful.

I can appreciate it's not helpful if we want to discuss Zeus or some other formatting of God, but I am specifically pointing my magnifying glass at Yahweh, who happens to live in the OT.

[marco]

William: So marco argues that because a GOD does not always intervene, the GOD is not good, and when that GOD has been reported to have intervened, marco 'sees no good' in the intervention?

When Marco is reduced to a clown he can make people laugh, I suppose. In fact Marco was replying to the statement: "He destroys those who are evil and make life suffering. I really dont see why that is bad."


I was showing that he doesn't - in real history - destroy the bad guys. I was suggesting that he intervenes only in the Bible, and so only fictionally.

marco: So it seems that God's biblical deeds are fictional.

William: Oh I see - marco's opinion is that the GOD is fictional because the GOD cannot be shown to have done anything GOOD...

Well that is NOT my opinion. It is a deduction made from ignoring the original passage that much maligned Marco was replying to. I would say that since the biblical God is fictional, then the good attached to him is fictional as well.

Many people claim that Jehovah is a nice being. I was curious to find instances, not of course from history, but from his biblical biography.

[SallyF]

Difficult challenge for even the most convinced Christian to find anything "nice" about the genocidal, mythological Jehovah/Yahweh/Whoever.


Sarah Koontz give it a real good shot by stretching her faith to snapping point, and offering up a slender 7 items:

7. David lusted, stole, fornicated, lied, and killed"yet God saw his heart and loved him.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin (Ps. 51:1)
Ok, I saved my favorite for last. David is the ultimate example of Gods unmerited favor. But Ive got to start by mentioning all of his merits. Because there are many. Just open up the book of Psalms, and you will be astounded by how deeply he loved God. In his heart of hearts, I dont think David ever strayed from his love for God. He just made some pretty terrible decisions along the way (havent we all?). The key is he always turned from his sin and repented. And God forgave. Thats grace!
https://livingbydesign.org/gods-grace-i ... testament/

NUMEROUS Christians, however, make excuses for the wrath-filled, Middle-East, make-believe deity they claim is "God" with a capital G (without offering a scrap of evidence that it even exists).

E.G.

Is the God of the Old Testament a merciless monster? https://carm.org/god-of-old-testament-a-monster

Gods Goodness and Difficult Old Testament Passages https://www.moralapologetics.com/wordpr ... t-passages (This guy uses all sorts of magnificent-sounding terms - CMR, Pluralistic Deontology, and the Beatific Vision
but doesn't give one example of his nasty imaginary deity actually doing anything just plain nice for the humans it created - or even the one's it chose to be a special race.