Recently, we have been able to establish, reluctantly by some and without an official admission, that God could not have spared Adam and Eve from the consequences of their disobedience that led to sin, which resulted in aging, diseases, suffering, natural disasters outside of paradise and then eventually death…
The main premise of this issue is that if God had shielded Adam and Eve from the consequences of their sin, it would have made him a liar, as He had stated clearly, that if they were to eat the forbidden fruit, they would definitely die…
Genesis 2:16-17
“16 God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
So, if God had forgiven Adam and Eve, as some have suggested He should have, and let them stay in the paradise to have access to the tree of life, Adam and Eve would not have died, but God would have been clearly proven a liar…
Not only that, by forgiving Adam and Eve, God would have proven Satan’s slander true, when he (Satan) said in:
Genesis 3:1-5
“1 Now, the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the God had made. And he (Satan) said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. 4 The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die! 5 For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Satan is identified by many Christian and other religions as the one “hiding” behind the serpent or snake…or using it as a deception…
Some claim that ever since Adam and Eve were ousted from the paradise, God causes all the bad things that happen in the world today, including tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, diseases etc.
Is it true?
It doesn’t seem to be true at least in case of Job and his family, as the verses from Job 2: 16-19 show that Satan was the one who caused all the natural disasters and diseases that directly affected Job and his family…
Job 2:16, 18, 19
“16 While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.” …
“…18 While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 19 and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
So from these Biblical accounts, we can clearly see that Satan, and NOT God, was causing all the natural disasters and diseases that affected Job and his family…
There are several issues needing consideration:
1. Why Satan had the power to cause all the bad things to Job and his family?
2. If Satan had the power in times of Job to cause natural disasters and diseases, is he responsible for them today? If God is, what proof is there?
3. Any suggestions?
Regarding Christian views of God’s omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence please see the OP by vjtorley.
Please try to focus on the main theme of the OP. If there is something that is not directly related to this OP but it is important to you, create your own OP, so that we can try to stay on the same theme as much as possible…
You know, a talking snake, a god lurking in the garden.
That’s what you see in mythology, not that I should have to write it.
Glen Davidson
You’ve just proved my point.
The idea that God might lie is awful to you…..therefore God doesn’t lie.
It’s nonsense.
All we really have, is cosmological red shift (Hubble red shift) and background radiation. All the rest is interpretation. Our interpretive models could turn out to be mistaken.
1. Abiogenesis solution: Shut up, materialists know better…even if they say “We don’t know”…
2. Evolution is the best of possible worlds… even if it has no purpose and requires miraculous insertion of genes into the tree of life that Harshman already admitted it needed…
3. Yeah, we don’t know why evolution created evil… Oh right! It is the consequence of the survival of the fittest… Let’s blame God anyways…
4. It was pointed out God can’t be omniscient; Harshman is just going to continue to ignore it anyways…
5. God is not omnipotent, and didn’t created the situation that causes evil… What of it?
6. God is not omnipotent and the adversary is not equal in power or Job would been dead
7. Therefore, God doesn’t exist and consequently abiogenesis, evolution with miraculous gene insertion into the tree of life has to be true…
Who can argue with taxonomy solution like that?
Are there others? For the record, I go with #7. lol
There’s no comprehension issue on my part. That’s totally on you and readers who think the story has no internal contradictions.
I did make an argument, and this particular issue just adds to the issue: as written it makes god the perpetrator of a deceitful, fraudulent, evil. Pure and simple.
Let’s look at the whole picture again:
God creates a paradise with a “Forbidden Fruit” even before he made those who could not eat of said fruit (Genesis 2:8)
God creates (or simply allows…the bible is a little vague on this point) a deceitful creature with the full intent of deceiving God’s creation called man.
The only way for A&E to know they are being deceived is to gain the wisdom from the fruit they are told not to eat.
The only way for A&E to know they are being disobedient in caving to the deceiver and eating of said fruit is…wait for it…to EAT OF SAID Fruit.
Once they eat of said fruit, what happens? Why they realize they’ve been disobedient and that they are naked, so they run and hide from God. (Genesis 3:10)
Of interest, God…being kind of skeevy guy…didn’t care that Eve figured out she’d been deceived, but rather that she and Adam figured out they were naked. HAHAHAHA! That still makes me laugh!
So yeah…the god of that story is beyond vile.
So you have not seen the actual evidence that galaxies are actually moving apart from each other? Hubble took pictures…you know?
What accelerates the expansion of the universe at fine-tuned rate unknown for science to get even close to it? Dumb luck? 😉
I’m suggesting that your sense of justice is selective…
I believe there’s a midrash (rabbinic commentary) claiming that God took away the serpent’s ability to speak when He condemned it to crawl on its belly.
The important thing to know about Judaism is that no one reads Torah “as is”. Even the most orthodox of Orthodox Jews interpret Torah with the Talmud, which includes centuries of interpretation, argument, and debate. Rabbinical training involves close study of Talmud as well as Torah. That includes centuries of debate about which passages are allegorical, metaphorical, and literal. There’s no organized church in Judaism, no priest or clerical figure to settle these debates for all time. It’s a very different configuration of authority than what we find in Christianity.
So, you live in a perverted town somewhere and a couple of homosexual bullies believe that every new visitor to town has to abide by their own rules and has to have sex with them… If someone doesn’t go by that rule, the host has to pay a penalty and offer a substitution for the male rape. But the host has not sons to be raped, so he offers his daughters instead to save his life, the visitors and the daughters possibly… The chance that male homosexuals would rape women is much smaller than angry bullies killing and raping anyways…
Kantian Naturalist,
Thanks. During my research of religions I found Judaism to be very disorganized and unreliable…
Glen,
Thank you so much for your polite comment!
Most of the commentators here suggested that Satan was actually identified as the one “hiding behind the snake”…So…
If what you want in ‘reliability’ is a hierarchy of clerical authority that determines without ambiguity how to interpret a text, then yes.
Why anyone would want that, I have no idea.
Which Talmud? 😉
Hmmm… I really would like to answer your issue (s) but I can’t really figure it out whether you have the idea what the issues are…
I don’t see much of the argument other than ignorant and unfounded accusations…
Maybe you should learn from Harsham and set yourself up?
We have actual evidence of motion of nearby galaxies. But those are two nearby to be relevant.
For distant galaxies, the only evidence of motion is the red shift. Motion would cause red shift (or blue shift, depending on direction of motion). But we cannot rule out the possibility that there could be other cosmological causes of red shift that are not related to motion.
So… you don’t believe the big-bang happened? If not, what’s the alternative?
Not the multiverse??? 😉
Yes, that is correct. It has not.
No, the big bang happened (as in the universe expanded from a very hot and dense state). We just don’t know whether that expansion goes all the way back to an ultimate beginning. That has, in point of fact, NOT been confirmed observationally.
There are several models on the table. Some of them are models with a first moment of time. Some of them are cyclic models. Some of them go back infinitey. Scientists have still not determined which of these is the one (if any of them) that correctly maps unto our universe.
You don’t seem to be aware that today among working cosmologists, the term “big bang” is now thought mostly to refer to the idea that the universe has been expanding from a very hot and dense state. Not to the historical extrapolation of an ultimate beginning.
Times change.
One of the most popular multiverse models is the eternal inflation model. In this multiverse model, all new universes begin with a big bang.
It is mistakenly believed by countless theists that multiverse models were deliberately invented ad-hoc to avoid theistic fine-tuning arguments.
But this is is just plain historically incorrect. Multiverses were PREDICTED from the mathematics of inflationary cosmologies. Mathematics that was explored to solve entirely different problems of early universe-expansions. And it turned out that very same mathematics, found out for an entirely different reason, also predicted the emergence of an infinite number of local cosmic inflationary expansions (big bangs).
So when theists say multiverses are ad-hoc excuses against fine-tuning arguments, it is simply, provably historically false.
Present theory is that some point the expansion of the universe will cause the Big Rip when everything including space itself will be torn apart, so expansion of the universe is fine tuned for no life as well.
I haven’t ruled it out. But at present the evidence is not enough to convince me.
We know that the first humans were heirs of Slytherin.
J-mac needs to listen to Sean Carroll here and pay close attention to what he says:
https://youtu.be/hHMSvSqCDKc?t=2h16m14s
Start at 2:16:14 and listen from there. A nice quick overview about the history of big bang cosmology and what the words used today are taken to refer to.
J-mac,
I already refuted your argument in the FMM/Jesus/Bus thread.
Did you think that reposting it would somehow magically unrefute it?
Lol
I love Sean Caroll!
He is one of my favorites speculative physicist…
I have given him a nickname Dr. Maybe 😉 because whenever he is caught contradicting himself he says maybe this or maybe that…to get out of it…
I have actually been pretty much quoting him on this OP…lol
Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGs4C60FR68
Here is the transcript from Dr. Maybe:
I’m Sean Carroll I’m a theoretical
00:01
physicist at the California Institute of
00:03
Technology in Pasadena California and I
00:06
think about how the laws of physics came
00:09
to be what they are and how they make
00:11
the universe that we live in
00:16
so the Big Bang doesn’t break any of the
00:19
laws of thermodynamics the two big ones
00:21
are the first law in the second law the
00:23
first law basically says that energy is
00:25
conserved the second law says that
00:27
entropy increases the disorderliness the
00:29
disorganization of things increases over
00:31
time so the Big Bang we don’t know if it
00:34
was the beginning of the universe or not
00:36
if the universe has zero energy total
00:39
which is possible then the Big Bang
00:41
could have been the beginning of the
00:43
universe and it could have just been the
00:44
first moment in the history of the
00:45
universe without violating conservation
00:47
of energy because energy is zero the
00:50
second law the entropy increasing is an
00:52
interesting case because near the time
00:54
of the Big Bang entropy was very very
00:57
very low that’s why it’s been increasing
00:59
for the past 14 billion years so that
01:02
doesn’t violate the second law but the
01:04
question is why did the Big Bang have
01:06
such a low entropy and the answer there
01:08
is that nobody knows this is an open
01:10
question for cosmology why was the
01:12
condition near the Big Bang so special
01:15
so organized
01:21
there are as you might expect many
01:23
theories and many guesses as to why the
01:24
Big Bang had such a low entropy I’m
01:26
responsible for some of them myself
01:29
for example maybe before the Big Bang
01:31
maybe there was something before the Big
01:32
Bang and before the Big Bang maybe there
01:35
was a condition where the entropy was
01:37
very very high but maybe the laws of
01:39
physics are such that there is no
01:41
maximum value for the entropy so that no
01:43
matter how high the entropy gets it can
01:45
always get higher and maybe the way it
01:48
gets higher is by spitting off a new
01:50
universe by a quantum transition that
01:53
bubbles into existence a whole nother
01:55
universe that breaks off from its parent
01:57
and goes its own way maybe that’s where
02:00
we came from
02:01
maybe our Big Bang started tiny and low
02:04
entropy because it just pinched off from
02:06
a larger high entropy universe
02:13
if there are many different universes we
02:16
don’t know what the laws of physics are
02:17
gonna be like in the other ones we have
02:19
theories of course according to some of
02:21
those theories the laws are exactly the
02:23
same in all the different universes in
02:25
other models some of the laws are
02:27
different but there’s still basic
02:29
principles that are the same so for
02:30
example the idea of electric charge
02:33
might be slightly different in one
02:35
universe than another the charge on one
02:37
particle or another but the idea that
02:39
charge is conserved is probably true in
02:41
all the different universes the idea
02:43
that energy is conserved is probably
02:45
just true no matter what universe you
02:47
live in
02:51
well if there are different regions of
02:54
space where there are different laws of
02:55
physics apparent laws of physics what we
02:57
call low-energy
02:58
laws of physics then probably the
03:01
boundary between them would be pretty
03:03
crystal clear actually it’s very much
03:05
like space itself is in a different
03:08
phase from one place to another in the
03:10
same sense that we use the phrase phases
03:12
of matter right ice liquid water water
03:15
vapor different phases water can be in
03:18
and you know where the boundary is
03:19
between the ice and the liquid water in
03:21
the multiverse it’s like different
03:23
regions of space are in different phases
03:25
altogether and we’ll probably be able to
03:28
know where the boundary between them
03:29
lies
03:33
as far as we know there’s no necessary
03:36
way to be able to observe these other
03:38
universes even if they do exist now
03:40
that’s not necessary there-there’s
03:42
possible ways to observe them if we get
03:44
lucky two universes can actually bump
03:47
into each other we could actually see
03:49
this sort of bruise on our universe when
03:51
we got bumped into by another universe
03:53
at very very early times of course we
03:55
really don’t mean universes at all what
03:57
we really mean is a region and area of
04:00
our universe that there are different
04:02
regions that have different apparent
04:04
laws of physics so this would be like a
04:06
bubble in a pre-existing space and the
04:08
bubbles grow and the bubbles can bump
04:10
into each other how would you know well
04:12
if it happened early on in the history
04:14
of our universe it could either dump
04:16
energy into us or leach energy out of us
04:19
so there be a region of our early
04:21
universe that was at a slightly
04:22
different temperature than the rest now
04:25
we have a record of what the temperature
04:27
was in our early universe from the
04:28
cosmic background radiation the leftover
04:31
radiation from the Big Bang so what you
04:33
do is you look at this cosmic microwave
04:35
background radiation and you ask are
04:38
there regions hopefully circular regions
04:40
where the temperature is a little bit
04:42
different overall now of course we’ve
04:44
done this very very carefully we’ve seen
04:46
nothing there are tiny variations but
04:48
they don’t look like circles they don’t
04:49
look like universes bumping into each
04:50
other so the parameter space for this to
04:53
be real is very very small right now I
04:55
suspect it’s not going to happen but
04:58
we’ll keep looking
04:58
otherwise we just have to ask is this
05:01
idea of the multiverse the best way we
05:03
have of explaining the universe that we
05:05
do see
05:05
and if not we’ll abandon it
05:15
you
English (auto-generated)
You refuted it by saying that you don’t believe in God or Satan? lol
I still have not seen any proof that God is causing all the calamities today…
Omni this and omni that will not work…that is not a refutation…thas avoidance…
If the universe is expanding it has to have a point of beginning…due to the second law of thermodynamics…You have not idea what you are talking about..Watch the video by Dr. Maybe as he doesn’t seem to be as confused as you are …lol on the other hand… 😉
Caroll and Krauss are two of my favorite speculative physicists I gave Krauss a nickname: “Even nothing is something” or 2+2=5
No, YOU have no idea what you’re talking about.
YOU watch the video and try to pay attention. Literally every single thing I have told you here he unambigously confirms.
I did. Did you watch the video I linked? You didn’t because it is 6 minutes…
Don’t waste my time!
Rum, look up what the second law of thermodynamics says today… lol
Er, no, it doesn’t.
That’s a really weird thing to say.
He could have spared them by not letting them be tested in the first place. No human father would build a house for his daughter and then throw a snake into her room that could cause her harm. So why did God do that?
The answer, imho, is in Deuteronomy 13. The false prophets are children of Satan. God exposed the children of Adam and Eve to the children of the devil for the same reason he exposed Adam and Even to the Devil himself:
God wanted to give Adam and Eve the chance to demonstrate love for God. They of course failed miserably!
Love that has freedom to choose is the truest love and the most special love.
God, like human beings, was searching for true love. That’s how I read Deuteronomy 13, anyway.
That’s why God threw the snake into the garden of Eden.
stcordova,
In other words, God follows the dictum “If you love something, let it go. If it doesn’t come back to you, hunt it down and kill it.”
Maybe you should complain to Dr. Maybe…I was just quoting him…lol
At 2:30 mark
He is so predictable … as are his blind followers… 😉
He is not saying what you are claiming.
Yes, Carroll is assuming that the cosmos had a beginning. I don’t know whether he really believes that, or is over-simplifying to make it easier to follow.
He nowhere says that the second law requires that the cosmos had a beginning. He does use the second law as giving a direction to time, but that’s not the same as saying that the second law requires that there was a beginning.
Well, if you’re the creator, yeah, it’s yours do with as you please. It’s not like human to human relationship since one human didn’t create another. That would be really bad in human to human relationships, but not in God to human relationships. In God to human relationships, he sets the rules.
I’m not trying to argue that humans should like this arrangement. It’s terrible news for most of the human race. The Bible is good news for those that eventually become Christians, it’s awful news otherwise.
Sal,
I’m confused about your statement… Are you perhaps suggesting that God sent Satan to test Adam and Eve?
Or, are you saying that the test was unfair and too difficult to withstand it?
Sal,
Do you believe the Bible when it says that God is love, or is that just bullshit in your opinion?
Is this how you refuted the issue on your FMM/Jesus/Bus thread?
BTW: I’m still waiting for the proof that God cases all the calamities today as you have claimed…
stcordova,
Sal, you don’t seem to realize that you’re consistently painting your god as petty and evil. Or do you realize and you’re just OK with that?
Incidentally, I did help to create a human being, but I would never think of killing him. I’m more moral than God!
Yes, because he did the same thing in Deuteronomy 13. If it was righteous for God to test people in Deuteronomy 13, it seems to me it was righteous of God to test them in the Garden of Eden.
But first, I think a plain reading of Deuteronomy 13 is the correct reading:
If so, the question arises whether it would be righteous of God to test Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. God being the creator, could have kept the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil out of Adam’s reach. So it’s not just throwing the Devil in the Garden, God also put the equivalent of a hand-grenade in Adam’s reach (so to speak) and made it possible to blow all humanity up.
So it seems to me, on many levels, God was putting Adam and Eve to the test.
keiths:
J-Mac,
No, I refuted it by showing that God had already lied to Adam:
I have the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture for Genesis, and it makes for some interesting reading.
A number of early authors write that humans and the serpent were on good terms, even friendly, and that the devil took advantage of this, using the serpent as a tool. So the serpent is not Satan but a tool of the devil.
For Augustine, the serpent symbolizes the devil and writes:
Your complaint sounds like cockroaches and rats complaining the universe doesn’t revolve around them, therefore God is petty and evil. A sewer rat probably thinks he’s a wonderful creature, and that anything that gets in its way must be petty and evil. Maybe God is trying to tell us, we are the loathesome creatures of the universe. We may feel good about ourselves, much like rat feels good about its life, but that doesn’t make it true.
You like Allan Miller are at least honest in admitting (directly or indirectly) that you consider yourselves morally superior to the Christian God. Darwin, in so many words, echoed similar thoughts. So did Dawkins.
But that’s all moot if the Christian God isn’t real. But if God is real…
I’m not OK with that, but if those are the facts, then there’s not much I can do but accept it.
If all the germs in the world were intelligently designed, if the cruel eating habits of carnivores were intelligently designed, then this a truly sad world to live in. And indeed, that is what the Bible essentially teaches.
A ghost snake. Sure, that makes perfect sense. LMAO.
Sal,
Here is the verse from Deuteronomy 13 in context:
1″If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,’ 3you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4″You shall follow the LORD your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him. 5″ But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the LORD your God who brought you from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, to seduce you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from among you.”
What are these verses really talking about?
It doesn’t matter. What’s the difference between God causing a flood and God standing by and watches while it happens and does nothing?
The problem is that keiths has a Sky Daddy Straw God that he’s made up and no amount of evidence to the contrary will change his mind. His made up god has nothing to do with the God of Scripture.
keiths relies on someone accepting his premise. Reject his premise and he’s helpless and quickly becomes boring and repetitious.
God doesn’t do evil or suffering or anything. Satan does it all.
In fact i think god never killed anyone although taking responsibility because he still must step aside. Job is case in p[oint. Never does God tell Job it was satan. Job is to accept it was God who did it or allowed for no good reaspn. Job was to figure out, by faith, there was a good reason. only we are told the rest of the story.
in fact i think it was sAtan who brought the flood. Even though gOd says its his responsibility. Satan did it, possibly, to kill the women who would be the ones to birth the being the serpent was told would crush his head.
This is your refutation? It’s worst than I thought…
Any chance of proof God is causing calamities today as you’ve claimed or the day thingy is the best you have?