Originally posted by Zahlanzi
until his son was born, god violated his nature all over the place.
vengeance, genocides, suffering, random punishments of innocents.
unless his nature was to be evil. in which case the birth of a son caused him to violate his nature then by being a much nicer guy.
or maybe, and this is a wild thought, god has actually free will and he can do wha ...[text shortened]... and god cannot? morevover since he created us, he was able to give us an ability he never had?
I don't trust your evaluation. Perhaps its because I read the entire Bible carefully or keep reading on.
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vengeance,
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The very occasion for vengence, that against Cain for murdering his brother Avbel, God forbides that anyone would take
vengence on Cain.
So I don't too quickly assume your evaluation of God's character is accurate.
And there are instances where enemies of Israel who were used by God to discipline Israel, God scolds for going too far. In other words His discipline was measured but they were without restraint in their vengence.
So I think I have to question your view that God's vengence is unjust. He does say that for all sins vengence is His and He will repay. But this vengence fell upon one Man the Son of God that ALL humans might be redeemed.
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genocides,
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I seriously question this criticism also. It could be that it just does not occur to most of us that a society could get so bad that the very future of the human race was in jepardy from its evil spreading.
Amputation of a gangrened limb may seem cruel from on angle. But from the view of the physician tying to save the parient's whole body it is a tragic but necessary remedy.
There is plenty of adjustment of societies in the Bible that are less harsh. So I have to assume that in the record there was faithfully included a situation where an annhilation was the only divine remedy to protect the spread of horrible contagion.
IF you or I do it it is probably wrong, for we do not know everything. If God Almighty had to do it, my bets are it had to be done.
At any rate the Hebrew kings of the nation of Jehovah had a reputation in Canaan of being
"merciful" kings. So if they had such a reputation I have to take your criticism with a grain of salt. Maybe you're biased.
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suffering,
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The overall impression I get from the Bible is how wonderfully God
sustained people
through suffering.
So here also I'm skeptical of your view.
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random punishments of innocents.
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Since you and I are not all knowing we cannot know that there are such random punishment of presumably innocents.
Nor would I regard all misfortune as punishment.
Nor would I regard all puniushment as having no final condstructive outcome for the advanced betterment of those under punishment.
I am glad that the Bible covers centries of God's dealings with people in various situations. The variety of cases faithfully recorded prevents me from getting a simplistic biased view such as you push.