Quote from 2KidsMom (Just in case you want credit. If you don't just say so.):


How do we know that God's will is correct and good? Do you have any proof of that, or is it a belief?

Second, is there circumstantial proof that God's will *may not* be good, but may in fact, be evil.

Certain answers to this second question naturally leads us to wonder, when we worship God, are we, in reality, accidentally worshiping the Devil? (Sorry if this is offensive.)

two types of people - people whose heart is Godward, and people whose heart isn't - which type are you? Would you be thrilled to know that God is real? I'm thrilled to know!

two types of people - people whose heart is Godward, and people whose heart isn't - which type are you? Would you be thrilled to know that God is real? I'm thrilled to know!

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Ummm, yeah I agree with

Sorry, should I delete all of this? I realize I posted this without your permission.

I thought the following was implied by the question, but apparently, I was a bit clumsy. Let me rephrase and restate:


FIRST, for the sake of discussion, let's *assume* that God exists per the Judeo-Christian tradition.


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How do we know that God's will is correct and good? Do you have any proof of that, or is it simply a belief?

Second, is there circumstantial evidence that God's will *may not* be good??? But in fact, may be evil?

Certain answers to this second question naturally leads us to wonder, when we worship God, are we, in reality, accidentally worshiping the Devil? (Sorry if this is offensive.)
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Mere Christianity answers those questions in the first section, you should check it out.

Yahshua said he came in his Fathers name. That whatever he did was his fathers will.

He also said he came that he did not change anything.

The will of Yahweh is written in his words. The Scriptures of Yahweh.

This is the only will you will know. The Holy Spirit will come to show you.

But we are told to test the Spirits.

So what test do we give to the spirits and to us is this Yahweh's will?

It can only be through his inspired and written word.

Anyone who speaks against his word is a Anti-messiah.

For no one can Speak of the Wonders and Grace of Yahweh without the Will of Yahweh being in them..Blessings...Miles

Not the biblical account of God.

No sir.

I would be truly disappointed if the creator of this universe turns out to be as blood thirsty as the biblical discription of God.

You are thrilled to believe that all mankind had fallen from grace from God including yourself?

Why would you be thrilled about that?

Are you thrilled to know that God had to have his son crucified to pay for your rebellious evil nature?

Why would you be thrilled about that?

There's no way I would be thrilled to believe that the biblical account of God is true. I can't imagine a more disgusting scenario.

I would be much happier to discover that atheism is true than to find out that God is truly like the Bible says.

Do you realize that according to the Bible God lusts for blood sacrifices?

He's actually appeased by bloodshed.

You would be thrilled with a God who lusts for blood sacrifices made unto him?

I personally think that would be a horrifically disgusting God. To discover that my creator is as disgusting as the Bible claims would be the greatest nightmare I can imagine.

I would never want to believe the Bible on pure faith alone because it's not a pretty picture of either mankind or God.

I would only believe it if there was no other choice, but even then it would be a horrific disapointment.

According to the Bible God isn't even as nice as me.

So if the Bible is true then that means that I'm at the mercy of an all-powerful being that isn't even as nice as I am.

Nope, I would not be thrilled with that situation at all.

If the Bible is true then I'm totally disappointed in God. God would be totally unworthy of worship. Only those who fear God would worship him, and hope that he is merciful. The rest of us will be ruthlessly and brutally hurt for the crime of having believed that God might actually be nice.

How horrible of us to have thought such a nice thing.

I've read Genesis many times, thanks. I'll give you one interpretation of the events:

God decides to create a large ecosystem with life and all that. He expects that everything will go smoothly and that he'll have two people to love and worship him.
--> God is a self-indulgent, irresponsible, arrogant, and insecure being.

When these two guys disobey God, He throws a fit and condemns them to a hard life of toil.
--> God is immature and childish.

Later, God gets pissed off at the humans again. He floods the entire world. Seeing what he's done, he immediately decides that he'll never commit
--> God is bipolar. God - participated in the largest genocide to date. He is a mass murderer the likes of which humanity has never seen since. God is officially worse than Hitler and Stalin combined. Already, one begins to wonder if it was God who was kicked out of heaven, and not the "Great Serpent Dragon" we call Satan.

The last story I'll talk about it the tower of Babel. Humans decide to build a tower that reaches to Heaven (or something like that) so they can be great like God. God makes everyone's speech unintelligible to each other and scatters them about the world.
--> God is easily threatened by mortal men. He jealously guards his position and demands that people love him.

That's just a few examples, and only from Genesis. The Old Testament is rife with this sort of stuff. Again, this is only one interpretation.

So, basically, Yahweh is right because he says he's right. People who say he's wrong are anti-messiahs.
Lastly, whoever talks about how good Yahweh automatically has the will of Yahweh behind him.
--> Yahweh is a totalitarian ruler...and he takes bribes.

I agree...ALL things work together for good...(that includes the pitfalls) for those who love God & are called according to His purposes.

I think anything that promotes self(ish) ness, would be devil worship. To follow God & seek Hin above all no matter where it leads, takes bravery with God's intervention to accomplish.

Untimately, put the blame for tragedy where it belongs...on the devil. As for God, He promises to never leave us or forsake us.

Lol, I once told a friend this. She was like, I suppose you are, but this is the way it is if you want to get saved - you just need to accept it.

>_O

What about billion people who are in deep poverty in this world? (Yes, it's 1 billion...quick google search and you can find this written all over the place: http://www.blogher.com/making-postive-impact-impoverished-communities)

What about all those starving children who suffer.

Yes, you can say that's the devil's fault, but then, you have to admit, the Devil seems more powerful than God. If everyone was really trying to work towards good, well...how is the world so bad? One answer is that the Devil is more powerful.

But that's a different topic. It'd be nice if we had at least two or three people other than myself who were on topic, lol.
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Questions are:

First off, for the sake of discussion, let's *assume* that God exists per the Judeo-Christian tradition.

1) How do we know that God's will is correct and good? Is there circumstantial evidence in support of this, or is it something we believe blindly?

2) Is there circumstantial evidence that God's will *may not* be good??? But in fact, may be bad?

All of this is absolutely true.

If we accept what the bible says to be true then God most certain does indeed appear to be very insecure, childish, easily-threatened, and clearly jealous by his very own proclamation.

Why people are so anxious to believe that these ancient stories have anything to do with the creator of this universe just totally makes no sense to me at all.

It should be obvious to any intelligent person that these stories were written by men who simply wanted to claim that some God had told them to murder their enemies.

That's all the Bible is. It's just an account of a culture trying to blame all their bad behavior on a God.

God told us to do these terrible things!

Yeah right.

Why would anyone want to believe that the Bible represents God?

It's a horror story of both men and God.

I just don't understand why people are so anxious to believe that God is so horrible.

It would be a nightmare to assume that the Bible is true.

It's totally ambiguous!

Even Christians can't agree on what God's will is. That's why their are so many different sects and demoninations of the religion.

The Catholics had a single Pope who would supposedly decide what God's will is.

But the Prostestants protested against that. They said that no man speaks for God and the basic tenet of Protestantism was supposed to be that only the Holy Spirit can speak through the written word of the Bible to the individual who reads the word.

Well, since that time Protestants have evolved to become rebellious individual paper Popes. That's all they ever do is try to tell everyone what the "word of God" says.

As a Protestant Christian I read the Bible and the Holy Spirit conveyed to me that the entire Old Testament is the made up lies of male-chauvinistic pigs who used God as an excuse to murder and torture everyone who disagreed with them.

Then the Holy Spirit conveyed to me that the New Testament is a story about a man who tried to set people free from the Old Testament but was crucified and then used to prop up the very things that he denounced.

That's what the Holy Spirit conveys to me when I read the Bible.

I'm the only one who take Protestanism seriously.

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But no, getting back to your question it's impossible to know what God's will was based on the Bible.

God supposedly commanded that "Thou shalt not kill".

But then later he commanded "It is your duty to investigate heathens and to murder them, their wives and children, and burn the entire village from whence they came.

So it's unclear what God's will might be.

God supposedly said to stone sinner to death. Then he sposedly said not to.

It's all mixed messages from a supposedly unchanging God who keep changing his mind.

This is why no two Christians can agree on anything beyond "Christ is Lord". That's about the only thing they agree on.

lol, it's funny, huh?

Answer: Most people don't read the Torah/Bible/Koran.

Well, most practicing Jews read the stuff as a kid, memorized it, and that's it.



I think I'm going to write that one down. ^_^

I almost fell off my chair reading this. Seems accurate to me.

Yes, you're right about this. I just wish people other than us would discuss the topic. I'd like some people to try to logic out the other side of the coin...lol. Honestly, I feel if they try to do that, they'll end up on our side, but why else discuss things if not to change how we think?

Well, according to Christians "God's will" is that you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Well fine. But where does that every get anyone?

As a Christian there was indeed a time when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.

In fact, I was actually so enthused about it that I was going to preach the word to the whole world!

Yes I was!

But I wasn't about to do it until I fully understood precisely what God wants from us and precisely what the Bible says.

I was told that the Bible contains answer to every question.

So I dove right in expecting to find answers to all my questions.

After all, if I was going to teach the religion to other people I had better learn the answers to all the question first, right?

Well, what happened was that I quickly discovered that there are no answers to anything in the Bible.

Like why did God create Eve as an afterthought? No answer.

Why did God like Able's animal sacrifice and not Cain's vegetable sacarifice? No answer.

Why did God ask people to judge each other and stone sinners to death? No answer.

Why is God male-chauvinistic? No answer.

Why could God not deliver an unoccupied "promised land"? No answer.

Why did God allow satan into the garden of Eden in the first place? No answer.

Why didn't God sacrifice his son for mankind BEFORE the Great Flood? No answer.

Why is God appeased by blood sacrifices? No answer.

Why did Jesus disagree with so many of God's original rules? No answer.

There were many more questions without answers in the Bible.

Why did God just sit by while Christians tortured and burned innocent women at the stake in his name? No answer.

Why would an intervening God not intervene to stop the crusades? If he can intervent to tell people to murder heathens, surely he can intervene to tell them to quit killing in the name of Jesus.

No answer!

The Bible has NO ANSWERS.

I finally realized that not only could I not teach this nonsense to anyone, but there is no reason why I should believe any of it myself!

I can't honestly give anyone a sane reason why they should believe that the Bible is the word of any God.

By trying to learn it well enough to teach it, I learned enough to know that it's utterly insane.

And so now that's precisely what I teach. It's utterly insane.