If god is everything, doesn't that make him evil as well as good?

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Originally Posted by NikolaiI

I guess the question only leads into another: is the "everything" good or bad? The only way you can criticize God for creating everything is if you say that the everything is bad -- in other words, the sorrow makes life unnecessary, unjustified, in the face of the idea of balancing opposites, which says that life is valuable both for its "Good" experiences and its "Bad" experiences. Why not an infinite affirmation of life? This is what mystics found. They say that beyond duality, beyond the dualities of right and wrong, self and other, there is a boundless, sole, indivisible reality... they say that is God, or the Source. So in other words, God is beyond the dualities of Good and Bad. But also, God is the Supreme good, being the Source of Being, and the Source of Love.

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Nikolai, a well read philosopher, a thinker, a spiritualist is right in stating that God id beyond the dualities of good and bad. There is godliness beyond the attribute of goodness and badness in point of fact. Both devilishness and godliness merge there or thaw there and there will be no conflict there, not discordance. There will be an endless stretch of evenness. I cannot say what will be and what not there in Godliness but all that I can say is Godliness is not the opposite of evilness or devilishness. When there will be Godliness devilishness will melt into godliness. Devilishness is a state and state is not unchangeable and of course Devil will purge him of the devilishness and once purged all will be once again Godliness. How can you find a shadow of darkness when your room is flooded with light.

I think Nikolai can understand and interpret it better than me.

Personally I think God is both good and bad. I know it sounds crazy but in order for someone to understand what Bad is, dont they experience it first? Sure some peple have gone to longer lengths in badness, but a good person always has a bad side. There is no such thing as a perfect person. It's an illusion that we make ourselfs believe is real so that when the times comes we can judge ourselves and others. Everyone has a different view on whats good and whats bad.

Which is why I believe that God must have experimented with badness in order to have a more understanding way of it. Otherwise how is he able to pass judgement on us when he's the one who decides wether we go into heaven or not? How can he send you to hell for your wrong deeds when people have drilled into our heads that he is the figure of goodness? In order for someone to understand something you have to experience it otherwise you cant pass judgement on anyone.

So for me, God is neither good or evil. Why? Cause nobody is. If we were good people there wouldnt be problems in the world today. If we were bad people then we wouldnt have feelings or a conscience. Which lives us with one question: What exactly are we?

Everyone imagines God in his own way, and of course a violent man has the reason of his own for acts of violence and every sinner justifies his sin. People think that a particular circumstance compels him to act sinfully.
No sinner blames himself for the sins committed. It is the onlooker who labels him and the onlooker must at the sinner from the sinner's point of view and also thru the circumstance the sinner was while he was committing the sin.

God justifies or is indifferent to all sinful or sacred acts

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Originally Posted by ana123love

Personally I think God is both good and bad. I know it sounds crazy but in order for someone to understand what Bad is, dont they experience it first? Sure some peple have gone to longer lengths in badness, but a good person always has a bad side. There is no such thing as a perfect person. It's an illusion that we make ourselfs believe is real so that when the times comes we can judge ourselves and others. Everyone has a different view on whats good and whats bad.

Which is why I believe that God must have experimented with badness in order to have a more understanding way of it. Otherwise how is he able to pass judgement on us when he's the one who decides wether we go into heaven or not? How can he send you to hell for your wrong deeds when people have drilled into our heads that he is the figure of goodness? In order for someone to understand something you have to experience it otherwise you cant pass judgement on anyone.

So for me, God is neither good or evil. Why? Cause nobody is. If we were good people there wouldnt be problems in the world today. If we were bad people then we wouldnt have feelings or a conscience. Which lives us with one question: What exactly are we?

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The problem here, Ana, is that you make good and evil things that are "outside" of God - as if they have existence independent of Him. The Bible makes it clear that God has no traffic with evil - evil cannot touch Him - all that is impure, evil, tainted simply burns away in his presence. Good is defined by things that are consistent with God's character; evil is that which is contrary to his character. God is the basis of reality - as such, good and evil do not exist independently of God - they are definitions given to things that either conform to God's character or contradict it.

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

Everyone imagines God in his own way, and of course a violent man has the reason of his own for acts of violence and every sinner justifies his sin. People think that a particular circumstance compels him to act sinfully.

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Hence the importance of the Bible; without some stable "ground" upon which to base our ideas of God, He becomes whatever we want, and at that point, He becomes meaningless and liable to the wildest flights of fancy.

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Originally Posted by blazeofglory

God justifies or is indifferent to all sinful or sacred acts

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I'd be curious what you base this idea of God on - because unless you have some sort of foundation, you are simply saying "this is who I think God to be" but you just as well could say "God is a 7 foot tall smurf" and assume that to be authoritative unless you have a basis for that belief outside your own opinion. I'm not sure which sacred text makes God indifferent to sin or that he justifies it - except that if he justifies it, it is no longer a sin.

The bible says 'that which is of flesh is flesh, that of spirit is spirit.' In other words, something can only come from its source.

Since this god is the source of evil (Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lamentations 3:38) then it shows that he, too, is evil. This assuming the bible is correct.

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

The bible says 'that which is of flesh is flesh, that of spirit is spirit.' In other words, something can only come from its source.

Since this god is the source of evil (Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lamentations 3:38) then it shows that he, too, is evil. This assuming the bible is correct.

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Or consider that your interpretation might be incorrect...

Isa 45:7
I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the LORD, do all these things.’

Amos 3:6
If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid?
If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?

Lam 3:38
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That woe and well-being proceed?

Try looking at the context next time...and use more than just one version.

Since man was created in God's image, God must be having all those traits before passing them on to Man! Consequently God cannot be said to be evil,,,but a 'bouquet' of all sorts of traits exhibited by men!!

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

Or consider that your interpretation might be incorrect...

Isa 45:7
I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the LORD, do all these things.’

Amos 3:6
If a trumpet is blown in a city, will not the people be afraid?
If there is calamity in a city, will not the LORD have done it?

Lam 3:38
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That woe and well-being proceed?

Try looking at the context next time...and use more than just one version.

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We, the Muslims, are lucky in that we have ONLY ONE version of the holy Quran!:)

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Originally Posted by mazHur

We, the Muslims, are lucky in that we have ONLY ONE version of the holy Quran!:)

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Why do you consider that lucky? That would mean that you cannot consider the different translations to understand more deeply the meaning of the passage. Is the Quran not written in more than just one language?

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Originally Posted by mazHur

Since man was created in God's image, God must be having all those traits before passing them on to Man! Consequently God cannot be said to be evil,,,but a 'bouquet' of all sorts of traits exhibited by men!!

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God is ALL GOOD, and anything that is not like God is evil. God created light which is opposite of darkness. The two cannot coexist. It is as such with Good and Evil.

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Originally Posted by BienvenuJDC

Why do you consider that lucky? That would mean that you cannot consider the different translations to understand more deeply the meaning of the passage. Is the Quran not written in more than just one language?

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The holy Quran is read all over the world....by ALL Muslims, regardless of their sect or creed--in Arabic. The Quran in Arabic is the SAME in every Muslims house, mosque or country where ever he lives....Thus there is NO problem in citing an specific verse from the very same source universally!
Moreover many Muslims around the world have memorized whole of the Quran in Arabic word by word! Thus we are lucky in that nobody can fool us by distracting our attention to different versions of the same book!


Translations and interpretations are different things........they may differ and they do but the BASIC Quran is in Arabic and if a serious Muslim wants to check out he can at once make recourse to the Original Arabic text (with literal translation) and cross-check even if he doesn't know Arabic!


This is not the case with the Bible which has been edited by men so many times that the original essence of it is mostly confounded and sorry to use the word 'corrupted'!

Another thing is that we Muslims do not make fun of our holy Book or holy personalities...Muslims are also forbidden by the Quran to speak ill of any other religion, its follower, its books or whatever....for this reason you will note that no Muslim can draw a caricature of Moses, Jesus etc or use filthy words about them even though
so much hate seems to prevail between them especially after 9/11 and due to Palestinian dispute.

The simple answer to the OP is that god is not just good and bad, but everything, period. God is creation, and what you would call bad or good (for simplicity's sake, I'm going to assume you're talking about conventional modernistic western morality) are manifestations of god (the aggregate of energy, matter, and consciousness). Even if one believes that a personal god exists separate from existential life, for that entity to truly be the source and creator of all, it would have to be "beyond good and evil" and in fact be beyond all ideas and human comprehension.

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Originally Posted by mazHur

The holy Quran is read all over the world....by ALL Muslims, regardless of their sect or creed--in Arabic. The Quran in Arabic is the SAME in every Muslims house, mosque or country where ever he lives....Thus there is NO problem in citing an specific verse from the very same source universally!
Moreover many Muslims around the world have memorized whole of the Quran in Arabic word by word! Thus we are lucky in that nobody can fool us by distracting our attention to different versions of the same book!


Translations and interpretations are different things........they may differ and they do but the BASIC Quran is in Arabic and if a serious Muslim wants to check out he can at once make recourse to the Original Arabic text (with literal translation) and cross-check even if he doesn't know Arabic!


This is not the case with the Bible which has been edited by men so many times that the original essence of it is mostly confounded and sorry to use the word 'corrupted'!

Another thing is that we Muslims do not make fun of our holy Book or holy personalities...Muslims are also forbidden by the Quran to speak ill of any other religion, its follower, its books or whatever....for this reason you will note that no Muslim can draw a caricature of Moses, Jesus etc or use filthy words about them even though
so much hate seems to prevail between them especially after 9/11 and due to Palestinian dispute.

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I do not agree with what you are saying, but any example that I might present will most assuredly be censored. The muslim religion does not practice the way that you say. muslims react in an ill manner toward other religions all the time. I'm not saying that all muslims do this, but there are enough that do in fact speak ill of all other religions. More than just speak, they act also.

The OP:

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Originally Posted by Shadowsarin

This is a bit of weird one I think. This came to me when I was reading a Philip K. Dick short story about something similer. This is purly hypothetical and I mean no offence.

If god is in everything and everyone, does that not make him as much an evil malevolent as a divine benevolent?

It just seems to me that evil is as much a thing as good; and something claimed to be everything must surely be both?

Thoughts on this random thought?

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Preaching and championing one particular religion at the expense of others are not allowed on this site.

Off-topic posts will be deleted without further notice.

''Try looking at the context next time...and use more than just one version. ''

The quotes you use clearly prove that this supposed god creates both good & evil. Again, assuming such a god exists.

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

''Try looking at the context next time...and use more than just one version. ''

The quotes you use clearly prove that this supposed god creates both good & evil. Again, assuming such a god exists.

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a nice googly by you!:)

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

''Try looking at the context next time...and use more than just one version. ''

The quotes you use clearly prove that this supposed god creates both good & evil. Again, assuming such a god exists.

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Calamity is not the same as 'evil'. Calamity can be the destructive results of a storm. Jesus Christ had shown that he had the power over the winds and the waves, which could produce peaceful waters, or such as is...a storm of calamity and destruction. But this is a far cry from the interpretation of creating EVIL. And there is no other assumption based on sound logic than for such a God to exist.

''Calamity is not the same as 'evil'. Calamity can be the destructive results of a storm.''

We've gone over this before so rather than discuss it further, here's a quote from blueletterbible for the Hebrew word ''ra'' or ''rah'':


1) bad, evil

a) bad, disagreeable, malignant

b) bad, unpleasant, evil (giving pain, unhappiness, misery)

c) evil, displeasing

d) bad (of its kind - land, water, etc)

e) bad (of value)

f) worse than, worst (comparison)

g) sad, unhappy

h) evil (hurtful)

i) bad, unkind (vicious in disposition)

j) bad, evil, wicked (ethically)

1) in general, of persons, of thoughts

2) deeds, actions

n m

2) evil, distress, misery, injury, calamity

a) evil, distress, adversity

b) evil, injury, wrong

c) evil (ethical)

n f

3) evil, misery, distress, injury

a) evil, misery, distress

b) evil, injury, wrong

c) evil (ethical)

Authorized Version (KJV) Translation Count — Total: 663
AV — evil 442, wickedness 59, wicked 25, mischief 21, hurt 20, bad 13, trouble 10, sore 9, affliction 6, ill 5, adversity 4, favoured 3, harm 3, naught 3, noisome 2, grievous 2, sad 2, misc 34
Gesenius's Lexicon (Help)
H7451



http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/...gs=H7451&t=KJV


Interpret it how you will.

God is within you. God is a power within you. God is courage, strength, happiness, freedom, God is virtue. God is the opposing force to what is bad in this world. Being with God is being in harmony with the good. This is what the Bible says, not what the intellectuals say. Their motive is to be the smartest guys in the room.

In other words, abortion and war victims lack the proper degree of righteousness to be in harmony with your god?

OK. Makes sense to me.

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

In other words, abortion and war victims lack the proper degree of righteousness to be in harmony with your god?

OK. Makes sense to me.

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I don't know if that was directed at me or not. The only God I know is the one brought up in the Bible. The God to the intellectuals can be whoever they want him to be. It's just students being silly. The church can lead those who can't lead themselves, can bring up issues that will give food to the intellectuals of the world so they can debate and write meaningless nonsense and call it philosophy. It's not real, just for appearances. "abortion, war, same-sex" <- just quibbling, bumping into each other like headless chickens. people who only read and never write. LONG LIVE THE CHURCH!

''The God to the intellectuals can be whoever they want him to be. It's just students being silly.''

The same is true for the churches. After all, no institution in history has killed more people in the name of the Bible than the churches.

I don't know what that means. It seems like most people on this forum are trying to be the smartest guys in the room...

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

''The God to the intellectuals can be whoever they want him to be. It's just students being silly.''

The same is true for the churches. After all, no institution in history has killed more people in the name of the Bible than the churches.

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Seems like you're saying that it is not a religion of peace....huh?

''It seems like most people on this forum are trying to be the smartest guys in the room... ''

True.


''it is not a religion of peace....huh?''

The signature I use may give you a hint. ;)

Religion is juste the manner bywhich people think it's the cause to believe in god , however the real belif is in heart and not anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Abir

Religion is juste the manner bywhich people think it's the cause to believe in god , however the real belif is in heart and not anywhere.

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Mind is clever and treacherous
sees everything with compound eyes
views pros and cons, risks and gains.
Heart, on the other, is naive, innocent
like a poor blind dolphin in the river
it views risks as gains.
Let mind be the guide of your heart
so it may not go astray
but sometimes, yes, sometimes,
It is advisable to let the heart free!

Heart is Faith
Mind is doubt..

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Originally Posted by bojangle

The only God I know is the one brought up in the Bible.
LONG LIVE THE CHURCH!

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Just terribly curious; what makes Christian beliefs any more true than those of other religions? Had you been born in India you would most likely believe fervently in Hinduism

Organized religion can be a beautiful thing, but it has proven time and time again that can destroy just as easily as it heals and unites.
And another aspect of God that I fail to understand, the Christian one at least. How can he damn people to eternal hellfire as punishment for their sins?
Fear and God should not be used in the same sentence.

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Originally Posted by frenchchick825

Just terribly curious; what makes Christian beliefs any more true than those of other religions? Had you been born in India you would most likely believe fervently in Hinduism

Organized religion can be a beautiful thing, but it has proven time and time again that can destroy just as easily as it heals and unites.
And another aspect of God that I fail to understand, the Christian one at least. How can he damn people to eternal hellfire as punishment for their sins?
Fear and God should not be used in the same sentence.

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God created everything in pairs...it is said and observed. Why then he shouldn't be loving and fearful at the same time??
Ever heard about the wrath of God???

Yeah, it is not only the Christian God that rules the world! All roads lead to Rome!:)

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Originally Posted by frenchchick825

Just terribly curious; what makes Christian beliefs any more true than those of other religions? Had you been born in India you would most likely believe fervently in Hinduism

Organized religion can be a beautiful thing, but it has proven time and time again that can destroy just as easily as it heals and unites.
And another aspect of God that I fail to understand, the Christian one at least. How can he damn people to eternal hellfire as punishment for their sins?
Fear and God should not be used in the same sentence.

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I'm curious about this as well since I was born in a predominately Christian culture. It is sort of in my face.

In reading about Hell, specifically Mary Boyce's books on Zoroastrianism, it looks as if Zarathustra came up with the idea first. He also had a last judgment to punish evil in a molten flow of metal, which reminds me too closely of the punishment in Revelation for these two ideas to be unrelated.

Personally, I don't think Christian beliefs are any more true than other religions. You are not required to think so either, to my knowledge, although when ideas are in your face, it is hard to ignore them.

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

''Calamity is not the same as 'evil'. Calamity can be the destructive results of a storm.''

We've gone over this before so rather than discuss it further, here's a quote from blueletterbible for the Hebrew word ''ra'' or ''rah'':

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Bienvenu makes a point, and a good one. His is the whole idea behind felix culpa, or “the good fall,” which is a rather prevailing interpretation of Satan's fall and cannot be dismissed.

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

The same is true for the churches. After all, no institution in history has killed more people in the name of the Bible than the churches.

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Not true in the least. If I stick strictly to how many people the christian church has directly killed it is so few as to be trivial. Indirectly speaking, i.e. religious war, it is still trumped by ww2, the Mongolian conquest, the Chinese Revolution, ww1, etc. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_death_toll And even thought religious aspects existed in some of these wars, they were certainly not, for the most part, the sole motivating force.

The modern day has a better way of recording life and death records. Past eras did not have census bureaus in order to ascertain how died from Mongol horde invasions or Crusader attacks on peaceful Muslims.

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

The modern day has a better way of recording life and death records. Past eras did not have census bureaus in order to ascertain how died from Mongol horde invasions or Crusader attacks on peaceful Muslims.

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You forgot to mention the Huns!!

Stats my not be recorded in the event of a WAR....the Mongol invasion and the Crusades were wars...and I think during a war all arrangement to keep record of the dead or alive gets upset as people are more worried to save their lives. They only guess the the number of dead from the number of remaining alive!

It's astonishing that still there is NO accurate record or data about population in some countries....which clearly reflects on planning but who cares?? Pakistan is such a country where I live....where all figures are sketchy and mostly guess work!! Pity If there is a war and people die one can only ascertain their true number through guess work!

On the contrary situation in developed country is different where every person is registered, but not so in some places:)

Proverbs 16:4
The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Hopefully that Proverb provides a little insight :)

no..i don't think so..

Agnostic until proven otherwise.

I've always thought of God--if there is one--to be similar to a referee. He's a watcher, a hands-off kinda guy. He judges the battle of your two halves, and he can ring that bell whenever he wants.

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If god is in everything and everyone, does that not make him as much an evil malevolent as a divine benevolent?

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Hawthorne asks a similarly thought provoking question near the end of his novel "The Scarlet Letter" that goes something like: doesn't it take just as much passion and devotion to be evil as it does to be good?, when summing up thoughts about Hester's evil husband (his name slips my memory atm).

In fact, I cam to see Hester's husband in the story, after reading that quote, as the darker side of god (although I am not a religious person and do not in fact believe in any sort of personified ultimate source of creation as what many call God) or rather nature that must deal with the darker issues or sides of life.

It is only through this darker character in the story that Dimmesdale can find his peace. Kind of like necessary tough love, with which he would have remained a lost soul, dying an emptier death than what he did. So evil, or what many people perceive to be the evil in the story is in fact interestingly Dimmesdale's salvation.

Of course without evil, goodness fails to exist. Evil defines what is good as much as good defines what is evil, both necessary for the other's existence (in one's perception of course, which differs from person to person, society to society, and culture to culture).

cheers,
nap

There was a time when there was no "devil" and people view God as both holy and righteous and punishing as well. God is said to be ALL good but we truly do not know the extent of his powers or ways and we probably never will. A lot of people a presumptive and assume that they know how God works but no one will really know that so you just have to trust in what you know and how you feel.

"God is a little more than everything." e. e. cummings

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Originally Posted by Nightshade

well duh!

Doesnt every one think that?? Well not evil but then God not exactly good either. God is God. Not Good or evil as we understand it, its soooo much more complicated. My 6 year old sister asked me somthing similar this morning what is this the day of religious questions?;)

Anyway my point is as Muslim that is pretty much what I belive for us god has 99 names and some of them are a bit contradictry until you put it in this context like The Giver, The Taker, The Merciful, The Strict, The Forgiving, The Unforgiving, The aparnt, The hidden, The first The Last , just to mention a few that are translateable, I can off the top of my ead only think of a handful that dont have oposites, The Iternal, The One, The all-Knowing, and a few like that.


:D

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I totally agree! I believe the problem arises when people stick to over simplifying things. Any being that controls the entire universe is obviously so immense and so complex that we could never have any way to completely comprehend he/she. We humans are so adversely simplistic that the question of "why would God create people such as Hitler" is believed to disprove the existence God.

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Originally Posted by iankropp

I totally agree! I believe the problem arises when people stick to over simplifying things. Any being that controls the entire universe is obviously so immense and so complex that we could never have any way to completely comprehend he/she. We humans are so adversely simplistic that the question of "why would God create people such as Hitler" is believed to disprove the existence God.

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Why, may I ask, has God created you?

Why do 90% of analogies in life involve Hitler, Nazis, or Nazism? I for one would like to know.