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From: ix415@sdcc6.UUCP (Rick Frey)
Newsgroups: net.origins,net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: The Bible -- a reliable source of information about God
Message-ID: <2195@sdcc6.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Aug-85 00:28:13 EDT
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Posted: Mon Aug 26 00:28:13 1985
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Summary: Response to P. Zim on the damager God

Hmm, I'm kind of stuck between seeing the sincerity of what you're
saying but also seeing the immediate gainsaying of almost every point I
made without any real support for what you've said.  I believe that what
you wrote was not a parody, but you accuse the believers in the 'good'
God of not thinking and then you turn around and say the 'proof' is on
your side and that I just haven't seen.

Let me start with a reference you made to having proven that God was
created (at best) in your first article.  Your entire proof was that
since you could ask the question who created God He must not have
existed eternally and that someone had created Him.  But that is absolutely
no proof whatsoever.  It's your opinion and it doesn't hold water at all.
If you can imagine an infinite God, a deity as we normally think of them,
there's little problem in imagining it having existed eternally.  But even
if you don't like that idea, you still haven't proven anything other than
that you can ask a difficult question.

A second point you seem to feel you can use authoritatively is that the
Bible is a lie and that God is evil.  You responded to a number of my
arguments by simply discounting the Bible and saying that it was a
collection of stories created to propagate these lies about God.  But other
than your 'observations' on the state of the world, where do you get your
evidence from?  This logical inference you seem to base so much weight on,
that the world is in bad shape, God exists so therefor God is bad, does not
stand as any type of 'proof' whatsoever and even as a logical deduction it
leaves alot to be desired as do its corollaries as you have drawn them.

Just to hit on a few side points, you say that God copped out on saving the
world by sending His Son to come and die.  That's a way of looking at it IF
you ignore the Bible.  The Bible says that Christ was God (sorry any of you
out there who'll disagree with this) so God did come down and pay the price
that He asked for from people.  His Son was Himself.  God in no way copped
out.  He suffered humiliation and all of the things you said He did, while
being God.  What you started off on Christ being the Antichrist??  That made
very little sense.  No where in the Bible does it say anything about Satan
having control of the earth for a thousand years after Christ's return.  It
says that Satan will be bound, "And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent
of old, who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years" (Rev
20:2) but no where does it say anything about Satan ruling for a thousand
years.  And the picture of the antichrist that Revelation paints (which you
don't believe in) is nothing like what the Bible (which again you disbelieve
so where are you getting this info on Christ being the antichrist?) says
about Christ.  Forgive the schizophrenia of that last sentance.

Another thing you said that was unfounded was discounting my examples of
God's miracles.  When Sarah and Abraham had a child, the Bible records that
Sarah was to old to have a child.  You might still say that the Bible is
God's method of bringing lies, but don't say that it was "part of the natural
course of nature."  Also, you said that the Jews were extraordinary fighters
so that makes God's claim to saving them in battle void again.  But neither
the Jews nor the Bible supports your arguments.  The Jews believed that God
gave them victories in battle (so it's not simply a christian doctrine) and
just look at some of the odds the Jews faced.  In the story of Gideon, God
supposedly has an army of 22,000 cut down to 300 and they have to face an
army of 120,000 (Judges 7 and 8).  If you want to argue that this is an
example of God's intermittent reinforcement or just another one of His lies,
ok, but don't account for it by Jewish military prowess.  300 against
120,000 doesn't work in any military strategy.

In your response to Beth Christy you said that God has built into us a wish
to see Him as a 'father-figure'.  But if we evolved, how does God accomplish
this building in process?  And another question that's a little off in left
field.  If God was created and is evil, doesn't that necessitate another
evil, damager God behind Him that created Him?  And if that's the case, then
who created the first, evil damager God?  Or can damager Gods exist from
eternity and just not good Gods?

You make two points that apart are fine but when taken together ruin your
whole argument.  You say that God is this destructive force, always on the
prowl for things to break or ruin and also that it's easy to point the
figure and place the blame on something else.  But don't you think that
applies to some of the problems in the world today?  Are you really going to
say it was God's fault that Charles Manson murdered all those people or that
whatever the guy's name was shot all those people in the McDonald's in San
Ysidro?  Is that God's doing or is that you're just passing the buck of
human wrotteness (at least in these instances) to some 'evil God' such that
people are no longer responsible for what they do?  Why place ALL the evil
on God?  Natural disasters and the like I'll give you alot more credit that
seeing God as kind and loving is a little more difficult, but saying that
God "put's the obstacles in our way so as to lead us on that course" is a
complete negation of human free will and responsibility.  Are you saying
that we really have no choice in the matter and that we're all puppets or
can we respond to these 'obstacles' in different matters such that evil out
of our own free will is what this evil, damager God wants?

Wow, after rereading your last paragraph in your response to my first
response to your first article (I hope that makes sense) the challenge you
issued is blown out of proportion.  You seem to feel you have offered
conclusive 'evidence' that God is evil, that people are simply victims of
this evil God, the Bible is a sham and all sorts of other things that you
simply state and restate, but I'm somewhat confused as to which particular
things you cling to as 'conclusive' evidence?  As to why they (Paul Dubois
or Don Boskovich) haven't stepped forward, I can offer one possible
explanation.  You simply discounted every argument I offered without
offering any reasoning whatsoever other that your basic assumption which I'm
challenging (I'm sure alot of people are nodding their heads that that's
what alot of the Christian's posting on the net have done).  I disagree that
God is entropy and I still stick word for word to my original statement that
without God's influence and support, this world and mankind will decay and
that God (who did create the world and men) is not the destructive force but
the force that wants to restate mankind to their original position of
fellowship with God that they willingly broke.

				Rick Frey