If god was Almighty than he would of known that Adam and Eve and....Satan... and demons....would sin before he even created anything.

So you rather that God just butt in and stop every evil thing that happens on this planet?

As I recall, he promised to do just that but has failed to do so. I'm not surprised. In any event, a death sentence for eating a piece of fruit is a poor example of punishment fitting a crime. Extending this sentence to all offspring is not something that you could call divine justice. It seems more demonic to me.

W

ATJ

Deputy Dog, is me being scared for my life the way that a loving god chooses to attract worshipers and be a god of love?

I wish he would make up his mind. But don't tell me he is a god of love while I am under threat of death if I don't worship him.

Like you and I already discussed, we were already dead in our sin (free will if you like).  You're not under threat, you're dead.  The loving part is that He saves some.  He doesn't "attract" worshipers, He calls them.

dutchstef

That prooves that god created us as slaves!!!

I agree.  But, He redeems us as His children. 

And that brings us back to the other question, why then did he give us free will, if we  Can't get killed for using it....(Sometimes translating dutch to english in my mind goes wrong)

I believe we gain much more in Christ, than we lost in the garden.

I don't consider myself Evil... 

This is the problem.  Adam proved we are all evil by nature, when he fell.

Yiz

So it's ok to molest a child? It's ok to rob someone and kill them? So no one should have to answer for their actions?

Of course not.  God has created evil (defined it). Men love it, rather than God.  The problem is we don't see how evil we really are.

God is good and he is against evil.

I believe if God destroyed evil rather than punish it, nothing (or nobody) would be left.  The miracle (love) is that He forgives.

So we should ignore evil and let them get away with it all and just call it normal?

Have you been punished for all your sin?  I haven't.  I come to God as a beggar asking for forgiveness, hoping to find His grace.

Sighs, the whole thing sounds of "Hey cop! Why aren't ya doing yer job? I'm paying ya to lay the smack down on crime, man!"

Well what about you? Got a drug dealer moved into your neighborhood selling drugs to your kids? What YOU gonna do about? Expect some cop to do his job? You can't expect every cop to be everywhere (but you would argue, well God can!!!) all the time. Why not YOU take a baseball bat, kick the door down and beat the hell out of him and tell him to take his crap and get out! Oh wait, a cop will arrest you for taking the law into your hands and the drug dealer will sue you into financial oblivion.

When something goes wrong, you expect someone else to deal with it and not roll up your sleeves and do something about it yourself.

If the world was like that from the get go, there would be no crime and the Holocaust would have never happened.

The problem is that too many don't give a damn, that makes it difficult for all of us to band together and make a stand against evil.

People are lazy and expect someone else to do the dirty work of cleaning up evil.

Yiz

YIZ

If you're talking to me, I've been in law enforcement for 17 years.  Am I missing something?

I do believe that God give us free will and he does want us to love him. Jesus said love your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, and your whole soul. second to love your nieghbor as yourself, he also stated that is where the rest of the commandmets hang. Mathew 22, 37-40

Do I beleive man or even a Jw's should judge? no. only the creater has that right.

Do I beleive that God punishes people? no. God has made rules and he is a just God and follows his own rule. ( God is love 1 John 4;8 )

God did warn Adam and Eve that if they eat from that tree then they will positively die. Flat out he told them. Just as he tries to tell us now.

I can-t find the scripture right now, the one that says God does not test that he can not be tested so he doesn't test anyone.

Satin he challanged God as well as man, Satin told God that he coud turn all man against him. Satin told good skin in behalf of skin man will curse you to your very face. Don't worry so much my friend God would not allow us to be tested by satin if he did not think we could pass the test.

God could have destroyed Satin right then but what would that prove? That he is the most powerful or just a bully? he does not have to prove that he is the most powerful?

Why does he do it that way? I do not know I guess if he wants to he can, he was the one that created us and he should know what is best for us.and that we should trust God that he will do the right thing and everyting wil come out for the best in the end.

( Just supposing that we are made of clay and God is a potter) and the potter is at the potters wheel building something made of clay and the clay for some reason falls down. Would you not think the potter would or could lift the clay  back up?

God gave us free will, in the case of Adam and Eve, he gave them one little tiny rule, they broke it.

Did God know they were going to?

Ah yes, the question on ominsience (SP?), the question of all knowing, does God know all?

Yes, he does, he knows that if we make choice A, it will lead to B and if we make choice C it will lead to D, he "doesn't know" which choice we will make because he has given us free will to make those choices, though he knows the results of all the choices we make.

As for Satan, we all have our roles to play.

using that free will,  Adam and Eve could have eaten the  fruit from the Tree of Life and  would live forever - so God  had to  get them out of the garden before they did ==doesnt that cause anyone to question why? Since  God was  ALmighty and had  already pronounced them  to die because of their  disobedience, needed to keep them from that tree... they ate  a fruit to die, and could eat another to live  forever???

  It falls into the bigger category of God's prerogative. As creator/sustainer/
whatever, it's all His, so it's fair game for Him to give people whatever length
or quality of life.  Whatever battle or misfortune people die from in the Bible,
if they hadn't died that way, God would have had them die eventually anyway.  We
don't all live in fair circumstances forever, so He's not all-beneficent.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegorical_interpretations_of_Genesis

  As in Job, you can think life stinks for the bad in it or, like Job, see those
things but still be glad for the shot at life and to find whatever love and good
in it.  You can look at the same two choices and not believe in God or, like
Job, believe in God.  The bad things aren't a make or break point about it.
They might be for an all-beneficent God concept, but that isn't the God of the
Bible or even possible.

  You could not want to believe in a God that creates people who are able to be
bad and has them punish bad behavior, or still believe in Him likewise.  One
sermon I remember said something like the love from people wouldn't count for as
much if everybody was programmed to give it like robots--that God didn't figure
it meant as much unless it was freely given, and He knew the bad would come with
the good.

One day in the Garden of Eden, Eve calls out to God, " Lord I have a problem! "

" What's the matter Eve? "

" Lord, I know you have created me and have provided me with this beautiful garden and all of these wonderful animals, and that hilarious comedy snake, but I am just not happy. "

" Why is that Eve? " came a reply from above.

" Lord, I am lonely. And I am sick of eating apples. "

" Well, Eve, in that case, I have a solution. I shall create a man for you. "

" What's a 'man', Lord? "

" This man will be a flawed creature, with aggressive tendencies, an enormous ego and an inability to empathize or listen to you properly. All in all, he will give you a hard time. But he will be bigger and faster and more muscular than you. He'll be really good at fighting and kicking a ball about and chasing fleet-footed ruminants. "

" Sounds great, " says Eve with an ironically raised eyebrow.

" But, you can only have him on one condition. "

" What's that Lord? "

" You will have to let him belaive that I made him first. "

Almighty refers to Jehovah's power, his energy.  Without it none of his creations (whether the invisible aspects of the universe or the visible) would exist.  That's one point.

Free will is something that Jehovah has, as well as something we as humans have been the capacity for also.

Jehovah said that he didn't want Adam [or any other human, by extension] to eat from the one-of-a-kind forbidden fruit tree (not an apple tree, of which there are many), he said what the punishment would be.

When Eve and Adam (as they became known) ate, Jehovah followed through as a proper parent ought and did what he said he would do.  Now it turned out that his defintion of a day in this case was "within 1000 years" in a physical sense, but Jehovah's spiritual relationship ended with them that day, even though Eve continued to delude herself that she still had a relationship with him.  No she didn't, she had received a judgment from Jehovah which apparently could not be appealed.  We can know that Jehovah's relationship ended with Eve on the very day that she disobeyed, because there are no further conversations recorded between Jehovah and Eve (or Adam).  Jehovah was no longer dealing with either of them.

YIZ -

God is not susceptible to guns, knives, or beating up. 

 These are all things that can and do seriously harm and kill innocent people every day when they make personal efforts to stop drug dealers and other criminals in their own streets.  That is why most of us pay taxes to finance the police and army to protect us.

That God deliberately designed beings that would become so hideously defective if they ate a piece of fruit-

Try designing an aircraft.  If the Aviation Authority saw how many people would be killed in it because of a knowingly incorporated design feature, do you think it would be permitted to fly?.  If its wings fell off in flight killing all on board, who would be in court, the passengers or the designer?

I am UTTERLY sick of the apologists for the sociopath in the sky saying "God does <insert relevant atrocity> because HE CAN - he is God 'member?"

For all I know God could right now be licking his wiener because he can.  Unlike with my dog, I can't make him stop.

HB 

If I (or someone hijacks) operate my computer in a way that users were specifically told not to, and then it crashes, what of it?  That's more the issue we're facing.  All creation has its limits, even Jesus.  After all, Jesus died, right?  And it wasn't because he himself violated Jehovah's instructions either.  It's because anyone hung on a stake as Jesus was will naturally die because of the trauma and lack of food, etc.  The fact that "God took him", as he did Enoch, doesn't negate these principles of design limitations.

Finally Free says a death sentence for eating a piece of fruit is a poor example of punishment fitting a crime. Extending this sentence to all offspring is not something that you could call divine justice. It seems more demonic to me.

Actually, Adam died because he was thrown out of Eden and hence he could not sustain his life. God did not kill Adam. God had told Adam precisely what was expected of him and what would befall him if he acted to the contrary. Adam chose to act contrary. It was not as if God cheated Adam. Eating a piece of fruit or not, Adam knew what he was getting into.

As per extending the sentence to all offspring... Adam is a product and his offspring are the byproducts and hence if the source is corrupted, naturally the byproducts get the same disease. God did not have to extend the punishment. Adam brought it upon all. God is only intending to save everyone despite the fact that it was Adam who broke the rules of engagement

Only God can answer, but He won't (because He is so wicked that He made us with the desire to explore, and then denied this, and He made the angels with desires to explore and then condemned some of them for exercising that desire).

Jehovah's word answers things quite well in Romans chapter 5.  At least I think so.

If you know your child will steal from the cookie jar, you are not responsible for his deed.

Of course God knew.  But should he take away their free will to choose?

If I can jump in here,

God did a lousy job giving humans free will - because Adam and Eve were not perfect.  They used free will to do something imperfect - something that should be impossible.  They should have been destroyed instantly when they even thought of the tree of knowledge, no?  Oh, but wait, he created everything and it was "good". 

The design was bad from the start.  It's like leaving a two year old alone in theyre room with a cookie jar.  We are imperfect, because that's the way that we are.  Jehovah is supposed to have made Adam and Eve perfect, so this should never have happened. 

Oh well - I guess all this pain and suffering will all be worth it in the new system, where you can farm and clean up shit forever, LOL.

reading through every post on on 3 pages (and the scriptural references cited) should clear everything up better than all that I would have thought

Romans five was written in GREEK, and there is absolutely no proof that the word JEHOVAH was ever in any manuscript.

Hence Pauls letter cannot be conclusively accepted as "Jehovah's Word."  Especially as we find throughout the letter OT verses which originally referred to YHWH, and Paul then applies to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Yiz - I stated why I do not personally take a baseball bat to stop the drug dealers, and you didn't give a satisfying response.

HB

Spike -

If the computer you caused to crash is an inflight computer, and 300 passengers then died, the computer manufacturers and programmers could well face charges and end up in court.

The whole Adam and Eve myth is a believers justification for the disgusting events depicted in the Bible, and by extension the suffering and eventual annihilation of BILLIONS.  I don't think your trite "electrical goods" illustration works here.

And please don't use the "God can do it because he is God" argument, I already talked about that.

HB

As I recall from the J W days, they taught that God has the power to know all things in advance, and he sometimes does, as the Scriptures tell. But just because he has the power to do so does not mean that he always does it.

So although being all powerful and all knowing, he can chose not to know, and let us sort it out for ourselves - if he so wishes..

Sort that out - I never could !