Evidence for God from Science

Hey friends,
I was discussing the existence of God with someone on a message board when they came up with this post.

its just a very natural instinct for me to wanna demand & expect the same standards of behaviour from an omnipotent being as i do from joe blow. I have not encountered one reason why i shouldnt expect the so called heavenly father (thats what he calls himself) to act the same way as any earthly father.

You say God lives by different laws. Well obviously that seems to be the case. But also what is obvious to me is God is a complete hypocrite therefore. How can God or anyone expect loyalty to certain moral standards they may impose if that person/thing doesnt even abide by them. Why would anyone want to follow a hypocrite?

The free will excuse is bogus. First, by not getting involved and instead allowing a heinous crime to happen by permitting a murderer to exercise his freewill he automatically negates someone elses freewill: the victim. So his passive attitude cant be about freewill as far as im concerned. Its a bs excuse

Second, what if I sat by and watched a murder, and could have rung the police. My excuse as to why i didnt being: "i was allowing the murder to exercise his free will...just like God". Gimme a break.

You mention that God sometimes stops murders and does intercede. But its also true that God often intercedes in very disgusting and bizarre ways if you believe the bible. He got wound up because everyone on earth was working as a team and making a rather large skyscraper (babel). And he imposed this wise law in deut:

A son should not be put to death for the sins of the father, and the father should not be put to death for the sins of the son. Each should be put to death for their own sin

He then proceeds to break the above law when he kills bathsheba and david's son because of a sin committed by David. He killed 70000 people (THATS 70000) because david sinned a mighty sin (Add sarcasm here) and took a census of Israel.

What kind of hypocritical nut case god is that? He stands by and does nothing when the most heinous sh-t happens. He kills people for the sins of someone else when he does intercedes. And he makes nasty little worms that burrow into peoples eyes (see the attenborough quote). Thats some crazy God

Just for people who think God should be able to live according to different standard than man, and do what he wants. Heres a poser for you: IF God came down and killed a family member of yours for no reason (commited murder) and in the most disgusting way, would you follow him? I know my answer!

Everything i see in the real world just contradicts the existence of the apparently loving and all powerful Christian God. The above reasons are why i stopped believing years ago!

I have studied the Bible and this site a bit and although this does not make me question my own faith at all I am left wondering how I respond to this and was wondering if some people here with more knowledge on the topic could give me some pointers on what to say.

Thanks

Personally I am very wary and reticent when it comes to getting into discussions on message boards with anyone who posts something of that nature. Not that I don't do so, but I do so with great caution and care. For any meaningful dialogue to take place - as opposed to pushing opinion at another and scoring points - there needs to be a genuine willingness to look for where one's own perceptions of God may be in error and need amending. Such discussions are extremely rare although I do recall some occurring on this board (between humble and mature Christians) where such was the case. They are a joy to follow.

One thing that may be helpful in attempting to understand this person is that his view of God is so skewed that his god is honestly not worth believing in anyway. His description of God does not match my own understanding of God whom I worship - our Creator Father God who is overwhelmingly loving, patient, holy and righteous, full of wisdom, magnificent, awesome and powerful. It is probably best that this person doesn't believe in his own notion of God as what he has described sounds pretty awful to me - a product of his own highly coloured misunderstandings and ignorance.

This person did once believe, so I wonder what has caused his loss of faith? It may have been an immature faith in a poor representation of God, or maybe some painful life event has caused hostility towards God, or (and which is often the case) the fact of sin becoming the obstacle to a real relationship. On a message board you may never get close enough to someone to know, and then the best thing (and always the best thing anyway) is keeping that person in your prayers. After all, it is the Holy Spirit who convicts us, who draws us to God, who is the one to orchestrate the best approach and give whatever words are needed to be spoken. Follow His lead and if you feel you are given words to write, then write them - and if not, then simply pray for him instead.

Others may have a different approach again. This is the rationale behind my own responses. We are used by God in a variety of ways because we all have different gifts, and my way will not necessarily be your way. It will be interesting to read what others have to write in response to this question.

Judah -- When someone walks around with notions like these, it's our job to put him on the right track, I think. Even if he puts things very aggressively.

New Guy -- I wouldn't press the 'free will' issue. I would press 'responsibility'. In the case of murder, who would be responsible for the murder -- God, or the direct murderer?
Why does God allow evil? Simply because 1) it's a result of the Fall and 2) we need to get a sense of responsibility. If God would interfere whenever something bad was about to happen (and what is bad? death? blindness? a broken leg? dirty underwear?), we would get very careless. We would remain immature children. Just step onto the road, traffic won't hurt you...God will interfere.
Another example: the famous writer John Bunyan, when still in his 'blasphemous days', was very shaken by the deaths of two people close to him. These experiences contributed to his salvation and his zeal for spreading the Gospel. His books have been used by God to draw countless people to salvation; it was the means of saving these people. Would it be better if these deaths had not happened and all the readers who were saved because of reading the book would spend eternity in Hell?
Also note what JP Holding says on the subject:

JP Holding wrote:For any thoughtful person, there will not be emotional questions like, "why does God allow this or that disaster to happen?" The obvious answer to any thoughtgul person is that God has no obligation to fix our mistakes, especially when we spend so much time telling God, via our own disobeying of His rules, that He can take a flying leap. If someone wants to complain about this, then why are they spending so much time writing and complaining about it? Why aren't they counseling possible future offenders? Why aren't they out feeding starving children? The end of the argument is the idea that if you are able to help and don't do it right now, you must be depraved (or in God's case, not exist). But intelligent Christians will aver that God WILL someday judge the world and that evil people WILL get what they deserve. That they don't get it RIGHT NOW because some mush-for-brains fundy atheist wants to throw a temper tantrum is not an argument against God or prayer at all.

About the Babel 'skyscraper': the sin wasn't building the tower, the sin was an excess of pride. Man wanted to be God, and man needed a lesson. He got 'wound up because everyone on earth was working as a team' when he had specifically stated they were to 'fill the earth' (Genesis 1:28.).

About the son of David and Bathseba, this is what...well...JP Holding says on the subject:

JP Holding wrote:David was king, and set an example for his nation. A visible judgment was required to set against any idea that others could blithely follow in David's steps in sinning. We can hear the rising whine at once: "Who cares? Is God an egotist?" No, God is holy, and God is concerned that the greatest number of people will come to Him for their eternal salvation. Skeptics who tend to think only of the moment have no conception of the out working ripple effect of individual actions (or inaction). If having no effect at all meant that thousands who otherwise would have come to God and found eternal life instead went to eternal condemnation, is that worth the physical (not eternal) life of one person? For Christians this is a no-brainer: The death of one man paid for the salvation of billions. Visible judgment upon a very public offense as the means to accomplish the same, though to a lesser extent. Let the skeptics gnaw on their sound bite; they are time out of mind and thinking in two dimensions as usual.

I never said Holding would give soft responses.

About the census (information from Christian Thinktank):
- Israel had been naughty, and was under God's judgement before David took that census. The census was only the direct cause of God's punishment; Israel had been disobedient for a longer time.
- God allowed Satan to stir up David to take a census.
- Taking a census was not forbidden. However, there were rules, described in Exodus 30:11-16: every counted Israelite (of 20 years and older) had to pay a ransom of a half shekel. This 'atonement money' was donated to the tabernacle. Vs. 12 stated very clearly that a plague would come if people did not hold to this rule.
- General Joab knew that David ordered the census out of pride, which indicated that the rules were not going to be followed. In other words, the sin was not the census, but pride and resulting disobedience.
- A plague that killed 70,000 people and lasted only 3 days was rather light, compared to other plagues of the day. In the Hittite kingdom, there was a plague of 20 years. In Greece, during the time of Pericles, pestilence killed at least a third of the population, possibly two thirds. In the Roman Empire, there was a plague that lasted a century and killed 10,000 people in Campagna only. Another plague took away somewhere between 25%-35% of the entire Roman Empire. A century afterwards, 5,000 people died each day in Rome alone...and this plague lasted at least 16 years.

'What kind of loving God is this? He does not immediately pass judgement on every sin we commit, but is lenient and merciful, and only punishes when it is necessary. He goes to great lengths to show wicked humans that sinful behaviour will never be rewarding in the end. And he makes great lions that shake their manes in a very impressive way. That's some kind of aesthetic God...'

Here's a poser for the atheist: God never came down to kill a family member, and certainly never out of spite. Murderers regularly kill someone's family members, which is why God is God and they are not.
In fact, the most tragic, disgusting, horrible death in history was a case of God killing His own family member, His Son Jesus Christ, 'so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life'. What does that tell you about God's love for humanity and the caution we should apply in making negative statements about God too quickly? I know my answer!

Turgonian wrote:Judah -- When someone walks around with notions like these, it's our job to put him on the right track, I think. Even if he puts things very aggressively.

Judah wrote:Personally I am very wary and reticent when it comes to getting into discussions on message boards with anyone who posts something of that nature. Not that I don't do so, but I do so with great caution and care.

You have an excellent approach with your apologia, Turgonian. If all Christians could deftly handle such questions from nonbelievers, especially from the more aggressive sceptics, it would surely do much to aid our evangelism.

* blushes * Thank you! Of course, when participating in discussions like these, I always have a second window open to check what the sources say (mainly Tektonics and Christian Thinktank). In oral debates, I wouldn't be able to come up with an answer so quickly...

I agree with the caution and care one has to use. I think the best thing to do is showing where the opponent is wrong, and then correcting him.

Hey thanks guys, I will post this link to the bloke in question and hopefully he'll have a read. I didn't plan on getting in a big discussion, I guess it just happened that way and I never really had before so I needed some pointers.