What do you think of this?

[Ozy]

I just read a thread from Quetzalcóatl and it got me thinking of a sort of contradiction I just found...

Well, that thread got me thinking of a passage from the book of James that for some reason I remember very well. Well, I dont have an english Bible, but the translation I found online was this, James 4:17: "to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin." The literal tanslation from the version of the Biblie I read to English is: He who knows how to do some good, yet doesnt do it, it is sin to him."

So, a good Christian has the responsability of doing the right thing and to help someone if he is able to. If one of your friends has cancer, and somehow you can cure his cancer, it is your responsability to help him/her. Of course none of us has superpowers so we cant do much. God, however, is supposed to be omnipotent, so can do it all, including healing your friend. Yet he doesnt do it.

Now, if a person does not help the guy with cancer if he can, then it is a sin for the person who could help but didnt, based on what is written on James 4:17. So, if it is a sin to not help, then how is God not sinning by not helping the other guy, if he knows how to o the right thing, and is able to, yet does nothing?

[Chaigidel]

to god I would think sin is meaningless; God always does the right thing, but its doing isnt one of a humans willful design; it is a sin for a man because we are in the same garden as the others; so to not help those you can is of course wrong; since the only mercy to be found is that which is given by those who seek it, and of course the mercy of death inherent in the universe.

god is helping you when It gives you cancer; it helps you when it kills what you love; you just dont understand how necessary your suffering is in this temporary existence; and even as you will understand it too will become meaningless as your toil again becomes manifest in the flesh; and so on and so on until god is born.

[Earl of Rochester]

Your forgetting, the Christian God can break his own rules. Just read the old testament. If inducing bears into a fury so that they maul children is not murder, then I don't really know what is...

[green tea]

A religious dogmatic would in this situation say something like "a simple human can not understand the ways and wisdom of the Lord, you just have to believe in salvation etc." (with more or less fitting quote from a holy book.)

That is their way to say: "If you want to believe, you are not allowed to think."

[Medicus]

A religious dogmatic would in this situation say something like "a simple human can not understand the ways and wisdom of the Lord, you just have to believe in salvation etc." (with more or less fitting quote from a holy book.)

That is their way to say: "If you want to believe, you are not allowed to think."

Don't forget the donations. How else do you think priests get such fine robes?

[Chaigidel]

just because the suffering and horror is repulsive to you do not make the same requirement of your master--- It enjoys your suffering as much as your joy-- a human can understand god, and its motivations but it requires your full madness, and it is a step from which there is no return.

[Ummon]

I just read a thread from Quetzalcóatl and it got me thinking of a sort of contradiction I just found...

Well, that thread got me thinking of a passage from the book of James that for some reason I remember very well. Well, I dont have an english Bible, but the translation I found online was this, James 4:17: "to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin." The literal tanslation from the version of the Biblie I read to English is: He who knows how to do some good, yet doesnt do it, it is sin to him."

So, a good Christian has the responsability of doing the right thing and to help someone if he is able to. If one of your friends has cancer, and somehow you can cure his cancer, it is your responsability to help him/her. Of course none of us has superpowers so we cant do much. God, however, is supposed to be omnipotent, so can do it all, including healing your friend. Yet he doesnt do it.

Now, if a person does not help the guy with cancer if he can, then it is a sin for the person who could help but didnt, based on what is written on James 4:17. So, if it is a sin to not help, then how is God not sinning by not helping the other guy, if he knows how to o the right thing, and is able to, yet does nothing?

God is not a human being.

[Ozy]

God is not a human being.

Jesus was.

[HopliteElite]

Can anyone conceive that if there is a God (creator) he is neutral? I, myself am an agnostic, in that I do not believe in a creator but if there was one, he/she/it would certainly be as imperfect as the world he/she/it created.

[kev-o]

Jesus was.

He was both.

[Dayman]

He was both.

So you claim.

[Ummon]

Jesus was.

Double nature.

[Zenith Darksea]

You have to contextualise. First of all, sin is only a concept that applies to humans in human situations - the Book of James was not only written for the benefit of human people, but moreover it has to be remembered that, in Christian theology, good and evil mediate a human's relationship with God, not the other way around.

Secondly, what is considered good and bad depends on the perception of the people involved. For example, you'd probably consider brutal torture and execution to be a bad thing, yet for Christian martyrs past and present (and there are a lot in the present day too) allowing themselves to be horribly persecuted allowed them to demonstrate their love for God in the best way that they could - by laying down their lives just as Christ did - and thus to attain salvation.

That leads on to the third point: humans have to take responsibility for their actions for them to be considered good or evil. Sure, God could remove all the unpleasantness from our existence (nothing has to exist except God anyway), but if God did everything for us then we would have no freedom of will and therefore no opportunity to choose good or evil, which would thus remove the whole reason for our existence in the first place.

[CtrlAltDe1337]

I just read a thread from Quetzalcóatl and it got me thinking of a sort of contradiction I just found...

Well, that thread got me thinking of a passage from the book of James that for some reason I remember very well. Well, I dont have an english Bible, but the translation I found online was this, James 4:17: "to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin." The literal tanslation from the version of the Biblie I read to English is: He who knows how to do some good, yet doesnt do it, it is sin to him."

So, a good Christian has the responsability of doing the right thing and to help someone if he is able to. If one of your friends has cancer, and somehow you can cure his cancer, it is your responsability to help him/her. Of course none of us has superpowers so we cant do much. God, however, is supposed to be omnipotent, so can do it all, including healing your friend. Yet he doesnt do it.

Now, if a person does not help the guy with cancer if he can, then it is a sin for the person who could help but didnt, based on what is written on James 4:17. So, if it is a sin to not help, then how is God not sinning by not helping the other guy, if he knows how to o the right thing, and is able to, yet does nothing?

"Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."
James 4:13-17

I see no contradiction here. James is addressing the wrong behavior of these people, not God. God is perfect and does no evil. Surely, he can and does use evil men to achieve his ultimate glorification, but he does no evil. What of your question though: if God has the power to do good to mankind yet he doesn't, doesn't that make him a doer of evil? No, it does not. Why not, you ask? Because of this: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:20). You see, all people have sinned in our head, Adam, and in ourselves. As such, God has decreed the death sentence on all of mankind. Therefore he is under no obligation whatsoever to do any good to man and any good that he does do is purely out of his mercy and grace. If God wanted to he could wipe all people off the face of the earth and be perfectly just. Of course, God became a man and offered up himself as the sacrifice for our sins that whosoever believes in him should not perish but inherit eternal life, but those who are not saved by the redemptive work of Christ are dammed by their own wickedness.

I hope that answered your question.

[wilting]

Surely, he can and does use evil men to achieve his ultimate glorification, but he does no evil.

I see no contradiction here. God is perfect and does no evil.

I think you need to look up the definition of contradiction.

Absolute power is no basis for morality. Those who bow down to this kind of 'morality' are intellectual and moral cowards. The abrahamic God is nothing better than a petty dictator.

Even if this God did exist, I would be sorely tempted to reject it. Given that so called 'heaven' supposedly consists of 'eternal praise' it sounds so bankrupt of independent thought and free will hell can't be much worse.