Bet51987 wrote:I don't hate the bible. I said it was full of hate. Gods revenge on this and that...Calling me a sinner before I was born, and tons of other stuff. I read it all...and found no comfort, or belief, in its words.
I still live a moral life though, but I got that from my dad.
Bettina
Hi Bettina,
I understand your anger, but in your reading the Bible it seems you have missed a few things. You are a sinner and so am I. Everyone is a sinner. What is a sinner? Everyone may have an opinion, but what does the Bible really say about this? "Sin" had an origin, and it's roots are found in free will.
Free will can be a horrible quality or a joyful quality. It all depends on what you do with it.
Why do people suffer and die? How can a loving God allow wicked things to occur?
God is a living being with a personality. He has standards. He has personal limits (as awful as that may sound to some, it's still true), which he has established for the good of all creatures. God's four main attributes are Love, Power, Justice, and Wisdom. All these qualities balance each other. He does not tell others to do something he himself would not do. He does not have a double standard, one for himself and another for everyone else. God's justice, to be truly righteous, must be the same for everyone, including himself. God's power is held in check by his justice. His justice is determined by his wisdom, and all these are held together by his love.
God has humility: he is always willing to acquiesce to another opinion, if that opinion can be found to be valid. He is willing to allow time to prove that other opinions are better than his own. Which is why the world is in its current condition.
Satan told Eve that God had lied. He also told her God's restrictions were keeping her from becoming like God, that she would be able to set her own limits as to what was good and what was bad. These accusations against God implied that God's direction was flawed and his authority did not demonstrate what was best for all living creatures. Eve was deceived and believed Satan. Adam was not deceived, but agreed to side with Eve (and Satan) and he willingly rejected God's authority. This one act by Adam lead the human race into sin, the state of imperfection and alienation from God.
How a loving father confronts a rebellious child will be determined by two things: the age of the child, and the severity of the child's actions. If the child is old enough, the father may be forced kick the child out of his house to preserve peace for everyone else.
Satan was God's child. A very powerful creature who had held a position of great authority within God's kingdom – a kingdom inhabited by millions of angels. His accusations could not be ignored. His name, Satan, means resister, his title Devil, means slanderer.
For God's justice to be righteous, God must allow Satan time to prove his accusations. So instead of removing the rebels immediately, God allowed them time to prove themselves. Because of this, God has removed himself from the world, and is letting the results of Satan's efforts proclaim who is truly the righteous one. Because Adam willfully sided with Satan we are living the consequences, a world set apart from God, populated with imperfect, dying humans, ruled by the rebellious and slanderous Satan. This condition will continue until every possible option has been tried by Satan to achieve success without God's influence.
When all options have failed, then God will be justified. The slander upon his name will be removed and he will permanently kick out all rebels from his kingdom to restore peace. This is the main theme of the Bible: The sanctification of God's name. Jesus taught his followers to pray first for the sanctification of God's name before anything else. (“Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”)
Our redemption is an act of mercy on God's part; an undeserved kindness for the offspring of the rebel Adam, who, because of his actions, passed on to his children nothing but death and suffering. But God will be faithful, and at the appointed time, will wipe out every tear from our eyes, and death will be no more.
