Why did god do evil things, and why can't Christians see it for what it is?

Question

Example:
(Exodus 12:29) At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

Or how about the flood? He DROWNED thousands or millions of babies. Try to imagine that. Now tell me why god is good.

How does reading the entire bible change anything? God is supposed to have done these things. There is NO justifiable reason for either one of them. As to the drownings, that happened with the flood. The bible says all living things that breathed air were killed.

Jean J: If god can do anything he wants, then why does he choose to drown babies? Just because god does it does not make it right.

Wolf: I am pro-life so think again.

Why do you Chrisitans not understand that THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION for these acts, even if god does them? THEY ARE EVIL. God could have simply disintegrated them all with no pain but he did not. God knew what these people would do when he created them, but created them anyway and then caused their pain when they did what he knew they would do.

Answer 1

Well, that does seem like he would be evil now, doesn't it. But what you are overlooking is that in both of these instances there was another way out for these people that God had revealed, and they refused to take it. For instance, in the Exodus passage, it was only necessary to mark the door and the house would be passed over and the first born would be spared. Those who refused to do it payed the consequences. The same thing applies in the flood. Noah was building the ark for a very long time. People knew what he was doing it and why, yet they chose to continue living how they wanted instead of listening. They paid the consequences, and unfortunately the parents of the children chose death for their children.

If I see you about to walk out in front of a bus with your child and tell you not to, but you refuse and do it anyway, does that make me evil? They had a choice and made bad ones. That doesn't make God evil. He set down the laws and the consequences and these people are only being punished because they can't follow the laws.

Answer 2

Why did you exclude the part where God the Father Almighty told Moses WHY Ee was going to strike down every first born male child in Egypt? He did so because the Egyptians were evil and wicked in His sight and would not listen to the pleas of Moses and the Israelites. If you go back and actually read The Bible you will see that God does not have unlimited patience. You will also see that those He strikes down (like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and the inhabitants of Jericho) aren't killed for the sheer heck of it -- they are killed for the same reasons each first born male child in Israel was killed. Punishment for evil and wickedness is a recurring theme in the Word of God. Don't confuse evil with justice, and don't fail to heed His warning. God is very real, and He has provided us a chance to live with Him eternally in Heaven, but He has also told us that the time will come for every man and woman who ever lived to give an account, and when your time comes if you haven't accepted the free gift of grace through the blood of Jesus Christ it'll be too late (you know, ETERNITY: Smoking or non-smoking?)

P.S.: Individual free-thinker? Not believing in a higher power somehow makes this guy more enlightened and more intelligent than those of us who believe?!?!! PLEASE!!!

Answer 3

God struck down the firstborn of Egypt as a warning to the Egyptians to let his people go. He drowned people of ALL ages when the adults didn't believe Noah about the flood God was sending. It's extremely ironic to me that liberals seem to care so much about everyone else's babies, but some of them think nothing of killing their own. Get the beam out of your own eye before pointing out the mote in someone else's.

Answer 4

As a christian, I would have to say that your question has been asked by Christians and non believers for years. I believe that man knew and felt that there was a higher being besides himself. Everything that happened, whether good or bad, that being, God, was given credit for it. I try to look past all the questions and center my thoughts on one other thing and that is, is there a God? Your question signifies that you believe in something, but you're not sure why this God, did things like He did. You will not ever get all the answers you seek while here on this earth, but not having all the answers is no reason to not trust in Him. I have a million questions, but I trust Him and I'll worry about the questions later.

Answer 5

In your opinion, which is limited, misguided, uniformed, brazen, and resentful, God was unjust.

But you know, if you want to use the flood as an example - okay. The Word says Noah was a prophet and a preacher....he didn't just build an ark and float away one day. He warned the people of the CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR SINS, and he proclaimed God's goodness and love towards them, if they would forsake their evil and turn back to God. Period.

They ignored Noah's warnings, went their own way, and suffered the JUST AND RIGHTEOUS CONSEQUENCE of their rebellion.

Using your logic, Sadaam Hussein was unjustly murdered even though he himself was a weapon of mass destruction.

You can't understand justice, until you understand what evil TRULY is.

And you don't have the understanding for either.....therefore, don't judge God as one or the other, since you don't recognize one from the other.

Answer 6

first of all you taking scripture out of text. God has never done evil. what you are referring to is the first passover because of the pharoh refusal to let the moses's people out of slavery so god made those pestulants happen. god's people that obeyed & had the lambs blood on the door sills was passed over. the flood also happened because god was tired of the people being evil only noah & his family along with 2 of every kind of animal was spared because Noah was the only man to be faithful to god.
god has always been & will always be good, benelvelent. buddy if you were (thank god i'm not) i would look a little closer read more before i make the statements such as you did ! beware !

Answer 7

Your question is stupid. You asked how the Creator does evil things. But morality is either determined by the Creator; or, if there is not one, it is a meaningless construct created by humans, at which point it is not real, it's just a conglomoration of wishes on how we wish thing would be and things we disaprove of for convenience's sake.

If there is a Creator, and he determines morality, then all his actions are by definition moral.

If there no Creator, then neither he nor morality exist and your question is why a fictional charector does things you disaprove of. The only answer is because you chose to disaprove.

And your emotional "there is no JUSTIFICATION" is retarded. Justification before what based on what set of rules? If he is the Creator, he is the rule maker and the Judge. If you meen no justification before you, who wrote the rules you are judging by and where did they get this infinte authority to write the universal rule book by which everyone elses actions are judged?

Answer 8

When we make the statement that God is good, what do we mean by good?

Our natural tendency is to believe that if God is good and He loves mankind, then He will make life pleasant for us.

Consequently, when things go well for us, we're inclined to think that God is good, and when they don't, we question His goodness or even His existence.

Our current happiness is not a standard by which to judge God's goodness.

We are not the center of the universe, not the reference point against which goodness can be judged. It sounds silly even to say it, but we act and think as though God's goodness depends on how well we like what's going on.

We are not in a position to judge the goodness of God's actions. We see too small a part of the overall picture — a picture that covers all of time and all of mankind.

The only way for us to know whether God is good is to get to know Him, to experience His character first hand.

When God reveals Himself to us, then we know that He is good.

That is our experience of Him. Goodness beyond imagining, goodness that is pure and true and complete.

When we know that God is good, then we begin to see Him bringing good out of sufferings and tragedies.

This is the form God's goodness takes in our world: He works to bring every person to a knowledge of Himself and to an active relationship with Himself.

This is goodness: to know God, to experience His love and guidance in our lives.

Is God good? There is no other good but God. He is the source of everything that is good.

Answer 9

in your eyes it was evil. The thing about killing the firstborn, blame that on pharoah. He didn't wanna release the Israelites after the frist plagues. That's the last straw. Truman did the same thing in WWII. Japanese wouldn't surrender so we sent them 2 gifts. as for the flood, well that's capital punishment.

* i apologize if things didn't come out how i wanted it too :D

Answer 10

First, Passover freed thousands of Israelites... children, mothers, fathers, etc.
Second, the flood washed out a generation of non believers... they forgot God.
You have to read on to know the whole story.

God has all rights to kill who ever He wants.