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how do you not believe that god is the source of evil, etc.

after all, if man is created in god's image and man is selfish, judgemental, etc, doesn't that automatically mean that god is too?

2007-06-18 15:34:33 · 23 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture Religion & Spirituality

23 answers

Indeed. Christians try to have their cake and eat it too by saying "Well, God created us in His image", yet their behavior is apparently not similar at all to God's. At any rate, God says that he was the source of evil in the Bible.

"I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."

2007-06-18 15:38:58 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1 1

Augustine essentially makes the point that evil does not actually exist, per se

Here are a number of excerpts from Confessions Book VII

***

free will is the cause of our doing evil and that your just judgment is the cause of our having to suffer from its consequences...

God is good, yes, most mightily and incomparably better than all his works. But yet he who is good has created them good; behold how he encircles and fills them. Where, then, is evil, and whence does it come and how has it crept in? What is its root and what its seed? Has it no being at all? Why, then, do we fear and shun what has no being?

Therefore, whatsoever is, is good. Evil, then, the origin of which I had been seeking, has no substance at all; for if it were a substance, it would be good.

To you [God] there is no such thing as evil, and even in your whole creation taken as a whole, there is not; because there is nothing from beyond it that can burst in and destroy the order which you have appointed for it.

***

Evil is simply the name we give to the absence of goodness - it is not a "thing" such that it needs substance or source. He identified this as the principal Manichean error.

When we do evil, we are not acting in God's agency, or reproducing the image we are made in. Rather, we are executing our own will. Not only is it not a function of his will when we do this evil, in a very real way, it does not even exist to him.

2007-06-18 22:53:15 · answer #2 · answered by evolver 6 · 0 1

Excellent point, which is exactly why man cannot be God's image. Does God have useless organs too? Or a poorly designed knee? Is God in the same family as other apes? I think not. If there is a higher power, it certainly is not human at all.

2007-06-18 22:38:25 · answer #3 · answered by khard 6 · 1 0

God did NOT create evil man did. You might say, well God created man, so He indirectly also created evil, but this is not so. Here's why. God Himself abhors sin. Sin is the very thing that cannot be compared to the character of God. You have heard it said can God lie? But given God's Character and nature, that's like asking, what does the color blue taste like? The context doesn't make sense. God created man. But man sinned on His own accord on His own free will. You cannot create darkness because darkness is nothing more than the absence of Light! And you cannot create Cold because cold is the absence of Heat! Like wise, God did not create sin because sin is the absence of Love. And God Himself is Love. When Satan deceived Adam and Eve He was able to do so by means of Adam disobeying God, and Eve committing the first act of sin. God did not nor can He create sin, it is simply out of His nature be it directly or indirectly. God had no part in the creation of sin, only man. Therefore, man, who being deceived by sin, was caused to sin. SIN HAS NO LOVE IN IT! therefore, God plays NO part in it!

2007-06-18 22:44:36 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

seeing that imperfection and symmetry is a misnomer in humanity's image, I would imagine perfection as being evil and imperfection as being whole ly and born right as we are without the need for change into the utopian lie of perfection

you can't remove have a good god and evil subgod if a god is said to create all we know and see

2007-06-18 22:40:11 · answer #5 · answered by voice_of_reason 6 · 1 0

when God created man in His own image which was all good but that was before satan came along and done his thing and got kicked out of heaven and then with Adam and Eve. all the other stuff came after the first sin, that's where all the hate, selfishness and judgmental came from, not God.

2007-06-18 22:56:32 · answer #6 · answered by Believer 3 · 2 1

Well, at first, Adam and Eve were perfect, BUT, they took what they didn't need. They were aloud to do anything they wanted with one restriction, and finally, they were tempted into it. That was what tainted the human image and gave us all these problems, and what made us weak and made our relationship of being in God's image kind of like that thing with those snakes (not relating to the biblical image here at all) one is really poisoness and one just looks like it is. But God isn't poisoness so...that was a bad example...

2007-06-18 22:49:15 · answer #7 · answered by RATTATATATATATATA 3 · 0 1

Man was created in God's image, but unfortunately they chose to disobey God and follow Satan (Gen 3:1-7) and now Satan's influence has spread over the entire world.

It is up to us as individuals to chose to go back to doing things God's way and become selfless, non-judgemental, and most of all loving, which is God's most overriding quality.

2007-06-18 22:40:37 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0 2

What if .. it meant that created in God's image was just a wee bit mistranslated and that it means we are all a part of God?
We all have a little piece of him with us and the whole of all us is the true God?

I just don't know yet

2007-06-18 22:47:20 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1 1

Oh c'mon,
Just as the angel that rebelled and BECAME Satan,
So it is with the human pair that rebelled and BECAME imperfect.

On that note, if there is no creator, then how does atheism explain why there is more evil in the world than good as regards the inclinations of man?
Stands to reason, that if being good towards each other, or being bad towards each other was something left to chance, then, 50% of all humans would be doing good, and 50% would be doing bad.

2007-06-18 22:36:30 · answer #10 · answered by Tim 47 7 · 1 2

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