This area of questioning is actually what solidified by acceptance of evolution. A god that would place so many evidences of a deeply ancient universe and world in a young creation would be a deceiver of the worse kind. He would be paving the road to hell for those seeing such falsehoods, while claiming to love all and wanting to bring them into relationship with him. Such a god would be indistinguishable from the devil.
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Hi, I have only just joined this forum and hoping to engage in some construction discussion. So I hope this thread is still running.
Does it make any difference if a few or a few million people died in the flood?
It seems threads can be resurrected under certain circumstances â might be thanks to you even.
Provides me with the opportunity to address the main question about the character of God.
I can think of three elements of character implied by the YEC view for the god they apparently believe in.
- Liar: This is a god who sets up all the evidence from earth and sky to deceive everyone into believing something contrary to some âtruthâ hidden from all except those reading some old book in one particular culture and religion according to just the interpretations of that text by a minority of that religion. So if you buy into this rather preposterous âtruthâ then the god you believe in is quite the liar.
- Without integrity: This is a god who creates the universe to operate according to a set of rules he established, but cannot stick to those rules when he has to impress a bunch of savages so they will believe the âtruthâ according to that minor sect of one religion.
- Control freak: This is a god who creates intelligent beings but doesnât want them to use the intelligence he gave them. So he not only forbids them from partaking of a tree of knowledge of good and evil but then sets them up to make fools of themselves if they dare to use this intelligence to understand the world around them. Apparently this god doesnât want them to make ethical decisions but simply do whatever murder and genocide he orders. And he certainly doesnât want them to look at anything but this one special book as understood by this minority sect (things like the earth and sky). Guess he just wants mindless soldiers to do whatever they are told.
Conclusion: Either these people are worshiping the âgod of this world,â the one who has the implied character, or this is really about twisting a religion into a tool of power to support their own deception, lack of integrity, and obsession with power and control.
I donât think that any Christian believes in a god who is a liar, without integrity & a control freak. The Christian God is defined as love, light, righteous etc. and all Christians believe that whether or not they are âYECâ or âevolutionistâ. Wouldnât you agree?
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Many have said there is a difference between what one says one believes and that which their own behavior shows they believe. Many things in the Bible tell us that it is the latter which really matters. Of course you may not consider the inconsistencies in their thinking as falling into this category of belief proven by behavior. But while one may refrain from judging others in this way, one has to make judgments with regards to your own choices about what to believe and how to live. And in that regard, one has excellent reasons to choose against belief in a God who by implication is more like the devil with such a use of deception, lack of integrity, and so obsessed with power and control. It makes far more sense to me as a motivation of those twisting religion into a tool of power for themselves.
Both numbers are absurd. The earth cannot support 7 billion without radical changes to the environment which leaves its mark in many ways which will always be measurable. And it is even more doubtful that the Earth can even support 10 trillion people at all, especially without a widespread layer of bones to be found.
Heâs a liar.
Do I understand you correctly? Are you are saying that a YEC is worshiping a false god, which means that they are in fact not Christian?
It canât support a thousandth of that concurrently. Although it has supported a tenth of that (OOM) over the past 400,000 years.
I was answering the question of this thread about the character of God according to YEC. Like C.S. Lewis in âThe Last Battle,â I happen to think the character of the god you worship is more important than the name you use â the only real way to distinguish between God and the devil. But also like in that book, this is ultimately something for God to say, not me. Furthermore, I donât define being Christian in that way according to the character of the god you worship but define it according to a defining set of beliefs set down by the council of Nicea 325AD. Nor do I equate being Christian with being right or good. On top of that, I explained this is not about passing judgement on them but making my own judgement about what I am going to believe.
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Thanks for the clarification.
As Christian YEC, I would say that the character of God is as I mentioned earlier, love, light, righteous, the list goes onâŚ
I would also say that this is entirely consistent with the history recorded in the Bible.
Even including the flood which Noah survived by building an ark.
Why does it matter if it was 1000, a million or a billion?
I would have thought the issue here is, did God send a (global) flood which killed (all but 8) people and how could a God of love do such a thing?
In a sense I agree with you that we all have to evaluate how we see the flood story compared with out understanding of God, but if I use an analogy: If 4 friends at a boarding school sneak out at night and are caught. They might expect to be grounded for a week, or lose certain privileges. That would be in proportion. But if everyone in the school or in the country lost all privileges for a year, except for 8 students - there would be a huge cry of injustice! It would seem that rather than teaching a lesson, the teacher giving out the judgement is rather too fond of causing pain!
This is not proof that there was no global flood - there are other lines of evidence for that. But my original concern was the bad things that the YEC teaching is implying about who God is.
OK, But, if the whole school sneaked out, then justice would mean the whole school would be disciplined.
The traditional / historical view is that at the time of Noah the whole population was sinning is such a way that they all deserved the judgement which came.
Genesis 6:5:
(âŚ) the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time
While I happen to think the flood was rather local event, wiping out a first human civilization, anywhere from 1,000 to 500,000 people, I would compare this event to the one which wiped out the dinosaurs. Whining about how terrible God is to be so cruel to all those adorable dinosaurs is ridiculous and wiping out supremely nasty human civilization, which was by all description the epitome of evil, is even less cause for bringing such a case against God.
Evolution demonstrates that there is no life without suffering and death â it is an essential part of how life grows, learns, and develops. And God is the one with that responsibility to decide when pruning shears are needed or putting the whole field to the torch if required. According the account in the Bible, it was a decision painfully made, and God was not sure we were even worth the effort, because it was clearly for our sake that God did what He did.
Think about it. The closest example of such evil in modern times is Nazi Germany and thus to complain about the flood is like saying we should all accept the rule of Hitler over our lives and destiny rather than being so cruel as to drop bombs on Berlin.
Of course Marc. He did not.
However one takes the flood account in Genesis, we have an interesting perspective on it in 1 Peter. Apparently, those sinful people who perished in the flood were reached by Jesus:
For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. (1 Peter 3:18â20)
Why would Jesus proclaim anything to the dead? Peter answers that question in the next paragraph:
But they will have to give an account to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does. (1 Peter 4:5â6)
So it appears everyone gets a fair shake â even the proverbially wicked generation of the flood. We have all the more reason to live in a way that reflects Godâs love to others, because this may even impact people who donât seem at all moved by it on this side of the grave. But once they face Jesus and receive the full story, our past interactions may take on new resonances that lead some to praise God rather than remaining apart:
Conduct yourselves honourably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honourable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge. (1 Peter 2:12)
@Marshall, thatâs one interpretation. A more coherent one is that Jesus preached to the demons. Where âPeterâ got the idea from is a mystery.
God is just like them and worse but for good eh? What good is that by the way?
Nope!
The word âglobalâ is not in the story, nor is the concept of the Earth as a globe or planet in the Bible. Instead the idea of the Earth was that of a table which only matches reality if we are talking about a very small section of the planet.