If God is good, is God also bad?

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juniper

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This is something I struggle with. I have for many many years, and one of the reasons I don't believe that God (god, gods) are involved in individual personal lives.

When something nice, fun, helpful, positive happens, certain people credit God for it. "God is good." "God is good!!!!!" "God answered my prayers."

But when something wrong, evil, negative happens, I don't see those people saying, "God is bad." "God didn't answer my prayers."

When a football player who just scored a winning touchdown says, "God was on my side," does that mean God wasn't on the side of the defensive player who failed to stop the touchdown? So God plays favorites? He likes the orange team better than the green team?

This week a semi-tragedy with my grandson turned into a massive relief when he walked out of the hospital 2 days after being struck by a car and sent into ICU in seemingly critical condition. My husband posted about it on FB and he got many nice responses. I shook my head over the ones that were along the lines of "God is good."

Because, what if he hadn't survived, or had been brain damaged, or lost a leg, or something else bad had happened? What would the FB posts have said then?

If someone credits God with a good thing, shouldn't that person also blame God when a bad thing occurs?

:Shrug:

I guess that's why the notion of the devil came into play. He's the one to blame for bad stuff - but still, if God is considered the ultimate power, he should be able to stop the devil - if he wanted to, which apparently he didn't, so then God's playing favorites again.

I really, really don't understand this thinking. When I question my husband about it, he says it doesn't make sense either, but then he makes comments about God being good ... he attends a Christian church and I don't.

Can someone talk me through this? Explain the reasoning?

I hope this doesn't sound confrontational. I don't mean it that way - I'm just confused by this and have been for a long time. The incident with my grandson this week brought it back into my thoughts.
 

sassandgroove

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I am not an expert. I grew up in church but I don't attend anymore. I feel that what those people are doing and what you are asking is a way people comfort themselves but not necessarily accurate. Does that make sense? I have doubts and question too even though I pray every day. I don't understand stuff in the old testament about offerings and why Jesus had to die for us, but I still pray to God and Jesus. I don't know the answer to your question. I know that when we were given free will (Eve at the apple) evil and sin entered the picture. I don't know where I'm going with that. Bad things happen to good people and I don't know why. Good things happen to bad people, too. I know people who say that God can bring good out of bad events. I'm going to stop now.

Can someone talk me through this? Explain the reasoning?
Maybe there isn't reasoning? Faith is believing when you don't know or understand. So I'vebeen told.
 
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Alpha Echo

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I wish I could help you, but I struggle with a lot myself. I grew up in a Christian home attending a Baptist church. I no longer go to church, but my entire family does. My mother has turned into something I don't even speak to anymore (she's so far to the right it becomes insanity). My father and stepmom as well as my baby sister and her husband are all active in their churches (my brother-in-law is the praise pastor), and I respect and love them greatly.

But I still have ideas and questions with which they don't seem to struggle.

This past weekend, I visited my sister, and late in the night, she asked me how my relationship was with God. I knew she wasn't asking to pry or to pester or lecture or anything but out of a pure and kind heart that genuinely worries for me. I told her I feel I'm great with God - I pray every night, and my faith has never wavered.

And yet.

And yet I wonder the same things you do. I question how the Old Testament and the New Testament can possible be speaking of the same God. I prefer to believe the New Testament and follow Jesus' example of love than to believe in the wrath and fury of the Old. I believe Jesus loves homosexuals and transgenders and everyone in between all the same. I believe that my God may be your Allah and his Buddha.

When I asked my sister why...why God can't be the same across religions...but different (if that makes sense), her words made me cringe, "Because our Bible tells us so." (Okay, not those exact words, but still).

When I asked her why we have to believe our Bible, what makes ours right and everyone else's wrong, she said she thinks it's because ours gives us an alternative - should we not believe we go to hell. But that's not an answer. Our Bible should be just as infallible as all the other books on gods, so...what if they really are all written about the same God? The same Jesus? Or in the very least, a belief in something bigger and better and stronger than all of us?

Needless to say, our conversation went in circles. she's probably one of the few people IRL I can talk to about this without being hurt...or hurting in return.

I'm so sorry. This became a derail as I just kind of spilled out my recent struggles.

I wish I had an answer for you, but there is so much we can't understand. Perhaps we're not meant to. Perhaps Sass is right and that's where Faith comes in.

I can say that I believe in God and Jesus with all my heart and soul. That has never faltered. Not really. That doesn't mean I don't question soooooo many things. Everything. From the words and stories of the Bible to the existence of hell. And I'll never understand how anyone can be truly joyful at the idea of the second coming...and coming now. I want to live my life here first, before I find out what's on the other side.
 

sassandgroove

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AlphaEcho said:
I believe that my God may be your Allah and his Buddha.
I feel that way too. I wonder if we have so many churches and places of worship and worship styles because we all interpret our sense of God differently.
 

Alpha Echo

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I feel that way too. I wonder if we have so many churches and places of worship and worship styles because we all interpret our sense of God differently.

That's exactly what I think. And is that so wrong? Why does it have to be "my" God the way this book says...or no God at all?
 

Devil Ledbetter

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This is something I struggle with. I have for many many years, and one of the reasons I don't believe that God (god, gods) are involved in individual personal lives.

When something nice, fun, helpful, positive happens, certain people credit God for it. "God is good." "God is good!!!!!" "God answered my prayers."

But when something wrong, evil, negative happens, I don't see those people saying, "God is bad." "God didn't answer my prayers."

When a football player who just scored a winning touchdown says, "God was on my side," does that mean God wasn't on the side of the defensive player who failed to stop the touchdown? So God plays favorites? He likes the orange team better than the green team?

This week a semi-tragedy with my grandson turned into a massive relief when he walked out of the hospital 2 days after being struck by a car and sent into ICU in seemingly critical condition. My husband posted about it on FB and he got many nice responses. I shook my head over the ones that were along the lines of "God is good."

Because, what if he hadn't survived, or had been brain damaged, or lost a leg, or something else bad had happened? What would the FB posts have said then?

If someone credits God with a good thing, shouldn't that person also blame God when a bad thing occurs?

:Shrug:

I guess that's why the notion of the devil came into play. He's the one to blame for bad stuff - but still, if God is considered the ultimate power, he should be able to stop the devil - if he wanted to, which apparently he didn't, so then God's playing favorites again.

I really, really don't understand this thinking. When I question my husband about it, he says it doesn't make sense either, but then he makes comments about God being good ... he attends a Christian church and I don't.

Can someone talk me through this? Explain the reasoning?

I hope this doesn't sound confrontational. I don't mean it that way - I'm just confused by this and have been for a long time. The incident with my grandson this week brought it back into my thoughts.

I can only come at this from an atheist viewpoint, fwiw.

I call what you're describing God Always Gets A Pass. Believers attribute good things to God, and bad things to "the fallen world" "free will" "the fallen nature of humans" "the devil" and so on. At best they will attribute a bad thing to God but make it out to be a good thing e.g., "God needed another angel." "God sent that hurricane because of teh gays and abortions." Or they'll make it out to be a mystery, "God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform, we are too puny to understand" and so on.

I see these as outs that allow the believer to continue believing despite evidence that (for a nonbeliever, at least) contradicts God's goodness or even his existence.

The other thing I think about God is that how one describes him tells you more about the describer than it does about God.
 
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Ken

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God is a billion times wiser than us mortals. So IMO it is probably not a productive thing to try to understand the ways of God. It is comparable to an ant trying to understand the ways of Man. That is nothing to be ashamed of. Rather it is something to be awed by. And that is why we have built churches in His honor and pray to Him and worship Him. That is in short why He is God ! And between us, if anyone at all is able to translate God's actions it is our priests. That, my friend, is their function. So return to the fold, pronto. Amongst other things you've got a hug coming to thee from me :)
 
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kuwisdelu

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I'm not Christian, so I can't speak to a Christian interpretation.

But I believe gods are fallible and aren't all-powerful.

Things get a lot simpler when you discard omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence.
 

stephenf

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Humans have struggled with with their life and it's meaning . Gods are a human invention , in an attempt to answer some of the mystery of life. Gods don't actuly exist .
 
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Chris P

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I think what you're reacting to in people's "God is good" statements is a shallow theology, but a well-meaning one nevertheless. I got really annoyed after September 11 with all the email stories about the guy who stopped to buy his wife an anniversary card and missed being in the towers. The conclusion is that God was watching over him. What about the 3000 people he, by that reasoning, wasn't watching out for? Therefore all I can say about people who say such things is to take the good intentions for what they are.

A deeper theology is one where the believer accepts suffering and tragedy as something that happens despite God being good all the time. I don't subscribe to the idea that God causes suffering to test us (he allowed Job in the Bible to be tested, but that was a one-off, and the book itself tells us so). Nor do I believe that suffering is a tit-for-tat consequence of sin, or that it all cosmically balances in some way and suffering is necessary to experience the joys. What I believe, and might not be able to say very well here, is that the grace of God works through the suffering, no matter how bad it gets. He's still there in our lives, even though nasty stuff is happening. There are still principled ways I'm expected to behave in the midst of it. At a most basic level I look for what I can learn from suffering, or else I've gone through it all for nothing.

Although as a Christian I "officially" believe in the Devil, he doesn't play very much into my daily activities or even when things get bad. In a lot of ways, the presence of the Devil creates more questions than it answers (not you, Devil Ledbetter! You're aces!). That's one part of my theology that probably bears more reflection.
 
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Osulagh

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The atheism in this thread....


This is one of those sunday school questions that come up rather often, and possibly one of the problems with historic revisions done to the bible.

One of the more common interpretations of the Christian God's "bad" actions is to have a good outcome. This takes several forms, most notably to "test your faith" as in when God tests your faith by putting you under bad conditions. If you're able to uphold your faith in God, then you will be granted his grace.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

God is omnipresent, is the Totality. Therefore, God is neither good nor bad. God is simply the greater-than-the-sum of what is happening.

But in your case, I understand why people say "God is good." It's basically the same as saying "Thank God."

Probably didn't answer your question.

The problem occurs when people root for their own team rather than the Whole. This is what leads to good and bad...besides that our brains work that way.

Hope some of that made sense.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

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I'm not adding a lot, but here's my two cents...

I agree with Chris that handing out a "God is good" to every event that we consider good is shallow theology. Yes, if you believe in the Bible and the God of the Bible, He is good. Completely and utterly. But terrible things happening does not negate this fact. The theological reasons for "bad things" happening include the following (and this is my dumbed-down version because it's me talking, not a theologian):

1- God gave us free will. Sometimes people abuse this. Actually a lot of the time. But God doesn't usually stop the consequences of the bad things that we do because He wants us to make our own choices.

2- "bad things" allow us to grow in our faith. I don't know about everyone else, but I do tend to grow more when things are not all sunshine and roses. I don't think God sits there and thinks "Hm, Joe hasn't prayed in a while, I'm gonna smite him with a car accident so he learns some humility." No. Not at all. That bad stuff comes as a result of someone else's free will, or from the Devil, among other things. But God still uses that stuff for good, even when that feels impossible.

God doesn't cause the bad stuff. But sometimes He allows it. As humans, we cannot ever completely understand exactly why. But that does not make it wrong to wonder why, to question what you believe, doubt sometimes, and ask questions. I believe God wants us to do these things and that's part of why He gave us the ability to reason and think through things.

Alpha Echo, I believe in God, like you do. Everything I know about God comes from the Bible. I'd have no idea who God or Jesus was if it had never been written. The way I read it, if you believe in the God of the Bible and Jesus, then it's presumed that you believe the whole Bible. Jesus says in Luke 16:17, that every word of "the Law" (the part of the Bible that existed in His day) is true. It is not easy to believe all of it and it does require faith. But if you believe in the God of the Bible, and He claims to have inspired every word of it, then either He's a liar, confused, or...He actually did. (2 Timothy 3:16). At least that's how I read it.

Osulagh, in regards to your last comment, I don't believe that one can earn God's grace. I think it's available to everyone, regardless of whether we deserve it or not. If a person's faith is strengthened through difficult circumstances, then that is its own reward. The faithful are promised rewards in Heaven, too.
 

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I'm not Christian, so I can't speak to a Christian interpretation.

But I believe gods are fallible and aren't all-powerful.

Things get a lot simpler when you discard omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence.

Agree 100%.

Also, I believe that the Gods's interest sometimes conflict with each other, especially if your relationships with them vary a lot. Take, for example, the story of Odysseus. He had a strong relationship with Athena and she clearly cared for him, helping him and intervening in his favour throughout the epic. On the other hand, he offended Poseidon, who in return made his life very difficult. There were two very different forces at play here. That's how I explain the Gods being both "good" and "bad" from a human perspective - coupled with the fact that, as above, I don't believe them to be omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent.

At least, that's my polytheistic perspective ;)
 

benbradley

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Disclaimer, I'm a Christian by heritage (attended a mainstream Baptist church growing up), and as an adult spent years involved in 12-step programs, during and after which I spent a lot of time reading about God and various religions and beliefs, and ended up educating myself out of any belief.
This is something I struggle with. I have for many many years, and one of the reasons I don't believe that God (god, gods) are involved in individual personal lives.

When something nice, fun, helpful, positive happens, certain people credit God for it. "God is good." "God is good!!!!!" "God answered my prayers."
I've heard this a lot too.
But when something wrong, evil, negative happens, I don't see those people saying, "God is bad." "God didn't answer my prayers."
You might hear them say "What did I do wrong?" or "It's God's Will." I've heard people say God DID answer their prayers, and the answer was no.

The Christian God I grew up with is ALWAYS good. Somewhere along the way I got the idea that the word good was an extension of the word God, and likewise Devil was derived from the word evil. That's folk etymology and perhaps wrong as far as actual word origins, but it's probably close enough for modern purposes.

Bad things happening are sometimes seen as God's Will as I mention above, but it may also be seen as one's own failings.
When a football player who just scored a winning touchdown says, "God was on my side," does that mean God wasn't on the side of the defensive player who failed to stop the touchdown? So God plays favorites? He likes the orange team better than the green team?

This week a semi-tragedy with my grandson turned into a massive relief when he walked out of the hospital 2 days after being struck by a car and sent into ICU in seemingly critical condition. My husband posted about it on FB and he got many nice responses. I shook my head over the ones that were along the lines of "God is good."

Because, what if he hadn't survived, or had been brain damaged, or lost a leg, or something else bad had happened? What would the FB posts have said then?
If such posts have religious/Christian references, they'd likely say the boy is "in a better place" or that it is "God's Will."

If someone credits God with a good thing, shouldn't that person also blame God when a bad thing occurs?

:Shrug:

I guess that's why the notion of the devil came into play. He's the one to blame for bad stuff - but still, if God is considered the ultimate power, he should be able to stop the devil - if he wanted to, which apparently he didn't, so then God's playing favorites again.
You're applying logic here, and some might tell you that logic shouldn't be used with religion and God, that these are metaphysical things that transcend human inventions such as logic.
...
I believe that my God may be your Allah and his Buddha.
The Christian (and Judaic) God and the Islamic Allah are Abrahamic religions, and have the typical Western idea of God in common, but from what I've read, Buddha is definitely NOT like any of these, and is neither a deity nor a messiah (as are Jesus and Mohammed). This equivalence of Buddha as God appears to be a Western interpretation.
God is a billion times wiser than us mortals.
Where did this "billion times" figure come from?
So IMO it is probably not a productive thing to try to understand the ways of God. It is comparable to an ant trying to understand the ways of Man. That is nothing to be ashamed of. Rather it is something to be awed by. And that is why we have built churches in His honor and pray to Him and worship Him.
Are these chuches not built in what WE THINK is His honor? How do we know this, other than, as mentioned before, what the Bible says?
That is in short why He is God ! And between us, if anyone at all is able to translate God's actions it is our priests.
With as much as I've studied about God and religion, I should be a priest or minister myself, but I don't think "they" would want me.
 

C.bronco

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God can give us the strength to make it through heartache and difficult times. Sometimes, we can't see the big picture. Sometimes, it is a challenge, and we can't always see how it can help us to help others in the future.

There was an extended period when I was afraid to ask, "What else could possibly happen?," mainly because it did keep happening. If you haven't seen the Neil Simon play, God's Favorite, you may want to.


We are stewards, and need to help others who are going through the impossible; maybe, sometimes, we can only do that if we have been there ourselves.
 

Underdawg47

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I recall a time I went over to my friend’s place to play video games, and when I got there he was all excited about this new kind of virtual reality game. He said it was different from any game I had ever played before and he was so right. I, much like everyone else, had played some sophisticated games where the characters are so realistic and the artwork is so beautiful. Your characters could do so many adventuresome and daring things, if only you could keep them alive long enough. Oh well, your character dies, so you spawn another one. No big deal right?

That’s what I used to think up until my friend introduced me to the newest kind of video game ever created. Instead of your character spawning into the world fully formed with names like Adam and Eve, he is born into a world called Earth from the bodies of other characters through sexual intercourse. An entire history has been created for these characters, a past a present, and an endless number of possible future events. It is like you have virtual free will to do almost anything you want, except break the laws of physics set up for this world. In this world, your character lives at a faster, more sped up rate of time than our own. Previous virtual games were fun at first, but then it got boring. Each character was aware of the previous character’s life and would kill off his character if things didn’t seem to be going the way he wanted it to go. The game got boring because being spawned as adults their characters already knew the best strategy for survival, made themselves rich and strong. Their character’s lives were always too easy to play, so players lost interest. The older version called Paradise just wasn’t that fun of a game.

The game made a big improvement over previous versions by making it possible for the player to forget his character’s previous lives as well as not being able to remember his own. In this newer version, the player believes that this is his real life and there is no other one. They are less likely to take major risks that would endanger their lives and will fight for self preservation. The characters fear their deaths and that makes the game so much more of a powerful experience. The characters communicate with each other, fall in love, fight and kill each other also. Anything goes except that fear of death keeps most of them from doing anything too risky. The players nowadays can feel the emotions, pain as well as the pleasure and pain that their characters feel. Most players claim to have had wonderful experiences by playing these games through the lives of their characters. Most players said they ultimately enjoyed having lives wrought with fear and pain and overcoming great obstacles. Like reading a great book. There is really no good or evil in this virtual world and the characters made up gods and the concept of good and evil to explain their existence.

It was rumored that when the game was first developed, some hackers found a way to break the physical laws of the game that allowed their characters to do some pretty miraculous things and appear as gods, or even remember that previous game called Paradise . I suppose every game has its cheaters.
 

Siri Kirpal

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Yep. God is the Author and Authors do bad things to their characters, but if they didn't do them, the characters wouldn't exist.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Yep. God is the Author and Authors do bad things to their characters, but if they didn't do them, the characters wouldn't exist.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

That's a disturbing theology. The only justification for the stuff writers put characters through is that the characters aren't sentient beings, but figments of the writer's imagination. If our characters were people we'd be brutal torturers and murderers.
 
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Siri Kirpal

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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

You can see it that way. Or you can see it: what's the intended character arc and what do I need to learn before my book ends.

Not suggesting any of us should "act like God" with our fellow humans.

And OP, come to think of it, doesn't that line and "Acts of God" indicate that we know God isn't only Good.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

juniper

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The game made a big improvement over previous versions by making it possible for the player to forget his character’s previous lives as well as not being able to remember his own. In this newer version ...

Umm, at the risk of sounding really dumb, Real Life video game or analogy?
 

robjvargas

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Juniper, I wish I had time to go into detail. I don't ascribe to a major religion, yet have strong faith in a more or less judeo-christian vision of God (and of Satan).

Without delving too deeply into dogma and scripture, I believe that God and Satan are rather arbitrarily assigned as personifications of good and evil. I believe that God created it all, that in order to provide choice to Man (and, I presume, any other intelligent beings in this universe), he (convenient pronoun) realized that at least two options were necessary, and that each option led to the next consequence.

I believe that God and Satan personify (very roughly) the denial of and concentration on self. God and Satan are not, to me, static entities, nor is good and evil as simple as I just described.

The idea of good and evil at the far extremes, that's easy. The margins between the two, however, are deeply intertwined, and... well... fuzzy.

I will try to respond to further questions as I can. Life is rather hectic for me at this time. But I hope I've provided a very basic framework for a different view of it all.

BTW, this all stems from persona experiences where I felt interaction with God (and, frankly, Satan). I don't claim these as hard truths, nor do I intend to convince anyone. I merely present this as an alternative viewpoint.
 
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