God's Perfection

[maverixk]

Are all good readings on God hardening pharoahs heart. Note I am not ignoring your second part, I just like dealing with one subject at a time.

kk, I'll check out the links.
P.S. I love how I'm arguing for you on your thread and sorta against you on mine.

[maverixk]

http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/bible/pharaoh.html
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aiia/aiia-pharaoh.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/God-harden-Pharaoh-heart.html

Are all good readings on God hardening pharoahs heart. Note I am not ignoring your second part, I just like dealing with one subject at a time.

I don't see God as a perfect being, if he's willing to punish innocent beings, using the excuse that they must suffer the punishment of their ancestor, the one who was guilty. Too many times, I've seen passages where the children are punished, or even killed, because the father caused the wrongdoing. I don't believe that just because we're not perfect, we deserve to die.

These are the types of comments I ignore.

On that link, I must point out what might just be a misword by the writer of the site: "'The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh'" and:  "Hard and obstinate is the normal condition of the heart." Those are direct copy-pastes from the site. I'm tempted to ask whether allowing another to do evil is, in itself, evil, but I shall restrain. The writer seems to be extremely biased and sounds like he/she is trying to find any possible loophole and therefore might not be the best reference. Although it was an interesting read at first.
On to this one, I genuinely enjoyed reading it. I would like to quote a couple of things: "Am I then saying that God Himself actually arranged for Pharaoh to sin?
Yes, in much the same sense that He arranged for Joseph's brothers to sell Joseph into slavery (Genesis 50:20), Satan to attack Job (Job 1:12), Jews and and Romans to crucify Jesus (Acts 2:23), and sin to exist in the first place."
"The best, most direct, simple answer to the question above is: “In order to demonstrate His power, and in order that His name might be proclaimed throughout the entire earth.”
The reason that is the best, most direct, simple answer to the question is because it is God's own answer. See Exodus 9:16 and Romans 9:17.
God raised up Pharaoh and hardened Pharaoh's heart in order to promote His own glory."
So from this, I gather that God did this to gain face, so to speak
I actually have nothing to say to this one. I could fine nit-picky things, but I don't feel like it.
Could you explain why you ignore these? Just wondering.

[BluePriest]

Are all good readings on God hardening pharoahs heart. Note I am not ignoring your second part, I just like dealing with one subject at a time.

kk, I'll check out the links.
P.S. I love how I'm arguing for you on your thread and sorta against you on mine.

yes that is very interesting. It seems almost everyone has SOME common ground lol.

The main thing I got from the 3 links that I sent you was that God didnt harden a soft heart, he instead hardened a heart that had already, on several occasions choose to harden. I have a tendancy of reading things, and then disagreeing with almost all of it, but finding a few things I like. Instead of just giving you the info I liked though, I figured It would be better to let you see the source in case you see an answer that you prefer. 

I ignore responses like Nepycros*fixed previous one because they dont have any references and come off as nothing more than poisoning the well (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well.html).

[Nepycros]

Are all good readings on God hardening pharoahs heart. Note I am not ignoring your second part, I just like dealing with one subject at a time.

kk, I'll check out the links.
P.S. I love how I'm arguing for you on your thread and sorta against you on mine.

yes that is very interesting. It seems almost everyone has SOME common ground lol.

The main thing I got from the 3 links that I sent you was that God didnt harden a soft heart, he instead hardened a heart that had already, on several occasions choose to harden. I have a tendancy of reading things, and then disagreeing with almost all of it, but finding a few things I like. Instead of just giving you the info I liked though, I figured It would be better to let you see the source in case you see an answer that you prefer. 

I ignore responses like necros previous one because they dont have any references and come off as nothing more than poisoning the well (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well.html).

D'oh. I kinda get irked when my name is borked. -_-

[BluePriest]

Are all good readings on God hardening pharoahs heart. Note I am not ignoring your second part, I just like dealing with one subject at a time.

kk, I'll check out the links.
P.S. I love how I'm arguing for you on your thread and sorta against you on mine.

yes that is very interesting. It seems almost everyone has SOME common ground lol.

The main thing I got from the 3 links that I sent you was that God didnt harden a soft heart, he instead hardened a heart that had already, on several occasions choose to harden. I have a tendancy of reading things, and then disagreeing with almost all of it, but finding a few things I like. Instead of just giving you the info I liked though, I figured It would be better to let you see the source in case you see an answer that you prefer. 

I ignore responses like necros previous one because they dont have any references and come off as nothing more than poisoning the well (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/poisoning-the-well.html).

D'oh. I kinda get irked when my name is borked. -_-

crap sorry its late and im sleepy lol.

[Nepycros]

Apologies for double post, buuuut.

Exodus 20:5-6
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

[BluePriest]

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/punish_sons.html
http://www.gospelway.com/topics/salvation/parent-sins-child.php

Sorry, I try not to spend too much time in the religion section. I try to spend some time ignoring it completely for as much as I love apologetics, it is not evangalizing and I have been trying to cut back on it.

On a note that just deals in context of the verse...

Exodus 20:5-6
I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

When I read the bolded portion, I think look at it as "as soon as a generation chooses to put faith in god, it will be flooded with love." You can take whatever approach you want to it, however, there are plenty of other verses that show more parts of God. 1 verse is never enough to fully show someones view on a subject. Even if that someone is God.

[maverixk]

I must say, thankyou BluePriest for posting here because I really am interested in the outcome of this thread but I didn't know what to post to make people become reinterested.
Now I'm reading those links...

Ok, now that I've read the links, I must ask you a question. If God were a human, would you say that he was a moral person? (I know this has a lot of holes, but just think of it hypothetically, let's say he's a business owner and we are his employees. Firing us=killing us. And let's say his company is the only company in the world.)
I think that since God is God, people tend to overlook any downfalls simply because we want him to be perfect. It gives us something/someone to look up to. I'm not saying you've done this, but I am pointing out that it is a common thing to want someone/something to be perfect.

[OldTrees]

Your analogy has lots of holes maverixk

God is typically defined in a creator role thus:
The Engineer is to Robots as God is to Life.

Another trait sometimes ascribed to God you overlooked is that God is sometimes used to define a standard of Perfection and thus cannot be imperfect when that concept of perfection is being discussed.


So modifying your example:

A Robot is built by an Engineer. That engineer then shuts down and dismantles the Robot. Was that action immoral? What about it makes it immoral? Why use that concept of morality instead of another?

[maverixk]

Your analogy has lots of holes maverixk

I know my analogy has a lot of holes, I was just trying to create an analogy that was different than the robot analogy because it is used so much. I was hoping that you would understand what I was trying to portray and look past the holes because I don't think that the holes are really that big or important.

[OldTrees]

Your analogy has lots of holes maverixk

I know my analogy has a lot of holes, I was just trying to create an analogy that was different than the robot analogy because it is used so much. I was hoping that you would understand what I was trying to portray and look past the holes because I don't think that the holes are really that big or important.

Even as an agnostic I thought the Creator:Creation detail was important to maintain. If you really think that such a detail is small or unimportant I am worried. Most of God's actions are done in the context of being in the privileged position of being the creator. Whether such a position should/does grant such privilege is a more relevant question and more in line with your query.

I only pointed out the 2 holes that would impede communication and investigation. I think that such problems would be relevant.

[maverixk]

Your analogy has lots of holes maverixk

I know my analogy has a lot of holes, I was just trying to create an analogy that was different than the robot analogy because it is used so much. I was hoping that you would understand what I was trying to portray and look past the holes because I don't think that the holes are really that big or important.

Even as an agnostic I thought the Creator:Creation detail was important to maintain. If you really think that such a detail is small or unimportant I am worried. Most of God's actions are done in the context of being in the privileged position of being the creator. Whether such a position should/does grant such privilege is a more relevant question and more in line with your query.

I only pointed out the 2 holes that would impede communication and investigation. I think that such problems would be relevant.

I think that the fact that he is the creator doesn't really matter that much. Yes, in a different debate it would matter a lot more. What I'm trying to do is measure his morality by our own standards(I know, that differs from person to person). What I'm trying to ask, is by your standards, do his actions portray someone who is perfect. Or to bring it down, moral? I'm trying to get people to look at him as a person. Sure, for the sake of argument, he created us, but look at his actions, do they seem like the perfect role model?