Good evening, stickpagians. Long time no see, I guess. There's already a thread on here about whether an omnipotent being can be called malevolent, and that thread, plus some shit I've been thinking about, prompted me to make this. I know there has been an influx in religious threads here lately, but in my opinion that's a good thing. Existential questions relate to basic ideas of what it means to be human, and if that does not interest you, then what the fuck? So let's get on with this, shall we?
I too wonder if God is good, but I don't mean a generalized omnipotent deity, I mean God specifically. Not necessarily the christian God, because I think my questions apply to most religions, though I assume most of the religious dudes here are christian, so I'll use Christianity as my basis. If you belong to another religion and want to answer my questions, please do, and I'll try to reply to the best of my knowledge. Furthermore, I want to base this shit on our main source of religious understanding: the scriptures. I want to know if you think God, as presented in the Bible, is good or bad, and why. It seems to me that pretty much all religious people agree that their God is good and benevolent, while many of the basic concepts in religion, even heaven or paradise, seem morally dubious to me. I wonder where this disparity comes from. How do you equate the image you have of God to the God presented in the Bible?
oh, also: it's easy to find examples of God being kind of a dick in the old testament, so let's ignore that, unless it seems especially relevant.
