From: Eugene.Bigelow@ebay.sun.com (Geno )
Subject: Re: God, morality, and massacres
Reply-To: Eugene.Bigelow@ebay.sun.com
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Lines: 44


 JEK@cu.nih.gov ()  James Kiefer  writes:

  (stuff deleted)

    [First point. What they are doing is wrong, just as what
Joseph's brothers did was wrong, just as what Judas did was wrong.
They intend it for evil. If God somehow brings good out of it, that
does not make them any less subject to just condemnation and
punishment.
     Second point. Of course, God will bring good out of it. But not
the same good that He would have brought if the Serbians had
refrained from the sins of robbery and rape and murder. Nor does the
good He purposes excuse us from the duty of doing what is right.]


So what you're saying then, is that God exercises direct control, or
influence upon humanity. He doesn't control our every thought or action,
but takes what we do, whether it be intended for evil or not, and turns
it into something good. It seems to me, that this idea conflicts with
the belief that God gave humans FREE WILL. As far as I can determine,
it is impossible to reconcile these two different ideas. If God were to
exert his influence upon anyone or anything at anytime, he would be 
impeding upon someone's free will. Unless, of course, you believe that
God did not give us complete and unabated free will, but rather, some sort
of conditional free will. Something that allows us to make our own choices
and control our own lives except when God wants to use us to fulfill some
good purpose of his own by "hardening our heart" or controlling us in some
other way. I hear alot of people who look at various events, mostly 
catastrophies or things like the AIDS epidemic and make comments about
God's will. I have a very difficult time understanding why people believe
that God controls anything that happens on this planet. Except, possibly
when being asked to through someone's prayer. According to the Bible,
Pharoah was going to let Moses' people go after one or two plagues, but
God kept hardening his heart so Moses could cast all 7 plagues upon the
Egyptians, the last plague causing the death of many innocent children.
So then, God impeded upon Pharoah's free will and used him as a puppet.
God did this not just to free the Hebrews, but to free them in some sort
of a grand fashion. I suppose from the Hebrew's point of view, this could
be seen as turning something bad into good, but I'm sure the Egyptians didn't
see it this way. All of your examples of how God turned something bad into
something good are based upon showing favortism to one group of people over
another. After all, it's only good based upon your point of view. Why does
God, who is supposed to be the god of all of humanity, play favorites?    
