re god morality and massacres 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 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
