I'm afraid then, you are going to either have to put up with your immoral and cruel god being criticized and insulted for the vicious megalomaniac that he is, or you'll have to leave. Turtles upon turtles upon turtles upon... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
1. Actually no, Thor has already promised me a wonderful afterlife. 2. I didn't insult anything, I called it the holy wind which is an accurate translation, (ruach/pneuma - lit. wind/breath). 3. Come on, we're all grown ups here - time to stop believing in fairy tales.
Patriarchal tradition. God would be more accurately described as It than He, but old habits are hard to break.
It seems God's purpose for all of everything was or is to solve the good vs evil thing or at least understand it. It sounds as if He was having trouble with that. An impossible task it may seem but something worthy of an attempt, especially from a God's point of view.
By eternal, do you mean will always exist from some point going forward only? Eternal existence is also having always existed.
Billy sort of answered that question. God must have had a need to create. Unless He is just itching to express His artistic side there is a reason He would have to create. I realize this speaks against His omniscience but His building of this wonderful diorama of sorts is to get an answer to or understand something. I was just speculating that it might be Good & Evil. God, if He exists, is simply having trouble with those concepts.
Or maybe this is a tragicomedy of errors staged for the entertainment (amusement) of God, Satan, Zeus & Odin.
You think God's purpose is to entertain Himself? Still wouldn't need to create in order to self entertain. No. I think if God created then He didn't know or understand something. Otherwise there is no reason to create anything. Its obvious that God, should he exist, needed to create for some reason. However, God's purpose for being is still in question. To have a purpose there must be a need. See what I'm getting at? People have a need for God but there's only one problem, the need came after the purpose.
I do not hold any opinion on that as do not know if anything is eternal. If we assume God exists and is eternal, predates the big bang, etc. I.e. unlike time and space, which was created by/with the big bang, and assume that evil was not created by the big bang, then I think Either God made evil soon after there were any life forms that could "sin" OR evil was already eternal with God, sort of his personality's "flip side." I.e. an eternal omipotent God can surely do evil, even it no universe yet exists - for example create an evil dominated universe - like this one? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! If here are many gods, some may be inclined to be evil more than others. If planning to explain why God could not satisfy his needs without making man (certanly a less than omipotent god if dependant on man) assume anything about evil you like about the origins of evil or that it is eternal, just state what you are assuming. Christian tend to duck / defer difficult questions such as: (1) Where did the universe come from? C.Answer: God made it. But that just moves the question back one stage: Where did God come from? (2) Where did evil come from? C.Answer: Satan is the origin of Evil. But that just moves the question back one stage: Where did Satan come from? We need a clear definition of evil. I suggest: (a) Under the asumption that God exist: Evil is "sinning" (and "sinning" is doing any think God has forbidden. - Unfortuantly not all agree on what is forbidden as God is behaving as it he does not exist.) (b) Under the asumption that God does not exist: Evil is doing what is against the civil law. Some "lovers of evil" (not wanting to leave anything out) may prefer: (c) Evil is either (a) or (b).
I can't think that because I don't believe in gods. I only proposed it as a possibility partially based on the farcical but cruel KJV & usual Christian interpretation which seems like a game between Yahweh & Satan with humans as helpless pawns. People have various needs which aren't fulfilled so they try to fill them with myths & fairy tales.
Steven Hawking's A short history of time might help you join the "imperfect crowd" who do know something of physics, but it would cost you a few bucks and some of your ignorance. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The Big Bang was all about the expansion of space, and with that came the beginning of our universe and the beginning of events that changed the structure of the universe, these changes are measured with time.