Isn’t worship of God just paying off the bully so He won’t bother me?

Question: The fact that sin has to exist, otherwise no one would worship a god for saving us from it, and also if nothing bullying happens unless it is God’s will, then it must have been God’s will for Eve to eat the fruit and introduce sin.
No sin, no need for a savior, no savior, no worshiping a God for saving. Besides, if God made the rule that death was the punishment for sin, then sent himself/his son to be sacrificed so we are saved from that, then why are people worshiping this God? When all it is saving us from is delivering the punishment he intended to all along. It’s like worshiping someone for not beating you up, it’s like God is cutting you so he can sell you a Band-Aid and then be praised once your cut has healed, isn’t it?
It doesn’t make any sense at all.

Answer: You are assuming, first of all, that there is no reason to worship God other than salvation from sin. This is like saying I cannot appreciate Yosemite’s glorious peaks unless I know something of the trash heap. He is eminently worthy of praise because of His greatness. But since He won’t force anyone to worship Him, and yet loves us and knows we need to worship Him for our own good, He provides motivation and warning to stay in the right place. Yet when we fail to heed the warning and make the most stupid choice possible anyway, He does not abandon us but provides a way to rescue us that is fair. Your second assumption is that we don’t deserve to be “cut” or experience death for our disobedience. If that wasn’t the fair and necessary consequence for our rebellion against the One who made us, then it was stupid for God to enter our world as one of us and pay that penalty Himself. But if it is the only way to fairly deal with sin then He has done us the most magnificent service anyone could ever do for someone else.

 

Matthew’s Response: If eating the fruit from the tree of good and evil caused man to see what good and evil is, how would Adam and Eve know that eating from that tree, or even disobeying God is a bad thing? If you don’t know what it is, you wouldn’t have known it isn’t good to not do it?

My reply: That is not apparently what “knowing good and evil” means in God’s description. He tells them it is wrong to eat from the tree and that they will die if they do. They know what is right and what is wrong. “Knowing good and evil” in this temptation from Satan means “being able to determine for yourself what is right and what is wrong.” In other words, “you won’t need God to decide what is good and evil, you will be like God and be able to determine good and evil for yourself.” This is the lie Satan is still perpetuating.

Matthew’s next response: If God is all-just, how can he possibly punish mankind for what Adam did? If God is all-just, why does he punish/kill massive amounts of people throughout the Bible for the sins of one? Examples:

*God murdered 70,000 Israelites by inflicting them with disease because one man, David, conducted a census
*God punished Egypt with 10 plagues, which included murdering all male first-born babies because God had a vendetta against Pharaoh [whose heart was hardened by God so that Pharaoh could not release the Israelites even if he wanted to] *God puts all of mankind to death because of Adam’s sin

If God is all-knowing, why did God ask Adam where he was and whether he had eaten fruit in Genesis? (If the answer to this question is “so God could test Adam’s integrity”, why would God not have already known this since he is all-knowing and knows the hearts of man?)

My reply: If we believe, as we do, that God knows the hearts of every person and that He would not take any lives that did not deserve it or that He knew would serve a good purpose, then we must suppose in the particular situations you alluded to that His actions were just. We may say based on our understanding of Adam’s rebellion that he faithfully represented the entire human race and none of us would have made any different decision.

As to His questioning Adam in the garden it is self-evident that He already knew what Adam had done and it was more for Adam’s sake than His own. Adam needed to speak to God about this for Adam’s benefit. It is like when you know your child has done something wrong and yet you want him to acknowledge it for his own growth.

Matthew’s next response: I don’t believe that’s why I am here trying to get an answer to my questions. I was raised in a church, grew up loving God, but started questioning my faith as I got older. It seems everybody I asked my questions to gave me the same answers, “you just have to trust,” “God works in mysterious ways,” but tell me this, why have I given 20 years of my life and he has never shown me he’s here? Why does he just want me to devote my life to doing everything in his name and for him? That seems a little selfish to me. Why does God the all powerful need people he already created to tell him how awesome he is? When you really think deep into it God is a murderer, God is an atheist. Either there is a higher power then even God (the God of God), but that would only imply that he would also have to Have a God and so on and if he dosent believe that then why should I believe in him, and if he does believe that then why am I serving one God and not Gods God? Watch this video and explain because it was this YouTube page that made me not believe, but nobody takes the time or looks at it or explains it from a strong follower’s perspective. All I ask is you take 10 minutes to watch the video and explain how I can believe after it- https://youtu.be/ODetOE6cbbc [warning, offensive language]

My reply: I watched the video and would suggest the following inconsistencies in it:

1) On this view there is no God at all which leaves only one possibility, that the universe is uncreated, that is, it sprang to existence on its own, which is logically impossible. Nothing is nothing and cannot create something. If you counter that the universe is eternal you not only go against all the scientific evidence we have that the universe sprang into existence around 14 billion years ago, but it leaves you with the same inconsistency, that an eternal universe just always has been without any creator, simply constantly making itself exist. If you posit any purposing to this universe (that is, personality) you are back at the only explanation that really fits, that the eternally existing One is the source of this universe.

2) If you accept the “false” premise of this video (the one they debunk) that a creator God would have to have a Creator God, yes, you arrive at a logical inconsistency that there is an infinite series of Creator Gods, illogical in that there could be no such infinite series that means anything because there is therefore no truly infinite being that is the source of all things (see point one) but only a series of less than infinite beings. Thus, there is no explanation for the origin of anything and you are left with nothing creating something. This is why Aristotle rightly posited an unmoved Mover, or as we would say, an uncreated Creator who is truly infinite.

3) If people really are the source of all “gods”, which means there are no gods only our imaginations, you have no real explanation for imagination or personality. How can a blind, impersonal process produce personality. The cause is not equal to the result. And you are forced to conclude that there is no such thing as the human race growing up. Growing up suggests purpose and a moral universal that qualifies what growing up is and that it is preferable and right, but an impersonal universe cannot give warrant to a moral universal. All that is simply is, and there is no right or wrong way of existing in this impersonal universe. You are no more grown up because you don’t believe in God than the person who does believe in God. It only is a matter of pragmatics, what helps me or doesn’t help me. How dare you seek to disavow people of a belief that helps them when there is no such thing as a moral universal. Why does your saying it is wrong to believe in God make it so and why express moral outrage when there is no moral basis for outrage? Why does someone who fries and eats their enemies worse than someone who doesn’t? Survival of the fittest, dude! But we cannot live as if there is no moral absolute. There is something in us that tells us there is and the only real explanation for that is a moral Creator. It will always be true that abusing a child is wrong, but a mechanistic universe cannot support that belief. in a mechanistic universe we can only adopt what we believe is “moral” for ourselves, what promotes human flourishing, but that assumes that human flourishing is absolutely good, a moral universal.

I’m also a little put off by the anger of the video. There is no philosophical basis for moral outrage, or even moral thinking, given the teaching of this video.

Matthew’s last response: You didn’t answer anything. You answered that there is no answer, but that dosent prove that there is a God. If because we can’t figure out who or what created us we just settle for the only likely posibiliy then that isn’t enough proof for me and I don’t think there ever can be unless God comes to me and speaks to me himself. And if God really cares about me then the 20 yeas I followed him he would have done that. And if he dosent want me to burn in “hell” forever because I can’t believe because he hasn’t gave me enough proof and because he gave me this mind that can’t believe, then that’s his will, because like I said, I want to, but I can’t, as hard as I try, I can’t believe in him.

My reply: Matthew, if you haven’t done this already, please ask God to show Himself to you in the way you need to be shown in order to find peace in this matter. Genuinely open your heart to the possibility that He does love you and that your efforts to believe can be resolved.