Questions to God.

[NauticalGent]

Yeah, mysterious ways. Not buying it. I'm a simple man and I guess I'm just not smart enough to get it.

I've heard all my life about "our father" and how "Jesus loves the little children". A father that hurts his children is no father.

Although i have been surrounded by pious people all my life, religion has never come easy for me. This sucks.

What is really keeping me up at night is that this has been going on since time began, why is NOW affecting me this way?

Maybe as we get older our GAD genes fade...

I'll get past this, but its going to be awhile...

 

[CJ_London]

God decides it’s finally time to send Jesus back to Earth.​

*poof* All of a sudden, Jesus finds himself on the side of a road in the middle of rural America. He sticks out his thumb for a ride and before long a man in a truck stops to give him a lift.
Not revealing his true identity, Jesus thanks the man for stopping.

Jesus: Wow thank you sir, so many people just ignored me standing there.

Man: don’t worry about it! That’s just what good people do.

After a few minutes driving the man leans over,

Man: Hey, I have this sandwich here, ya want some?

Jesus: wow, thank you sir, that’s so kind of you! I’d love some.

A few more minutes pass and the man leans over again,

Man: Hey I have a few beers in the cooler back there, want one?

Amazed by the man’s kindness Jesus replies,

Jesus: wow sure! I’d love one. Thank you again.

After a few more miles down the road the man looks around suspiciously and says,

Man: hey…I uh, have a little joint here. Want to take a few puffs with me?

Jesus pauses for a second and replies,

Jesus: ya know what, why not!

So the man and Jesus drive down the road smoking the fattest joint listening to music and having a good time. Finally, Jesus speaks up,

Jesus: okay listen! I can’t keep quiet any longer! You have been so kind, so nice, I want to tell you…I’m Jesus! God sent me down here to help the people and you’ve just been so kind. What can I do to repay you? Anything!

The man looks at Jesus with a grin on his face and says, “Good shit, huh?”

 

[NauticalGent]

Thanks CJ, I needed that...

 

[Pat Hartman]

As far as warnings go, nothing in place was helpful. Even sirens are too sparsely placed and not loud enough to be herd inside and the camp may not have had one. Cell phone coverage at the camp's location is spotty so even a personal call from the weather bureau might not have gotten through or woken anyone. A call on a land line could have worked but they may be too remote for that also.

 

[Isaac]

I haven't touched this thread in a long time. I'll toss in a "question for God" based on Col's original question.

It is said that only through faith can we come to you. We are supposed to believe DESPITE the things we see that explain existence without resorting to faith. So... Why do you punish us for believing your perfect and impenetrable illusion of scientific origins for everything?

There is no scientific explanation, nor will there ever be, for how something can come from nothing.
It HAS to be from a higher being who is by nature, eternal. That is the ONLY rational explanation.

 

[Isaac]

I'll get past this, but its going to be awhile...

I agree with you, I think, NG ... This TX thing has affected me a LOT. For whatever reason, the poignant images my mind makes up of innocent children waking to a river running through and around their cabin - the death - the stories - the brother and sister found with their hands clasped together, facing death at such a young age - it's all been just too much for me. I started almost crying the other day while daydreaming about it. It's truly beyond words

 

[Isaac]

First, define "god" in specific terms without directly referring to the Bible. What is the standard by which you would recognize a god when you saw one?

Second, even if you define a god with complete standards, the question is whether this putative superior being qualifies as a god. Or is it just an advanced being in evolutionary terms? Maybe a little smarter. Maybe sees better at night. Maybe has sufficient sphincter control to whistle in two-part harmony. Little things like that.

I'd like to throw an olive branch here by saying that #1, out of all the things atheists will say, the idea that the 'higher power' might just be a higher evolutionary form makes a lot of sense to me, and is pretty close to "the minimum", that I believe people ought to conclude about the existence of God. In other words, I can understand if you don't believe in the God of the Christian bible, because there are all sorts of reasonable opinions about the historical value of the eyewitness accounts - reasonable opinions on both sides, and because it's hard for people to accept that one Book contains the whole start to finish story of how and why things ended up this way. But what I can't as readily accept is when people simply think there is no higher being at all (Since, someone or something had to cause to come into being that which didn't exist in ANY FORM, if you keep going back with the "and how did THAT come into being?" questions.
Meaning I like what you wrote!

@Everyone, I think CS Lewis The Problem of Pain does a good job of explaining the Christian viewpoint on why there is suffering in the world despite God being our father (and by the way, His fatherhood is non-existent to those who do not believe, nor is it supposed to be) - but it does a good job explaining about all this.

However, despite that, or if you can't accept that all those specifics happen to be true, I would just submit to you these simple decision tree elements:

1. It's very likely there's a power who's "higher" than us in some major aspects, else things wouldn't have been created - even if you believe that there was a chain reaction starting from the big bang theory, you still , if you keep working backwards, have to come to the assertion that something came spontaneously into being from nothing if you don't believe in some kind of higher being - which is a completely irrational and impossible assumption IMO and requires far more faith than Christianity does.
2. Being as #1 is very likely, this higher power is likely very powerful and could command a fair amount of authority on earth and, if you happen to believe it, in heaven.
3. While I may not LIKE all the aspects of the higher power; yet, the highest person in power will define what's good and bad and right and wrong - thus, I'd better internally SUBMIT to this being to the best of my ability. Which may very well just be an internal "God, I believe you're there, help me to submit to your will" - a prayer which, IMO, makes you a Christian as much as anyone else.

So putting aside the Bible and Jesus, I think those 3 things remain fairly compelling from anyone's worldview regardless of the Bible and Jesus.

But @NauticalGent my faith has taken some hits recently while thinking about the TX thing. I just have to remind myself that Satan is the "god of this world", not God, as God created a being which would choose or not choose to follow him, and it chose separation from God, and I trust that God has a plan to redeem the physical world but I continue believing at the same time, that the spiritual world (my soul, as Doc said), is by far the more important.

And lastly, a big fat BOO to Texas for not spending for a siren warning system, for building homes in a flood plane, for building a camp at the bottom of a flood plane, for thinking it was cool to deprive the camp participants - EVEN COUNSELORS - from possessing PHONES, for the camp not having a night security guard wandering around a camp with 700 PEOPLE (!), and everyone in general who knew that a huge amount of rain was in the forecast + they lived in a flood plane, for not acting faster. It's beyond tragic, especially the kids who trusted their supervisors, thinking of them screaming for help and nobody answering and the sounds slowly going silent as they were washed away - it's sickening to the stomach.

 

[Isaac]

I also have to remember that people in Gaza are living through this "watching innocent children die" all the time - on a daily basis, by the 10's of thousands. If we're this sick to our stomach thinking of a few dozen children dying, think how they feel right now - and how angry they become.
This is why wars have to be waged carefully, so that the solution isn't worse than the problem, or the solution cause more problems than the original problem. Terrorists are not fated they are carefully grown by anger over what they live through. If a lot of people in Gaza disliked Israelis before, imagine how they will feel now. I think even from a totally selfish perspective, Israel is making an extraordinary strategic mistake. They are creating 2 million terrorists, each one having witness children and innocents blown to pieces in front of their eyes - and each one now with a lifetime-long, deep-seated, personal resolve to get revenge. The worse they treat the population, the greater the "% of population which are terrorists" increases...

 

[The_Doc_Man]

There is no scientific explanation, nor will there ever be, for how something can come from nothing.

Lately, the James Webb Space Telescope has been showing us that the Big Bang is too flawed to continue believing in it. The "bang" might have been a localized phenomenon (in a frickin' HUGE locale).

Your statement, however, is incorrect. Look up "spontaneous pair production" for a discussion of an example of "something from nothing." The Biblical discussion of the pre-creation conditions does not rule out a quantum electro-dynamic (QED) field, a type of energy. And as we know, matter and energy are inter-convertible. To the primitive observers who wrote the Genesis passages, a QED field would have been the same as "nothing" because to them, quantum mechanics was nearly 2000 generations into the future. They had no way to know if one existed.

Here is the biggest problem... If we are going to say that a being of higher evolutionary progress than ours is a god, what does THAT being look up to? Because the problem is that an infinite REGRESSION through evolutionary steps cannot be a one-way street. Why can there not be a matched infinite PROGRESSION?

What do you do if your god-being is itself looking for a higher being? This leads to the same question that trips folks up with the Biblical God. When you go back far enough, you run into the concept of "first cause" - but does that also mean that if you have a big-G God, is He both First Cause and Last Cause? Doesn't that very assumption limit God's power? Yet that God is supposedly all-powerful. This is a non-sequitur of the highest order.

My problem with all of this is the simplest question in all of existence, asked by thousands, millions, billions... WHY? Why are we here? The Bible says God made us in His own image. For what purpose? Was He lonely? If so, isn't that a sign of being flawed due to being incomplete?

 

[Isaac]

Was He lonely? If so, isn't that a sign of being flawed due to being incomplete?

He defines goodness and perfection, whatever He is, is good - that's the only practical way to view an all powerful God.

Pair production is a process where energy is converted into matter, specifically a particle-antiparticle pair

Still, something is coming from something. If you keep going back far enough, you'll have to wonder where the first thing came from - and the only rational explanation is that someone in a higher order of existence than us, if existing is even the right word for that being, made it

 

[Isaac]

but does that also mean that if you have a big-G God, is He both First Cause and Last Cause? Doesn't that very assumption limit God's power?

It doesn't. Indeed, he is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end - in man's terms, anyway.
I've a feeling that the Bible only can reveal a tiny bit of God to us in our limited minds.
I have no idea what heaven will be like, nor do I think the Bible gives us a good idea, despite giving us glimpses in our own limited terminology.

The incredibly intelligent design paired with the coming-into-existence question to me point to the existence of someone upstairs, so to speak, but I realize that the problem of Pain and Suffering is a major difficulty to be overcome when understanding or believing God because we have our own idea what is good and bad, but God sees a higher level of good and bad.

 

[NauticalGent]

@Isaac, I was wondering if you would weigh in here, your devotuon to the almighty is known and although I dont agree on everything or even understand it, I respect your input and appreciate your tact.

I almost didnt post becuase if YOU specifically, but I had to vent somewhere and this was it.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

He defines goodness and perfection, whatever He is, is good - that's the only practical way to view an all powerful God.

The goodness/ability dilemma of Epicurus is relevant.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus

To my way of thinking, the creation of the God myth was invented by unscrupulous clerics to give people an excuse to lay their blame elsewhere, as a ready-made scapegoat. "I didn't do that... the Devil made me do it." The religious rite of "confession" is another way for people to get rid of their evil actions that otherwise weigh down a compassionate conscience. But we don't all have that compassion. Sociopathic persons exist. So... did God decide that He would just give SOME of us a functioning conscience? What is the secret of that lottery of who gets a compassionate heart?

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, you need religion." - Steven Weinberg

Organized religion tends to push us in a particular direction. But consider the Bible, which contains the Jewish holy book (In Hebrew, the Torah; in Latin, the Pentateuch), and which is included in the Qur'an - so pretty pervasive...

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call the Bible the work of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize Mankind." - Thomas Paine

 

[Isaac]

Poor Epicurus, he thinks he can distill a God like form down to a few simple words, but it's nowhere near that simple.
To me, the argument that God wanted to create someone with the actual choice and freedom to say Yes and be one with God and all things right, or say No and separate from God and evil abounding..........Is a compelling one.

And poor Thomas Paine, who also said "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it" ............. After all, don't we Americans say we value Freedom above just about all else? Shouldn't we be the first to understand this?
Don't we often say we'd rather die free than live a slave?
But all of a sudden when it comes to good vs. evil vs. God vs. religion, we forget all that and wish for a God that created robots that would automatically do the right thing without a choice. Strange, if you think about it - but it's a bias that's ready to cast any excuse towards religion, that explains why we deviate from the 'freedom value' that we espouse in every other moment of speech in the day

 

[Pat Hartman]

I also have to remember that people in Gaza are living through this "watching innocent children die" all the time - on a daily basis, by the 10's of thousands. If we're this sick to our stomach thinking of a few dozen children dying, think how they feel right now - and how angry they become.
This is why wars have to be waged carefully, so that the solution isn't worse than the problem, or the solution cause more problems than the original problem. Terrorists are not fated they are carefully grown by anger over what they live through. If a lot of people in Gaza disliked Israelis before, imagine how they will feel now. I think even from a totally selfish perspective, Israel is making an extraordinary strategic mistake. They are creating 2 million terrorists, each one having witness children and innocents blown to pieces in front of their eyes - and each one now with a lifetime-long, deep-seated, personal resolve to get revenge. The worse they treat the population, the greater the "% of population which are terrorists" increases...

There is no equality between the innocents in Texas and the people of Gaza and I can't believe you make one. The people of Gaza made their own problem. ALL THEY EVER NEEDED TO DO was to stop bombing innocent Israeli civilians. Very simple. READ some history. Israel left Gaza more than 20 years ago. They had their wish of independence. Israel left them with viable businesses and farms, lots of good housing and infrastructure. The Palestinians elected Hamas to rule themselves and that was their downfall. The world has since sent billions of dollars in aid to Gaza. Hamas has stolen it all to buy bombs and arms. As others have pointed out, Hamas even pulled up the water pipes to make rockets. These people are only interested in killing Jews. They live to kill Jews. They are sick and evil. They are getting exactly what they give. What goes around comes around is what we call this. Yes the youngest of the children are innocent as are all young children. But it doesn't take many years to corrupt a child and that is why NO OTHER Arab country will consent to take Palestinian refugees. Think about that for a moment. What does Egypt and Jordan and Syria and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Iraq and all the others know that you don't know?

When you shoot bombs into Israel targeting civilians, they shoot back. Duh!!!

 

[The_Doc_Man]

we forget all that and wish for a God that created robots that would automatically do the right thing without a choice. Strange, if you think about it

See also the current trend towards AI in business and at home. Really strange.

 

[Mike Krailo]

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus

It's all explained in Genesis and the Gospels. Please read it again if you haven't read it in a while. We live in a fallen world and not as God originally created it. The world after it was created was perfect, God said that it was good so there was no death, no animals eating animals, all vegetarian. Adam was perfect and had perfect genes as did Eve until after the fall the degradation of death, destruction, calamities, less life spans (900 to now less than 80-100), animals eating animals, and so on. Look around, the world isn't like that song "What a Wonderful World", it's corrupted.

Fast forward to God incarnate saving the world from all this destruction and more importantly offering exactly what everybody wants through Christ Jesus and his perfect sacrifice not only covers the sins of those who died in the past who had faith in God, but also those in the future who put their faith in Jesus that his death and resurrection has paid the price of sin for us all.

The attributes of God are not possible to fully understand from a human limited in understanding kind of way (we don't know everything). So yes there is some paradoxical things going on in Gods word that is not easy to fully explain. He most certainly cannot deny himself, and cannot himself sin, so you could reason that there are limits involved, but this would be foolish to try parse the mind of God. He is who is, and does what he does for whatever reasons serve his plans and purposes that go beyond anything anyone of us can possibly begin imagine.

I think the hardest thing to understand is the three persons of God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit

So my question to him would be, "What is the difference between the Father which appears to be referenced usually as purely spiritual, and the Holy Spirit? I understand they are three separate persons. I think we can all relate to Jesus as God because he had great power to command legions of angels to do whatever he asked of them to do while on Earth in his limited form of becoming a mortal man. But he came to fulfill the prophecies about him and had to humble himself and even hide his true identity in the beginning from many until near the end of his journey when revealing himself to those that hated him would seal his fate as prophesied. So I get Jesus being God by virtue of his spirit within is one and the same with God the father in heaven. It's just the difference between the Father and the Holy Spirit that puzzles me. Maybe it's that the Holy Spirit can be poured out to all the believers in Christ and God himself is the glorified version of the spirit.

I also don't understand why Judas had to be thrown under the bus except that it was also in the prophecies. It just seems so unfair that his punishment was so severe. I realize he didn't believe, but so did doubting Thomas. He didn't believe until he put his hand in Jesus's side and into the holes in his hands after the resurrection.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

We live in a fallen world and not as God originally created it.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

 

[AccessBlaster]

For me, it has always hinged on free will and faith. the cornerstone of Christianity. Our limited human minds simply aren't capable of fully understanding it.

 

[Mike Krailo]

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

He is all powerful as he relates to all of us not himself. He cannot deny himself or his attributes as a whole.

You framed that question on a false premise that God only has one or two attributes. God has many attributes, not just one. When you combine them all together the other attributes come into play. There is no evil in the place where he dwells, but any of us that decide we can go it alone and pretend like we can handle everything ourselves will be given over to our selfish desires just like a father let's his son or daughter go out on their own when they come of age to face the world on their own terms making their own decisions and suffering their own consequences for whatever wrong choices they make. It's called free will as AB pointed out. Everyone knows they have it and I'll bet your glad your not a robot.

One attribute that is often overlooked is Gods patience. This ties in to the word grace. The entire New Testament except for end times in Revelation is all about Gods grace to allow his plan to play out and for those that choose to take his freely given gift. Some call it the harvest, it's all about spiritual rebirth and coming back into Gods good graces by way of repenting by choice.

Corruption of the world as we know it with all of the death, degraded genes far from Adams original perfect genes, birth defects, disease, calamities, are directly the result of sin and our rebellion against him. Imagine having a son or daughter that won't even acknowledge your own existence as their father and mother. Yes, I know the invisible part is a hard pill to swallow, but I guarantee if you seek him out, you will find him. His word is the key revelation to all of us who he is.

2 Peter 3:8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

Pandora's box was opened the moment Adam trusted in the serpents clever twisting of Gods words. The wages of sin is death. But God is all Loving and wants to provide a way out of our own predicament. He is high priest (able to provide the perfect sacrifice), he is also judge over the living and the dead, he is all knowing and can reason beyond any of our simple arguments based on limited knowledge and perspective. His power is made perfect in weakness (Jesus has great power, but humbled himself). I know of no better way to get to know God then through his holy word. It's not mans word like you presuppose, it's his word.

Heb 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.