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Author
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Topic: Why do Christians make God out to be dumb?
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 146 of 259 (142079)
09-13-2004 3:00 PM
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crashfrog wrote:
"Why does God allow Satan to exist? Either God allows Satan to persist because God is amoral (and therefore not good) or God is unable to stop him (and therefore not all-powerful.) Again, the conclusion is inescapable: An all-powerful, benevolent God does not exist. God is either amoral, powerless, or altogether non-existent. That means it's up to us to bring justice to the world. If somebody shoots you in the chest, you don't have any choices. You're just going to die. Their choice is going to affect you. There's no way around it. Their choice took away all your choices. If God's thing is that he maximises choice, why does he allow that to happen?" If free-will exists, then some people will chose to do evil. If God intervenes at every single occurrence of evil, then that effectively nullifies free-will. It would also nullify faith, btw. That said, God chooses to intervene sometimes in the evils that occur. For what purpose, we don’t always know. In the Book of Acts, Saul had been on a mission to imprison Christians. He was interrupted, one day, while traveling, by Jesus himself. Jesus asked Saul [Acts 9:4]:
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? Jesus then said in Acts 9:15 [referring to Saul]:
he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:
For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake. In this example, God chose to intervene in the evil plans of a person but we are privy to God’s purpose in doing so. Most of the time, we can only guess at what God’s ultimate purpose in doing/allowing something is.
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 147 of 259 (142082)
09-13-2004 3:21 PM
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crashfrog wrote:
"Take on the role of an infinitely powerful, infinitely benevolent father figure. Let your very heart swell and burst with love for each and every human being under your care. Go on, really try. Now, face the fact that one child every 7 hours will be the victim of murder in this country alone. The murderer will usually be someone they know. (This statistic is apparently based on data from 1994.) Remember, you have infinite power and a whole lot of love, and there's a steady stream of dead kids. And you're telling me that your response would be no response, just like God? I hate to bust out the "think of the children" argument, but it seems apt. Of all the people that should be thinking of the children, it's God." I think one of the things that makes God’s purposes/plans difficult for us to understand is that we tend to see death as a finality. From God’s perspective, death is merely a transition. Please don’t take this to mean that God is not grieved, just as we are grieved. In those situations you mentioned, the children go to Heaven. As a parent, I would be very grieved if my child was murdered. But, I have the conviction that my child would be with God, in a far better place.
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 152 of 259 (142391)
09-14-2004 4:51 PM
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crashfrog wrote:
"Millions of children are starving in this country alone, but they're still alive. Starvation is not a transition." "If God grieves but refuses to act, who gives a fuck? His grief means nothing if it doesn't spur action to ameliorate." God does act, as I said before. He prompts people to bring aid/food to some of the children around the world. If he directly and overtly intervened, it would nullify faith. He is not going to do that- not yet anyway.
"But everybody who's alive wants to remain alive. Even if death is a "transition", as you say, a good and loving God wouldn't inflict that painful transition on anyone who didn't want it yet." God doesn't inflict the evil, fellow humans do.
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 154 of 259 (142408)
09-14-2004 6:09 PM
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crashfrog wrote:
"It's people that load food into trucks and send it into the hells on Earth, not God. Don't belittle the people that do these things by giving credit to a do-nothing God. That to me is the worst thing that you God apologists do." Why do these people that help do it?
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 156 of 259 (142448)
09-14-2004 8:38 PM
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crashfrog wrote:
"Because like all social animals, we take care of the conspecifics we identify as our "kin". Of course, as we have no biological mechanisms for kin identification, our "kin" becomes whoever we decide they are." I concede that that is a possibility. However, I submit to you that many of the organizations that provide food for starving peoples around the world are Christian organizations operating under Christian principles.
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 160 by crashfrog, posted 09-14-2004 10:42 PM | | dpardo has not replied |
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 166 of 259 (142528)
09-15-2004 1:14 PM
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When these organizations provide food for starving people, it is an act of love. 1 John 4:7-8 says, concerning love:
"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 168 of 259 (142531)
09-15-2004 1:22 PM
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Why are their hearts filled to bursting with love for their fellow humans?
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 169 of 259 (142532)
09-15-2004 1:25 PM
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Some insight into evil:
"From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war..." James 4:1-2
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 172 of 259 (142571)
09-15-2004 4:33 PM
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portmaster1000 writes: "Humanity's good is from God and evil is strictly humanity's own fault. I don't believe evil is strictly humanity's own fault. I believe Satan has something do with it also. 1 Peter 5:8 says:
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" Exactly how he devours is not entirely clear to me, but I believe this passage offers some insight:
"(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds)
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" 2Corinthians 10:4-5 From this passage, I believe that he may be responsible for "planting" certain thoughts in our minds and that we need to be vigilant to "screen" thoughts before we begin entertaining them.
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 175 of 259 (142589)
09-15-2004 6:05 PM
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portmaster1000 writes: "Is humanity capable of good w/o the influence of God?" From the perspective that God has always existed and thus his influence has always existed, I am not sure I can refer to any example to support a hypothesis. Let us consider the story of Noah and the flood. Genesis 6:5-7 says:
"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them." If we theorize that in that setting, the influence of God was minimal or non-existent, then my answer to your question is: "No". The passage declares: "...every imagination of the thoughts of his [man's] heart was only evil continually...". edit: changed "the" to "my" in "my answer to your question...
punctuation- added two periods. This message has been edited by dpardo, 09-15-2004 05:15 PM
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 178 of 259 (142735)
09-16-2004 12:52 PM
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portmaster1000 writes: "If only through God's influence can mankind ever hope to achieve any good then God would have "set himself up" to destroy them by withholding that influence. Why would God stop giving good influence to the world and allow his brand new creation to rot in it's own evil ways? As the original topic suggests, this makes God out to be dumb." I don't believe God withheld his influence but that man rejected God.
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dpardo
Inactive Member
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Message 186 of 259 (145367)
09-28-2004 1:21 PM
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Dan Carroll, How does God create evil? Did you find any examples so that we might examine them?
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