Why do Christians make God out to be dumb?

Christ's family THOUGHT He was crazy. The scripture means what it says.They thought He was crazy BECAUSE they didn't believe what they were told about Him.Jesus in other passages says that a man's worst enemies will come from his own household.You are asking WHY Jesus/God died on the cross ? Why don't you a least get a 101 theological education and come back.Or go to my topic "Message of the Bible" and get started.In fairness to you I really like the rhetorical question that also is the title of this topic.Christians do make God look dumb - you are so correct. But even dumber are the idiots who believe God to be dumb because of the dumbness of christians.Catholics say if a person is not water baptized by the Church they CANNOT enter heaven. This is why they baptize infants.This is pure man made nonsense that makes God look like a dumbshit. Common sense demands that God would not forbid entry of an infant to heaven just because someone failed to pour water over their heads.All infants who die go directly to the lap of Jesus - period.

The reason God required blood sacrifice as payment for sin and the ensuing forgiveness is because the integrity of His word required it.God does not even exempt Himself or His Son from the requirements of His word.Blood must be spilled or sins cannot be forgiven. This is heresy to the modern mind. But it means what it says and it says what it says because God judged sin to be serious enough that no arbitrary dismissal, no winking at it would suffice the objective knowledge of His mind, which said knowledge deemed sin to only be absolved via blood sacrifice.

Really good explanation. You have an enlightening way of conveying Biblical truth. Thank You.

Willow-"Christ's family THOUGHT He was crazy. The scripture means what it says. They thought He was crazy BECAUSE they didn't believe what they were told about Him."You are not making any sense. Do you mean that Mary did not believe what the Angel told her? Are you suggesting that she forgot that she had a baby without ever having sex? Please elaborate.Willow-"You are asking WHY Jesus/God died on the cross ? Why don't you a least get a 101 theological education and come back."I assume by this comment that you are suggesting I get a "Christian" 101 theological education? I mean, you realize that if I took Theology 101 in say Pakistan I still would have no idea why Jesus/God died on the cross. Oh right, right yours is the only one true God, my bad....Willow-"Christians do make God look dumb - you are so correct. But even dumber are the idiots who believe God to be dumb because of the dumbness of christians."Agreed.Willow-"All infants who die go directly to the lap of Jesus - period."Would this include those children that the Christian God caused to be eaten by their own parents (LE 26:29, DT 28:53, JE 19:9, EZ 5:8-10, 2 KI 6:28-29)? Or the children that God commands to be slain (Ez 9:4-6 or any countless other passages)? Or how about the children that God took as sacrifices (EZ 20:26)? It appears your God does love children...for dinner!

Hi RoR. I am not suggesting that you do not know about these other verses, but I think these verses help to highlight how ludicrous this situation is: But just when he had resolved to do these things, the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He Himself will save His people from their sins" (Matthew 1:20,21).And the angel appeared to Joseph again: Now after they had left, behold the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and His mother, and escape to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy Him" (Matthew 2:13). Oh, and again!: So, Jesus mum and 'dad' regularly chat away to an angel, she gives birth to a son and both her and Joseph know that she hasn't had sex, and they think Jesus is mad!If the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson had written stories as poor as this then they would neverhave been published.Brian.

Thanx Brian, I did not have all that verse information!

IF the Bible is/contains the word of God then why did He include the events you referenced ?You cannot have it both ways, the Bible being His word in order to point out seemingly evil things and then the Bible not being His word when it might place a claim on your life.You need to specifically pick something that you think that God has done something evil.Regarding Christ's family : It means what it says and says what it means. Anyone criticizing the text needs to see that the information given by the gospel writer is an author recording what happened from his perspective under the inspiration of God.Mary didn't grasp the reality of exactly who her Son was. When He started His ministry they had completely forgotten that Jesus was here to go about His Father's business.The text indicates honesty, if the author were lying then this discussion would never have happened.

Crashfrog:No one says you cannot question God. In the Bible He tells us to test everything against His Spirit and Word. Translation, read the Bible and see if you can find any answers for your questions and hey! why not even ask God himself and see if he answers you! But that actually requires effort on your part to look beyond yourself and your own reasoning mind to find answers to those questions that run rampant in our heads. We ARE given the ability to reason for a purpose. Hello, comon sense is a must. But sometimes, infact, most of the time I am faced with questions that I cannot reasonable find an answer to untill I put my own preconceptions aside and try to see what God says about the matter.We are given the ability to determine right from wrong but about 90% of the time I can reason away why something is wrong and then just do it anyway.To be perfectly honest with you (and this is coming from a christian herself) I question God's actions and his reasons behind things all of the time. I use to think that it was unfaithful for me to question him.....that I was somehow stupid for questioning and that i could never really understand him. But that wasn't cutting it for me. So I started asking "why" all of the time. And amazingly enough I got answers. But for us to understand someone's reasoning behind things we have to understand their posistion. For me to understand anyone in my circle of friends, I have to have atleast some sort of empathy for them....having to put myself in their shoes. That doesnot mean I abandon my whole thought process or don't compare it to what I would have done in a situation, but it does mean that I take into account their whole history. That is exactly what I have to do with God and understanding Him. I TRY to see things from his point of veiw. I can never fully understand what it is like to be God but I might beable to understand his reasoning if I ask him to show it to me. .....but you must remember, not always is this the case. Sometimes we just cannot understand people no matter how much empathy we have. And that is okay with me.That is where trust and faith come in. Although God does desire for us to understand him, walking on water is still a part of the game. The GREATEST aspect of love, true love is trust. I never trully understood that untill I fell in love. When you love someone, the greatest gift you could ever give them is your trust. And that is what God asks of us. True love consisting of trust. But once agian, a lover wants you to know him and understand him..... so does God. Which is why he does answer our questions. We just have to accept the answers he gives us even when they are hard to accept.But I must say, love is not always rational. And love is NOT a science. Science does not hold absolute truths. Science holds theorys and "scientific laws" which are constantly changing. Let me say that again. Science is constantly changing. How can you find answers in something where the rule book is always needing to be updated and changed?

I did, and he didn't. And that was even when I was a Christian. As I have discovered, and as perhaps you will with age, what we often consider "common sensical" is often comically wrong. Well, I got them too - from the Bible, from ministers, from books, etc. The problem was that I could see that not a one of them didn't rely on wishful thinking, fallacious reasoning, and hidden, unsupported assumptions. Fine, do so. 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. You've confused trust with faith. Trust is when you believe in something because of the evidence. Faith is when you believe in something in spite of the evidence. God let's humanity down constantly, so he's beyond trusting. And I don't choose to have faith. Love, in fact, is rational. Given your socio-economic background and an honest sense of what your parents were like, I can predict pretty accurately the sort of person you'll fall in love with. Because that "change" is one of a constant approach to truth. I'd rather be almost right, and getting right-er, than be eternally and unchangingly wrong.How could you find relevant answers in a book that never reflects our increasing knowledge of what is and is not?

you raise the question of children dieing and God's "silence" about it. this, once agian, cannot be answered without discussing the issue of a greater evil in this world (which God did not create...he created free will) which i won't go into now but i will tell you that i see the suffering, God sees it and he has asked me to do something about it. so i am. and i could give you block full of people in just my little circle of connections that are doing things aobut it as well. but we aren't enough. God has been asking for people to help fix the problems (see that is the crazing thing aobut God, he likes to use people and work though them instead of just coming down in all of his glory and might and fixing things. he likes to do things through humans touching humans because that is an even greater miracle) but no one answers him. i have seen the pain, as a person having been abandond and left for dead (and God used other humans to save me) and i have seen the pain through his eyes and cryed with him, saying "i'll help, i'll go" i work with orphaned/foster children teaching art.really, you think you could predict love? socio-economic background: poor/poverty. father: alcoholic, hardworking, but no sense of responsibility when it comes to kids (he left with out any goodbye) mother: responsible, faithful, hurt by her own father, and constantly stressed out. is this enough information? i really would be interested to hear who you think i have fallen inlove with.i find relevant answers in the Bible because God's Holy Spirit reveals to me how it relates to my life. to our society today. you have to compare their society with ours and look at the parallels. there are many.[This message has been edited by burntdaisy622, 02-05-2004]

Greater, even, than God? If so, God is not all-powerful. If not, then God has a responsibility to use his power. Either way it doesn't look good for the moral, all-powerful God. You don't think it's possible that those humansdid what they did by their own will, without recourse to a benevolent God?You say that God does good through humans, but how would you tell the difference between that and humans doing good through themselves? I'll take my best shot. Please don't be offended if I hit too close to home - or wildly off-base. I'm no psychologist, except in the armchair. Also, I'm assuming you're female. (Please correct me if I'm in error.)I'm going to guess that, prior to your adoption of Christianity (which perhaps you see as a rebirth), you were in a series of relationships with guys who ultimately abandoned you, just like your dad. Try as you might you couldn't figure out why you seemed to have such a deep need to be hurt by other people. Maybe some drug use, too.Somehow - possibly after a really bad situation - you discovered Christianity. The idea of a benevolent God who was watching over you provided just the validation you needed, simultaneously fulfilling your subconsious attraction to being abandoned by father figures. (What is God if not the ultimate distant father figure?)With God filling your need to be abandoned, you're free to be attracted to a better class of guys. If you're in a relationship now, he's probably a sensitive, funny guy who himself has been friends to a lot of women but in relationships with only a few. I'm sure he's not rich but not that poor either (or else has good prospects.) I'm not sure if he's Christian himself, or not. I'm certain that your mother wasn't a Christian.That, or I've been listening to too much LoveLine on the radio.

crashfrog:that was a great attempt! entirely off base but it did make me smile. my mother was a christian and fell inlove with the wrong guy...who wasn't a christian but loved her too. he just had too many problems to be a dad. (alcholol and drugs) i became a christian when i was 13yrs old (sorry no love relationships before then) but didn't really deal with the whole abandonment issue untill i was 16. although my mom had made some bad choices (particularly in the guy department) she always relayed to me that my dad did love me, he just had made bad coices becuase of his own problems. she always made sure that i knew it wasn't my fault. it didn't really start hurting untill i realized that you can chose to be there for someone. that you should chose to be their for you kid. then i cryed and cryed and then i forgave him. that was long after i realized all that Jesus had done for us, long after i had realized the far reaching power of God..... I didn't fall inlove untill i was 18yrs old. and that was with my best friend of 3 years. (you are right to assuem i am a female) He is absolutely wonderful. But i didn't go through a whole bunch of bad ones to get to him. And i wouldn't have even if we had met later on in life..... i was determined not to fall for the same kinds of guys my mom had. so i didn't. i just got enturely blessed and met him when i was still a little girl. and from the time we met, he had had plenty of other relationships. we were just friends. then we fell inlove after 3yrs. oh.... and he isnt poor. ...oh, and no drugs.Satan is not greater than God....God would smite him today if he wanted to but he has promised that he will not send satan to hell untill everyone has had atleast one chance to hear about Jesus. In the mean time we have to turn to God when satan does hurt us or the ones we love and ask God what to do about it. But he has not eternally condemed satan because not everyone has heard the "good news"i know that these people that came to my families rescue did not do it on their own becasue they did not have the resources to. the just did what God told them to.... even at their own pesonal loss.[This message has been edited by burntdaisy622, 02-06-2004]

Good point. " Let the wheat grow amongst the chaff untill the harvest "
(from memory) " Lest by pulling out removing the chaff we risk the wheat "
" then we can gather the wheat to the barn and burn the chaff "Chaff/tares, can't remember which - they frankly confuse me. satan is at best - a jealous and greedy tyrant and trickster, making sure he can gather unbelievers using any method.

Your life.......sigh, ho hum, if only I hadn't heard this stuff a thousand times. That is just plain offensive. We study the scripture determindly, and in fact Jesus said his " sheep hear his voice " and he made parables even to confuse unbelievers, So basically ONLY the believers understand the teachings - and that's according to Christ." Blessed is he that believeth even though he has not seen "
" He that has ears to hear - let him hear "So basically, Jesus has said that the unbeliever will NOT understand, even if one " rose from the dead "
Unless you think Jesus wanted to gather unbelievers concerning these things. But then you have things like " the wrath of God abideth on him/her " - him/her being the unbeliever.Either way you lose, at best you don't hear and I am confident you will read the Bible a hundred times and not understand/believe. So indeed we reflect AND understand, even the Bible says this is true itself.

Mike,You paint a pretty dim picture for the unbeliever. ....I would have to say that I don't entirely agree with you. I know the whole "the cross is foolishness to the world" and I believe it. But I think that if they were to approach the Bible with an open heart and ask for understanding from the Holy Spirit then they will understand. I think the God softens the hearts of those who are willing.I'm sure you know this....I just wanted to make sure....