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sorry I don't want to take away from your thread frenchy. I'll go away now
Far from it, I consider your posts valuable contributions and I always welcome them. Please remain. I am trying very hard to make sense of the whole thing. I am trying to accept nothing at face value while at the same time try to refrain from criticizing for the sake of criticism. I’m looking and would appreciate any glint of light of truth regardless of its source. Thank you for your consideration.
AhHah
My opinion as expressed here on this forum is not a borrowed cliché that I have accepted without testing its merits. I am very careful about formulating opinions on such weighty matters. That you may have heard someone else with a similar view does not surprise me for I hardly think that I am so original as to be unique in having such a view. But whether or not this view is held by others is totally irrelevant as far as its merits are concerned. For instance, I don’t agree with the Society on many things (such as in this case) but I do not dismiss an idea because it comes from them either.
My belief is that God never chooses to prevent humans from committing crimes and is therefore in no way responsible for individual crimes that are committed .
If you believe the Bible then you will have to acknowledge that God has intervened directly many times on behalf of individuals (David, Elisha, Daniel, etc.) in order to prevent harm from befalling them. This discredits your statement. According to your statement, God, by virtue of his choosing to prevent
certain, specific acts of violence would be responsible for allowing
other individual acts of violence, those instances in which he chooses not to intervene. Anytime you have the power, authority and means to prevent something from happening or cause it to happen, you are responsible.
One could argue that he allows ALL evil for some higher purpose. That, however, does not imply that God is making some individual judgment every time evil is committed.
I don’t believe I ever said that each evil that befalls us is an individual judgment from God. But God, being omniscient, is aware of each, individual evil act. He hears people praying for deliverance each and every time they do it. Sometimes he responds, sometimes he doesn’t.
The statement that you have chosen to ignore in your response is the statement you made that I find repulsive and revolting .
I can hardly be accused of ignoring my own statement! I thought I was expounding on it in response to your taking issue with it but perhaps I have not been clear enough.
It is quite another matter to say that God chooses not to prevent a horrible crime that is about to happen to someone because that person is in need of some personal development that will be served by this crime You say: ‘another matter’ and I ask you at this time, another matter from what? I never said that individual acts of evil were permitted in order to correct some specific deficiency in someone.
If God is actually making a conscious decision for that purpose, then one might argue that God is indeed at least partly responsible for the crime, insofar as he allows this crime whereas He might choose to prevent another one about to happen to someone else.
(I ask again) What is your explanation given that:
1. He is able to prevent the act of evil
2. He sometimes chooses to do so, BUT
3. He does not always do so.
What possible personal development would you have us believe that Seven and Waiting could have needed, so that a loving God might have decided that they needed to be raped to serve their necessary personal development?
Believe what you will. Where did I say that God decided that they needed to be raped? Those are your words and not mine.
What about little children that are abused or even murdered? What personal development might they be in need of? I find the very question absurd.
It’s your question.
…let's not use any misdirection to cloud the issue since this post is a response to one individual act of rape, not two simultaneous ones.
The illustration I used was broader in scale that those individual acts that were mentioned. The illustration I presented illustrates A PRINCIPLE which I clearly defined later. That you missed the point completely is amply demonstrated in your perversion of the illustration: There is only the Son playing on the train tracks, unaware of the train coming…
Can it be that you really don’t understand that the lives saved at the expense of the son is the thrust of the entire illustration? Let me state it more simply. The reason that the father could not save his son was because it would have been at the expense of many other lives. There was no simple, easy solution in this case. Any solution would have had a great cost. Would you have us believe that a loving God is any less responsible for his actions or inactions?
I stated my opinion. What would you have us believe?
The only way that I personally can reconcile God's inaction is what I stated above. He does not choose to miraculously intervene to prevent any human actions of any kind. I’ve already demonstrated that this is not so. He has intervened many times “to prevent…human actions”. But your statement still does not make sense because you have not given us the reason for God’s inaction. Why does God choose not to act? Even if your above statement were true it would still not answer the question of why he does not intervene. What is your answer to that?
I cannot imagine burdening a rape victim, such as Waiting or Seven, with the notion that God allowed their rape for their own good.
I would imagine it to be a greater burden to know that it all happened for nothing. But if you read my above words carefully you will note that I do not in any way intimate that that specific act was needed in their case or any other person’s case. [quote] And not only that, but let us exult while in tribulations, since we know that tribulation produces endurance; endurance, in turn, an approved condition; the approved condition, in turn, hope, and the hope does not lead to disappointment; because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the holy spirit, which was given us. -Ro 5: 3-5 NWT
There are many things that fall under the category of ‘tribulation’. Rape, murder, and all forms of violence are included in that. God in his infinite wisdom has seen fit to allow us to experience these terrible things. They must serve a purpose, IMHO.
[quote] I also want to repeat that I know your comments were well-intentioned. You seem to be a very loving person, with only the very best of motives. I like you and I like your posts. I believe that everyone on this forum likes you and appreciates your posts, especially Seven and Waiting. To their credit, they did not take your comments personally or take offense.
Please don’t patronize. By your above statement you are inferring that my comments may have caused offense to Seven and Waiting. I know that they are both more than capable of speaking for themselves and have no need of an advocate. They know me well enough to make their own determinations as to my intents and my feelings about them. Stick to the argument at hand and leave the personal comments out if you please.
[quote] I hope that my being so outspoken does not hurt your feelings. For me, it is a matter of conscience, because I care very much about persons who suffer unjustly at the hands of other people, as I know you do also.
Hearing other people’s opinions in no way ever offends me but characterizations and personal insinuations do. Your conscience is your business and yours alone. We each have one to deal with ourselves. Your stating your concern about persons suffering ‘unjustly at the hands of other people’ in conjunction with your rebuttal to my post as well as your previous statement I commented on leads me to believe that you somehow see yourself as some sort of self-appointed righter of wrongs here. Am I mistaken in that appraisal?
-Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-
