Bttt. for the new ones. Interesting and thought provoking. Don't let the length scare you off. I really hope cofty starts a new thread with his question and summaries and a link to this thread. This thread really made me reexamine what I was taught. Thank you cofty
The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday
by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences
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kassad84
Only read a couple of the opening pages, and I am not sure if this point has already been raised. Just throwing a few cents here - not sure if it is stupid either.
For those that says God doesn't do anything but exist, Christianity answers that He chose to come down as a man through the person of Christ and choose suffer with us. emmanuel. God has been laboring and still laboring to change the hearts and will of men unto himself, because this is the essential thing, the core of the problem - to turn the will of his creatures back to Him. Imagine if God chose to protect people from natural disasters. What then? Even if the whole world turns into paradise right now, it will be useless and a mockery if there are still murderers, rapists, covetousness, and a whole lot of diseases we have in our hearts that causes us to hurt each other.
When will God act? That will always be a stumbling block. I believe, if God does exist, we are in no position to dictate or to direct what should be done next. Abraham waited 25 years (and after that God asked him to sacrifice the very thing he waited for;the will is what's important). The nation of Israel waited 300 years in bondage. And many others. Though, this will be nonsense if you believe that the Bible is a fairy tale. And so God is a fairy tale, and the discussion ends there. I think this is arrogant, because the fact that these events may have happened a long time ago, we won't simply know because we were not there, no matter how many history and acheological books we have read, we won't simply know the whole truth, there's always something that's left undiscovered, errors that will be corrected. And so it is with God. A little caution is never bad.
The Bible says God is Love, I believe that. It also says, every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue will praise Him. He will do something magnificent that all of this hurt we are talking about right now will be nothing, He will exhibit mercy so magnificent that we will be ashamed of ourselves, of the way we have talked and acted against Him. And then He will welcome us back treat us as equals
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kassad84
The truly Christian answer is never an appeal to some grander plan or the mystery of God’s will. At the foundation of any Christian metaphysics is the idea that God is, and therefore wills, only absolute goodness, and that evil has no ‘genuine’ existence, but is only a perversion of what is good.
Often it seems as if the only possible responses in the face of evil and suffering are “It is God’s will” or “Shit happens”. But we rightly recoil from both of these views, and there is a third that matches more closely the longings and groans that prompt even our condemnation of God: that evil is unnatural, that the death of a child is not right, that things are not supposed to be this way.
And this is precisely the message of the New Testament: that our world is in some sense fallen, that it is governed by principalities and powers which are foreign to it, that death is an enemy, and that God himself is engaged in a war against it.
Such a view may be false. It may be just wishful thinking. But it is not simplistic. And it is a view (to my mind the only view) that takes seriously our outcry against fate and death and suffering and easy answers.
http://onancientpaths.tumblr.com/post/79128370317/thoughtsandsquats-i-just-want-to-apologize-to
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DJS
Kiss,
Your beliefs are right down there next to feelings in the socio-evolutonary ladder. They mean little to nothing in a discussion such as this. And the bible is the best tool atheists and evolutionists have to disprove creation. Sad that you would feel the need to interject this at the end of this discussion. Narcissistic, lacking impulse control. And Kiss, I don't know what the ef you are talking about. Both of you should be ashamed jumping in at the end of this very amazing intellectual discussion with these posts.
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zed is dead
47,194 views, yet no one has changed their personal opinions. Typical atheist/believer thread. Yawn.
zzzed
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Miss.Fit
It's not the distination, it's the journey. Everyone has to get there their own way. Some take longer than others.
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cofty
Kassad - your reponse was cookie-cutter conservative evangelical "one-size-fits-all" apologetics. You took zero account of the actual question.
Zed - What a bore you are.
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DJS
Zed,
Lots of lurkers are likely changing or beginning to change viewpoints. It is the nature of debate that the participants, out of pride or ignorance, almost never concede during the debate. That doesn't mean they won't sooner or later. Lots do.
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kassad84
the second one was from an orthodox christian's blog, btw
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cofty
And this is precisely the message of the New Testament: that our world is in some sense fallen, that it is governed by principalities and powers which are foreign to it, that death is an enemy, and that God himself is engaged in a war against it.
What a pathetic god. I thought he was omnipotent.