I also immediately thought of Matthew 23:27:
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.
peacedog
JoinedPosts by peacedog
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12
Can you think of a scripture that best describes the WTS
by wasblind in2 timothy 3:7.
"always learning and yet never able to come to an accurate knowledge of truth.
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79
God is not a good Samaritan
by peacedog ini don't start threads very often, but yesterday i had something of an epiphany as i was doing some work in the yard.
deep in thought, as i usually am when doing mundane tasks, it occurred to me that while jesus encouraged us to be "good samaritans", god himself is not a good samaritan.
in the parable by jesus, a traveler is left beaten and robbed on the side of the road.
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peacedog
Thanks for all the comments.
Cofty, good comments:
"All attempts to reconcile god and suffering are ultimately vacuous. The world looks exactly as it we would expect it to look if there was no god."
Profound and true, and summarizes my position.
Imo, the existence of a loving omnipotent God is just inconsistent/incompatible with human suffering.
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Details of next service years Circuit assembly & Special Day
by dozy in2010/11 circuit assembly.
theme: you are no part of the world.
saturday talk full time service protects us how?.
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peacedog
WingCommander, you took the words right out of my mouth.
Friggin hypocrites......
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79
God is not a good Samaritan
by peacedog ini don't start threads very often, but yesterday i had something of an epiphany as i was doing some work in the yard.
deep in thought, as i usually am when doing mundane tasks, it occurred to me that while jesus encouraged us to be "good samaritans", god himself is not a good samaritan.
in the parable by jesus, a traveler is left beaten and robbed on the side of the road.
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peacedog
Because that's HOW we end the suffering?
A nice thought, but people are still suffering......
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79
God is not a good Samaritan
by peacedog ini don't start threads very often, but yesterday i had something of an epiphany as i was doing some work in the yard.
deep in thought, as i usually am when doing mundane tasks, it occurred to me that while jesus encouraged us to be "good samaritans", god himself is not a good samaritan.
in the parable by jesus, a traveler is left beaten and robbed on the side of the road.
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peacedog
What can God do about that situation?
He's the omnipotent God of the Universe so I would think he has many means at his disposal....
I'm certainly not craving the "day of Jehovah". Just trying to understand why a supposedly loving God who is at the same time all-powerful allows his creation to suffer each and every day (and yet tells us to be "good Samaritans" and help those who are suffering).........
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79
God is not a good Samaritan
by peacedog ini don't start threads very often, but yesterday i had something of an epiphany as i was doing some work in the yard.
deep in thought, as i usually am when doing mundane tasks, it occurred to me that while jesus encouraged us to be "good samaritans", god himself is not a good samaritan.
in the parable by jesus, a traveler is left beaten and robbed on the side of the road.
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peacedog
Good comments, thanks.
I said in a previous post that I wish I could consider suffering as beneficial in some way (PSac) or that in the future it would all make sense (EndOfMysteries). Problem is, neither of these views does anything to alleviate our suffering. Perhaps the priest and the Levite held these views. So what was the point of holding them out as inferior to the Samaritan in Jesus' parable?
PSac:
God can fix these things but then where would we be?
Happy, maybe? Not suffering, at least.
Again, deep down we know that the vast majority of suffering is self inflected in the sense that we as a people can put an end to it, why don't we?
Tell that to the cancer patient. Or the alzheimer's sufferer. Or the person suffering from anxiety disorders or depression. Or the child born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Is their suffering self-inflicted? God walks past these people every day....
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79
God is not a good Samaritan
by peacedog ini don't start threads very often, but yesterday i had something of an epiphany as i was doing some work in the yard.
deep in thought, as i usually am when doing mundane tasks, it occurred to me that while jesus encouraged us to be "good samaritans", god himself is not a good samaritan.
in the parable by jesus, a traveler is left beaten and robbed on the side of the road.
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peacedog
BurnTheShips:
You're breathing, aren't you?
I wonder if the priest and the Levite said the same thing to the man lying at the side of the road as they strolled on by.....
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79
God is not a good Samaritan
by peacedog ini don't start threads very often, but yesterday i had something of an epiphany as i was doing some work in the yard.
deep in thought, as i usually am when doing mundane tasks, it occurred to me that while jesus encouraged us to be "good samaritans", god himself is not a good samaritan.
in the parable by jesus, a traveler is left beaten and robbed on the side of the road.
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peacedog
jaguarbass: Great comments. Great attitude.
PSac:
The parabl;e had actually nothing to do with what was done buT WHO did it, it was a lesson on hypocracy and how those that SEEM superiour because they act that way and blieve themselves to be so, are not and those that we normally wouldn't even associate with, are the ones that may "save us".
True enough. I'm just saying there was a "good Samaritan" in the parable whom we are presumably expected to imitate and yet I don't see God acting as the Samaritan did.
God does not ALLOW suffering, no more than he allows tsunamis, earthquakes, the spread of diseases, etc.
If one has the power to prevent or remove suffering and yet he does not, I think it can be said that one is ALLOWING suffering.
Good comments, Thanks.
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79
God is not a good Samaritan
by peacedog ini don't start threads very often, but yesterday i had something of an epiphany as i was doing some work in the yard.
deep in thought, as i usually am when doing mundane tasks, it occurred to me that while jesus encouraged us to be "good samaritans", god himself is not a good samaritan.
in the parable by jesus, a traveler is left beaten and robbed on the side of the road.
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peacedog
Good comments.
PSac: Generally speaking, you do make a good point. But in the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus didn't refer to 'doing everything for someone'. The situation was very specific: a man had been robbed and beaten and was left to die at the side of the road. In the parable, two men came by who had the power to help this person in his sorry state of suffering; yet they chose not to. In the same way, God (who has the power to help those of us who are suffering - some of us even literally lying at the side of the road waiting to die) chooses not to. For whatever reason, he chooses not to. For whatever reason, he is not a "good Samaritan".
Sometimes I wish I could ignore the fact that God allows suffering. I wish I could accept that it is beneficial in some unknown way, or perhaps God will take care of everything at some future point in time. But do these viewpoints help those who are suffering now? Who here would sit back and allow their child to suffer and even die when they the power to prevent it? Who would do it even to their pet? And yet the omnipotent God of the universe, our "Father", does this to us every day.
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79
God is not a good Samaritan
by peacedog ini don't start threads very often, but yesterday i had something of an epiphany as i was doing some work in the yard.
deep in thought, as i usually am when doing mundane tasks, it occurred to me that while jesus encouraged us to be "good samaritans", god himself is not a good samaritan.
in the parable by jesus, a traveler is left beaten and robbed on the side of the road.
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peacedog
PSac: good points.