yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
"There are lots of books, articles and websites available on those subjects sunny23. Ever heard of Google or Amazon?"yadda
Yea and I have plenty of potentials saved in my cart but I asked to get personal opinions on where best to start by a more knowledgeable person (cofty) than I and that's a wise choice right? And THANK YOU for the suggestions! This is why I joined JWN!
The rest of my posts are aimed to keep on topic of speculating why God would allow suffering if there is one.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
"I would say that it is a fairy story. You have all your work to do to provide evidence for this strange idea."-cofty
My whole reason for posting this if you read my exact words was to see if this strange idea about this fairy tale made the most logical sense if we were forced to come up with the best reason for why this fairy God allows suffering to continue. My question to you ultimately is: If there is a God and he offers life after death, would the reasons I listed make MOST sense even if you don't believe any of this shit and had to pick the best reason without evidence support?
You tried to negate it by asking if it would take 100,000+ yrs for god to solve a bet and I'm saying I guess so, but that's a better assumption than any other that the pastor approached you with wouldnt you agree? If you had to scale rate them.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
"Homo sapiens evolved form non-human ancestors over million of years.
There was no Adam & Eve, no state of perfection and no fall.
All living things evolved from a common ancestor.
There was no global flood."
those topics from your post
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Curious to know Cofty is your opinion to my question the same as yaddas? Also I read your linked post topic. I already agree with two of those bullets. Where do I find the facts that you used to make that post so I can learn.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
"Then we would have to determine the max time we would allot for such a bet on rightfull sovereignty. If you were God when would you have put a stop to it? Consider that ALL forms and types of human rule and satanic influences would need to be explored and tested fully first."Homo spaiens with the ability to feel anguish, loss and despair have been suffering for over 100 000 years. Has it really taken that long for god to settle a silly bet??" Cofty
"Then we would have to determine the max time we would allot for such a bet on rightfull sovereignty. If you were God when would you have put a stop to it? Consider that ALL forms and types of human rule and satanic influences would need to be explored and tested fully first.-Me
What would you say Cofty?
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Yadda Yadda. I already know of pascals wager. I'm at point in life holding my chips in hand (next 40+ yrs) and trying to figure out what to bet my wager on. This forum exists in my eyes to assist in making that bet.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
If you thank god for anything he/she does in your life you affirm your belief in a god who acts in time. You then also have to answer why he fails to act._cofty
YES! That's exactly what I would try and make my stubborn MS younger brother understand. He believed God blesses his people and his congregations. Even elders would announce that financial success of the congregation to provide for the CO was a blessing from God.
You can't attribute blessings and not non-blessings!!
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Then we would have to determine the max time we would allot for such a bet on rightfull sovereignty. If you were God when would you have put a stop to it? Consider that ALL forms and types of human rule and satanic influences would need to be explored and tested fully first.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
Cofty, my original post wasn't satire. I'm here for guidance and scrutiny toward my posts is welcomed. What I posted aren't my words so I won't be offended. I'm legitimately trying to figure out for myself what my beliefs are and as concerns the topic of suffering and pain, I believe the reasoning I posted makes most sense to me right now and that it wasn't addressed in your opening statement.
9. There is eternal afterlife and our life now and the current pain and suffering is less than a speck on the prospect of an eternal timeline.
Btw I think that the idea of Gods hashing it out to prove a point to angels thus causing centuries of pain and destruction only to "shake the etch in scetch" afterwards is perhaps the only dispute I would have with this logic. Yet if its really about sovereignty and there really is eternal life after death then I personally would excuse it. Again only on the premise God makes up for it and a loving God would.
yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.
we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.
they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.
I met an atheist the other day at a bar and even though i'm against talking politics or religion while at a bar i couldn't help but to intervene as he was bragging to my girlfriend and I about a bad@** atheist church he is starting downtown including 1500 members gathered and in support online. He kept bringing up suffering around the world as a definitive sign that God doesn't exist. I myself since leaving the JW org have been questioning it, however I still believe that IF there is a God and IF most of the current bible is true and inspired then the JW reasoning for why God allows bad sh** to happen is the best reasoning...(bible teach book)
"10 To find out why God allows suffering, we need to think back to the time when suffering began. When Satan led Adam and Eve into disobeying Jehovah, an important question was raised. Satan did not call into question Jehovah’s power. Even Satan knows that there is no limit to Jehovah’s power. Rather, Satan questioned Jehovah’s right to rule. By calling God a liar who withholds good from his subjects, Satan charged that Jehovah is a bad ruler. (Genesis 3:2-5) Satan implied that mankind would be better off without God’s rulership. This was an attack on Jehovah’s sovereignty, his right to rule.
11 Adam and Eve rebelled against Jehovah. In effect, they said: ‘We do not need Jehovah as our Ruler. We can decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.’ How could Jehovah settle that issue? How could he teach all intelligent creatures that the rebels were wrong and that his way truly is best? Someone might say that God should simply have destroyed the rebels and made a fresh start. But Jehovah had stated his purpose to fill the earth with the offspring of Adam and Eve, and he wanted them to live in an earthly paradise. (Genesis 1:28) Jehovah always fulfills his purposes. (Isaiah 55:10, 11) Besides that, getting rid of the rebels in Eden would not have answered the question that had been raised regarding Jehovah’s right to rule.
12 Let us consider an illustration. Imagine that a teacher is telling his students how to solve a difficult problem. A clever but rebellious student claims that the teacher’s way of solving the problem is wrong. Implying that the teacher is not capable, this rebel insists that he knows a much better way to solve the problem. Some students think that he is right, and they also become rebellious. What should the teacher do? If he throws the rebels out of the class, what will be the effect on the other students? Will they not believe that their fellow student and those who joined him are right? All the other students in the class might lose respect for the teacher, thinking that he is afraid of being proved wrong. But suppose that the teacher allows the rebel to show the class how he would solve the problem.
13 Jehovah has done something similar to what the teacher does. Remember that the rebels in Eden were not the only ones involved. Millions of angels were watching. (Job 38:7; Daniel 7:10) How Jehovah handled the rebellion would greatly affect all those angels and eventually all intelligent creation. So, what has Jehovah done? He has allowed Satan to show how he would rule mankind. God has also allowed humans to govern themselves under Satan’s guidance.
14 The teacher in our illustration knows that the rebel and the students on his side are wrong. But he also knows that allowing them the opportunity to try to prove their point will benefit the whole class. When the rebels fail, all honest students will see that the teacher is the only one qualified to lead the class. They will understand why the teacher thereafter removes any rebels from the class. Similarly, Jehovah knows that all honesthearted humans and angels will benefit from seeing that Satan and his fellow rebels have failed and that humans cannot govern themselves. Like Jeremiah of old, they will learn this vital truth: “I well know, O Jehovah, that to earthling man his way does not belong. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.”—Jeremiah 10:23."
___________So I used this logic when talking to the soon to be atheist minister and it seemed to make sense to him. Agreed to disagree even though I myself am still unsure how much I hold it to be true. Either way, you can't prove there is a God and you can't prove there isn't. I just hate having to to try and turn speculation into faith.
