Looking for some answers:

I'd like to make this very clear from the start that it's not my intention to put down anybody elses beliefs here. I'm going to pose a number of questions about Christianity, and more specifically the christian God because I'd like a little clarity.


1. God is all knowing, all powerful, and ever present. Now, aside from, "everything happens for a reason", can somebody tell me why this very powerful man who loves you so much would stand by and watch people die? He knew about the disaster hurrican Katrina caused way before it happened. He had the power to stop it. He had the power to save those people. He chose not to. Same thing goes for the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and various other disasters that killed masses of people. Is he not really powerful, does he not care, or am I missing something?


2. Does God not exhibit sin in the bible? God is said to be infallable. A perfect being. Yet he's responsible for such acts as the plague and floods that killed people because he was angry. Is that not wrath? The bible tells the story of, I believe, Job. (Please forgive me if I'm fuddling this a bit).

The story in which a man loves God. He has a prosperous farm. A loyal wife, and beautiful children. However when it's said to God that Job is only faithful because God has given him the world, God destroys his life to prove he will still remain faithful. Is that not pride?

Are both of these not deadly sins? Who does God apologize to? Is Jesus Christ his lord and savior as well?


3. I'm to understand that the bible states that anything can be forgiven as long as you feel remorse, but the deal breaker is that to be forgiven you must accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Which anybody will tell you is not a bad deal. Accept Jesus as your savior, have a conscience, and you live in bliss for eternity. What if you live your life as a saint, but cannot bring yourself to accept Jesus? What if you were more caring and compassionate and giving than 20 Mother Theresas? Is that not a bigger feat than just handing your life to Jesus? Is that not doing what he would've wanted you to do? But correct me if I'm wrong, under that hypothetical I've stated, you're going to hell, correct? Why?

 

I'd like to say some real thought provoking questions! Good stuff!

1.Sure God is all seeing and all knowing. I don't believe though it's in our greatest interest to have God step in whenever things go wrong. On a large scale and please understand me when I say this...What would life be like? It would be Heaven already. I think we need some angst in life for comparison purposes more than anything. Now I'm certainly NOT demeaning 9-11 or any other tragedy. We as Christians should react swiftly to help people involved. But, if God were there to pick up all the pieces, all the time, in every way, life would be empty.

2.Well, if God is in fact a being without sin then when he did these things they couldn't have possibly been sins. Sins are something man tries not to live by. An example...If a
tiger kills an antelope is it a sin? I really think sins are man's deal. God moves in ways we can't sometime comprehend. Maybe, if we had omnipotent "powers" we could use now what we could call "sins". But, with our current set of capabilities our reasoning and actions would be skewed by such. This of course is all hypothetical. But, I think the term "sin" for God is nonexistent.

3.Well according to some Christian traditions at the time of judgement people will again have the chance to accept Jesus as his or her personal Savior. Also, when Jesus says the only way to the Father is through me. Now you can take this to mean many things. His ways, his beliefs, his teachings. Now I believe in the utter divinity of Christ. But, can I say an Islamic man who treats everybody with dignity and respect is not going to Heaven? No, I can't. Why can't I? Because I do not have that power as a person. Sure, I believe in the Christian way. But, I'm sure you believe in your way, Pure Land Buddhists believe their way, Daoists believe there way, etc. We all think each other are wrong. So, what would it accomplish for me to say these people are bound to hell. I'm not putting you down for your question but I think people need to take personal responsibility more than anything. People will go out sleep with ever other personal imaginable, cheat on their taxes, and download Christian Music off Limewire. Than talk about Hindu people going to Hell. See my point here?

 

1. God is all knowing, all powerful, and ever present. Now, aside from, "everything happens for a reason", can somebody tell me why this very powerful man who loves you so much would stand by and watch people die? He knew about the disaster hurrican Katrina caused way before it happened. He had the power to stop it. He had the power to save those people. He chose not to. Same thing goes for the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11 and various other disasters that killed masses of people. Is he not really powerful, does he not care, or am I missing something?well to start, I do not believe God is corporeal. I believe God to be a binding essence that binds three co-existent persons together. God is love. God is comfort. And I agree with Portalguy. God is not for us to control. People have free-will, and I do not believe God can intervene with that given free-will. God can give answers/choices to our debates, or he can not. Eh, I really don't know any more to say


2. Does God not exhibit sin in the bible? God is said to be infallable. A perfect being. Yet he's responsible for such acts as the plague and floods that killed people because he was angry. Is that not wrath? The bible tells the story of, I believe, Job. (Please forgive me if I'm fuddling this a bit).

The story in which a man loves God. He has a prosperous farm. A loyal wife, and beautiful children. However when it's said to God that Job is only faithful because God has given him the world, God destroys his life to prove he will still remain faithful. Is that not pride?

Are both of these not deadly sins? Who does God apologize to? Is Jesus Christ his lord and savior as well? It is alright. The way I read Job is that God knew Job is faithful and true to him, but Satan did not think so. Satan said to God that Job will forsake God if he did all these thigns to him, so god, knowing that Job is a faithful man, let him. The way I interpret it is that it demonstrates that God will leave us at times, and it may feel as though some evil is bearing down on us, but god is still there, he will return with the love and comfort that he provides. Without hardship, heart-ache, sorrow, God becomes moot.


3. I'm to understand that the bible states that anything can be forgiven as long as you feel remorse, but the deal breaker is that to be forgiven you must accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. Which anybody will tell you is not a bad deal. Accept Jesus as your savior, have a conscience, and you live in bliss for eternity. What if you live your life as a saint, but cannot bring yourself to accept Jesus? What if you were more caring and compassionate and giving than 20 Mother Theresas? Is that not a bigger feat than just handing your life to Jesus? Is that not doing what he would've wanted you to do? But correct me if I'm wrong, under that hypothetical I've stated, you're going to hell, correct? Why? Well only the most conservative denominations have a very exclusive view on salvation. The RCC for example, in the words of Vatican 2, can be interpreted to have a suprisingly inclusive view on salvation. If you read it it can be read to say that other Christians can be saved, but they are lacking just that little bit extra, and non-Christians can also be saved and their practices may hinder or facilitate salvation.

I tried writing more for all three questions, but failed at expressing my thoughts in words...
:&

 

I never thought I'd say this, but,yay for Pope Benedict XVI pointing out that even non-believers can be saved if they are good people!

It's about time that something rational came from the Vatican.

 

Hey, and the Vatican recently changed (or is changing) their stance on condoms too. Now if you are married, heterosexual, and have AIDS, you are allowed to use them.

 

In answer to No. one:

God is a spirit. What makes you think He is even remotely interested in your flesh?

 

What makes you think that the only spirit of God is a he?

 

What makes you think calling God a "he" gives it a gender?

 

I'm limited on time so I'm only going to address this one portion, but I would like to thank both yourself and Burbot for taking the time to answer my questions.


So, what you're saying here is that some believe that at my time of judgement I will be presented in the afterlife and have the chance to admit that I was wrong in questioning the existence of Jesus?

 

No, not according to rabid bible thumping fundies. if you dont give your heart to jebus right now, you and every other human, even other christians in rival denominations will burn forever in hell for being born. Now go repent, jesus loves you!

 

It's a little deeper than that. BTW Bible thumping fundies DO NOT have the market cornered on Christianity. Don't believe that. It's not true. Yes, some Christian traditions believe that at the time of judgement you'll have a chance to say you were wrong. I'm not saying "that's how it goes" I'm saying some believe this.

 

Okay, what makes you think calling what you think is God is God?

 

I do not think that is relevant to this conversation...

 

what conversation, this is an expression of beliefs thru questions.........has been for ages and always will be........a conversation has an end......discussion has an end.........this God thing is a neverending story, a Love beyond Comprehension, a Pure Luck from a Magic, and an Answer that rings true from the New Testament is The answer is the parable is Seed is the word of God. Yet who has heard this word? What more than comes as Yes or No is evil......is evil words from God? Does Heaven contain Hell? Is the devil Jesus, Gods forgotten son, who spoke false prophecy and did not come a second time and never will? "Fear the false prophet"........scripture, and no relevance to anything. I choose to fear or not. <that is a period.
I choose to give myself numerous possibilities and take my time making decisions. People who rush me or interrupt me are part of the 'let's pretend we are God', God is a calm happiness, not the excited happiness that a control freakish majority of elders crave to see in the reactions of youngers from their words. For that matter youngers beginning to imitate elders practicing up for the day they will be deceived respect from others is more important than respecting yourself. And who are the elders imitating with teachings.........the ancients called prophets of each culture.. each culture that has a prophet,,,,,,,,Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus.........has the history of being a war torn country that has lost the edge of some absolutely incredible advances in technology that could have been steered into the arts. Japan, Iraq/Iran/Egypt/Arabia, and Israel leaders have all become pimps to their people,selling off their work, their natural resources to the world in the arena of tech advances in science, Not art.
America had half a chance of using technology to the display of happy calm art. Look at Disney. But since he passed away, the influence of the negative boisterous piglike display of morals has even invaded full length animations. I blame the Japanese for their belief they would exist in a higher state killing themselves for the good of the divine emperor. I blame the mental infection of Mohammed as the locals in the mideast killed each other and tryed to terrorize a world into the submission. The religeous scenario has rivaled the 'believe in me or die' attitudes in non-religeous governments. The communists, the nazis........what a con to torment people who were believing in false prophets in the countries.....why can't people just get along and be happy?
Individuals can, I am, are any of you who read this? Or are you all like a school of fish in the sea, twitchin en masse to every scary thing in the distance of make believe water? Must I hook you with my evil words like a fisherman to save you from your angers and fears, or you gonna get on the get on and do what takes to live a calm happy life. All now living a calm happy life that can deal with any funky intrusions, signify by tapping I. Before we try to define God, let us try to define ourselves.

peace
Honor

"If there is a war between the genders, here is the female strategy:
Half the women keep the men to busy to have as much fun as the other half of the women. The mens' strategy is to hide the fact they are more emotional than women." - HS

 

I am going to try a slightly different approach here.

Though I really like Portalguy's answer, I am going to present another side of the coin. It is a little harsher and I don't particularly agree with it, but it does have some compelling ideas and it is argued by some.

The world is a dangerous place, we all know that. We take risks in our lives (pretty much on a daily basis). So, if we take those risks, should we not also be responsible for the results? If I skydive and my parachute fails and I fall to my death, should God swoop in and protect me from my own stupidity? So if I build my house on the side of a volcano and it erupts should I blame God for "not saving me"? People who live in a costal city that is below sea level have no business complaining when nature takes its course. God is very keen on "you get what you asked for." I live in Oklahoma. Tornadoes are a fact of life here. If I don't want to live with the risk of having a tornado hit my house, I can live somewhere else. If a tornado DOES hit my house, I have about as much right to complain about God allowing this "disaster" as I do about God letting gravity work when my 'chute doesn't open. I noticed that you mentioned the OKC bombing and 9/11, those are men being evil to men. This is when "free-will" enters the picture and we see that God allows mankind to be evil because we have the God-given ability to be that way. He doesn't prevent it because He doesn't want to force Himself on us.

Sin, for the Christian, is anything that deviates from God's character, nature, and/or will. Since God cannot deviate from His own character, nature, or will, God cannot sin.
But your question seems related to the first one (if God is omni-x, then how can he allow X?). This one seems to be: If God is omni-x, how can God DO X?
In many ways, Christians must trust that God will do what is just, right, and good. God gets angry. He also has rightfully deserved honor. He is an EMOTIONAL being whose emotions are perfectly tempered by His reason, and His justness. So when God acts in anger, He isn't blindly lashing out, but is rendering a just and right punishment for the offending action.

There are all sorts of scriptural evidences for the "exclusivist" ideas, but "inclusivism" is more widely supported by Scripture and by reason and logic. There are people who were not "Christian" that have gone to heaven. Among these are Melchizidek, Abraham, Moses, the Old Testament Prophets, etc. These people reacted with sincerety to the illumnation that God gave them. There are also other people from other lands, cultures and times that have had reacted to the light God has given them. We would say that it would be unfair to send a good person to hell simply because he never heard of Jesus. God knows this too. God also knows exactly how we reacted to the light we were given and can properly judge the state of our hearts. This is why His judgement is so much more right than our own for we cannot see a man's intent nor can we read his heart.

The meat and bones of salvation are this:

1. Recognition that man and God are separated.
2. Recognition that man is not worthy to draw near to God (in any way).
3. Trust that God will make a way and draw us to Him.

This is what deliniates Christianity from many current world religions. Step two in particular eliminates any religious practice that assumes that mankind is good enough to get to heaven based on actions.

 

I'm glad you made these 3 points.
1. I dont believe God and man to be separated. We are life, a miracle in human form. If God isn't part of us I dont know what you fathom "God" to be.
2. Guilt is a great way to manipulate people. No wonder the church incorporated it into religion. I guess the all powerful god did it all right except for man. We were born into "sin" and need to be "saved" from the get go. What a failure god is. His children not worthy to be near him. Sounds more like the framing of a political power structure than god the father.

3. If you give your will and heart and brain to "jesus" then everything will be ok. Meanwhile those in charge rob you blind. Control, control, control you feeble little sheep. By creating the illusion that you are evil and need to be saved, you create the idea that you are evil. No good works can get you to heaven, then why bother. Just as long as you tithe or let yourself be controlled for gain.

Your bible is a semi historical, ancient document that pulls from other ancient religions and beliefs. Many of which since prehistoric times have been proved false by science. In ancient culture, religion was the form of government. To believe it is the one and only word of god proves how manipulated and gullible people are. Try thinking for yourself and open your heart. I am not advocating the devil. I believe in morality and spirituality.
Your fundamentalist beliefs are a cancer on humanity and you don't even realize it.

 

Alsharad- I believe your questions were rhetorical, but I felt I should respond anyway.

Who is the one who caused for your parachute to fail?

No. Respect God. If the volcano rumbles, don't dismiss it and say "God will take care of me". Perhaps God needs to blow up the volcano for very important reasons. Then again, perhaps it is important that someone dies as a result of the eruption too, which is why they stayed on the side of the volcano as it rumbled. Note to self: you are going to a volcano to camp this summer...

God doesn't prevent it because this "Evil" is a safety valve that causes us to think about right and wrong action. We need to learn to not do evil by seeing the results of evil. Should we do evil just to educate others to not do evil?

Just like a child is not worthy to draw near its mother for comfort? Thank God you aren't anyone's mother.

 

Thing is Indie, your question proceeds from the assumption that death is a bad thing.

My whole take on the story of Genisis is that man lost his innocence, and his ability to really experience life, as soon as he became capable of seperating the world into catagories; good/bad, life/death, male/female.

Up until then he was just another creature experiencing life without thinking about it. All the great mystics (of all religions, or none at all) have set down formulas for getting back to that state of awareness.

My take on that is that life is neither "good" nor "bad" it's just life. You have to accept it whole cloth or you seperate yourself from it, and you can never wholy experience any aspect of it.

By the same token if God is everything, the Alpha and Omega, then you have to accept him whole cloth. To judge any aspect of existence is to judge God and if you judge something you seperate yourself from it.

You can't reject any aspect of anything and truly experience the whole

 

You also have the other side, that the experience of life as separate experiences, beings, etc. gives us a fuller appreciation of what it is (in the long run).

 

I'm not sure, I mean from a spiritual perspective I don't know if there's really any upside to self-awareness.

If you think about it, the only time we consider our"selves" is when we're in the act of judging something; ourselves or the world as it relates to us, or how the circumstances of the moment compare to what we think we want.

I have a theory on the meaning of the baptism ritual that kind of sums up what i'm trying to say; The river represents life, and when we're standing on the shore we think we're looking at the river, but we're not, we're really just looking at everything that's reflected in the water.

Mostly we're looking at our own reflection and trying to determine how everything it's surrounded by relates to us (it, since it really isn't us).

What we're really seeing is a distorted, backwards version of reality and ourselves. In any case, we're not in the river. We're standing there, trying to determine what it is, judging it based on alot of misinformation.

Then you get close enough to touch the surface and you find everything you thought you we're looking at is just an illusion, you realise you know absolutely nothing about the river and the only way to find out is to dive in, which is where faith comes in (you don't know what's there or what's going to happen next, but you know it's life, for better or worse, and everything on this side of the surface is just an empty reflection of life).

Once we dive in, now we're not just trying to look at or judge life, we're in it. Our reflection is gone so the only thing we have to turn our attention to is whatever's around us.