The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday (page 31)

cofty

Tammy - If you decide to post anything on topic let me know and I will read it. Otherwise be assured you type in vain.

I’m certain that in Jesus’ day there were many natural disasters occurring in many parts of the earth. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, erupting volcanoes went on as usual. His message and life’s work was not about preventing these natural events taking place in his day.

It is the same with God. What has caused more needless deaths? Natural disasters or wars, famines and disease caused by human greed? But we want God to fix all our hurts for us even those we cause ourselves? Poor us…we war and pollute and destroy the earth but God allows the winds and the earth to have its way with us, what a travesty that is!

Viviane

Cofty, thank you for starting and continuing this thread. It really demonstrates the emptiness, goal-post moving and bad logic of arguments trying to defend why the God of the Bible, who is supposed to love everyone, would allow so many people to die.

I've been lurking for a while and reading this finally convinced me to sign up, so, thanks!

bohm

PelicanBeach: So you would tell the guy with the broken leg I described in my last post something like this:

"you must understand that much more suffering is caused by war, famine etc. perpetrated by other humans than what is caused by people dying from exposure becaused they have broken a leg in a forrest and cannot get help. Therefore I will not call for help."

Just trying to understand your argument...

FlyingHighNow

The question is simple. That doesn't mean the answer will be simple. Even in science, there are mysteries. By mystery, I mean things we don't have the answers to right now. That doesn't mean there aren't answers. It means we don't have them right now. I don't understand every scary or sad thing that happens. That does not bring me to the conclusion that there is no god or gods or self aware life besides us. It doesn't bring me to the conclusion that god or gods do not care. It brings me to the conclusion that we all have a lot to learn and some of it we may never learn or understand, at least not in this short life we know of. I don't have exact beliefs about god or gods. I don't believe the universe is godless.

If someone is driving along alone, like my brother, then wrecks his vehicle into a tree causing his instant death, we are left wondering what made him go partially off the bridge and hit that tree. There were no witnesses coming forward and the investigation couldn't give us an explanation. Did he look away for a crucial second? Was someone coming towards him, off the bank, causing him to panic? His death involves some mystery. We know the tree killed him. We don't know why he hit the tree. It is what it is.

THE GLADIATOR

He ALREADY acted. From the start... before any of this even happened, and He knows what the end IS. Just because He has not acted as you demand that He act in order to conform to your idea of what God should be, means what?

You expect that as God He should know how to act... and then fail to grasp that He does and has.

Tammy, Tammy, Tammy, I know how much you want to believe that the world is beautiful and overseen by a bloving

Tec/ Tammy "He ALREADY acted. From the start... before any of this even happened, and He knows what the end IS. Just because He has not acted as you demand that He act in order to conform to your idea of what God should be, means what?"

You expect that as God He should know how to act... and then fail to grasp that He does and has.

Tammy, I know how much you want to believe that the world is beautiful and overseen by a loving God who will make everything work out in the end; that this life is just temporary, and the real life is yet to be realized. Unfortunately, reality is a stubborn intruder.

Here on this hostile planet we have to deal with reality. The reality of natural disasters, disease and death. We would all like things to be different and science work towards that end. It is difficult to believe that there is a God who with the power to act, who has done nothing for millennia.

tootired2care

You are in the process of escaping from a prison, otherwise known as the Watchtower Society. Please take care not to repeat the same costly mistake you have already made. - Gladiator

This comment applies so well to this discussion. It’s amazing the leaps of logic that some are prepared to go through to defend the concept of a loving god and blame the victim. The evidence against a loving god has stacked up clear to the heavens. Interestingly I don’t recall anywhere in the bible, or any holy book for that matter, where this loving god gave folks a heads up as to where it’s safe to build. Man just had to figure that all out on his own through centuries of painstaking trial and error.

I don’t want to drift off topic, but just consider events like the Black Plague, and the Spanish flu. Is it the fault of the infected that they died? Should they have known better to move somewhere else? The truth is there is nothing they could have done; the earth has always been chalk full of random and capricious dangers; and theism that promotes a loving god has no satisfactory answer for this. You’re of course free to believe it, but why continue to imprison yourself to the concept that there is a loving god who can just sit back and idly watch so much misery for hundreds of thousands of years, and then demand morality, obedience and other such nonsense from his subjects?

Ten deadliest natural disasters

Rank	Death toll (estimate)	Event	Location	Date
1	1,000,000–4,000,000* [1]	1931 China floods	China	July, August, 1931
2	900,000–2,000,000 [2]	1887 Yellow River flood	China	September, October, 1887
3	830,000 [3]	1556 Shaanxi earthquake	China	January 23, 1556
4	242,000–779,000	1976 Tangshan earthquake	China	July 28, 1976
5	500,000–1,000,000 [1]	1970 Bhola cyclone	East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)	November 13, 1970
6	300,000 [4]	1839 India Cyclone	India	November 25, 1839
6	300,000 [5]	1737 Calcutta cyclone	India	October 7, 1737
8	273,400 [6]	1920 Haiyuan earthquake	China	December 16, 1920
9	250,000–300,000 [7]	526 Antioch earthquake	Byzantine Empire (now Turkey)	May 526
10	260,000 [8]	115 Antioch earthquake	Roman Empire (now Turkey)	December 13, 115

Let's also not forget the several past extinction events on the earth either.

FlyingHighNow

bohm, you are speaking of the little picture, the life we are living right now. There is a bigger picture.

Why didn't the US, France or other civilized countries scramble the radio waves when the Tutsis were being slaughtered in Africa? You'll more easily answer that question than you will the lack of divine intervention when the tsunami victims were going to be be drowned. We can investigate what happens here on earth, to a degree.

PelicanBeach

Bohm,

I understand what you are saying and of course I would help someone in need. But let's look at it another way.

Aren't there times when men or women in authority must make hard choices? Choosing between saving a mother caught in a burning car or her child? Or the Fire Chief who must call his men out of a burning building knowing full well there are still people trapped in there. Hard choices happen every day in war as well. For the most part, these choices are recognized as necessary though much heartache has resulted. It is my belief that God is being placed in the same position. Choosing to allow a terrible circumstance in order to bring about a better world is very hard to understand but in the end we will know and understand. That is my firm belief.

FlyingHighNow

Nobody is saying god caused the tsunami - well apart from Unstop and Pat Robinson.

I got that. It's about God not intervening to stop the tsunami or to save everyone and all their things from the tsunami.

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

Ten deadliest natural disasters

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