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

by cofty 2596 Replies latest jw experiences

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  sunny23

  "We simply do NOT KNOW why God decides to not intervene and we can simply express POSSIBLE views, which is what I have done.

  Agreement with this views is irrelevant to be honest."Psac

  Agreement is relevant to this thread! If your views do not agree to typical christian theism and the entire bible then it is NOT relevant to this thread! This thread asks to offer consolation as to why the God of the entire bible according to christianity would permit 250,000 deaths in a tsunami. You haven't adequatley touched that topic and your views are thusfar NOT POSSIBLE in accordance to the threads guidelines.

  4 - God is unable to prevent a tsunami

  It seems Psac, you now believe in a God who set in motion physics long ago and has watched everything play out like an ant farm with no involvement except to vist for 33yrs at one time conveniently before videocameras and internet, turn some water into wine, flip some tables, heal some lepers, and raise his friend from the grave, only to say "alright guys keep talking about me and get everyone to believe in me or I will kill them eternally when I come back, see ya!" and then he goes back up to heaven. You don't believe God created Adam & Eve roughly 6,000 years ago right? You don't believe God hand crafted the earth in several phases right? If so you are not representing viewpoints akin to typical christianity.

  "You are asking if God can make soemthing that you can conceive YET have no evidence CAN exist and my answer is No, He can't make something that can't exist just because we would like it to.Now, if you are saying that the life on this world could come to be the way it is under DIFFERENT conditions then I would say prove it."Psac

  I can concieve someone being clinically dead and resurrected three days later but there is NO evidence that this can happen or has ever happened (like to Jesus) so I would say "prove it." However you claim that God can't make something exist that defies our current laws of nature and physics right? Does not the instantaneous healing of leperosy or raising from the dead 3 days later, or using some unseen forces to part a sea or calm the weather defy our laws? How about Jesus being resurected to some new "form" and shape/entity? To hold to your own argument means you must also deny any miracle performed by Jesus ever! To accept all the biblical stories of Jesus means you accept that things that defy our physical laws can exist or happen because God can do just that. Thus God could create a universe without suffering. Would you not want to prevent your children from suffering Psac? Would you kill one child and then beat the remaining child to teach that remaining child compassion? The bible says God loves a sparrow to a high degree and much more so his human children. His love should be higher than any human parent could show to their child yes?

  "The bible itself makes no mention that God CAN or DOES divert natural disaters to save lives"Psac

  WOW! Have you read the bible at all!? Seriously Psac read it a couple more times and then come back.

  "seeing what type of God is demonstrated in Jesus's life, death and resurrection and deciding IF that is a God you deem worthy of worship."Psac

  Jesus said in Mat 12:30 that those who are not with him are against him and will be destroyed. If you do not follow or agree with Jesus then you do not inherit his kingdom, you are etenerally destroyed or tortured. How childish is this? A loving parent would still love their child and keep them safe even if their child didn't agree with anything they ever said, told them they hate their parents, and disobeyed at every chance, the parent would never harm/kill their child. Why can't God be like that Psac? Actually Jesus exhibits a non-compassionate bias enough to put him on a level to be conscientiously OK with letting 250,000 people drown when he could have saved them. That is if in the future as predicted in the new testament Jesus is willing to kill billions of people simply because they don't believe in him or dont agree with him. Hitler comes to mind.
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  sunny23

  5 - Death doesn't matter anyway

  "This being does not feel about death as we do because He KNOWS it is NOT a bad thing" Psac

  Then why did jesus cry when Lazarus died? Why did Jesus selfishly resurrect Lazarus if he knew that Lazarus was in a better place? How horrible it would be to bring someone back to an earth full of suffering when they are already in heaven right? If I was Lazarus and Jesus resureccted me back to earth after I was already enjoying a McDonalds milk shake in a hottub in heaven i would be pissed! Jesus woulda got a slapping! The idea "death doesn't matter in the long run," has already been used here, doesn't work according to logic or according to the bible when truly put to the test under christianity.
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  defender of truth

  '3 - God uses suffering like the Asian tsunami to teach us about compassion'
  
  God allows people to go through intense physical and mental suffering, so that others can suffer (perhaps even more than the person themselves, if it was your child especially..) and be moved to try to temporarily help or alleviate the pain of another person who suffers? That sounds like a cycle of unnecessary suffering to me.
  
  Would any good parent choose to allow their children to suffer, in order for others to be moved to try to alleviate their childrens pain, fear, and anguish? When the parent could fully remove their suffering immediately?
  
  No human can fully heal another. Many wounds never heal, despite the compassion that we may show to a person.
  
  And from another angle...
  If you were in severe pain, would you deny yourself pain-killers and spend the rest of your life in agony, in order to increase your compassion for those who are in constant pain?
  No?...
  Then why does God think that people must lose those that they love in disasters, and be moved by other disaster victims suffering, so that they learn to have compassion?
  Many have been so badly hurt by the immense suffering of themselves or of others, that they stop caring about people or life altogether.
  
  .......
  "for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."
  Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  ....
  
  "Not all scars show, not all wounds heal. Sometimes you can’t see the pain that someone feels."
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  defender of truth

  "Would any good parent choose to allow their children to suffer, in order for others to be moved to try to alleviate their childrens pain, fear, and anguish? When the parent could fully remove their suffering immediately?"
  In case it was unclear, I was here referring to the God of Christian theism.
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  new hope and happiness

  Well who is the God of this thread? Otherwise i think we can go off topic.

  I think the God of this thread has denied access to chocolate bars and fattening sweets sich as sticky toffee pudding to the worlds starving Millions. Is this an act of love? I mean there's no dilemma for them, no temptation to divert them from if they are lucky a doet of rice.

  I mean isn't it ridiculous, though that half the world is starving when we sit here on our computers with full fridges debating god and as for me doing nothing personally for the syarving millions.

  I wonder what happens to starving people when they first start to get hungry. Do they see things in a funny way? I know i do and i am a bit peckish, but i skipped my breakfeast. Needless to say i will have an extra big lunch and maybe even join this debate again...as if you care anyway?

  But does the God of this thread care about me? Thats what matters not that he cares about the starving millions....
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  cofty

  Defender ot Truth - Thanks. It really is very conceited for christians to imagine that kiling a quarter of a million people is a loving thing to do in order to teach comfortable western chrsitians about compassion. The hubris is stagering.

  And as jgnat explained disasters do not in fact increase compassion anyway.

  NHAH - This thread is very specifically about how to reconcile the omnipotent, loving god of christian theism with the events of 26th December 2004.

  I will not allow it to go off-topic no matter how many pages long it is.
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  cofty

  Sunny - Sorry I missed your posts. Marking to read later...
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  new hope and happiness

  Sorry Cofty i hadn't read the entire thread, and your correct.

  And as for the events of 2004 i lost my business partner, with his wife and a swedish friend of mine lost he 3 friends on that day.

  My business partner had his funneral at the cathederal in St Albans with his dead wife and it was important for everyone that God was at that Cathederal.

  I mean for me God wasn't there but he was and it was a comfort for the families...( it took many months for the funneral because of identifying bodies and death certificates) .....so ( little emotional now) but at that funneral God was needed...i mean i know his family didn't belive but they got comfort in believing....and i realized i could never totally loose my faith, even thouugh its dead and buried...you see Cofty i dont believe in God but with tragetu and death we need reasom mainly:

  Writting this is as yesterday, David and his wife and my friends 3 children were not the last, not yet Cameron died in a car crash, family tragedy my parents await in hopelessness the death sentence...we arrange to meet again. uggggg

  So i can not say God is an orgy that likes these sad events, nor can i say at death we return to our fathers house. But i think we should never open the trap door on all probability God doesnt have a plan. Some people need that.
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  new hope and happiness

  Cofty: My friend who lost her 3 friends. Those friends were 3 girls under 18. I am friends with one the childs parents and there life as they new it was gone in a minute ...i all these years later am grateful for their God, it gave them comfort. Myself i am furious because of what happend. But they needed a church and a God .

  I think people need see the dead as humun beings with souls and not animals. This leaves people with memories and hope and make it easier to put the head on the pillow at night. Otherwise what is the point of a new day?
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  new hope and happiness

  And this a long thread about the God of theism( i am not sure what theism is) but as for the God of events on THOSE days, most of the replys are from those that were not in the crowd on THOSE days, but from people that were many miles away. There were scenes from Dante...we were not there. Our mothers and sisters were not there. Yes we can clench our fists and say " where was God". Why did not the angles save my loved ones? But i can answer this thread. No one anywhere can answer this question for me?