*bows to great spirit, his Holiness, PlatoTectonica*
Extrem earthquake near Indonesia (8,9), thousands of dead people
by Erich 81 Replies latest social current
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Sirona
Simon,
I know you're making a serious point but honestly you can be really funny with it!
want to explain it all as some creature that we don't know doing something that we don't want for reasons we can't fathom but really must be good even though it all looks like shit right now.
I guess thats about it!
Sirona
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roybatty
Now I think, "Would He be loving? Aren't there things in this life that we would just never be able to comprehend? Perhaps He withholds answers because of that. Perhaps if we did know all the answers, we'd be so bigheaded we would kill ourselves in our arrogance."
I'm not asking for answers to all of life's questions, but answering one basic question would be great. Why not simply answer the question "is there a God or not?" I just can't imagine any senerio in which mankind is better off not hearing from a loving God, if He indeed does exist.
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Valis
I've been thinking about this whole subject and I think it is probably hard to go from bible litteralist to understand why natural disasters and war and all the rest of the inhumane and awful things that happen on earth. I mean really, we have all kinds of instances of supernatural disasters in the bible where the diety in question was very active and seemingly cared for the people he called his "chosen ones" at any given time. Maybe the NT authors set it up so all the bad shit=signs of god's wrath or just mechanisms to further prove their prophecy of gloom and doom for those that didn't want to believe them. Nothing new when you llook IMO..The concept of death threats againast people who didn't behave starts w/Adam and Eve and ends in Revelation...I would imagine it hard to swallow that divine internevtion for 33,000 plus innocents will never be an option till all the non believers are done in at one time. Just my two cents...
Sincerely,
District Overbeer
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willyloman
Sirona's theory minus all the god/devil talk makes the most sense. It's amazing once you leave the WTS's thinking behind how silly all this religious gobbledy-gook sounds, isn't it?
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Kenneson
Simon says that he likes the plate tectonics explanation best. However, why isn't (nature), (the universe), (reality) always benevolent? Why do things sometimes seem to go awry--at least from our perspective? Reality (if it could verbally speak) I'm sure would say that everything that happens should. No excuses. No reasons needed. No remorse. But that doesn't help me understand why nature acts the way it does.
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nicolaou
This is the take over at JustJWs;
From: AuthenticWilty (Original Message) Sent: 28/12/2004 00:18 The Bible says God is love, then why does he allow bad things to happen to innocent people????? Take the earthquake that just happened. If there is a God why didn't he warn those poor people. From: thekittykat01 Sent: 28/12/2004 17:08 Hi Wilty,
God did warn them. He warned all of us a long long time ago. Sign of the times???? Just think, all of those children will probably be resurrected after armagedon. Had they lived, they might not be. This is my way of thinking anyway. I do feel for each and everyone who suffered in this horror though. My heart goes out to all who have been affected by this event and any other.
Nic' :(
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wednesday
It's just a horrible, horrible, disaster. Next will be the disease epidemics
Almost exactly what I said earlier in the thread. I don't see God causing it, perhaps He could have stopped it, but we've had other natural diasters and He did not stop them. The more I think about it the more I agree that God has somewhat left us to fend for ourself, except for spiritual guidance, help of that sort. It makes no sense that He would save one people over another. Some of the problems we have now, man has brought on themselves, God did not cause them. In this case, man could have had a better warning system and many lives could have been saved.
I don't know exactly what i'm trying to say, except I do not find God responsible for this. It does make me wonder about His actual involment with mankind. As a JWS, I used to think if I prayed to God He would hear my prayer. Perhaps not, at least not everytime. Perhaps He can't hear the prayer of everyone and only when something is really bad does it get His attention.
We watched "It's a wonderful life" the other night. In it Geroge Bailey gets into money problems and is thinking of suicide. All his friends are praying for him. The angels hear many prayers coming up for him so send down a angel to help him. It occured to me that actually, in the OT many times that is exactly what happened, someone would be in trouble and God would send down an angel. God did not just intervene Himself, He sent an angel. I think maybe we might be expecting too much intervention from God.
I have a thought, a view about the existence of God I'm trying to formulate ,perhaps someone can complete my thoughts.
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Simon
But that doesn't help me understand why nature acts the way it does.
Well that's the point - there is no "intent" with nature, it just happens because of natural forces.
The problem is when people try and start putting some personality on top of everything and interpretting things as being the will of a devine being.
It's clearly utter bunkum because the facts of so many bad things happen just do not square with their belief system of a benevolent god so it is strained to try and fit and becomes more rediculous all the time.
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ballistic
Well, of course, we know not all witnesses druel at the thought of mass destruction, however I'm sure with so many people being involved, it won't be long before the urban myths start flying; "bro. so and so just escaped in time as he left to see his bible study" yadda yadda yadda. These stories never explain why almighty jehovah didn't protect bro. dead who got washed away.
One example was the Australian kingdom hall bombing where a tape was circulated globally of a public talk about the bombing and how blessed they were that 99% of the congregation lived to tell the tale. When passing on these *accounts* No one takes into account what the relatives of the poor dead bastard are thinking.