Posts by Cold Steel

92

How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt?

by Mr Fool in

was it necessary for god to kill all innocent firstborn children?

no other way out for the almighty god?.

Cold Steel

If your ignorance negates your ability to judge god, then how is it adequate to praise him as good?

It is because I have life's experiences that have led me to know what kind of being God is and why He is just and worthy of worship. When Jesus asked Peter, "Who do you say I am?" Peter replied, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Then Jesus said, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."

We can know things because God reveals them. It’s like wireless. Peter knew spiritually what he'd learned through the Spirit of God. Other people know because they saw God, spoke to Him and received light and intelligence from Him. There have also been many who have had near death experiences. One neurosurgeon, in writing of his own near death experience, admitted he was an agnostic beforehand. He believed that the brain was what enabled people to think, relate and understand their environments. In defending his experience, he said he knows very well the effects that drugs have on the human body, and that he had intelligent interactive conversations with them. I was sick once and suffered hallucinations. I recall telling my wife that I could see “pumpkins and oranges on the television (which was off).

.................. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFml7LEn68

So you've never read the Bible account about GOD ordering Abraham to kill his son?

Yes, and it, too, pointed the way to Christ. Abraham’s sacrifice of his only son was to be in similitude of God’s sacrifice of His only Son. He didn’t want Abraham to sacrifice his son, but He wanted Abraham to know the meaning and depth of such a sacrifice. He stopped Abraham’s sacrifice for obvious reasons, but His requiring Abraham to sacrifice His son was a teaching device, and a way to point towards the eternal sacrifice of His own Son. There was nothing psychotic about it.

In my own religion, the story is told in the Book of Mormon where the Lord commands a prophet to slay a man whom the Lord delivered into his hands. (See 1 Nephi 4) He shrinks from doing it, but is told that it is better that one man perish than an entire nation, which was yet to emerge. The story of Nephi and Laban has always been a sore spot for atheists and other critics as just another example of God’s capricious and outrageous acts, but when a group of students from the Middle East took a Book of Mormon course at BYU, the only problem they had with the story is that Nephi hesitated. To them, especially those familiar with the Law of Moses, Nephi had the perfect right to slay Laban. He had taken their property, then commanded his men to kill them. Later, when Nephi found Laban alone, drunk and passed out, he was commanded by the Lord to kill him. But because of the cultural differences between them and many Americans, they had a completely different criticism. Again, as with others, Nephi didn’t destroy Laban; he merely sent him to a “penalty box,” as some have described it. And though his body perished, his spirit returned to God, who gave it. And to this day, he resides with the other spirits who have lived and died on this world.

From my own perspective, how can you find fault with God for the sacrifice when He stopped it? How do you know what was in Abraham’s mind and what lessons he carried away with him due to the experience? Perhaps God revealed to Abraham, as He had others, the life and mission of Christ. How can we pass judgment on someone who is light years ahead of us in intelligence? Especially when we know only a handful of facts? You counter that if we can’t judge God in the mean things He does, how can we judge Him on His righteousness? But we’re not sent here to evaluate God and judge Him. We’re here for Him to evaluate and judge us.

You’re like those protesters in Furgeson, Missouri. They don’t care about facts. They judged Officer Wilson the day he shot that young thug, and nothing’s going to change their minds. Even if he’s innocent (something they’re not even willing to consider), he’s guilty. And so it is with the hard core atheists. They have judged God, and nothing He can say or do, or what those who worship Him say and do, the verdict was in since the beginning and has been pronounced: Guilty of being a vindictive, psychopathic murderer! It's absurd. Eventually, when all the facts are known, every knee will bend and every tongue confess Christ.

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27

Elder Appointments

by MaybeSo in

doing some research as to what qualifications someone needs to meet to become an elder, i came up with one conclusion: it's who you know and is very subjective.. funny thing is too, if you searc the wt online library there are not recent articles that describe and outline the requirements.

which makes me think that there were too many requirements and as we all know, it is based now on how close you are with the current co and not necessarily on being a model jw in the congo.

so the borg decided to leave it up all to the co and not tell the rest what to look for on these appointed men.. you could do your hours, be early to the meetings, be prepared, keep your car and house clean, family in good reputation, etc but if you are in the circle then you can forget it.

Cold Steel

Okay, what is the advantage of being an elder? And how many people in any given congregation want to become one? It's not a paid position and one is not ordained into that office, so is it a power thing? Is it considered gauche to express a desire to become an elder?

Also, if one had more ambition, how could one become a member of the Governing Board? That is a paid position, no one ever asks you for your stats and you get plenty of credibility to the point that people in congregations you visit grovel, fawn and, perhaps best, invite you to dinner. It's good work if you can get it; but how would one go about joining that august assembly?

27

Elder Appointments

by MaybeSo in

doing some research as to what qualifications someone needs to meet to become an elder, i came up with one conclusion: it's who you know and is very subjective.. funny thing is too, if you searc the wt online library there are not recent articles that describe and outline the requirements.

which makes me think that there were too many requirements and as we all know, it is based now on how close you are with the current co and not necessarily on being a model jw in the congo.

so the borg decided to leave it up all to the co and not tell the rest what to look for on these appointed men.. you could do your hours, be early to the meetings, be prepared, keep your car and house clean, family in good reputation, etc but if you are in the circle then you can forget it.

Cold Steel

Okay, what is the advantage of being an elder? And how many people in any given congregation want to become one? It's not a paid position and one is not ordained into that office, so is it a power thing? Is it considered gauche to express a desire to become an elder?

Also, if one had more ambition, how could one become a member of the Governing Board? That is a paid position, no one ever asks you for your stats and you get plenty of credibility to the point that people in congregations you visit grovel, fawn and, perhaps best, invite you to dinner. It's good work if you can get it; but how would one go about joining that august assembly?

92

How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt?

by Mr Fool in

was it necessary for god to kill all innocent firstborn children?

no other way out for the almighty god?.

Cold Steel

Oh we know... this is why you believe in a fairy tale; because you don't ask yourself any questions.

Ah, if you only knew! Any rational person asks questions, and I’ve got plenty of them. But they’re not predicated on God being a “psychopath.”

The bible says that [God] hardened the heart of the pharaoh. He CAUSED the pharaoh not to let them go, only to punish him after. Yes, that's pretty pathetic, but now you're going to sit there and [embellish] the story your way, so it sounds better. That's just as pathetic.

If one looks at the scriptures with the predicate that God is Just, then God could not harden someone’s heart to cause them harm. I also believe that God respects our free agency to the point that He would never tempt any man to do evil, as we saw in the New Testament. Thus, when faced with a contradiction, one can throw out the entire account or one can look for a rational answer. If God cannot tempt a man to do evil, that would include Pharaoh. You can believe what you wish, but don’t hold me to your standards. I’m not there. Another example would be the statements in the scriptures that “no man has seen God at any time.” Yet the scriptures are rife with people seeing God, including Moses, who spoke to Him “face to face” and Stephen, who saw Jesus sitting on the right hand of the Father. But the apostle John makes an exception: “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father.” (John 6:46) And the scripture states specifically that Moses was “of God.”

“And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.” (Duet. 33:1) So when taken in context, otherwise difficult scriptures can be properly understood. But if a person stands simply as an accuser, he or she is really not interested in answers, or even the truth. They’ve already made their decision, and when one answer is given, they’ve already got another gripe ready to go. Thus, instead of attacking religion, why not respect the views of believers and stop trying to kick them in the teeth? It’s one thing to be embittered about a religious group you once were duped by; it’s another to get in everyone’s face and make ridiculous assertions over things you have no idea about. I believe atheism is a fairy tale, but if someone wants to believe it, I hardly see it as my life’s mission to either change their minds or trumpet my own beliefs and make accusatory statements about their judgment, or lack thereof.

It's astounding how you cannot judge god's negative actions as despicable because you are 'unworthy'. Who are you to judge god after all, right? Yet, in all other "positive" (in your view) aspects of god you have a veritable cornuccopia of opinions and apparently know the mind of god inside and out.

Well, if I did have a “cornucopia” of opinions, I would certainly know how to spell it.

I cannot judge God, not because I’m unworthy, but because I’m ignorant. I don’t know what was in the hearts or minds of those He destroyed, or where those people went when they died, but I have no reason to believe that a just, kind and loving parent would torture them, or why he would arrange to have the gospel preached to them in the Meridian of Time, if He weren’t trying to help them. Infants need no baptism, so when they die, they automatically gain eternal life without having to put up with a difficult, trying life that may not work out well for them. Also, have you noticed? Man is killing far more infants than God could, through abortion. And many atheists have no problem with that? Do you? Are you a committed pro-life advocate? If not, I’m much more competent to judge your character than I am God’s.

How do you justify God also killing the firstborn animals too?!? Now how do you explain that crap?!?

What do you mean, how do I explain it? God has the right to give and take life as He pleases. We see only through a glass darkly, so we don’t have access to God, nor can we put those questions to him. But the animals that drowned in the flood (and weren’t spared the easy life of being eaten by predators) are in precisely the same place they are now as they would have been had they lived their full lives.

Like you. Especially if you’re an atheist, what the hell difference does it make if you die now or twenty years from now? You’re all so stumped by the belief of the finality of life that you can’t get past it. But if there is a God, at least He offers an out to that finality. Atheists never do. They look at death as a horror they can’t outrun, or fight, and they’re frightened by it. God kills, ergo, He must be evil. Is the logic of that really supposed to impress me? Some maintain that death doesn’t frighten them, but just wait until it arrives. You can’t comfort them. Some, superstitiously, convert when the shadows begin lengthening, hoping against hope that they were wrong. Others honestly expand their views and realize they’ve been wrong in their thinking. And many others, like Stalin, die shaking their fist at heaven, as if they see death’s grim visage approach. You ought to read Howard Storm’s book. He was an avowed hard core atheist and nasty person until he had a life changing after death experience.

And there are many others besides him. But they had to see it to believe.

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92

How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt?

by Mr Fool in

was it necessary for god to kill all innocent firstborn children?

no other way out for the almighty god?.

Cold Steel

Murdering those innocent children in Egypt is nothing to what he did during Noah's flood, there he murdered all living human beings innocent or not, [except] for one family.

Murder?? And what do you know of murder? Murder isn’t something God does. Murder is a sin, and God is incapable of committing it. According to the Hebrew term, murder is the shedding of innocent blood in violation of the law of God. It’s not “killing,” as many Bibles mistranslate it in the Ten Commandments.

There was no malice in God’s heart. He took the firstborn of Egypt to a far better place, and the only ones to suffer were their loved ones who were left behind. We all come into this world to die, and God decides when we have stayed long enough. In short, living on Earth, getting sick, working and striving in an inhospitable environment isn’t exactly something to look forward to as I see it. By accusing God of murder, you assume and presume that remaining in mortality is better than death. And you seek to judge God without knowing where those He “murdered” went. In short, you judge Him in complete ignorance! In most near death experiences, people who die (unless they’re very wicked people) don’t want to come back and many are angry when they’re told they have to.

A much more reasonable approach, as believers see it, is: we don’t know what happened to the firstborn of Egypt, but God is just and merciful, and His ways are just. So we must have faith that what He does is ultimately for our own good, though we can’t see it now.

According to Peter, when Jesus died in the flesh, his spirit went and preached to those who are dead — specifically, those who perished in the flood. Why would he preach to them if he planned to annihilate them? The creeds of men say, “He descended into Hell.” But he told the repentant malefactor, “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.”

And Peter wrote, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit: By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” (1 Peter 3:18-20) In the very next chapter, he writes, “For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”

So, because of the Lord’s sense of justice and mercy He provided those who have never had the opportunity of hearing the gospel with the chance of having it preached in the spirit world. Thus, even the spirits of the firstborn of Egypt and those who perished in the flood will have the gospel preached to them there. But, again, in the days of the flood, Noah warned the people repeatedly of what would happen to them if they did not turn from evil and abide the words of God’s prophets.

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92

How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt?

by Mr Fool in

was it necessary for god to kill all innocent firstborn children?

no other way out for the almighty god?.

Cold Steel

There is one serious problem with this, the bible encourages to learn from things past (Romans 15:4) to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1). …to do this, one must [evaluate] His actions and discern how to apply the idea and attitude behind them.

Well, I think you’re reading into the text something that isn’t there, for nowhere are we told to evaluate Him or His actions in the way He deals with others. The scripture you cite states: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” The scriptures point to Christ and the Atonement, and Paul is telling the saints to learn this through the scriptures and become One, even as the Father and Jesus are one. He continues: “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.”

From what is said, we see that Paul saw God as having the attributes of patience, consolation, unity and glory. What is glory? It is the brilliance in which God dwells, and which no man can approach and live without first being changed to endure it.

Even if we are not anymore encouraged to take up a weapon and kill, we should certainly hate what God hates. In this example, God must have hated the innocent children of the Egyptians, otherwise why would he have killed them? So we also must hate children of opposers?

That is a non-sequitur. Nowhere does it state that God “hated” the firstborn in Egypt. Also, it wasn’t just children who died. All the firstborn of Egypt died, both animals and humans, young and old. But they didn’t cease to exist; they lived on in the spirit whereas the previous day they had lived in the flesh. But in Egypt, parents of all ages mourned for their children, including the Pharaoh.

What is the moral lesson for us in this then?

The moral lesson is as stated in my previous post. The Pharaoh represented the people of Egypt. God warned him and forewarned him. When Joseph of old ruled Egypt, the Israelites came there for food. As they continued on in the land, their numbers grew, and like the Spartans and the Helots, they enslaved the Israelites — and this God allowed because they had become an idolatrous people. Still, there were prophecies that foretold of a deliverer. Another relevant question is, do you condone slavery? Do you believe that the Egyptians had the right to keep the Israelites in bondage? The Pharaoh could have prevented all the evils that befell Egypt, but he didn’t. It wasn’t God that hardened Pharaoh’s heart; it was Pharaoh, himself, and the Adversary. And most likely, the people of Egypt who profited from the slave labor. Even in a dictatorship, where the tyrant proclaims himself to be a god, he must ultimately seek to do that which is popular in the eyes of the people. When Moses and his people left Egypt, their god (Pharaoh) had just been bested by the Hebrew God. And in their absence, the people most likely began to rethink how they viewed Pharaoh. In fact, the mood might have been dangerous enough to compel him to recover the slaves they had lost. Perhaps their God, being successful in freeing the people, went off somewhere else and would not trouble them again. Trapped between his armies and the Red Sea, the Israelites would have no choice except to surrender. And even when the sea parted for Moses, perhaps he thought that his power as chief god of Egypt would be enough to keep the waters parted while his army pursued them. So again, whatever happened, it was upon Pharaoh’s head, not God’s. That’s the lesson.

And the argument, that God can fix everything, like their spirits are with him, or as JW would say, the resurrection, would mean, that he can act however he pleases, and again no moral lesson for us in there. Reminds me of the slogan of the crusaders: kill everyone, God will know his own anyway. Quite dangerous actually.

As you read the account, God’s actions were not arbitrary. At every step He warned the Egyptians of the consequences of their actions. You do this, and this will happen. You do that, and that will happen. The Crusaders, as you stated, killed everyone. And they weren’t authorized by God to do that. Had He wished to, He could have left Egypt a smoldering pile of rubble. But He didn’t. Think of it as an extraction, only God was much more fair with the Egyptians than He needed to be.

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92

How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt?

by Mr Fool in

was it necessary for god to kill all innocent firstborn children?

no other way out for the almighty god?.

Cold Steel

Jehovah hardened Pharoah's heart to keep the Israelites enslaved......then punished him for doing so. If the story is real, and that is a big IF, then Jehovah is an a#$hat!

Yes, quite so. But I believe that is in error. The Bible didn't come to us in perfect form and there are numerous errrors. Jesus prayed to the Father that He would not lead us into temptation, but later the scriptures state: "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." (James 1:13) So why did the Lord allegedly say, "...lead us not into temptation"?

God would not be JUST if He hardened someone else's heart and caused them to do evil, for it is not in His nature to tempt men to do such.

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92

How could you justify that God killed all firstborn children in Egypt?

by Mr Fool in

was it necessary for god to kill all innocent firstborn children?

no other way out for the almighty god?.

Cold Steel

This seems to be a recurring theme here. I just keep wondering why (mostly atheists) keep thinking that believers need to justify anything that God does. Counting myself as a believer in God, and in the scriptures, I never even ask myself these questions. And certainly God doesn’t need to justify His actions to us anymore than our earthly fathers need to justify themselves to their young children in paying their taxes or making them eat broccoli instead of cake. The only difference is that God gives us more free agency than our earthly parents. Which brings us to Pharaoh.

Pharaoh had the free agency and the obligation to free the Israelites. God could have forced him to, but He didn’t. And if he and his court refused to release the Israelites from their forced labor, then the Lord chose to turn up the proverbial heat. As my dear old dad used to say, “You can lead a horse to water, and you can’t make him drink; but you can hold his head under the water until he damn well wish he had!”

When people and animals die, they simply move on to a different location. It’s only the grief of loss for those who remain behind that makes it so unbearable. And the Egyptians had it coming. The Lord warned them and forewarned them. It was only when they saw the southernmost part of the Israelites’ anatomies did they wish they had drunk the water rather than in refusing it. And they didn’t remain humble for long.

Now if there’s no God, all of this is undoubtedly fiction. In that case, the deaths of the eldest are as meaningless as the deaths of the youngest, so in that case there’s no argument to be made. But if the God of the Bible lives, then He has provided a way for all of us to find fulfillment in this life, and in the next. And don’t buy into that JW nonsense about when you’re dead, you’re dead; that the Lord resurrects people only to blow them to smithereens. Charles Taze Russell and the other leaders of the WTBTS simply bought into that miserable doctrine because when it was coined by the Adventists, they didn’t know any better. If God exists, then He is merciful, kind, just, all knowing, all powerful. Anytime the doctrines of men violate that, they either don’t know the details in why God does what He does, or they’ve got it wrong. In regard to the firstborn in Egypt, I believe it’s much more of the former than the latter. The spirits of those who passed on are now in the same place as those who were passed over. And it’s the perceived injustice of God that angers many of His critics today. And that misperception comes from an ignorance of all the details surrounding the event and/or the false teachings of men. And the WTBTS is responsible for its share in the latter. That’s why the scriptures state that when all of this is over, and we know all the facts, that “every knee shall bend and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Christ.”

No one can change the minds of those who are determined to accuse God, but to those we have to justify nothing. Time will take care of that.

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26

Dammit Jim, I'm a psychopath not an all loving God!

by Coded Logic in

when did you discover that the god of bible - and the loving god that you had worshiped your entire life - were not the same?

how did it affect you?.

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Cold Steel

TaleSin: Oh, that's a much more loving picture of the Flood story. Desperate people clawing at the Ark, holding their infants above water as they slowly drown... of course, they are already weakened by the savagery of the lioness who attacked them ...

You’re just not going to give God a break, are you?

Who said the lioness attacked them? As for the infants, do you think their deaths resulted in their destruction? There’s either a God or there isn’t, right? If there isn’t, then all life and all death is meaningless. It doesn’t matter if we’re babies or crabby old people with canes, bad breath and hemorrhoids.

If our spirits come from God, we aren’t infants when we inhabit the bodies born into mortality. In fact, there are numerous cases where people who have lost infants visit the spirit world and are surprised to see the spirits of their little children as adults in the realm of the spirits. Once they are born and die, they return to God and are fully entitled to be resurrected in the first resurrection and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.

So either way it works out. In fact, infants not only die in a state of complete innocence, they don’t have to endure the hardships of mortality and they inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. But whether infants live or pass on is strictly God’s decision. We’re not to make it, either through sacrifice or through abortions.

Defender_Of_Truth: Adding one ridiculous fairy tale on top of another makes it MORE plausible? This 'account' only makes God seem worse.

The key word, here, is “seem.” But you really don’t know, do you? Either God is a “fairy tale” or He’s a bloodthirsty murderer; and you’re qualified to judge the entire matter on nothing but snapshots of events we only have the faintest knowledge of. But if He is a fairy tale, then all this debate is meaningless. One monster can murder a thousand infants in this life and do it with the most malicious hate imaginable and it’s meaningless, just as all our lives are meaningless.

He callously used these creatures, that were about to be murdered by Him for no reason at all...to prevent people from trying to escape the slaughter with their families?

Murder is a strong word there, chief. If we’re going to use it, perhaps we ought to define it. In your opinion, what is murder? If there is a God, then he must be a murderer, you say. My own beliefs, of course, vary. If we all existed before we came to this world as mortals, it stands to reason that we did not come as a result of force. Believe it or not, God respects peoples’ free agency, and Satan was denied that opportunity because he rebelled, and he took a third of our brethren with him. When we come to this earth, we thereby agree to the terms of His judgment. And when we depart this earth, we immediately return and all of our sufferings become moot. In fact, the scriptures say that the Lord wipes the tears from every eye and that not a hair of our heads will be lost. Everyone, no matter how miserable or hideous he or she may have been during mortality, will be resurrected. And as Origen said, “everything we did in life [or on earth] will be made clear [or plain] to us.” But if all this is correct, then you are making judgments you are not qualified to make. And if you don’t know for a fact that you’re correct, then you’re just taking pot shots at believers, and nothing they can say will mitigate the actions of their God. And of course believers don’t all believe the same thing. But what we do agree on is that God is Just, Kind, Loving and Merciful. If He condemns infants to Hell for eternity, then He’s not any of the above. And if He arbitrarily forces His creations to undergo a torturous life for nothing other than His own selfish desires, He can’t honor a person’s free agency.

It is a shame that religious beliefs can cause people to both ignore those feelings, whilst at the same time inventing a God that embodies such a callous disregard for suffering.

Once one invents a God that is 'just', and yet sees the lives, health and emotions of living creatures as expendable or irrelevant because of the long term benefits (imagined or otherwise)... Then any and all acts of cruelty and murder could be either justified or dismissed as unimportant.

It’s one of the tenets of scripture that the Adversary not only wanted to take power that wasn’t his, he stands as an “accuser” of all things God does and how He does them. Jesus is called “our Advocate with the Father,” and Lucifer is known as the “Accuser of both man and God.” If you are also going to accuse God, then unless you’re able to know His thoughts, intents and purposes, you’re just taking potshots. And it seems no matter what people believe of God, you never lose a chance to come back and make even more accusations.

But let’s face it. You can attack God in any way you wish because you see Him as some sick invention hardwired into man’s brain in his barbaric and curious past. You, too, accuse us of ignorance, beliving the atheist’s creed that science can explain any question, eventually, that might lead us to a belief in God. That way, animals are the mere casualties of chance when they die. What I want to know is what atheists get out of this relentless and visceral hatred of God? No matter what I, or others, may say, He’s always the vicious psychopath in the sky who loves blood and murder, yet preaches peace. And nothing, it seems, will ever change your mind.

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26

Dammit Jim, I'm a psychopath not an all loving God!

by Coded Logic in

when did you discover that the god of bible - and the loving god that you had worshiped your entire life - were not the same?

how did it affect you?.

.

Cold Steel

The suffering is still a wrong no matter how much reward is later given.

The question, though, is who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong if there is no God? There is neither, for if there is no punishment there can be no law. Christians and Jews, I suppose, mourn for all that suffer, both men and beasts. There are children who, at around age 10, for no other reason that it pleases them, decides to torture small animals. These psychopaths can later transfer their demented need to cause suffering to other people and they feel nothing. We understand that God can weep, and Jesus wept frequently. Thus, it would be wrong to say that either was a psychopath (and heaven help us if they are!).

I've never believed in the Evangelical bent that we're all depraved sinners who deserve Hell, but that accepting Jesus will deliver us. I recently heard one of these people who gave a parable about two people, neighbors. One is a horrible person who beats his wife and children and frequently comes home drunk. The other is a good, decent, honorable person who isn't saved and isn't much interested in religion, nor Jesus. One day an asteroid hits and kills them both, but, said the Evangelical, the horrible person prayed to God that morning, acknowledged that he was a vile sinner and begged Jesus to save him.

"Guess which one goes to heaven?" he said, smugly. In his view, the good guy could have been a great guy, a wonderful father and husband, a loyal friend and a caring person who gave several hours a week at a soup kitchen -- but he fell short of the glory of God and is damned. As in forever and ever, worlds without end. An eternity in Hell, where his flesh is seared day in and day out, ever burning but never consumed. So the former Evangelical, to me, makes a fair amount of sense when he denounces his religion. To me, only a fool would believe that doctrine. It's kind of like the Jehovah's Witnesses who call themselves "slaves." It just ranckles me. I'd be his servant, but never His slave. He can call me SERVANT or SON or FRIEND, but not "slave."

Once one conceives of a just God, the suffering is just something we have to go with for now. There's a reason we're here, I think, and it isn't just that man is a sinner, trying to work himself back into God's good graces.

But until the journey's end, judging God is an unwise option. Not that you'll go to Hell for it, but because it's self evident that we're walking in darkness and don't know enough to judge. Still, some people will.

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