Posts by tec

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

Tammy, sorry about the botched post.

In any case you salvaged what I meant to say.

LOL.. its not like I have never botched a post or pm to you ; )

Peace my friend,

tammy

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

When you read the OT, God happily takes credit for many such natural disasters. And he's taken credit for killing thousands of random Jews because David took a census. There are plenty of Christians that believe that god is actively killing people because of the sins of others.

He took credit... or people gave him credit?

There is a difference.

Peace,

tammy

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

One could agree that mankind didnt get sick until after sin....however what was the point of a virus, or harmful bacteria prior to the fall. God created everything, therefore he created viruses and germs that make people sick....I may be incorrect but maybe this fits into the natural evil? Not sure but either way how do u explain it? Why woukd God have created the virus or bacteria prior to mans fall? Unless, maybe, it evolved.....

Assuming that such was present before the fall... some bacteria etc is beneficial, aiding life. But yes, even that does evolve, and could have evolved from beneficial to... harmful, or evolved altogether. I would assume as you do that bacteria, etc, falls under 'natural evil', as well.

Also... God did not create everything. He did not create evil, despite the verse that makes that claim in the bible. God SEPARATES good FROM evil... Light FROM darkness.

How did evil get here then? Like a virus itself perhaps... from our choices. Anything that does not come FROM love can and does cause harm to someone or something, even if we do not see that ourselves.

Peace,

tammy

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

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.

Glad... no, I don't.

This world is not beautiful. It has beauty IN it, certainly, and that can be appreciated and some can even find awe in that. But it also has horror and death and travesty and injustice and lack of love, etc, etc. This is still real life also. But it is not the Kingdom of God. Not home... at least it has been overrun.

Here on this hostile planet we have to deal with reality. The reality of natural disasters, disease and death.

Yes, I have not said different.

We would all like things to be different and science work towards that end.

Sometimes science works toward that end... but it just as often works toward bring more death and better ways to kill or oppress, etc. Well, not science per se... but man USING science to do such things.

It is difficult to believe that there is a God who with the power to act, who has done nothing for millennia.

I know that it is difficult for some to believe that there is a God, while there is also suffering. That doesn't mean God has done or does nothing. But a pain free or suffering free life is not what we have been promised here. That comes in His Kingdom, something that this world is NOT.

Peace to you, as always,

tammy

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

Well, no one on this thread believes that God sent the tsunami... or other 'natural evil' (a term not familiar to me, but familiar to you I guess, from your former faith) The harm caused by man is from man; death and sin (and so sickeness, etc) came from the fall.

So your question actually is... why does God not prevent suffering?

In this particular thread, you mean suffering from natural events. Well, some 'natural' disasters are not as natural as we believe, even if we do not see/know where the cause originated. Some natural events produce tumultous results... but without those events and results (physical) life would not be possible at all. Snare shared earlier in this thread how fresh water is a result of the plate tectonics that cause earthquakes, that cause events such as tsunamis... and you fail to present any other alternative, as you do not have the knoweldge or understanding TO present another alternative, or to even know if another is possible for physical life. That people live in areas that are higher risk from these known natural results is going to bring natural consequenes... at least as long as we are trapped in physical vessels, and so subject to physical ailments.

Besides all that, His Son also told us that such things would come in various places. So it is not like we did not know and were not forewarned.

On top of that, We, are our brothers' keepers. Yet WE continue to oppress, gossip, harm, kill, maim, orphan, cast aside, judge, look down upon, etc... our fellow man. But if we spent even a tenth on saving life as what we spend on taking life (making war and neglect of those in need, exploiting others for our own gain, etc), then WE could have discovered a way to prevent those deaths from natural events. Instead, some will blame God, and NEVER look in the mirror to determine what He did to contribute to those deaths or failed to do to prevent them.

So hypothetically God could save man from the small percentage that die in natural disasters, freeing man up to continue to kill/maim/injure/orphan/neglect/hate/harm one another in great percentages... rather than work toward helping his fellow man?

On top of that, I am reminded of these words from the prophet Isaiah:

"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free and break very yoke?

Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter

when you see the naked, to clothe him

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

THEN your light wil break forth like the dawn,

and your healing will quickly appear;

then your righteousness will go before you,

and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

THEN you will call, and the LORD will answer;

You will cry for help, and He will say: Here am I.

If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

and if you spend yourselvess in behalf of the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the noonday...

Man does not do what God has told Him to do... but man thinks that God is still obligated to do what man wants/demands that He do?

I am speaking generally here of course. Some DO listen and show that they love and belong to God, through His Son, and He does hear them and their prayers. At the same time, these ones KNOW that this life as it is right now includes death. But that the promise to them and their children; their house; is for LIFE... because life is IN them. Life that is in Christ, becasue Christ is in them.

In the meantime, until the Kingdom of God IS here and we see the results of what living in His Kingdom are (life and NOT death... no more pain and no more suffering)... live, love, serve, help, work, give, and BE your brothers keepers.

Peace to you,

tammy

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

Weasel word in this isn't there:

Theism appears to have no answer to why god passively observed the violent deaths of a quarter of a million men, women and children.

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.

Your brand of religion that denigrates the value of human life with empty promises of heaven is especially repugnant.

And here is a problem. You are picking and choosing what you want to promote your anti-theist agenda. Like the PROMISE (not empty) of LIFE in the Kingdom (not heaven) denigrates the value of human life? How exactly does it do that?

I mean... if at work, you are promised a bonus for working hard or for overtime, does that denigrate the work that you are doing while you work? Does the bonus (or reward) somehow make your work less?

Cofty, you'll play along with the idea that God exists.... in order to blame him for not preventing death; but then you will dismiss the part about God that has Him providing LIFE, and the resurrection.

You are the one tied up in knots here. Blame God... oh, but there is no God;... believe what you think might prove him to be unloving, but dismiss what might prove Him to the exact opposite.

I believe in life - yours is a cult of death.

My faith is all about Life. My faith is IN THE Life. Christ... who is the resurrection and the life.

Life now... and life in the Kingdom at the resurrection. The one does not denigrate the other. That is the jw in you speaking perhaps, as they may put off livng this life, waiting for the next. My Lord does not teach that, and I follow Him. Love, serve, do, forgive, give to those in need, etc, etc. All right here and right now. Working now... resting later.

So I do not treat life callouslly, a statement that your condemnation of me and my faith depends upon. That might be what YOU did in your former faith... but as I have now seen some of what your former faith entails, I can see that about it. The jw one and the 'born again' one. Your former faith might have been a 'cult of death' and all about fear and condemnation and hellfire (and again, you had no problem accepting that billions would suffer for eternity in hellfire, but a quarter of a million people dying in a tsunami... a death that these can be resurrected FROM... is what did you in)... but that is not my faith. I used to think you might just be lying to toss out insults, but now I think you may really believe these accusations that you throw, but they are all based on what you once had your faith in; and not based on the Truth.

Because it is not the same, Cofty.

I'm tempted to ask why you clearly lack the fruitage of the spirit but that would be too far off topic.

You mean things like love, hope, faith, forgivness, mercy, patience, endurance, etc, etc?

You might rather ask yourself why you were lacking such things in your former "faith"... if your faith truly was from the Spirit.

But that is for you to examine.

For me, I will ask my Lord show me where I lack, and where I do lack, I will ask Him to grant me more of whatever fruit I am lacking IN... and/or cover me in the places that I DO lack, and DO fail.

Peace,

tammy

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

It doesn't matter what possible answers Cofty and others like him get from others.

The only answer that they want is a) God does not exist, or b) God is not loving (which is meant to lead back to a).

That is their conclusion, and no other conclusion is acceptable.

Never mind that those who are in Christ and God KNOW that this is not their Kingdom, know that this - death and suffering - is not how things were made and not how they will be at the renewal of all things. We KNOW that death and suffering is part of this life, and that this life as it is right now temporary. That any and all who are in the grave will receive a resurrection. Some to life, and some to judgment. People dying - for whatever reason, be it from man or from some natural event - doesn't mean life is not precious. The resurrection and life sent to us in Christ teaches us just the opposite. The truth taught to us is just the opposite, as we ARE our brothers keepers, and we ARE to give help, serve others, give to those in need, etc, etc.

We were sold to death, yes... but not by God... God is the one who provided the way (Christ) for any and all to come back to Him, to the Garden (a spiritual home like the Kingdom that God is bringing FOR us) and to Life.

He already acted.

Such a promise that we may KNOW is true because we know Him who made the promise is true... grants hope, peace, joy, and love. All fruits of the Spirit.

Peace,

tammy

27

Hold me, thrill me, kiss me..... a tribute

by FlyingHighNow in

have i ever told ya'll about my grande ma ma?

my daddy's mother?

i can't recall.

tec

Thanks for the smile, FHN, and letting us get to know her just a bit!

Peace,

tammy

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

Thanks for clearing that up, lol... i was wondering what kind of wacky theory people had come up with for that.

I watched some of a documentary on that dust bowl a while back. That was interesting! Makes you wonder sometimes about the connections/repurcussions/effects we DON'T see and understand. Yet.

Peace,

tammy

2596

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

by cofty in

yesterday evening my wife and i were invited to friends house for new year's eve.

we met them when i was a christian and we have kept in touch.

they had a few other friends there as well, including the new church pastor and his wife.

tec

Not blaming God for suffering does not equal trivializing suffering. Some defences might seem to do so, and I understand that.

Using suffering to promote an agenda of anti-theism on the other hand...? That is USING the suffering of others to promote an agenda. How is that not worse than someone giving a possibly lame defense?

Peace,

tammy