The Fine Art of Excuse-Making For A Do-Nothing Savior Called Jesus Christ (Muslim, Holy Spirit)
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When bad things happen to good people, (let's make that sweeping statement to cover lots of things)...
I have never once blamed God.
That is very astute. If NO God exists, then NO God is responsible for anything. Which is why I do not blame God for the Genocide depicted in Numbers 31:15-18, Joshua 6:20-21, Joshua 11:19-20, Ezekiel 9:4-7, and Samuel 1 15:2-3. This despite the fact that the Bible specifically indicates that the genocide was ordered by God.
Evil is not a force imposed on the world by supernatural Beings. Evil is to be found in the horrific things that humans do to each other. Sometimes in the name of non existent Beings. And sometimes as a result of pure self serving meanness.
Bad things happen to good people because life is a risk, and we will all lose in the end. I have enjoyed every moment of my sentient consciousness. Coating myself in make believe would have diminished it all.
That is very astute. If NO God exists, then NO God is responsible for anything.
Which is why I do not blame God for the Genocide depicted in Numbers 31:15-18, Joshua 6:20-21, Joshua 11:19-20, Ezekiel 9:4-7, and Samuel 1 15:2-3. This despite the fact that the Bible specifically indicates that the genocide was ordered by God.
Well, and I would say that is very astute of you, ( and that is MY word you're using, buddy).
That is very astute. If NO God exists, then NO God is responsible for anything. Which is why I do not blame God for the Genocide depicted in Numbers 31:15-18, Joshua 6:20-21, Joshua 11:19-20, Ezekiel 9:4-7, and Samuel 1 15:2-3. This despite the fact that the Bible specifically indicates that the genocide was ordered by God.
Evil is not a force imposed on the world by supernatural Beings. Evil is to be found in the horrific things that humans do to each other. Sometimes in the name of non existent Beings. And sometimes as a result of pure self serving meanness.
Bad things happen to good people because life is a risk, and we will all lose in the end. I have enjoyed every moment of my sentient consciousness. Coating myself in make believe would have diminished it all.
I sort of get that, but not exactly. I mean, I get that if you think your experience here as "Tired" is all you get, you might appreciate it more than if you think there's more to come. On the other hand, my appreciation of what I've enjoyed of my life now isn't diminished by the idea that I might live a few more decades, because what's already happened is different than what will be, so it's still unique and therefore precious. So, my existence as "Pleroo" in the here and now isn't diminished by the fact that I (whatever "I" is) might continue in the future beyond this one lifetime.
But IMO, you are doing the same as I posted earlier.
You think you have found a flaw or a short coming or a disconnect or a conflict in a certain aspect of Christian theology where a promise was supposedly made by a supposedly divine being but that promise does not seem to hold - in which case I don’t see any beneficial debate to co-relate to OP.
OR you may think you have a theological question about Christianity but you couldn’t find a satisfactory answer by the Christians. Which is a more natural and reasonable notion.
But then Aarach responded in post # 28 (which is also what I tend to agree as it seem to sit well with my logic) and you seem to agree too - so then the conversation moved to the question that if Gocards, Aarach and thrillo can figure it out, then why can’t rest of the 1.5 billion Christians?
Perhaps their pastors are either more convincing of a speakers who have managed to turn a lie into a truth, and made them belief, or perhaps there is more meaning to the versus than what we as non-scholars of Bible are trying to make?
Either way you look at it - my stance on this subject is the same and I have said it many times before,
We should use our intelligence and our logic to do our own research and make our choices wisely.
And in the end, we will be responsible for our choices.
You, myself and Aarach (party a) did that and made the choice to NOT put our faith in those versus (even though we did not consult a Bible scholar to have those versus explained to us in more detail - something that we should have done) - and those pastors (party b) who decided to lure masses into falsehood, also made a choice - and their followers (party c) also made a choice to believe in their pastors without thinking along the same lines as you, I and Aarach did.
All three parties in this scenario are responsible for their choices.
Whom of us is right and who is wrong? We shall wait and we shall probably see.
Any Christian who is brave enough to leave the protective confines of his/her church and actually wander out into the world and reads with an open mind literature of a "skeptical of Christianity" nature can learn what you, I, Arach and even Thoreau, it appears, has learned:
God does NOT protect His children from harm even though the Bible promises He does:
Psalm 32:7
Quote:
you will protect me...
Deuteronomy 31:6
Quote:
The Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.
Isaiah 46:4
Quote:
I will rescue you.
And the granddaddy, Psalm 91:
Quote:
"He will rescue you from every trap and protect you from the fatal plague. For he orders his angels to protect you wherever you go."
"A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but no harm will come near you."
I was reading two sad stories, one about a Christian lady who prayed the Psalm 91 and still her daughter died of a childhood disease. Here's what she says:
"It [Psalm 91] sounds really good, but I don't get how this is true.He did not rescue us from a fatal plague. He did not keep us from striking our feet on a stone but, in fact, allowed much worse than that."
And another young woman who was abused as a child:
Quote:
I was five years old when my mother allowed a monster to move into our house. He was a violent child molester. I prayed constantly for deliverance, for help. My mom married him, and I couldn’t understand how God could let this happen to us. I finally figured it out: There was no God. Everybody had made a terrible mistake.
Please understand, these scenarios are played out by the millions EVERY DAY and God is nowhere to be found even though He promises in the Bible He's right there to protect you.
When Christians are finally brave enough to admit this then maybe things will change for the better. Perhaps pastors will preach the truth from their pulpits that God doesn't protect His children, instead of lies that He does in order to keep members from dropping out of church and causing the church and its Board of Directors to go bankrupt and force their pastor to have to start collecting unemployment. Again understand, for the most part it is the financial gain that keeps pastors telling lies instead of telling the truth. No church wants to shut their doors because they told the truth about God and the Bible. It's much more expedient for pastors to lie so that the greater good---THEIR greater good--can be preserved.
As you say, Cardinals--we shall see.
Last edited by thrillobyte; 01-07-2019 at 03:49 PM..
... When Christians are finally brave enough to admit this then maybe things will change for the better.
The Christians who responded on this thread (jimmie, geekie and Thoreau) are various flavors of Christianity and they all indicated that they don't believe God never allows harm to come to Christians. I don't know any Christians, personally, who do believe that, and I know a whole lot of Christians. So, I think you've got your wish.
The Christians who responded on this thread (jimmie, geekie and Thoreau) are various flavors of Christianity and they all indicated that they don't believe God never allows harm to come to Christians. I don't know any Christians, personally, who do believe that, and I know a whole lot of Christians. So, I think you've got your wish.
No, I got no such thing, Pleroo. Fundies like jimmij and Baptistfundie and their compadres are experts at apologizing for Jesus. They're not fools. They see that God doesn't listen to prayer requests. But they have to keep the lie alive that He does, right?
This problem dates all the way back to the early church. The Bible promises that God will protect you. But God didn't protect anyone and the pagans noticed this. So they said to their churchmen, "Hey! Your holy book says God will protect us if we ask him to and Ivan the Pagan here just got squashed flat like a pancake picking up this boulder after praying to your god to protect him. What gives???"
So the churchmen consulted among themselves. "What are we going to do? They've got us!" One said, "I've got it. We'll tell them God only answers prayers when specific conditions are met, like "You can't have sin in your life" and "God knows best" and "Eventually he will if you just tithe to us" and a whole laundry list of excuses. You can read them yourself. Just google, "Why doesn't God answer my prayers" and a hundred thousand apologist websites expert at excuse-making for God will pop up.
I'd like to draw this thread to a close by recapping some important questions I asked along the way:
1. Please help me to understand why these children had to die the way they did.
2. Shouldn't Christians just own up to that fact--that Jesus/God made promises he didn't intend to keep?
3. Why do Christians keep praying when the statistics say they get no edge for getting their prayers answered over non-believers who don't bother to pray.
4. Why aren't pastors climbing into their bully pulpits and telling Christians that Jesus never promised to protect them?
5. If Jesus never made any such promises he would protect Christians then why do Christians continuously pray for protection?
I'd like to focus on this last question because it is at the heart of why I started this thread. You recall I mentioned a family of kids that got hit head on after one big rig pushed them across the median into the path of another big rig heading the opposite direction and hit them head on. Several kids were ejected from the minivan and got caught under yet a third vehicle which spread the kids all across the asphalt like peanut butter on toast. I mentioned that like all Christian groups embarking on a trip they likely said a prayer for God to protect them in Jesus name and something obviously went wrong, namely Jesus failed miserably to protect them. I asked "Why? If Jesus doesn't promise to protect his children then why do Christians pray for him to?????
Well, this then gets to the how and why's of the way this custom developed. My theory is that the early church pushed this idea that God and Jesus will protect you if you just pray for him to. Why? Because it would generate new membership in the fledgling Christian faith of course. It had nothing to do with being true. It had everything to do with increasing Christianity's numbers, bringing lots of money into the church coffers and increasing greatly the power-base of the Church as an institution.
Why does this belief that God will protect you if you just pray persist?
1. Pastors keep drumming this idea into Christians' heads.
2. Only 1% of Christians read the Bible cover to cover and so they don't know the first thing contained within its covers. This makes them fodder for pastors being able to fill their minds with whatever lies the pastors want to in order to keep their church attendance up and the collection plates full.
3. If pastors took the honest path and told their parishioners such promises from God are either not in the Bible or are not to be believed as in the case of Psalm 91 their churches would empty out faster than someone yelling "Fire!" So they stay silent and keep the lie going.
As a counterpoint to this story of 5 Christians dying in a ghastly fiery crash in Florida, a news item just appeared tonight. A family of 5 Muslims just got massacred in a similar head-on crash.
Quote:
A suspected drunken driver heading the wrong way on Interstate 75 in Kentucky struck a vehicle carrying five family members from Michigan early Sunday, killing all five people, authorities said. According to the Islamic Center of America of Dearborn the family members were identified as Issam Abbas, 42 and Rima Abbas, 38, along with their children, a boy Ali Abbas, 14; and girls Isabella Abbas, 13, and Giselle Abbas, 7.
I'd like to draw this thread to a close by recapping some important questions I asked along the way:
1. Please help me to understand why these children had to die the way they did.
2. Shouldn't Christians just own up to that fact--that Jesus/God made promises he didn't intend to keep?
3. Why do Christians keep praying when the statistics say they get no edge for getting their prayers answered over non-believers who don't bother to pray.
4. Why aren't pastors climbing into their bully pulpits and telling Christians that Jesus never promised to protect them?
5. If Jesus never made any such promises he would protect Christians then why do Christians continuously pray for protection?
I'd like to focus on this last question because it is at the heart of why I started this thread. You recall I mentioned a family of kids that got hit head on after one big rig pushed them across the median into the path of another big rig heading the opposite direction and hit them head on. Several kids were ejected from the minivan and got caught under yet a third vehicle which spread the kids all across the asphalt like peanut butter on toast. I mentioned that like all Christian groups embarking on a trip they likely said a prayer for God to protect them in Jesus name and something obviously went wrong, namely Jesus failed miserably to protect them. I asked "Why? If Jesus doesn't promise to protect his children then why do Christians pray for him to?????
Well, this then gets to the how and why's of the way this custom developed. My theory is that the early church pushed this idea that God and Jesus will protect you if you just pray for him to. Why? Because it would generate new membership in the fledgling Christian faith of course. It had nothing to do with being true. It had everything to do with increasing Christianity's numbers, bringing lots of money into the church coffers and increasing greatly the power-base of the Church as an institution.
Why does this belief that God will protect you if you just pray persist?
1. Pastors keep drumming this idea into Christians' heads.
2. Only 1% of Christians read the Bible cover to cover and so they don't know the first thing contained within its covers. This makes them fodder for pastors being able to fill their minds with whatever lies the pastors want to in order to keep their church attendance up and the collection plates full.
3. If pastors took the honest path and told their parishioners such promises from God are either not in the Bible or are not to be believed as in the case of Psalm 91 their churches would empty out faster than someone yelling "Fire!" So they stay silent and keep the lie going.
As a counterpoint to this story of 5 Christians dying in a ghastly fiery crash in Florida, a news item just appeared tonight. A family of 5 Muslims just got massacred in a similar head-on crash.
True enough...why, just now on another site I brought him up.
However, some people are professional doubters.
The mind's tendency is to enjoy controversy, debate; it is very comfortable living in skepticism.
No harm...just it's nature.
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