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I'm glad suffering gives you hope....I personally think that is a seriously twisted outlook on life Lego and I am completely certain that any mother who watches her child die a horrific death of starvation would feel anything but hopeful. What reason could god possibly have for doing that? What possible purpose could there be for killing millions of children in such a horrific manner? Seriously guys...logic and reason are just flying out the window with these inane comments.
I think you missed what I was saying there Christy.
Its not the suffering in itself that gives hope. Its the hope that all this is for a purpose - a greater good.
I agree watching your child die would be horrific, we can only ask God and have faith that there be a reason for it. So for me I have hope there is. You - I guess not I'm not sure why - do you think God has let His creation run amok and evil is running rampant for no reason? In that scenario, God does not care. That would be a hopeless scenario in my mind.
meerkat, Mr5150, IMHO I don't think this is the right approach, because I do believe God is ultimately all-loving.
Psalm 145:9,17 tell us that God is loving in all His ways and has compassion on all He has made. John 3:16 and 1 John 2:2 tells us God sacrificed His son for all people. That is the ultimate gesture of love, which was done for all. I realize there are the verses that say God hates workers of iniquity, etc., but I believe that 'hate' does not discount His love for all - because He sacrificed His son for all, while they were still sinners. Of course the Calvinist will disagree...
Also just because He gets angry does not mean He is not loving... I get angry at my kids, but I still love them...
Legoman,
I agree he is ultimately loving TO ALL but he is definitely NOT all loving to the deeds of the flesh
Patience is made perfect, but not the whole person. (Jas 1:4)
Suffering is a peculiar subject, seeing that even Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered - what can we take from this? That no one is exempt. I think personally it's God's way of sharing with us His suffering (look at the patience He's displayed for thousands of years) and if God is anything, He's righteous in judgment - it's what man deserves.
Suffering is just a part of life...but some suffer more than others and suffering makes no one "perfect". Millions of innocent children die horrifying deaths of starvation each and every day...go tell their mothers that god is making them perfect while they suffer. Tell it to the mothers of children who are brutally raped and murdered each and every day. Tell it to the mothers whose children are sexually abused by the clergy each and every day. Tell it to all the holocaust survivors or to the relatives of those who didn't survive or to all of the people currently living in war torn countries. It's easy for us to make up explanations for why these things happen in this life because most of us won't have to experience these things. I would venture to say that most would be pretty PO'd at their godman in the sky if they watched their children starve to death.
We live, some are poor and struggle while some are rich and have it easy, we have good days, we have bad days, some type of tragedy happens in most people lives, we all lose family members and mourn their loss, we all die...it's just life. Bad stuff happens to good people and to bad people...Good stuff happens to good people and to bad people...it's just life. While some do learn to cope and push on past their meager sufferings in this country so they can continue living...some do not and they are the ones who end up committing suicide because their suffering becomes too great for them...how perfect did god make them?
I don't understand why people feel the need to have an explanation for all that happens in this life. It's just life. Attributing these things to the godman in the sky and then saying it makes people perfect...is a seriously delusional reality and is extremely disrespectful and inhumane to those who have truly suffered for no good reason at all.
I'm responding to your post partly because I feel you're also commenting on my post, not just legoman's.
Suffering is not an easy subject. Some of us here have suffered as well, and suffering is, as you say, a part of life. It touches all sooner or later, in one form or another.
Suffering is very closely tied to the reason why I believe that God is sovereign and doing all things according to His will. Because if He is not responsible, then He could be accused of neglect.
He cares about each one of us equally. His is the plan, and although we don't understand at times, He brings us through, one way or another. We are never right to accuse Him. Are we wiser than He?
I take the suffering seriously. And also the Love of God. They are both holy aspects of God. And VERY important to discuss, more than much debated here..
Patience is made perfect, but not the whole person. (Jas 1:4)
Suffering is a peculiar subject, seeing that even Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered - what can we take from this? That no one is exempt. I think personally it's God's way of sharing with us His suffering (look at the patience He's displayed for thousands of years) and if God is anything, He's righteous in judgment - it's what man deserves.
I agree LE, is we cut the gospel into pieces we get Jesus overlooks our sin and does not MAKE us righteous.
I agree he is ultimately loving TO ALL but he is definitely NOT all loving to the deeds of the flesh
gotcha Unfortunately I think the duality of flesh/spirit is lost on most atheists...
Ultimately due to all these discussions on city-data with people of various opinions, I have one conclusion to make: people believe what they want to believe, because that is all they know!
Atheists want to believe in atheism because that is what has been revealed to them...
ETers want to believe in ET because that is what has been revealed to them...
URers want to believe in UR because that is what has been revealed to them...
etc.
Its amazing to me that one person can so clearly see why suffering is necessary in this world and another person can so clearly see why there is no purpose for suffering in this world.
God is revealing different things to different people (if you believe in that sort of thing!) Given this phenomenon, our only hope is to trust in God! Sorry I think I may have went off-topic...
I think I understand, and I hope I can shed some light on this with my reply to another thread of the same topic:
Quote:
Originally Posted by OhioanKid
I'm curious what you define "omnibenevolence" as.
I've honestly never heard of that before except from you -- I assume you made it up, my friend, but that is far beyond your closed plane of thinking, so far as I see.
But going on, you seem to think of it as fixing every single mess that appears so that nothing bad happens. Why would that be all-loving?
That would impinge on our free will. We couldn't clean up the mess on our own. How do we learn responsibility if God did everything for us?
After all, you could assume that any need or want could very likely cause a mess (looting, starving, etc.), so does that mean God would need to provide everything to us? If that was the case, why are we on Earth? Why aren't we all already in heaven, as wispy smoke figures that frolick around in the clouds with Jesus?
Not to mention if God was always fixing everything we messed up, don't you think we would never learn anything? Without Earth as our "proving ground," so to speak, wouldn't you say that we would never have the chance to earn any grace or salvation or anything because we can't learn anything because your definition of an "all-loving" God won't let us?
How is that all-loving? Life would become dull. We could never spice it up for fear of God "fixing" it for us. If we even had free thought in such a situation we would begin to resent God, and that's not good.
But that's not the case, not at all. Earth is our proving ground and here we can be happy just as we can be sad, but for some, they can take the bad with the good.
To prove my point (well, I can never prove it in your eyes, my friend, but I'll make an attempt), I remember a verse from a parable Jesus told. The rich man had a field. He got his servants to plant in the field, blah, blah, blah, the nice stuff grew.
But oh noes! Some weeds grew right along with it! The servants ask their master if they can pick out all those weeds. "No," he says, "for you might pick out the good seed with the bad. Rather, pick all of it when the harvest time comes, and you may sort them afterwards."
What does this story mean? Well, what I have interpreted as is that we have good and bad in our world, certainly so. But we have an option. We can remain good seed and deal with the bad till the harvest time, as a loving God would (because while we may suffer we can also have joy), so that the good can have eternal happiness (that makes even a thousand million billion gazillion years of suffering worth it, mind you) and the bad, those who fell to the weeds, will be in quite a different situation.
I think you missed what I was saying there Christy.
Its not the suffering in itself that gives hope. Its the hope that all this is for a purpose - a greater good.
I agree watching your child die would be horrific, we can only ask God and have faith that there be a reason for it. So for me I have hope there is. You - I guess not I'm not sure why - do you think God has let His creation run amok and evil is running rampant for no reason? In that scenario, God does not care. That would be a hopeless scenario in my mind.
I am extremely curious about something and these questions are open to anyone who would like to answer them:
Why do you feel the need to give an explanation/purpose for suffering or for anything whether good or bad that happens in this life?
How does accepting that suffering is just a part of life and not some big god plan change things for you or make your current life "hopeless"?
Is your hope of an alleged afterlife really what you dwell on while your living your present life?
Suffering is just a part of life...but some suffer more than others and suffering makes no one "perfect". Millions of innocent children die horrifying deaths of starvation each and every day...go tell their mothers that god is making them perfect while they suffer. Tell it to the mothers of children who are brutally raped and murdered each and every day. Tell it to the mothers whose children are sexually abused by the clergy each and every day. Tell it to all the holocaust survivors or to the relatives of those who didn't survive or to all of the people currently living in war torn countries. It's easy for us to make up explanations for why these things happen in this life because most of us won't have to experience these things. I would venture to say that most would be pretty PO'd at their godman in the sky if they watched their children starve to death.
We live, some are poor and struggle while some are rich and have it easy, we have good days, we have bad days, some type of tragedy happens in most people lives, we all lose family members and mourn their loss, we all die...it's just life. Bad stuff happens to good people and to bad people...Good stuff happens to good people and to bad people...it's just life. While some do learn to cope and push on past their meager sufferings in this country so they can continue living...some do not and they are the ones who end up committing suicide because their suffering becomes too great for them...how perfect did god make them?
I don't understand why people feel the need to have an explanation for all that happens in this life. It's just life. Attributing these things to the godman in the sky and then saying it makes people perfect...is a seriously delusional reality and is extremely disrespectful and inhumane to those who have truly suffered for no good reason at all.
I am with you Christy; the evils in this world have nothing to do with God.
God does not do or create evil.
IMO most try to absolve God of evil by saying He does it for a greater purpose.
IMO this is total hogwash.
God is LOVE and love worketh no evil nor thinketh no evil.
I have tried to help others in this subject, but few have accepted the things I have put forth.
They speak of God being totally sovereign in the earth, but few seem to understand what sovereignty consists of.
Sovereignty always denotes kingship; scripture tells us that the kingdoms of this world are not YET the kingdoms of Christ.
They speak of God will as though it is being done on earth; Yet Jesus taught us to pray “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” This is not a redundant prayer.
When God created man, He gave MAN DOMINION over the earth and all that is therein.
Which means God gave man temporary sovereignty over the earth.
Which means God gave man his inheritance and man has and is squandering that inheritance.
Just read the story of the prodigal son.
The father gave his son the son’s inheritance and the son went out from his father a squandered all that he was given.
This story of the prodigal son is the story of MANKIND squandering their inheritance, just look at everything that prodigal went through and you will see that it matches up well with all the crap in the world today.
What I see in these discussions is people blaming the FATHER for all the crap in the world because the Father gave His sons their inheritance.
Mankind has always wanted to blame someone else for the situations they find themselves in; Eve blamed the serpent; Adam blamed his wife and God.
But God would have none of that, He judged each for their own sins.
Yet people continue to blame the FATHER; just as Adam did for all the crap in the world because the Father gave unto His sons their inheritance.
What did Adam say?
The woman YOU gave me?
Can people not see the relevance in what Adam said to what they are saying.
I have had many say to me
If God had not put the tree in the garden, man would not have sinned; therefore, God planned for man to sin.
What did Adam say?
The woman YOU gave me?
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I'm not sure why - do you think God has let His creation run amok and evil is running rampant for no reason? In that scenario, God does not care. That would be a hopeless scenario in my mind.
Unfortunately I think the duality of flesh/spirit is lost on most atheists...
