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I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things
- Thread starter Trailblazer
- Start date
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Fine, God bless.
Likewise
Treasure Hunter
Well-Known Member
This being eclipses the Kingdom of Heaven much like the moon eclipses the sun. When the Son seeks the Kingdom of Heaven, this being stands in between and attempts to intercept him. The being is commonly referred to as Satan.
There is another being who encompasses the entire eclipse (Satan + Kingdom of Heaven). This being has been given the name Abraxas.
The Son will come to know these beings as he navigates toward the Kingdom of Heaven. Anyone who has sentenced themselves to this world has no need to know these beings.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Yes, that is what I also believe.God will reward people for the suffering they endure in this life, he suffers with us, is our cross, our crown of thorns, our Deification!
“O My servants! Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly plane, things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and manifested by God, for days of blissful joy, of heavenly delight, are assuredly in store for you. Worlds, holy and spiritually glorious, will be unveiled to your eyes. You are destined by Him, in this world and hereafter, to partake of their benefits, to share in their joys, and to obtain a portion of their sustaining grace. To each and every one of them you will, no doubt, attain.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 329
Spiderman
Veteran Member
Beautiful! He was a noble minded man!
Fair enough. I have no need to know and that's more than enough for me.
Spiderman
Veteran Member
Treasure Hunter
Well-Known Member
The Son lays down his life, his hope, and his purpose in order for man to feel more comfortable living his life in the world.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
The King James says good and evil. Not prosperity and disaster.Isaiah 45:5-7
New International Version
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
I believe that Isaiah 45:7 refers to fate and predestination and that prosperity and disaster are things that happen to us that are beyond our control.
In short, God is responsible for both the Good and the Bad things that happen to us, those things that are not subject to free will and thus are beyond our control.
“Some things are subject to the free will of man, such as justice, equity, tyranny and injustice, in other words, good and evil actions; it is evident and clear that these actions are, for the most part, left to the will of man. But there are certain things to which man is forced and compelled, such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes; these are not subject to the will of man, and he is not responsible for them, for he is compelled to endure them. But in the choice of good and bad actions he is free, and he commits them according to his own will.” Some Answered Questions, p. 248
Man is compelled to endure them because God set it up that way since we live in a material world where some of the bad things happen are beyond our control. That is our destiny, our fate, for which God is responsible.
If you are one of the people who had a fairly easy life, a happy life, a person to whom mostly good things happen, maybe you do not think much about fate and predestination, but I think about it a lot because I was not one of those people. In fact, I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be one of them. It is as if they are living in another universe.
If God is fair and just, and God loves everyone, why do some people have it so easy whereas other people have such difficult lives? I know the religious apologists have answers but I do not accept those answers. I want to know why even though I know I will never know why.
Thanks, Trailblazer.
The words are completely far too broad in meaning, lacking any specific definition to suggest it actually means prosperity and disaster by its author.
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I believe all have equally difficult, but different life, unless they themselves make it more difficult.
Please explain why?
Sedim Haba
Outa here... bye-bye!
... create disaster.... how appropriate on the eve of nuclear decimation. Humans more than deserve it, but the other creatures of this world...are they also worthy of extinction? hardly.
This is a consequence of God being the only god.
So all bucks stop at [his] desk.
In the KJV the passage you mention is translated
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil; I the Lord do all these things.
which is, I think, a better translation, facing up to the consequences of having one (and one only) omnipotent being in charge of things. In that case, where else could evil come from?
The problem didn't exist until after the Babylonian Captivity, because Yahweh was not considered the only god till then. Before then they'd been henotheists, a position clearly reflected in the earlier Tanakh.
Ben Dhyan
Veteran Member
Do please try and forgive yourself as a human being for whatever it was that you have done to warrant considering yourself less worthy of life than an animal, you are still an expression of God no less than an animal, a star, or a flower.
PureX
Veteran Member
We see ourselves as individuals because we are 'selfish'. But we were not created as individuals, nor do we exist as individuals. We are members of a collective, cooperative species. The individual's well-being depends on the well-being of the human collective within which they exist. And the vast majority of our suffering results from our ignoring this simple fact of our reality. When we experience good fortune, we tell ourselves that we deserved it. That we "earned" it. That it was not a gift of fate or the cooperation of our fellow humans, but was something we made happen for ourselves. Because we are selfish. And so we will not share our good fortune with those who are experiencing misfortune. Instead, we blame their misfortune on God, and on them, and pretend it has nothing to do with us. That their well-being is not our responsibility. And so where we could have helped to relieve their suffering, and human suffering in general, we do not. We increase it through our selfishness. And then we blame God for it.If God is fair and just, and God loves everyone, why do some people have it so easy whereas other people have such difficult lives? I know the religious apologists have answers but I do not accept those answers. I want to know why even though I know I will never know why.
Thanks, Trailblazer.
It's true that we humans do also suffer from circumstances that we did not create, nor can control; like disease and natural disaster. But even these could be greatly reduced and mitigated if we weren't so selfish. If we would just share resources and cooperate for the well-being of humanity as a whole, instead of just for ourselves.
So we can blame God all we like, but it looks to me like the solution to mankind's suffering has been within our own hearts and hands all along. We're just not choosing to enable it. Because we are selfish.
Triumph
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Isaiah 45Isaiah 45:5-7
New International Version
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you,
though you have not acknowledged me,
6 so that from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting people may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other.
7 I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
I believe that Isaiah 45:7 refers to fate and predestination and that prosperity and disaster are things that happen to us that are beyond our control.
In short, God is responsible for both the Good and the Bad things that happen to us, those things that are not subject to free will and thus are beyond our control.
“Some things are subject to the free will of man, such as justice, equity, tyranny and injustice, in other words, good and evil actions; it is evident and clear that these actions are, for the most part, left to the will of man. But there are certain things to which man is forced and compelled, such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes; these are not subject to the will of man, and he is not responsible for them, for he is compelled to endure them. But in the choice of good and bad actions he is free, and he commits them according to his own will.” Some Answered Questions, p. 248
Man is compelled to endure them because God set it up that way since we live in a material world where some of the bad things happen are beyond our control. That is our destiny, our fate, for which God is responsible.
If you are one of the people who had a fairly easy life, a happy life, a person to whom mostly good things happen, maybe you do not think much about fate and predestination, but I think about it a lot because I was not one of those people. In fact, I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be one of them. It is as if they are living in another universe.
If God is fair and just, and God loves everyone, why do some people have it so easy whereas other people have such difficult lives? I know the religious apologists have answers but I do not accept those answers. I want to know why even though I know I will never know why.
Thanks, Trailblazer.
3 And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel."
That is not the God that Jesus worships, that is the false " Lord=King of Israel" God that Abraham invented starting in Genesis 2/4 to exalt himself as the voice of that man made God. Abraham told his sons they are Gods so they, to stay in power over the people, continued with the Lord God fiction and added to the stories.
There is only one God but Abraham never worshipped him, preferring to eat the forbidden fruit from his story so he could be a God, a Lord God.
The Father of Jesus, did try to lead the Israelites to truth at various times. One of those times was giving them the 10 commandments that Moses destroyed so the people he planned to kill would not see the command from God, not to kill. God told Moses show the commandments to the people, God knew what they were doing, but Moses refused to obey God Moses commanded brother to kill brother and friend to kill friend and they did. God commands to love one another, teach with compassion. The God that commands not to kill does not then say go out and kill people.
Moses even refused to write the 1st commandment correctly. God told Moses to write I AM is the one giving him the commandments as his God but Moses refused and wrote the same Lord he had always worshipped and the Hebrews supported, Lord God, so Moses could be the voice of his fake God. Jesus references this fact.
Matthew 22:40
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." Jesus did call himself a prophet because he had knowledge of what will happen in the future and taught many parables about it. The Jews killed the prophets they disagreed with and they threatened to kill Jesus as a blasphemer, a false prophet. They hung Jesus that taught, love God, love your neighbor, and have mercy not sacrifice on a cross for disagreeing with them. The true laws of God to love one another and not to kill also were hung on that cross to die with Jesus. HANG = kill (someone) by tying a rope attached from above around the neck and removing the support from beneath (used as a form of capital punishment). Jesus is an innocent man, and they murdered him by demanding injustice be done to support their false religion that exalted only them.
Read the first chapter in Genesis. In the beginning God created, not Lord God. Lord God did not create anything but lies, death and destruction.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Then what do you think it means? Good and evil are also very broad in meaning.
Why would it mean good and evil, when most of the translations do not say good and evil?
I do not think good and evil is a correct translation because only humans can do evil.
Evil means profoundly immoral and wicked and these are human qualities. God cannot bring evil.
God cannot do evil because God is omnibenevolent, possessing perfect or unlimited goodness.
There are many English translations.
Isaiah 45:7 All English Translations
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah 45:7
Just for example:
KJV I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
KJ21
I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.
NKJV
I form the light and create darkness, I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.’
ASV
I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.
AMP
The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing peace and creating disaster; I am the Lord who does all these things.
ERV
I made the light and the darkness. I bring peace, and I cause trouble. I, the Lord, do all these things.
EHV
I am the one who forms light and creates darkness, the one who makes peace and creates disaster. I am the Lord, the one who does all these things.
ESV
I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
TLB
I form the light and make the dark. I send good times and bad. I, Jehovah, am he who does these things.
NABRE
I form the light, and create the darkness, I make weal and create woe; I, the Lord, do all these things.
NASB
The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating disaster; I am the Lord who does all these things.
NCB
I form the light and create the darkness; prosperity and disaster depend upon my will; I, the Lord, do all these things.
NCV
I made the light and the darkness. I bring peace, and I cause troubles. I, the Lord, do all these things.
NIRV
I cause light to shine. I also create darkness. I bring good times. I also create hard times. I do all these things. I am the Lord.
NIV
I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things.
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Trailblazer
Veteran Member
That clearly is not the case at all. People can make certain choices, but as I said in the OP, much of what happens to us is not by choice.
Free will is simply the will/ability to make choices based upon our desires and preferences. Our desires and preferences come from a combination of factors such as childhood upbringing, heredity, education, adult experiences, and present life circumstances. How free our choices are varies with the situation. Certainly what we refer to as “free will” has many constraints such as ability and opportunity. We can make some choices but we cannot choose anything we might want to do.
How people respond to life's difficulties varies according to their capacity which is determined by the factors noted above. If you know anything about psychology you would know that people do not 'choose' to suffer from their difficulties. To blame people for how they respond is lacking in compassion. I cannot even imagine Jesus blaming someone for their suffering.
I do not accept the answers of religious apologists (who think they have all the answers) because those are not answers. If God is fair and just, and God loves everyone, why do some people have it so easy whereas other people have such difficult lives? I know there is no answer to this question as I said, so I just have to accept it is just the way God set things up. It could not be any other way in a world such as this one, the world that God created, because everyone cannot have the heredity and the same life circumstances.
I do not think I will have the answers in this life but it will become clear in the next life, which is the World of Lights. I am not going to make up a reason as the religious apologists do, just to maintain that God is purely good. I believe that God is purely good because the scriptures say that but I cannot overlook the suffering in this world like the apologists do.
To say what the religious apologists say, that suffering is good for us because it helps us grow spiritually and develop good character might be true for some people but it is not true across the board and it is still suffering. To say that we do not have to suffer, that it is just how we choose respond, is based upon ignorance of psychological factors, and it implies that people have the ability to respond differently, but not all people have that ability. That is as much as judging people because they suffer, which goes against what Jesus taught in Matthew 7:3-5.