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Where is God when awful things happen?

djhwoodwerks

Well-Known Member
Only God knows the true Church, the body of Christ who are found in every part of Christendom.

We agree on that. I believe there is one Church, the Body of Christ, which is not limited to one earthly/man made religion. If a church or organization says you have to belong to them to have any hope, they are deceiving.
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
You're claiming "Christian", do you believe you have authority over the world? It doesn't sound like it!



I'm not judging anyone's "heart". If you talk to enough "Christians", and hear what they believe, how is that judging? I know of only a handful of "Christians" who believe that we have authority over the earth. Many, do not believe it. Go thru this thread alone and see how many "Christians" believe that God allows disaster, so we can do nothing about it. Knowing fact, is not judgment.
Tell me, why doesn´t God stop all disasters ?
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
You're claiming "Christian", do you believe you have authority over the world? It doesn't sound like it!



I'm not judging anyone's "heart". If you talk to enough "Christians", and hear what they believe, how is that judging? I know of only a handful of "Christians" who believe that we have authority over the earth. Many, do not believe it. Go thru this thread alone and see how many "Christians" believe that God allows disaster, so we can do nothing about it. Knowing fact, is not judgment.
Charles Taze Russell is your chosen quotation. Is it safe to assume you belong to his organization ?
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Why is that?


Why should it not be. The claim is for a compassionate, caring god yet innocent children still die of leukemia. Why should a mother who has lost her child even want to believe in a compassionate and caring god?
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Why should it not be. The claim is for a compassionate, caring god yet innocent children still die of leukemia. Why should a mother who has lost her child even want to believe in a compassionate and caring god?

Thanks! I think I better understand how you think about it now.
 

Deeje

Avid Bible Student
Premium Member
This is what I believe, when God created mankind, He gave us authority and dominion over the earth and everything in the earth (Genesis 1:26-28). Even tho Adam handed rule of the earth over to satan, mankind still holds the lease of the earth (Psalms 115:16) and can still take control back. But there are very, very few Christians who believe this, that's why there are natural disasters.

I believe you are mistaken. It wasn't Adam who handed rule of the world over to satan...it was God. (Luke 4:5-7) The devil can appoint whomever he pleases to take the reins at any time. The dominion man was given over the earth was as its caretaker.

Natural disasters cannot be prevented by man, but they can be created by him. There is a difference.... e.g. great earthquakes were foretold for these "last days". There have always been earthquakes, but nothing like the frequency we have experienced in the last century. Has human activity created the propensity for an increase in these events....I believe so. Weather events too can be compounded by man's mismanagement of the earth. If only we were as competent in preventing these things as we are in adding to the magnitude of them, then I guess we could boast about something. :rolleyes: Humans continue to destroy their environment for purely selfish, short term gains.

As for the evil that people do, I believe it is because mankind deals with it on a human level, not the core problem (Eph. 6:10-20) People can't wrap their minds around things Jesus said we will or can do in His name in the Bible, so they write it off as not valid for today.

Man has to deal with evil on a human level...he has no choice at this juncture. (2 Timothy 3:1-5) The Bible says it is the coming of God's Kingdom that will put the devil out of action and not before. In the first century, Christ's disciples were given a foretaste of things to come under Christ's rulership.....healing of the sick...raising of the dead....feeding of the multitudes....Christ even controlled the elements. All of those things ceased when the apostles died. They will not be restored until all corrupt human rulership under influence of the devil, is removed. (Daniel 2:44)

Jesus said,

Mark 16:15-18 (ESV Strong's) 15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

Does Mark 16:15-18 show that ability to cast out demons, healing the sick, drinking poison, speaking in tongues or the handling of serpents would be a sign identifying believers?

These verses appear in certain Bible manuscripts and versions of the fifth and sixth centuries C.E. But they do not appear in the older Greek manuscripts, the Sinaiticus and Vatican MS. 1209 of the fourth century.

Dr. B. F. Westcott, an authority on Bible manuscripts, said that “the verses . . . are no part of the original narrative but an appendage.” (An Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, London, 1881, p. 338)

Bible translator Jerome, in the fifth century, said that “almost all the Greek codices [are] without this passage.” (The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark, London, 1871, J. W. Burgon, p. 53)

The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967) says: “Its vocabulary and style differ so radically from the rest of the Gospel that it hardly seems possible Mark himself composed it [that is, verses 9-20].” (Vol. IX, p. 240) There is no record that early Christians either drank poison or handled serpents to prove they were believers.


If you accept that these are the necessary identifying marks of true Christians, then I believe that you have been sadly misled.

The identifying mark of true Christians is their obedience to Christ's command to preach in all the world, one message of salvation (Matthew 24:14; 28:19-20)....their love for their brothers and even their enemies (John 13:34-35; Matthew 5:43-44)....being "no part of this world" and being hated because of it. (John 15:18-21)

most people who believe in God and the Bible, write those verse off as Jesus meaning just the select few He appointed, and when the last Apostle died, the signs died also. Jesus said. "go into ALL the world, preach to the WHOLE creation" and these signs will accompany those who BELIEVE what is preached to them. 'Christians' don't believe it because they don't have faith, so they write it off.

People don't believe that, because of a direct warning from the apostle Paul that satan would be active with "with every powerful work and lying signs and wonders" at this time....there is a con artist at work catching the gullible in their own trap. Those visible miracles appealed to immature people in the first century....they were replaced by something that more mature believers would embrace...the pure truth from the complete word of God.

1 Corinthians 13:8-11
"But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we have partial knowledge and we prophesy partially, 10 but when what is complete comes, what is partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, to think as a child, to reason as a child; but now that I have become a man, I have done away with the traits of a child."

The things that identify true Christianity Paul concluded.... "Now, however, these three remain: faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love."... in a world devoid of all these things, true Christianity shines like a beacon.

Some people believe the first part, we are to preach to the whole world, but they don't believe the part about the signs following. Pretty sad really, Christians picking and choosing what to believe on the grounds of what makes sense to them. If it doesn't make sense, or they have never witnessed it, they won't believe it. Most Christians have Thomas', mentality, "unless I see...I won't believe".

Some OTOH see what is faked by the devil and are taken in because of being a spiritual child. I believe that is what is sad. :( It's time for us all to grow up and see things as they truly are.
 
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Koldo

Outstanding Member
You're not talking about pain then, you're talking about the emotional feelings you attribute to pain.

Not all pain prompts those feelings. (have you really never experienced minor pain??)

So essentially you are saying you agree with me, the feelings and emotions interpreting the signal are what is important. And we cannot develop feelings or emotions on the topic of anything without conceiving of its inverse.

If you need proof of this, I issue a challenge. Can you give me any attribute that you apply to the world around you that does not have an opposite?? Any adjective at all??

Or any emotion?? Can you give me anything you recognize as an emotional state within yourself that does not have an opposite??

Human beings can only conceive of things in terms of "is" and "is not". Definition of any "is" implicitly defines what "is not"

How would that be proof of anything ?
If I am telling you that the word 'happiness' would be absent from our vocabulary in a world where there is no 'unhappy' state, why would the lack of adjectives without opposites serve as proof ?

That one needs to conceive 'happiness' to be 'happy' is a statement that has yet to be substantiated.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
The whole point of the question, "why doesn't God stop the bad things from happening to us?" presumes that the bad things really are bad, and that they should not be happening to us.

I would argue that rather it presumes that God wouldn't want them to happen.

Just because "Bob" claims that his God is comprehensible doesn't mean that 'God' is comprehensible. All it means is that Bob's idea of God is somewhat comprehensible, to Bob. But Bob's idea of God, and 'God', are not the same things, except to Bob.

Yes, it becomes confusing figuring out ways of designating an actual metaphysical entity; i.e., 'God', an individual person's own conceptualization of such an entity, that he calls "God", and the general ideological mystery referred to, culturally, as a god.


And yet the term 'God' must be pointing to something to have meaning, and that is what allows 'God' to be comprehensible to a certain extent.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
So, would you know the difference between 'hot' and 'cold' in this world?

I think you proved the principle pretty nicely yourself.

Same goes for good and evil.

I wouldn't, but I wouldn't have to. That's what I am saying. I don't need terms such as 'hot' and 'cold' to experience any specific temperature.
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
Is the fact that awful things happen to people who don't deserve them good grounds for denying that god exists?

Sure. Why not? It seems any old reason can be used to justify belief in gods, but we can't reject belief in gods for any old reason? Seems like a double standard to me.
 

syo

Well-Known Member
There's so much evil garbage that happens every day all over the world and my biggest question is where God is when any of this stuff happens. Does God just not care? If the Abrahamic view of God is true, then he has the ability to make it all stop and to, essentially, remove evil from all of existence, but instead God chooses to let evil run rampant and lets unspeakable things happen to babies, children, the elderly, and good people. Why would any loving and merciful God allow for any wicked thing you can think of to exist in his world? No matter how I look at it, it just doesn't make any sense to me and the question puts me that much closer to being an atheist.
bad things happen because evil people refuse to follow the path of god. people choose to be evil, and they become evil.
 

Mister Silver

Faith's Nightmare
bad things happen because evil people refuse to follow the path of god. people choose to be evil, and they become evil.

Which does not make any logical sense considering that bad things still happen to people who believe in god and communities of people who believe in god.
 

allfoak

Alchemist
There's so much evil garbage that happens every day all over the world and my biggest question is where God is when any of this stuff happens. Does God just not care? If the Abrahamic view of God is true, then he has the ability to make it all stop and to, essentially, remove evil from all of existence, but instead God chooses to let evil run rampant and lets unspeakable things happen to babies, children, the elderly, and good people. Why would any loving and merciful God allow for any wicked thing you can think of to exist in his world? No matter how I look at it, it just doesn't make any sense to me and the question puts me that much closer to being an atheist.
god-in-a-box-1.jpg
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I would argue that rather it presumes that God wouldn't want them to happen.
But to label them "bad" presupposed that they shouldn't happen.
And yet the term 'God' must be pointing to something to have meaning, and that is what allows 'God' to be comprehensible to a certain extent.
"God" is the embodiment of the 'great mystery'. Of all that we don't know, and therefor cannot control. And yet we give it this identity precisely so that we can gain the illusion of some understanding and control. It is a paradoxical concept, I admit.
 

Sanzbir

Well-Known Member
How would that be proof of anything ?
If I am telling you that the word 'happiness' would be absent from our vocabulary in a world where there is no 'unhappy' state, why would the lack of adjectives without opposites serve as proof ?

That one needs to conceive 'happiness' to be 'happy' is a statement that has yet to be substantiated.

I'm not talking about words I am talking about conceptions. You cannot conceive of anything without conceiving of its opposite. You seem to be equating the concept of conceptions and words, which is a common enough thing that many people do.

If you cannot conceive of the fact you are happy, then what use is it?? How can you enjoy the endorphin high if you can't even conceive of the emotional state you are in??

Now can I prove that you can't conceive something without its inverse?? Sure. Imagine something that has no opposite: Can you do it??
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
I'm not talking about words I am talking about conceptions. You cannot conceive of anything without conceiving of its opposite. You seem to be equating the concept of conceptions and words, which is a common enough thing that many people do.

If you cannot conceive of the fact you are happy, then what use is it?? How can you enjoy the endorphin high if you can't even conceive of the emotional state you are in??


Now can I prove that you can't conceive something without its inverse?? Sure. Imagine something that has no opposite: Can you do it??

The fact I can't conceive something doesn't mean I can't experience it. This is what I am getting at.
 

Sanzbir

Well-Known Member
The fact I can't conceive something doesn't mean I can't experience it. This is what I am getting at.

Name something you can experience without conceiving of it.

You can't, because to experience something you have to conceive of it.

An experience is "practical contact with and observation of facts or events."

How can one observe facts or events if one can't even comprehend those facts or events??

If you can't comprehend the significance of your endorphin high, if you can't comprehend the sensation of happiness, how on earth can you experience it??

That's what I'm getting at.
 
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