Reply to Shtal (Interesting facts, for believers) - Page 34

Why read it? God allows innocents to suffer and that is fact. God will allow you to suffer no matter how much you pray for him to end it.

Don't answer the question, but deflecting it by saying if you read my post I will answer your question is funny, no?

I totally agree with you on that one BE4U. (I hated Physics.)  Time is a great subject, no matter what.

Guy08, I read your friend's whole post.  I am not the problem person with interpretations, though. His thoughts were scholarly and take into the culture's context and the ever changing meanings of words. It is very comforting in its logic. Which is hard to do when one is speaking about the randomness and fierceness of disasters.  If the Haitians made a pact witht the devil to defeat an enemy, i'm sure they wouldn't have been the first one. So we really don't know what the success rate "pacts with the devil" actually have.

And of course no one created God, that is Sunday School class 101.  I AM.

That's what HE said, right?

Moons I am honestly answering questions the best I can here. And I'm honestly trying to get my opinion posted clearly and somewhat the best I can - all things considered. lol

But I also know a bait and switch when I see one. You know darn well your question is a thread killer. And I know darn well you could care less about my answer. Your all noise Moons. Just noise.

Although, I prolly will answer your question or maybe even give an opinion on my creator - but, this thread is no where near me even bringing it up just yet without sounding like a lunatic.

Lets talk about "time" and "integers" Moons. What do you know ?

So, God just happened? Out of nothing came a God? Okay.

Like Moons my first reaction when Pat Robertson's name came up was to
ROFLMAO.   ANYONE could not quote a more discredited source whether
they were agreeing or disagreeing.  

But then like Beetree I went on and read the whole post.   Which was fine,
it seemed to have some internal logic / make a degree of sense.   But the
thing that stops me being converted, discovering any Faith, or  getting past
Moons questions about why the universe was created and who created the
creator / moved the unknown Mover  -  is that people who Believe may  then
turn into people who censure others. People who assume about others.
People who define what sin is, and while paying lip service to their idea that
they themselves are 'sinners' at the same time condemn everyone who does
not believe as they do as automatically living sinning lives,  and therefore being
deserving of Hell or Limbo or natural disaster. 

Justify:  why should someone living a completely clean, kind, honest life who
just happens not to be a Christian be taken out by a hurricane or tsunami along
with the rest of the debt, as payment for anybody else's sins ?

Re: God and his beginning

No one can answer that exactly, can they? The ONLY thing we have on that subject is in the Bible.  And you would have to have some sort of "faith" or at least an appreciation for that which we do not know how to explain... YET, for those words to hold value.

It is like BE4U said, it is a waste of time to begin certain conversations until the reception level is mutual between parties.

The concept of God always existing, and being the inventor of time, I agree, is mind boggling. Mind blowing even. It pushes our comfortable boundaries of how we think we understand the concrete. 

beetree you might be interested in reading an article that he wrote. Not dealing with that, but dealing with the the New Testament and how it was preserved in a sense, though we do not have the original scrolls.  I've heard members on this forum say "the Bible was a book put together by old men in a room somewhere"...... His article explains pretty much all of it.

It still doesn't answer the question of why a God allows a believer to suffer a horrible death. What is the point? My g-grandfather prayed for God to take him but he didn't, he left him to rot and that is no loving caring being in my book.

See I don't see a caring God or creator allowing that type of suffering of one of his strongest supporters. And I can say my g-grandfather lost a bit of faith near the end.

Don't believe that sin trash. A person shouldn't have to pay for others sins. A caring loving God would not be that spiteful.

I could turn your faith and logic around on you but what is the sense, I have become bored with this whole topic.

No, it doesn't answer that question. It can't. But it does illustrate the complexities of opposites, if you want to continue in the vein of black and white thinking.  It is at least consistant with the ever present theme; for a thing to be, it must have an opposite.   Good/Evil, Light/Dark, Hot/Cold, Young/Old, Soft/Hard, Joy/Suffering, and on and on.  

I am sure many lose faith at the end. I am sure many find faith at the end. It is a futile subject to discuss most times, with some people, that's true. 

Guy, I usually am interested in those types of things. 

So, what is the opposite of a DOG? or   A CAT? or  A BIKE? or A CAR? or A COMPUTER? And don't say a non-dog, non-cat or any of the rest. Everything does not have an opposite.