'god' no longer active within human events

[King of the Americas]

'god' (plural noun) doesn't give a @#&^ about you/us
(Fri Jan 14 12:03:16)
Message:

'god' doesn't care about individuals, anymore.

I am not talking about the metaphysical "God" that people worship so often in today's religious circles. I am not even sure such a thing exists. I am talking about those actual entities who have interacted with our ancestors, and who still float around in the heavens just checking stuff out.

'They' may have, in the past, taken steps to interceed in the events of mankind, but those days are gone.

If there is an omnipotent omnipresent "God", then where the **** was he/she when the tsunami hit??? I mean if 'I' were "God", I could and would have seen that thing coming, and sent a couple of angels down to warn those poor f*ckers to take cover. I mean supposedly, "God" did this for Lot, his wife, and daughters, and for Noah and his ilk, so what gives? Were those +75,000 innocent CHILDREN not worthy of a simple shout in a big booming voice, "Hey, move away from the beach, there is a massive wave of destruction headed your way!"

I have had no less than a dozen discussions with avid Christians about how "God" failed to act with this whole tsumani thing. Their response, "We don't know the will and mind of God, and his motives and thoughts are beyond our comprehension.", "Did you ever think he did this to bring us closer to him?", "God does these things to punish non-believers."

What a load of bullsh%t!

I am sure that 'god' exists, but I haven't seen any recent evidence that 'they' are taking a hands ON approach to human management. This whole thing reminds me of a Discovery channel special about our scientists tagging and tracking animal movements and breeding patterns, but then sitting back and watching as lions kill and eat young antelopes. While there are hundreds upon thousands of video and photographic evidence of 'something' in the heavens moving to and froe, you don't hear a lot about them acting in a public forthright manner to affect positive change to the day to day lives of humans, anymore...

So, know this, you/We are on your/Our own, if you find yourself in a desert canyon, with your hand lodged between a rock and a cliff wall. "God" won't answer your endless prayers to send help or aid of any kind. You are going to have to cut through your own hand with a dull knife, and break through your own bones to free yourself. "God" is going to stand by and watch as a wave sweeps your weaker wife and smaller kids out to sea.

"God" either isn't "God", or 'god' has relented to a spectator position and is content just to sit back and watch mankind's floundering through history.

When "God" ceases to protect tens of thousands of innocent children from a humanly unstopable natural disaster, doesn't it cease to be an all-loving, omnio-potent, omni-present "God"???

*This is NOT an attempt to revisit my ages old UFO days. It is simply an observation of the reality of the matter, given "God's" inaction(s) as of late.

 

[Psiload]

'god' (plural noun) doesn't give a @#&^ about you/us
(Fri Jan 14 12:03:16)
Message:

'god' doesn't care about individuals, anymore.

I am not talking about the metaphysical "God" that people worship so often in today's religious circles. I am not even sure such a thing exists. I am talking about those actual entities who have interacted with our ancestors, and who still float around in the heavens just checking stuff out.

'They' may have, in the past, taken steps to interceed in the events of mankind, but those days are gone.

If there is an omnipotent omnipresent "God", then where the **** was he/she when the tsunami hit??? I mean if 'I' were "God", I could and would have seen that thing coming, and sent a couple of angels down to warn those poor f*ckers to take cover. I mean supposedly, "God" did this for Lot, his wife, and daughters, and for Noah and his ilk, so what gives? Were those +75,000 innocent CHILDREN not worthy of a simple shout in a big booming voice, "Hey, move away from the beach, there is a massive wave of destruction headed your way!"

I have had no less than a dozen discussions with avid Christians about how "God" failed to act with this whole tsumani thing. Their response, "We don't know the will and mind of God, and his motives and thoughts are beyond our comprehension.", "Did you ever think he did this to bring us closer to him?", "God does these things to punish non-believers."

What a load of bullsh%t!

I am sure that 'god' exists, but I haven't seen any recent evidence that 'they' are taking a hands ON approach to human management. This whole thing reminds me of a Discovery channel special about our scientists tagging and tracking animal movements and breeding patterns, but then sitting back and watching as lions kill and eat young antelopes. While there are hundreds upon thousands of video and photographic evidence of 'something' in the heavens moving to and froe, you don't hear a lot about them acting in a public forthright manner to affect positive change to the day to day lives of humans, anymore...

So, know this, you/We are on your/Our own, if you find yourself in a desert canyon, with your hand lodged between a rock and a cliff wall. "God" won't answer your endless prayers to send help or aid of any kind. You are going to have to cut through your own hand with a dull knife, and break through your own bones to free yourself. "God" is going to stand by and watch as a wave sweeps your weaker wife and smaller kids out to sea.

"God" either isn't "God", or 'god' has relented to a spectator position and is content just to sit back and watch mankind's floundering through history.

When "God" ceases to protect tens of thousands of innocent children from a humanly unstopable natural disaster, doesn't it cease to be an all-loving, omnio-potent, omni-present "God"???

*This is NOT an attempt to revisit my ages old UFO days. It is simply an observation of the reality of the matter, given "God's" inaction(s) as of late.

What do you mean by "as of late"?

In the long history of natural disasters, this latest tsunami barely registers on the Slaughter-O-Meter. Only some 100K dead? If you look back through the history books, you'll find natural disasters resulting in death tolls numbering in the mililions, in the hundreds of millions even.

If anything, I'd say this latest "act of God" is a sign of The old boy mellowing in his old age.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

God doesn't futz with free will, you know. Believe me, He told that tsunami, "Hey, you there, lots of innocent kids that way. If you kill them, you go to Hell. So, either divert course, repent of your destructive ways, and be with Me this day in Paradise, or slaughter the innocent and fuel the sauna in ol' Luci's quarters below. Your call."

Don't blame God if some tsunamis choose the path of evil.

ETA: If 'god' is a plural noun as you allege, you should say "god don't," not "god doesn't."

 

[c4ts]

The Deists say God left aeons ago, after he set up the universe like clockwork.

 

[Psiload]

The Deists say God left aeons ago, after he set up the universe like clockwork.

I see God as more of an absentee landlord than a long-departed watchmaker.

He built the place, and people still go through the motions of paying him the rent...

but don't bother calling him when the toilet overflows.

 

[Richard G]

There is one thing in life we must all face – we are all going to die. We may hurl charges against God that He has unfairly allowed such catastrophe to snuff out the lives of so many young people. But, in the end, death is a certainty to us all.

Because most people today act as though this life is all there is, death is viewed as the ultimate tragedy. Especially if those who die didn't have a chance "to get the most out of this life." To them, death is the ultimate tragedy that is to be avoided at all costs for as long as possible.

Interestingly, people who normally do not believe in God nevertheless pour out outrage at God for allowing such "unjust tragedy" to happen. God is brought in to blame when convenient. In one-way or another, most the world charges "Why does God allow such horrible things to happen to good people?"

In view of all this, I am going to present God's perspective to this question from the Bible.

First, God declares that He created all men to live forever. But because of mankind's rebellion against Him, man now has two destinations in eternity. Every person who does not restore his relationship with God will spend eternity away from God in a place of isolation, torment and outer darkness. This consequence is so great that God Himself stepped out of eternity into time in the person of Jesus Christ in order pay our penalty for rebellion. On that basis, God offers each person who will receive it a free gift of pardon and eternity with Him.

The most familiar verses in the Bible are based on this reality:


For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.

– John 3:16-19


You see, from God's perspective the ultimate tragedy is not the timing or nature of your death. The ultimate tragedy is for you to die without resolving where you will spend eternity.

Now I know that this is not a popular idea for the world to confront. But truth is truth no matter how much man chooses to deceive himself about it.

Second, when you look at life from the perspective of eternity, what may be considered a tragedy to the world may not be so at all. God says this world is only a preparation for eternity. Therefore if a person dies suddenly at a young age, it may be a blessing rather than a curse.

The Bible teaches that if a person dies before the age of accountability, he is automatically covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ because he didn't have the ability to make a decision. There are many people in Heaven from the tsunami that wouldn't have been if they had lived out their lives.

In great catastrophe, true believers in Jesus Christ are killed along with those who are not. However this is not a tragedy to the believer. God says, "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints." (Psalm 116:15)

To the world, such a statement is incomprehensible. But the Bible teaches that every believer is a saint in the eyes of God. The word in its original language means "one set apart as God's possession." So when he dies, it is a homecoming. All pain, sorrows and tears are over. God says:


Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord – for we walk by faith, not by sight – we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home [literally, "face to face"] with the Lord.

– 2 Corinthians 5:6-8


Third, the one who understands life in view of eternity lives with a different purpose. He realizes that there is no guarantee on the length and condition of this life. He agrees with God's assessment:


Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills ... we will live and also do this or that."

– James 4:14-15


Each one of us is blazing a vapor trail across the sky of time. God tells us that the only things we can take with us into eternity are the good things we do for others out of thanksgiving to God. God will remember all of our acts of kindness we do by faith in Him – and He will reward us for them.

Such catastrophes as the Sumatran earthquake-tsunami should be viewed with humility and compassion. Apart from God's intervening grace, we could all fall victims to "natural disasters." The Bible teaches that such catastrophes are the result of an Earth that is living under a curse resulting from man's fall.

We live in "Cosmos Diabolicus." The Bible says, "We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the Evil One." Jesus warned that Satan is "The Ruler of this world." (John 5:19 and John 14:30)

The book of Job reveals that Satan has the authority and power to unleash great "natural disasters." Jesus also warned that as the time for His return draws near, natural catastrophes would increase in frequency and destructive power. He particularly mentioned great earthquakes and paralyzing fear because of the "roaring of the waves of the sea." We live in the time of these signs that Jesus called "birth pains."

Therefore the greatest priority is to win as many people to faith in Christ as possible and to grow in faith so as to be able to face the crises that surely are coming. The time is at hand. Make sure that you have accepted God's free gift of pardon through Christ's death in your place. Pray right now and receive Him. Tell Him you want Him to come in and change your life to His will. Your eternal destiny depends upon your decision. If you miss it, that will be the ultimate tragedy.

 

[Khalid01]

There is one thing in life we must all face...[Hal Lindsey's commentary snipped for brevity and in accordance of the forum rules]...If you miss it, that will be the ultimate tragedy.

Richard, I'm not one to be creative, and I'm certainly not a good writer, but in the least, I don't steal other people's work. If in the case I do utilize someone's "wise" words, I cite my sources, and follow the rules of the forum.

You should too!

(This really calls for some admin action, but I'll see if RichardG will be a good little boy and correct his error)

 

[Kimpatsu]

If 'god' is a plural noun as you allege, you should say "god don't," not "god doesn't."

God don't got it so good, like wot I does.

 

[King of the Americas]

To Richard G:

Okay, so YOUR "God" isn't 'G'od at all, but rather something quite powerless to affect positive change on this Earth, because Satan is in charge?

Dude, I can't believe you'd worship such a thing!

However, I'd like to still point out that my original statement still stands, while "God" has in the past sought to intervein in the happenings of man, such as with Noah and Lott along with their ilk, he/they are no longer doing so.

You also pasted over my pluralization of "god"...?

In your respons you nted that "God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son..."

And yet, I have heard a great many Christians say that Jesus (actually his hebrew name was closer to "Yashua") was "God in the flesh", and that he was indeed GOD, himself. I've always countered this with any nuimber of pluralizationing arguments, such as why would "God" talk to himself, as when Jesus was on the cross saying "Father, why have youy foresaken me?" My ultimate point being that "God" is a 'they' not a singular 'it'...

Sadly, I think you and a lot of religious zealots have it all wrong about "god", and what role 'they' now play in our lives.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

'god' no longer active within human events


Thank Ed!


If you remember, in a recent topic, no one could come up with an example of God's love that didn't involve hurting or killing someone.. ( Your sweet little John 3:16 included.. )

Once, God showed his love by killing everyone except one family...



If he decides to get ' active ' again, I don't know how much love we can stand...

 

[Kimpatsu]

Re: To Richard G:

Okay, so YOUR "God" isn't 'G'od at all, but rather something quite powerless to affect positive change on this Earth, because Satan is in charge?

Dude, I can't believe you'd worship such a thing!

However, I'd like to still point out that my original statement still stands, while "God" has in the past sought to intervein in the happenings of man, such as with Noah and Lott along with their ilk, he/they are no longer doing so.

In other words, god knew about (or caused?) the tsunami, but did nothing.
As I would have done something, I clearly am more moral than god.
Don't worship me; just sent your contributions to the 9/11 fund, or thge tsunami fund.

 

[Psiload]

Re: To Richard G:

Okay, so YOUR "God" isn't 'G'od at all, but rather something quite powerless to affect positive change on this Earth, because Satan is in charge?

Dude, I can't believe you'd worship such a thing!

However, I'd like to still point out that my original statement still stands, while "God" has in the past sought to intervein in the happenings of man, such as with Noah and Lott along with their ilk, he/they are no longer doing so.

You also pasted over my pluralization of "god"...?

In your respons you nted that "God so loved the world that he gave us his only begotten son..."

And yet, I have heard a great many Christians say that Jesus (actually his hebrew name was closer to "Yashua") was "God in the flesh", and that he was indeed GOD, himself. I've always countered this with any nuimber of pluralizationing arguments, such as why would "God" talk to himself, as when Jesus was on the cross saying "Father, why have youy foresaken me?" My ultimate point being that "God" is a 'they' not a singular 'it'...

Sadly, I think you and a lot of religious zealots have it all wrong about "god", and what role 'they' now play in our lives.

I'm a little confused.

You're saying that God WAS intervening in human affairs back during the time of Noah when... a whole big bunch of people were killed by rising waters.

But God isn't around now when... a somewhat smaller bunch of people were killed by rising waters.

If it's true that God is no longer "active", well then....

Thank God for that!

 

[Atlas]

Good job Khalid01. I thought RichardG's post was a thoughtful Christian perspective. To pass off Hal Lindsey's work as one's own is confusing. Was it an oversight - I hope so. I don't understand how it could be though.

What value is there is in posting the thoughtful Christian perspective as your own in a skeptic's forum. Pretty strange. Glad you caught it Khalid.
-----

King of the Americas,

As far as god's intervention, I don't see much difference really in the tsunami and the destruction of Sodom and Gommorah. The big story is someone escaped. Of the people that did many will carry the message back that god - Jehovah or Allah - saved them.

Lot lost his wife too. But he lived! Well, for a while longer. Word is, he's dead, dead, dead. The tsunami of doom eventually drowns us all.

It's difficult to wrap the mind around the loss of 150,000. 50 times 9/11 or 0.000025 the population of the Earth. Was the destruction of Pompeii bigger or more catastrophic? Does anyone blame god for Pompeii today?

I really don't find much value in mentioning god or the gods in conjunction with natural disasters. I agree with you that there is no ongoing intervention. I doubt there ever was. Intervention from imaginary creatures operating in the physical world is a difficult thing to accept.

I do accept that the imaginary gods are intervening onto the imaginations of the credulous. The tsunami is another reason to live in fear of your chosen god. If you internal bias leans in another direction, the tsunami is an expression of god's love for you. God could have found you if god wanted you - but no, god's love is such that you shall have another day.

 

[username]

In view of all this, I am going to present God's perspective to this question from the Bible.

First, God declares that He created all men to live forever. But because of mankind's rebellion against Him, man now has two destinations in eternity. Every person who does not restore his relationship with God will spend eternity away from God in a place of isolation, torment and outer darkness.

Why? Why not just accept that His creation behaved according to the way they were created? I mean God no sooner makes 2 humans than he throws the Great Deceiver at them and what a surprise it is when the naive humans listen to the Father of Lies. So God sets these 2 poor saps up for a fall and they fall. They then get to be tormented in hell by this creator for the offense. Seems to me God had a design flaw in his creation that he should have fixed.

When I build something if it doesn't work as I intended it to, I fix it or scrap it and start over. I generally don't take the defective creation and torture it for eternity because of it's sin against me. That is kind of like my stubbing my toe on the refridgerator and taking the fridge out back and shooting it.

This consequence is so great that God Himself stepped out of eternity into time in the person of Jesus Christ in order pay our penalty for rebellion. On that basis, God offers each person who will receive it a free gift of pardon and eternity with Him.

Would have been a lot less work to just not take offense in the first place.

You see, from God's perspective the ultimate tragedy is not the timing or nature of your death. The ultimate tragedy is for you to die without resolving where you will spend eternity.

Perhaps a little understanding of our humanity would help God chill out a bit.

The Bible teaches that if a person dies before the age of accountability, he is automatically covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ because he didn't have the ability to make a decision. There are many people in Heaven from the tsunami that wouldn't have been if they had lived out their lives.

First, this is not taught in the bible, it is a part of modern feel good theology designed to make the God of the bible more palatable. Second, the logical conclusion any rational believer would have to make is that killing their babies is a good thing for them to do since it guarantees those infants will spend eternity in heaven. After all, that is all that matters in the scope of eternity, right?

In great catastrophe, true believers in Jesus Christ are killed along with those who are not. However this is not a tragedy to the believer. God says, "Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints." (Psalm 116:15)

Sure, those who sing praises are saints and those who don't are abomination. Sounds like God could benefit from learning to see shades of gray.

Third, the one who understands life in view of eternity lives with a different purpose. He realizes that there is no guarantee on the length and condition of this life. He agrees with God's assessment:


Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills ... we will live and also do this or that."

Atheists do the same thing, recognizing this life is all there is.

Therefore the greatest priority is to win as many people to faith in Christ as possible and to grow in faith so as to be able to face the crises that surely are coming. The time is at hand. Make sure that you have accepted God's free gift of pardon through Christ's death in your place. Pray right now and receive Him. Tell Him you want Him to come in and change your life to His will. Your eternal destiny depends upon your decision.

Ughh, I don't think so.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

If I understand things correctly, we could infer from this disaster, that God cares a lot more about elephants and monkeys than he does for human beings.. I sort of suspected that, anyway..

 

[King of the Americas]

To Psiload:

I think my point was more than 1-fold, but that certainly indeed I WAS making a case for god's inaction, as of late.

Moreover, I would add that to those who died, that "God" lied, once before promising never to again destroy the world with water...to those who were sweep from their beach home and out to sea, 'their world' WAS destroyed by water.

So many have argued that "God" is ALL powerful but that he doesn't interceed in Man's free will. Which was an eariler 'missed placed' point that I wanted to make to you. If I shoot an innocent family, Christians claimed that God gave Man free will, and that he couldn't interceed in those events regardless of how holy the innocent family was.

THIS event more than any other really convienced me of god's present hands off position, when it comes to the affairs of Man.

If "God" ceases to be all knowing & all powerful, then maybe he just isn't, maybe the 'gods' are just watching this whole thing go down like so many mice running a maze.

 

[King of the Americas]

To Atlas:

I am pretty sure that "God" sent messengers to tell Lott and his family to vamoos. The bible calls them angels, but who could really be certain. 'I' have been called both an angel and a devil, but I don't suppose either is true.

My point being that "God" acted, just as he acted to save Noah, although I think he was just a booming voice to Noah. He also took a physical form as he led Moses and those dudes out of Egypt. In the ancient past, "God" acted to save worthy Men & Women from both the wrath of other Men and Women from more natural disasters. BUT, that those days are past, and that "God" can't but spare an angel or two, or the time it would take to shout from the Heavens, "Move away from the beach!"

I think you could make an argument for Free Will, in "God's" inaction when it came to Pompeii. I mean, when you build a city in the shadow of a volcano, how 'shocked' can you be when the thing erupts and the city is swallowed by lava??? Like those dudes still living in Moore Oklahoma who rebuilt their house after a tornado hit, the next year another tornado hit and wiped the same folks out again. They live right in the middle of what is know as Tornado Alley. Take a hint people. But even these seemingly immovable people had warnings from the National Weather Service.

I guess these coastal peoples should have taken the warning that "God" gave the animals of the region. Remarkable, THEY knew something bad was coming, because most of them survived. Several primative tribes in Africa also survived the tsunami, even though they lived ON the coast. They said, "when the birds leave, so do we.

While 'some' did survive the ocean wash, I haven't heard anyone of those survivors claiming that Angels showed up and told them to get the hell out, or that a booming voice from the sky told them to build or take shelter in a boat...those days are long gone.

"God" is no more, but the gods are still about, they are just about doing nothing!

 

[Psiload]

Re: To Psiload:

I think my point was more than 1-fold, but that certainly indeed I WAS making a case for god's inaction, as of late.

Moreover, I would add that to those who died, that "God" lied, once before promising never to again destroy the world with water...to those who were sweep from their beach home and out to sea, 'their world' WAS destroyed by water.

So many have argued that "God" is ALL powerful but that he doesn't interceed in Man's free will. Which was an eariler 'missed placed' point that I wanted to make to you. If I shoot an innocent family, Christians claimed that God gave Man free will, and that he couldn't interceed in those events regardless of how holy the innocent family was.

THIS event more than any other really convienced me of god's present hands off position, when it comes to the affairs of Man.

If "God" ceases to be all knowing & all powerful, then maybe he just isn't, maybe the 'gods' are just watching this whole thing go down like so many mice running a maze.

Or maybe there is no man behind the curtain, and maybe there never was.

I still don't see how your "as of late" applies. I don't see anything happening today, from a natural disaster standpoint, that wasn't happening 2000 years ago, 20,000 years ago, 200 hundred years ago, etc...

If there were some historical evidence of a huge cataclysm taking place, with no resulting death toll, then maybe I'd consider the notion that God was once active in the affairs of man, but has been taking a powder as of late.

All of the historical/archaeological evidence seems to show natural disaster and the resulting death toll being directly proportional. Not what you'd expect if divine intervention was at play.

In other words...

With a saviour like Him, who needs enemies?

 

[Ladewig]

The Bible teaches that if a person dies before the age of accountability, he is automatically covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ because he didn't have the ability to make a decision.

Would you provide a citation for that concept?

 

[Atlas]

King of the Americas,

You've got Bad God Syndrome. If you're going to believe in God or gods choose something that doesn't make you paranoid. You've got a Mt Olympus picture of intervening gods toying with humanity. I can't imagine anything worse.

The reason it all seems so illogical is because it ain't true. There are no angels, no fairies, no demons, no aliens, and NO GODS!.

God is always interpreted into the events after the fact by story tellers. Lott and Noah are just two examples of tales of heroes who survived but we have no certain knowledge that they existed anymore than Hercules existed. When disaster strikes and children cry parents instinctively comfort them with stories. The best parts of these stories become folklore and tradition.

The whole earth was never covered in flood during the history of man. Sodom and Gomorrah were possibly destroyed by fire but the story of Lot was created as a historical fiction. Jonah was not swallowed by a whale. Jesus was never tempted in the desert by the devil - however I'm sure he got hungry while he fasted and his followers used the symbol of the devil to heighten the drama of the event. If Jesus fasted for forty days it's possible he hallucinated, in which case the stories that are told today may have arisen from his delusions.

You may not choose to believe me in any of this, but I'd like to feel the the King of the Americas was not insane. Would you mind stating what you really do belive in. Bible, angels, aliens, jesus, satan, demons, fairies, unicorns or whatever else is real to you. Maybe I'm missing something here.