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josie_L
Guest
Some atheists act like atheism somehow is the answer to all man’s problems.
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yankee_doodle
Guest
Josie, I think I owe you an apology for sniping when you asked about my family. Although I don’t want to discuss my family affairs on the internet … I should have said so in a polite manner …
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KyivAndrew
Guest
Yeah, ditto. It was a valid response on your part to an open-ended vague accusation.
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josie_L
Guest
Whether Thomism or Molinism neither one denies free will (which is essential to Catholic soteriology).
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yankee_doodle
Guest
Yes I know, nevertheless the soteriological difference between Thomism and say Calvinism is really just a matter of degree (substantively anyway) … OK I’ll eject myself from your religious discussion now
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josie_L
Guest
Don’t worry Yankee I won’t ask anymore questions, and apology accepted, God bless and good night.
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KyivAndrew
Guest
I think you two should hug :blushing:
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rcscwc
Guest
If a cause is to investigated, then go all the way.
What causes epilepsy?
Demons, or god? If so why and on what basis?
You are not coming forthright on this.
What causes storms, floods, earth quakes? Demons or natural forces? Or is it god? For is it not written in bible that biblegod created evil too?
If you want to exonerate god, then karma is the best explanation.
I believe you just heard the term karma without knowing what exactly it is.
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wcknight
Guest
Christians do not believe in karma. It is clear that Jesus did not either. People are not born blind because of any sin or previous fault. Bad things do not happen because of prior sins etc. Suffering is not a caused from some misdeed.
God allows suffering because suffering is redemptive and folks can learn by enduring suffering in a heroic manner.
Saints are not “made by the Church”, The Church recognizes folks who led holy and upright lives and in the cases of miracle workers, testimony from folks who witnessed these miracles helped the Church to decide if these folks were indeed saints.
And the incorrupt bodies of saints are NOT made of wax. That is patently absurd and anyone with half an eye and hald a mind can see this. No amount of wax is going to presevere a dead body for hundreds of years. And such a body would stink to high Heaven after even a few weeks.
Go to a wax museum and even the most skilled of folks can not produce a real life like figure. Wax faces look like wax. There is no amount of makeup or cover that can make it look real. Examine a close up photo of Padre Pio and no one can produce that with wax or any other amount of cosmetics. The same goes for St Bernadette and St. Catherine. These bodies are not wax, they are as fresh as the day they died.
No amount of embalming or treatment is going to preserve them and science has no answer for this. All these claims of wax treatment and make up is just more self denial of the truth. The Truth is God made the bodies of these saints withstand the normal forces of decay and nature to prove to you that He exists.
You can make up some lame excuses but the evidence is there. Take any atheist body you want and embalm it, wax it, preserve it all you want and within a few weeks it will be grossly decayed, and as smelly to high Heaven as to be unbearable, and in few years as gross and gruesome as any other body in a grave.
Get one of your scientist atheist friends to reproduce an incorruptible body. It should be a piece of cake.
God allows suffering because suffering is redemptive and folks can learn by enduring suffering in a heroic manner.
Saints are not “made by the Church”, The Church recognizes folks who led holy and upright lives and in the cases of miracle workers, testimony from folks who witnessed these miracles helped the Church to decide if these folks were indeed saints.
And the incorrupt bodies of saints are NOT made of wax. That is patently absurd and anyone with half an eye and hald a mind can see this. No amount of wax is going to presevere a dead body for hundreds of years. And such a body would stink to high Heaven after even a few weeks.
Go to a wax museum and even the most skilled of folks can not produce a real life like figure. Wax faces look like wax. There is no amount of makeup or cover that can make it look real. Examine a close up photo of Padre Pio and no one can produce that with wax or any other amount of cosmetics. The same goes for St Bernadette and St. Catherine. These bodies are not wax, they are as fresh as the day they died.
No amount of embalming or treatment is going to preserve them and science has no answer for this. All these claims of wax treatment and make up is just more self denial of the truth. The Truth is God made the bodies of these saints withstand the normal forces of decay and nature to prove to you that He exists.
You can make up some lame excuses but the evidence is there. Take any atheist body you want and embalm it, wax it, preserve it all you want and within a few weeks it will be grossly decayed, and as smelly to high Heaven as to be unbearable, and in few years as gross and gruesome as any other body in a grave.
Get one of your scientist atheist friends to reproduce an incorruptible body. It should be a piece of cake.
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wcknight
Guest
Random germs, bacteria, virus etc causes diseases. Poor hygiene, bad water supplies, etc etc can cause illness and death. Yes, God created these things and in a sense God indirectly caused these things or allowed them to happen but this is earth NOT Heaven.
While on earth we are susciptible to whatever ailments that we may encounter. We do not believe that God purposely gives anyone a disease.
While on earth we are susciptible to whatever ailments that we may encounter. We do not believe that God purposely gives anyone a disease.
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KyivAndrew
Guest
In creating us, we learn from the Bible that all creation yearns for the Savior, so creation, the sudden tsunamis, tornados, hurricanes are all part of the Fall of Man. God did not create evil, evil entered into this world through sin. As Christians we do not hold a manichean dualistic view where Evil is equal to Good. Evil in humanity is the distortion, absence, or twisting of the Good. In the end, because of God’s grace, we know that Goodness and Love will triumph, suffering will be no more, and evil defeated.
Saint Paul famously in 2 Corinthians 12 was not exempt from his own intense personal suffering which he three times begged the Lord to take away but it was not. How much more worthy are we personally than St. Paul to avoid suffering? Paul ultimately arrived at the beautiful paradox and answer that he finally understood that Christ’s Grace was all he needed and that when he is weak, he is strong! As the Lord told Paul :" My power is made perfect in (your) infirmity". The cross is nothing to be ashamed of.
It is, as the late C.S. Lewis acknowledged in his seminal The Problem of Pain much easier to describe how suffering comes about by the granting of Free Will to us (i.e. that, should every parent be given a heads-up by God when their child was in mortal danger, one could only ask how much further divine warnings should be allowed to enter into creation before free will became worthless), than it is to acknowledge the deep, heartrending nature of suffering.
George Weigel. HH John Paul II’s biographer writes in his The Truth of Catholicism:
“Suffering, in the Catholic view of things, is a mystery. By ‘mystery,’ Catholic theology means not a puzzle to be solved as Sherlock Holmes would do, but a reality that can only be grasped and comprehended in an act of love. There is no ‘answer’ to the problem of suffering in the sense that there are answers to questions like ‘What is two plus two?’ The Church has always believed and taught that there is a different kind of answer to the question ‘Why do we suffer?’ That answer takes us directly into the heart of the Church, which is Jesus Christ.
That Jesus Christ is a suffering redeemer has been a shock and offense since the first days of Christianity. The challenge of belief in a redeemer whose victorious strength is displayed in his weakness may be greater today than at any other time in the past two thousand years, given our culture’s resistance to the idea that suffering is the necessary path to beatitude or human flourishing. But that is the mystery – the profoundly human mystery – of suffering.”
We must look for the answer on the Cross, the point of intersection between Eternity and Time. We all collectively carry some suffering assured of God’s grace for when the time finally comes to see clearly but not as through a glass darkly. In Christianity we carry our suffering knowing full well that Christ, the Son of God, has been there before us and loves us and will assist us. Where does Love enter into the Cosmic Laws behind Karma?
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josie_L
Guest
I don’t think Yankee likes hugs.
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Hobble
Guest
Who could dislike a hug?
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josie_L
Guest
The Bible is an account of salvation history, so it conveys the story of God in relation to his creation and vise versa, however, it is done so incrementally, for example, each covenant that God made, the first being with Adam and Eve, the second with Noah, the third with Abraham . . .etc., God reveals/ed himself in greater detail until, of course, we come to the last covenant, the new covenant wherein we see the unconditional mercy, grace and love that is God. Therefore, it’s not so much contradictions as it is pieces of a puzzle forming a picture, thus enabling us to see God for who He really is. Furthermore, much of what is in the OT may be just allegorical (like Job and Jonah), nevertheless, if for example the story of the Canaanites is true, then God had every right to declare war on them (the Canaanites knew the God which the Jews worshipped yet they refused to change their evil ways, unlike the people of Nineveh) as they were an extremely promiscious, warmongering, child-sacrificing (they burned them in fire for their gods), human flesh-eating people.
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humble_maid
Guest
Did you mean epilepsy? If I may, humbly add my opinion to the panel of exemplary explanations.
According to Hinduism such matters as this would be regarded by the individual’s case of ‘bad karma’. The word karma refers primarily to “bad karma” - that which is accumulated as a result of wrong actions. Bad karma binds a person’s soul (atman) to the cycle of rebirth (samsara) and leads to misfortune in this life and poor conditions in the next. The moral energy of a particular moral act bears fruit automatically in the next life, manifested in one’s class, disposition, and character.
This is the view which your religion upholds; that this ‘kid’s’ situation is a direct result of his past actions therefore is deserved of such. This leaves no room for compassion for an individual who is afflicted even though he may be completely innocent.
On the other hand our God is not one who picks individuals and afflicts them to His delight but rather tries to reach out to His children when they are in need and to remind them that only He can redeem them. One of the most illustrative examples of trial and faithfulness is that of Job. His story is found in the OT. Job was put under the ‘power of satan’ and tested for his faithfulness through great afflictions; despite his sufferings he did not blaspheme against the true God. God then had rewarded his faithful servant.
These afflictions are a testament to man’s degenerative state since original sin entered the world via our first parents (Adam and Eve). We have deviated significantly from the ‘perfect state’(immortality) that was given and then taken away through disobedience. When sin entered the physical world it manifested itself by infecting all living matter; thus all living matter eventually dies. However, God’s mercy was so great He offered a remedy so that we should not die forever but have eternal life through Christ.
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humble_maid
Guest
:grouphug: Forgiveness and humility is sweet.
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humble_maid
Guest
Yankee you are impressing me. First you admit you’re wrong (though stating that you are infallible on certain matters) and second you excuse your harsh behaviour to my sister. Wow, you are really following the yellow brick road; or maybe it’s all the prayers we have been offering for non-believers. Who knows for sure. Peace be with you.
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yankee_doodle
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nahh … it’s just that non-theists are a cut above the restYankee you are impressing me. First you admit you’re wrong (though stating that you are infallible on certain matters) and second you excuse your harsh behaviour to my sister. Wow, you are really following the yellow brick road; or maybe it’s all the prayers we have been offering for non-believers. Who knows for sure. Peace be with you.
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Hobble
Guest
Except the masters of the universe, they are on top.nahh … it’s just that non-theists are a cut above the rest
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yankee_doodle
Guest
yes, but they’re atheists too
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