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oldcelt
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My God
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ajecphotos
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One you made up?
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oldcelt
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No, one that makes sense to a growing number of people because He fits with the observable universe. The same one Washington and Franklin believed in…a non-interventionist God.
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ajecphotos
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Ah, i see, a God that fits in with the way you want him to be! I see. A God that fits your criteria!
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oldcelt
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I guess…my criteria fall as close to reality as possible. The rest is faith…just like any other god.
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ajecphotos
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It seems to me that you have ‘custom built’ a God to suit your needs and beliefs.
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oldcelt
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Then you would be in error. If I could design a god, this would be a much kinder world, for one.Children would not suffer and die, there would be plenty of necessities for everyone, and people wouldn’t pick at other believers over their beliefs.
But that, obviously, is fantasy.
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ajecphotos
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Thats just it though, God of the Bible, the creator just doesnt fit in with your thinking so you make one up that does. Life is no bed of roses and suffering is all part of life. Why should God make everything nice and easy for us? Why should he step in and make us be good?
We have free will and a chance to make the world a good place. God wants us to do this ourselves. You should have faith in the true God. The God of the bible. Crosses come in different shapes and sizes and to bear one For the love of God is better than to wish everything was calm and easy.
Yes, people suffer. Wars happen. This is ‘human’ nature. Only ‘we’ have the chance to put things right. Why should we have it easy?
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rinnie
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Well to begin with if God would prevent the rapist then the rapist has no free will. God cannot give you free will and then if you only use it to do good, but not bad you have no free will.
Why does God allow suffering. The Cross is the best answer for that. He can always make a good out of a bad, no matter how bad it is.He suffered for our sins, every strike and blow and pain inflicted on him paid for our sins, he loved us that much.
The same with a rape, it is evil and sin that causes a person to hurt someone else. But God can find a way to help the innocent person to get past that evil. TO some people that may seem impossible. But there is no impossible for God.
While he gives us all free will to do good or bad, it is the ones who use the free will to do bad that will pay in the end, and the person who is innocent and does not choose to do bad that will have everlasting life and beauty in heaven.
People who truly love and trust God know that he will find a way to help them and get them the peace they need, that only he can give.
It may look to the world that the evil won, but it by no means won, Good did, because the innocent will be with God in eternity and the evil will be in hell.
But it is impossible to have evil in the world without pain, and impossible for evil people to have free will and not be evil. Evil people hate and want to hurt others. That’s what makes them what they are.
Free will to choose to separate themselves from God and do the works of the devil.
And by the way the women had no free will to prevent the rape, her free will was taken away from her by the rapist. God did not give the women free will to not be raped, that does not even make sense. She had her free will taken from her by the rapist at that time.
Free will is used when you have a choice in a matter to do good or evil.
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tonyrey
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“worthless” applies to a Creator who has “no plan, no foreknowledge” and brings into existence children whose “unfortunate death is an act of nature and nothing more”. One could hardly descend lower than that!
In other words you reject the teaching which doesn’t fit into your scheme of things - which implies you are wiser…
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tonyrey
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Which is the foundation of your faith in deism!
Do you believe all beliefs are equally realistic? Is there one jot of evidence that an accident-free, disease-free, disaster-free world is** feasible**?
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ericc
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I am sure that you have pondered all these for a long time. What is observable does not mean that is all there is to the Christian God. There are stuff that we do not understand about the Christian God. Those we call mysteries. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.
The Christian God doesn’t make sense in science and in nature? And the deist god does? How so?
You have yet to show the Christian faith is wrong. And your current faith is right. Please do provide evidence. Otherwise making proclamation statements in a philosophy forum seems a non-value add.
Sometimes we blame God for all sort of things at the spur of the moment. Not surprising. Some take a short time to get over it, some longer and some never. You response to him did not sound it helped him in anyway though. Over time, most people know death is inevitable and come to accept it. The blame game can start with anything, blame disease, blame timing, blame genes, blame fate or something or somebody. But what is more important is how you let an event such as this affect your soul. By condemning God for letting it happen and reacting negatively towards God seems a very human scapegoating response though. But if this negativity continue to pervade the whole person continuously, it tends to lead to unhealthy character building and possibly sinful response to spite God.
Luke 12:46,47 That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
2 Peter 2:21 For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
There are varying intensities in prison. Hard labor or none. I do not have experience dealing with radical Muslims and I do not know what they will say to convert Christians. If we know our faith, nothing they can say can convert anyone.
Yes, it is an impossible to have faith in a god that you have no way of knowing exist or a god that can not interact with you. The Christian God tells us " I AM". He interacts with the Jewish people for thousands of years. Their history records it. The gentiles eventually got to know of him through his Son. History records it. Does it mean suffering stops in God’s presence in the secular world? Certainly not. Jesus is proof of that. But he tells us how to live our lives. He show us the way to eternal life. He promises eternal life if we stick with him. What have your god told you? What have your god promised you? Zilch. Because he can not listen, hear, talk to you. My question to you is why does this version of god commands your faith? Why do you promote this version of god?
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oldcelt
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Promote is your word eric. I am on a philosophy forum where I have…on multiple occasions pointed out the contradictions that I see in the Christian God. I have not asked anyone to change or join anything…there isn’t anything to join because Deism is not a religion in the conventional sense.
The Deist God is a force of creation, not someone that people imagine they chat with. Everything you list as proof is simply proof of people’s beliefs.The same “proof” exists for every world religion in one way or another. Someone says they had a revelation, and a certain number take it to heart.
That is how it is and apparently always has been. If Rome had not fallen it is quite likely that some would still be worshiping one of the emperors.
There you have it. If that doesn’t satisfy you I suggest you pull up my past posts on all subjects. What little I know is all there.
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ericc
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I see. It is a philosophical belief then.
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fred_conty
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You answer suffering by saying that God has nothing to do with it just as he has nothing to do with mankind except for creating a blob from which everything indirectly evolved. And when a person dies then that person dosen’t know what will happen or what to expect or maybe non existence since man knows nothing about God being so aloof.
So from this can be deducted that there may be an after life that may be unpleasant, or with terrible suffering. That is a very real possibility by your deist god since noone knows his ways and he didn’t take the time or bother to explain himself.
As a matter of fact, the deist god may not even know you died since he is so aloof and uncaring and created indirectly without his knowledge. And if man finds himself after death in a very unpleasant environment, he will be there for all eternity since his deist god never gave him a choice to change that because he just dosen’t give a hoot or doesn’t know. And then suffering would be worse than what man suffered in this earthly life.
Is that about right?
May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.
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oldcelt
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What about just going out like a light bulb? That, at least, is observable. My friend who just passed…where is she? Maybe Pat’s consciousness remains and she is in a dream-like state, or maybe she is just in the ground.
My God took just as much time to explain himself as yours…none. Man has taken a lot of time trying to rationalize what we see. But, that doesn’t prove a thing.
Personally, I prefer a god who doesn’t give a hoot to one that, according to man’s writings, has been openly hostile on numerous occasions.
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tonyrey
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You’re obviously not referring to the loving Father revealed by Jesus…
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tonyrey
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LaMBS
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If one refuses to accept that the teaching of the prophets; the scriptures and Christ’s life,death and Resurrection are efforts of God to explain himself then that person will not get very far in understanding Him. To reject what He has offered does not negate it’s validity.
My God tells me that one’s soul is eternal; there is a heaven and a hell and one has the choice to go to one or the other. This is not a rationalization of what I see, it is acceptance of what God tells us. It does, however, allow me to thank Him for all that He gives me when I view it from the comfort of His Mercy; even when He gives me suffering. Suffering for and with Christ for the salvation of souls can turn misery into joy. A moral God does allow suffering but teaches us how to alleviate even the greatest of suffering. If one refuses to accept the solution it does not justify complaint about the situation.
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fred_conty
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Originally Posted by oldcelt
But there is right there a problem. Since the deist god is indifferent, distant, and unavailable, prayer for a deceased love one is not possible since he doesn’t feel or even know anything about our deceased loved ones. To me that is brutal and unfeeling. It is one thing to talk about suffering and pain in general and about others, but it is very excruciating when death hits very near to us.
I merely say this to point out that death and suffering and pain are realities we cannot escape even tho we may try to do so. But for one god there is no solution, but for another there is a solution. The God who recognizes suffering and gives us an ultimate way out and a deep worthwhile meaning to suffering.
And if God seems hostile on numerous occasions, isn’t that better than to have a god who is silent and uncaring, who is cold and indifferent. I would rather have someone tell me to my face what is wrong than to have that person cold shoulder me and say nothing,leaving me in a freezer.
May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.
I am truely sorry about your friend. It is very painful and I hope you will accept my deepest concern for your loss.
But there is right there a problem. Since the deist god is indifferent, distant, and unavailable, prayer for a deceased love one is not possible since he doesn’t feel or even know anything about our deceased loved ones. To me that is brutal and unfeeling. It is one thing to talk about suffering and pain in general and about others, but it is very excruciating when death hits very near to us.
I merely say this to point out that death and suffering and pain are realities we cannot escape even tho we may try to do so. But for one god there is no solution, but for another there is a solution. The God who recognizes suffering and gives us an ultimate way out and a deep worthwhile meaning to suffering.
The deist god is distant and aloof and so he won’t or is too weak to give an explaination. The God of truth has revealed himself to mankind and to certain individuals in order to let us know just what has happened to cause so much misery, and to tell us how it can end on a happy note. If a person cannot accept words, then they should look at the effects…events that just cannot be rationalized away by any fair minded man.
Where man’s writings may seem to fail, the clearity of God’s works do not.
And if God seems hostile on numerous occasions, isn’t that better than to have a god who is silent and uncaring, who is cold and indifferent. I would rather have someone tell me to my face what is wrong than to have that person cold shoulder me and say nothing,leaving me in a freezer.
May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.
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