Question on God/Jesus

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I have a question concerning God.

It is an article of faith that he sent his only son Jesus to die for our sins 2000 years ago.

But why then, for the first 98,000 years of our species existence was God content to let us be utterly and completly ignorant of him? Why did he stand idly by as the dinosarus went extinct and the cavemen/ neanderthals fought and scrounged in ignorance?
 
I have a question concerning God.

It is an article of faith that he sent his only son Jesus to die for our sins 2000 years ago.

But why then, for the first 98,000 years of our species existence was God content to let us be utterly and completly ignorant of him? Why did he stand idly by as the dinosarus went extinct and the cavemen/ neanderthals fought and scrounged in ignorance?
Why do you say man was ignorant of God for 98,000 years?

Why do you think cavemen were ignorant?
 
Read St. Athanasius the Great’s masterpiece, “On the Incarnation.” It’s free online.
 
Evidence of religious ideas and belief in the supernatural have been found dating to the earliest of homo sapiens.

And God’s salvation is not for the material souls of dinosaurs. He did not have to reveal Himself to them…

And how do you know God did not reveal Himself to the cavemen? They were not able to write and so we would have no real record of it, but like I said religious ideas were present from archaeological findings.

What better time did God have to reveal Himself in greater depth to the world than at the time they could actually write? Once writing had developed enough God was able to make a much more profound impact on the world and society. Before then, He may very well still have made Himself known but we simply have no way of knowing it.

God made Himself known to the Israelites much longer ago than 2000 years. But why didn’t He give us Jesus earlier? Because the stage had to be set. The state of the sinful world had to be made clear and the nature of God’s atonement and the prophecies regarding His great plan had to be revealed and unfurled.
 
A good, non-catholic book, The Miracle of the Scarlet Thread by Richard Booker. I haven’t read the books that were suggested above so they may be better. This book taught me about the covenant God made with his people. It is fantastic and shows how the old testament lead to Jesus and why. I know it isn’t Catholic but it helped increase my faith and understanding.
 
But why then, for the first 98,000 years of our species existence was God content to let us be utterly and completly ignorant of him? Why did he stand idly by as the dinosarus went extinct and the cavemen/ neanderthals fought and scrounged in ignorance?
Because it is part of the plan to create an unlimited number of true friends from scratch.
 
=HabemusFrancis;10804264]I have a question concerning God.
It is an article of faith that he sent his only son Jesus to die for our sins 2000 years ago.
But why then, for the first 98,000 years of our species existence was God content to let us be utterly and completly ignorant of him? Why did he stand idly by as the dinosarus went extinct and the cavemen/ neanderthals fought and scrounged in ignorance?
Thanks for asking:)

I’m not at all sure that man is 100,000 years old is my first point.🤷

Abram dates back, so we are told about 4,000 years.

BUT for the sake of discussion; lets presume that your correct and try to answer your question.

What we know about God is “Revealed and limited knowlwdge of God”

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts”

But observation alone can tell us a few things:

Because God is the First Cause we CAN and ought to know that God is Good and Perfect.

Good because the Universe itself is good

Perfect because the “Natural Laws” are not “natural”; and are themselves perfect.

Then from Christ we learn that God is in addition; the Perfection of LOVE itself.

From this then we can discern that while we don’t KNOW your “times” are accurate; we DO KNOW that God is Love; Good and Perfect; so that IF MAN existed one hundred thousand years ago; man was STILL created in His [God’s] Image; and God would have HAD TOO [absolutely because who Who and What God are and MUST be], Love; Good and Perfect; had some manner for their possible, and no doubt, conditional salvation.

How can we KNOW this?

Because man ONLY exist by and FOR GOD. There is no other REASON for man to exist.

Isaiah 43 Verses 7 & 21 “And every one that calleth upon my name, I have created him for my glory, I have formed him, and made him; This people have I formed for myself, they shall shew forth my praise.” AMEN!

God Bless you,
Pat /PJM
 
There are a lot of “whys” I would love to have answered. A lot of the whys have some resolution with the fact that there are two forces at play in the world and in our lives. Those forces being good and evil, not just concepts but sentient beings. We know there is more going on than we can know or have available to know. God himself calls it a mystery.
Revelation10:5 Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. 6 And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, “There will be no more delay! 7 But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.”
I have heard it said that only 2% of humanity existed before Jesus.
Now if you are wondering if the people before Jesus will go to what has become known as “hell” there is this passage.
Luke 13:28
In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.
All these people lived before Jesus and yet are with Him in heaven. While we have a certain means of salvation, there seems to also be some unknown means through which Christ was made available to these. I also believe that a person can accept God from his heart though he knows Him not by his mind in definite terms. Perhaps that same person can accept Christ through the same method as these did.

Those not in the heaven will experience a profound separation from God. Due to our nature such a thing will be terrible, but God will not deny them their choice. God is called love, imagine a place cut off from love, joy, peace, beauty, and compassion. There is hell. It is hell by its very nature of being separate from God. Where light moves away the shadow appears. Where water moves away dryness follows. There is much we don’t know and don’t understand about this place. There is also much debate over it.
 
So, though God cared about the dinosaurs ( and made them) he did not think of them as essential in the way he viewed humans? I suppose thats kind of a no brainer:rolleyes:.

Well I agree that the cavemen/ neanderthals had some concept or idea of spirituality or religion. But then so did every culture of the human race long after we became “civilized.” The thing is that so few of them had much in common with the Christian ethos, or the basic truth of God:(.

The biggest difference I have found between the paganism of the Norsemen/Greco-Romans/Aztecs and Christianity/monotheism is this.

Paganism wasn’t about having a loving, meaningful relationship with Quezalcoatal/Thor/Zeus. There was no concept of “sin” or works of virtue or kindness that pleased the gods. In spite of the deep mysticism and superstition of the ancient Pagans, it seems their religions were essentially materialistic.

They seem only to have worshipped the gods so that bad things did not happen to them. The reason for the massive rituals/prayers to the gods was rarely “holiness” but more often to make the rains come, to make the army successful againt the rival kingdom, to produce a good harvest, to not make a thunderstorm/earthquake/ volcano eruption happen. I suppose part of it was that the pagans were usually ignorant, desperate and had no idea what was going on. So they invented their gods to give them some small, basic sense of control and order and sense in their lives.

Christianity is of course much different from all that!👍

But again, why just in Judea did god choose to send his son? 99% of world had no idea it happend at time. Why would not god appear to the aztecs/chinese/hindus himself, instead of letting them wallow in their paganism for millenia, only to be introduced to the Truth by colonists/ explorers who often did not have the best of intentions at all?🤷
 
But again, why just in Judea did god choose to send his son? 99% of world had no idea it happend at time. Why would not god appear to the aztecs/chinese/hindus himself, instead of letting them wallow in their paganism for millenia, only to be introduced to the Truth by colonists/ explorers who often did not have the best of intentions at all?🤷
We do not know the answer to this. We do not know why God chose the people of Israel, and out of them at some point was born the Incarnate Word in which all the nations of the world can find salvation.

We just humbly know that this is how things are 🤷 We have consistently known for 20 centuries, and while the members of the Church are not impeccable, the Church and Christianity have shaped the world we live in for better. I believe you don’t quite realize just how bad things were even in the most civilized cultures, and how even the most basic things that we take for granted were the fruit of Christianity and almost entirely absent in the world.

Certainly we are not claiming that everyone else was evil. God inscribed His law upon all human hearts. We see His goodness present in every place and time. But Christ was God who walked among us to show us how He was and what He wanted. From that day on, nobody can righteously speak of a God being unfair, or punishing, or not caring, for Christ embodies all the attributes of God. The teaching He brought forth changed the world, because for the first time we were taught to see God in the sick, in the weak, in those who suffered, who were persecuted. We were taught that whatever we do to the least person, we are doing it to God Himself. We were taught that even the dead would hear His message, and those who listened would live. As for us, we were taught that if we did His will, we would never die, but live eternally and attain in the fullness of time the resurrection of the glorified body. As for His will, He said it clearly: “love one another, do unto others as you want them to do to you, do not judge others, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, seek the Kingdom of God first and all will be given to you, ask and you will receive and your joy will be made full.”

This is what a Son of Man born in a small town two thousand years ago and a handful of humble workers brought to the world, despite horrible persecution. Not just colonists, but many missionaries all over the world, many of whom traveled in unexplored territories amidst hostile cultures that did not mind killing strangers. And we still have many missionaries today all over the world, who renounce everything and travel to the harshest lands in the world to share the people’s poverty and bring them hope and the Good News of Christ. Just consider a few examples: Franciscan missions in Central America and many other places, Missionaries of Charity, Passionist Missionaries, Catholic World Mission…many every year die, such as these three Xaverian missionaries in Burundi…a “short” list from 1700 to 2011 here… Perhaps you do not know that Christians are the most heavily persecuted religious group in the world, with over 100,000 martyrs every year who are murdered simply because of their faith in this God of mercy who said: “I did not come to seek the righteous, but sinners to repentance…I did not come to condemn the world, but so that the world could be saved through me…all judgment is given to me, but I judge no one…remain in my love.”
 
That was a very beautiful spiritually uplifting response. Thank you so much!

Everything you said makes sense. Part of the reason I think this way, is that I get so disillusioned sometimes. There seems to be so much suffering and hardship in the world, historically somtimes caused by clergymen who ought to have known better than anyone!😦

Sometimes I get caught up in my thoughts, and puzzle as to how the creation of the world, with dinosaurs, thousands of years of gods lack of revelation makes any sense at all!

I am making a concerted attempt now to learn everything I can about the Church, so I dont find myself grasping for answers as much.
 
It is good to remember that God was “conditioning” all of the ancients, not just the Jews, for Christ. Take, for example, the pagan Greeks. For a thousand years before Christ they knew the writings of Homer. The hero in the Iliad was King Hector, who died fighting in place of his brother, and became a king made great in defeat. His father then goes to the camp of the enemy to retrieve his body. The Odyssey is about a woman who loses her love, and waits, much saddened, til finally she sees her love return.
It is easy to see these were “types” of Christ and Mary, just as in the Old Testament we see types foreshadowing Christ and Mary. The difference is the Jewish writings were perfectly focused on Christ, while the pagan writings had only bits and pieces, in varying degrees from one culture to the next. Socrates can be seen as a “type” foreshadowing Christ also, never writing anything down, leaving it to his disciples, and being executed by the State for what he was saying.
There are many many more in all cultures, even in the Eastern religions. BTW - Venerable Fulton Sheen has talked and written about “The Yearnings of the Ancients”, very intriguing, as he is always.
 
This is all very interesting. Thank you for everyone who posted!🙂

Though you may not know, I wonder how our evangelical/ baptist brethren would answer my question.

I know that they teach that no ones works, no matter how pious will save them from hell. Even if someone committed one sin, one time, they are destined to go Hell. However, that unfortunate fate can be avoided by accepting Jesus, as your personal Lord and Savior.

I wonder then what they think about people who never heard of Jesus before. Do they think that Every native american before columbus is roasting in hell right now? Along with other non european peoples?

Also, Do they really believe that once saved, always saved? Like can an evangelicla be a promiscuous bi sexual ax murdering cocaine addict, and have it not endanger his soul once he accepted Jesus?🤷

Id like to know…
 
I have a question concerning God.

It is an article of faith that he sent his only son Jesus to die for our sins 2000 years ago.

But why then, for the first 98,000 years of our species existence was God content to let us be utterly and completly ignorant of him? Why did he stand idly by as the dinosarus went extinct and the cavemen/ neanderthals fought and scrounged in ignorance?
God is outside of time.

Also, Ive read that about 2,000 years ago thats when the world.population began to explode so it would make sense by our standards that He’d send His Son during the peak kf human population.
 
This is all very interesting. Thank you for everyone who posted!🙂

Though you may not know, I wonder how our evangelical/ baptist brethren would answer my question.

I know that they teach that no ones works, no matter how pious will save them from hell. Even if someone committed one sin, one time, they are destined to go Hell. However, that unfortunate fate can be avoided by accepting Jesus, as your personal Lord and Savior.

I wonder then what they think about people who never heard of Jesus before. Do they think that Every native american before columbus is roasting in hell right now? Along with other non european peoples?

Also, Do they really believe that once saved, always saved? Like can an evangelicla be a promiscuous bi sexual ax murdering cocaine addict, and have it not endanger his soul once he accepted Jesus?🤷

Id like to know…
I’ve been debating some of these questions with them for some time now. The first thing you need to realize is they all don’t agree. Even though you limited this to evangelicals, and not all Protestants, they still don’t all agree.

Let me address the OSAS (once saved always saved) doctrine since I spent a long time with them on it. Some of them really do believe this. It comes from them believing that when you accept Jesus all your past, present, and future sins are automatically forgiven. But most of them don’t buy the OSAS doctrine. Rather, they believe if a person was sincere in accepting Jesus, that even if that person gets backslidden and into sin, that person will at some point come back to God, ask for forgiveness, and be forgiven. Now suppose the person dies while still living in mortal sin? Then they will say the person was never saved in the first place. And since they don’t accept the idea of a purgatory, they see God as throwing people by the billions into hell.

As for people who didn’t accept Jesus, most think they go to hell. But for people who never had the chance to accept Jesus, they are divided again. I’d say 30 years ago most of them believed all those people are in hell. But many have made progress since then, and they will reluctantly admit some of those people are in Heaven.

I’m actually finding that their refusal to believe in some kind of a purgatory is a big problem.

One of the things they don’t see is that by being so dogmatic in their thinking, that they are bordering on living in the sin of pride.

I hope this helped.
 
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