I have this same question. It seems like it is a waste of sorts to create so many billions and billions of galaxies and trillions of stars with only one having a planet where human life appeared. It seems like you could have saved a lot of wasted time and effort by having only 10% or even much less of the galaxies and stars that we have now.
I thought it was the Jewish people who were the chosen people of God. The people of India, of Australia, of Japan and of China were not chosen?
Can you show how God, who is composed of Three Persons, and with one of the Persons having two different wills, is utterly simple? I suspect that a Muslim might find this to be more on the complex side and not so much on the simple side.
The linked article says flatly that there is no doggie heaven. However, this contradicts what Roger Cardinal Mahony has taught as he said that there is a cat heaven. Further, the Bible says that there are horses in heaven.
When I say all I mean everyone. Someone said ‘we are all God’s children’.Freddy:
I thought it was the Jewish people who were the chosen people of God. The people of India, of Australia, of Japan and of China were not chosen?
Was everyone chosen or was it the Jewish people who were God’s chosen people?
No. You said that you aren’t convinced that it proves God’s creation of the rock. Substitute that for my more terse “God”, and there ya go…
But a large system makes no less sense.
Why? First off, it’s not “infinite”, just big. That’s a critical difference. And now we’re back to my point: does the fact that we can’t access it today have any meaning? Heck, we couldn’t access the whole world a few centuries ago! (For that matter, we still can’t access the deepest depths of our oceans to any meaningful extent!) But, we can access much more of this “infinity” you’re claiming. Your argument seems to fail, when we imagine a 10th-century person saying “the vastness of this unexplored and unexplorable earth proves against God’s creation of it all”…!
Why? It’s our playground. So what if it’s big?
You misunderstand the use of the term “simple” here. It means “not composite” (and not “not complex”).
:man_facepalming"
Everyone. It started with the Jewish people, though, and grew to encompass all.
Here Cardinal Mahony says:
Rev 19:11.
Deuteronomy 14: 2 does not say that everyone was chosen.
In order that we discover our need for humility. In realizing that we cannot know through practical knowledge everything in creation, we open ourselves to mystical knowledge – knowledge about our Creator.
Oh, dear Lord. He’s talking to 7th- and 8th-graders. This isn’t a theological assertion of the notion of eternal souls in animals!
Revelation speaks to the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”. This is a symbolic representation in a vision about things that are to come. Here in Rev 19, we see Jesus – using the same imagery, of a warrior on a warhorse – riding forth to battle against the enemy. It’s just symbolic imagery – not an assertion that horses live in heaven!
Ahh, but Jesus says it in the NT. Read a bit further in the Bible.
I accept them. However, I realize that they’re part of a historical narrative that does not end with them; they continue onward into the New Testament.
The Bible also says that Jesus sent the apostles out to all the world:
“All nations” includes China. (And America, for that matter!)
For thousands of years, the Chinese were not chosen. God established an everlasting covenant with the Jewish people, not the Chinese.
The Bible is symbolic? Yes? That is what 69% of Catholics and what most Protestants say about the Eucharist. That it is just symbolic imagery and not the literal Body and Blood of Jesus.
Jesus established an everlasting covenant with all people. (That includes the Chinese.)
The Bible contains a variety of genres of literature. There’s historical narrative, there’s parable, there’s didactic stories, there’s poetry, … etc, etc, etc. The genre of Revelation is “apocalyptic literature”. That genre uses symbol and imagery in order to convey a message of hope to an oppressed audience. So… yes – there is symbolic language in the Bible, but no… not all of the Bible is symbolic.
You need to read that research report and understand who the sample of people polled are (they include many who are not practicing Catholic). Moreover, you have to read the question asked of them very carefully (it asks “is it symbolic?” and “is it the Body of Christ?” – the correct answer to both questions is “YES!”), because the question and the ‘correct’ answer are phrased poorly, and give inaccurate results.
Some of them did
It’s not that we can’t access it today. We will never be able to access it. Whatever is beyond the observable universe is forever beyond our reach. It always was and it always will be. We can’t even SEE what’s there (obviously).Freddy:
No. You said that you aren’t convinced that it proves God’s creation of the rock. Substitute that for my more terse “God”, and there ya go…
But a large system makes no less sense.
Why? First off, it’s not “infinite”, just big. That’s a critical difference. And now we’re back to my point: does the fact that we can’t access it today have any meaning? Heck, we couldn’t access the whole world a few centuries ago!
Missed this bit…Freddy:
But a large system makes no less sense.
Some Jews became Christians. Some Christians became Jews. So what?