An interesting question about God today.

Please tell me you didn't actually mean that.

 

I'm sorry, I wasn't really thinking. I should be thankful to God for all the gifts He has given me...

 

You misunderstood my point. I wasn't bothered that you passed some not-so-nice comments about Africa. I was bothered that you actually think that God does this, God does that, etc.

 

No, No... God does not do anything. Everyone has free will. God only has power over all things. He is not into micro-management...

 

If so, I'm yet to see his power.

 

So am I

 

It is or was believed that God takes a person from the earth, if that person is cleared of his or her transgressions, as a reward to be with him in heaven. It is or was believed to be a great honor to be raptured and join God in heaven. That was a possible way God purged the sinners and removed the good people at the same time.

 

For a bit of hope for that situation, there is a bible verse that goes something like "those that suffer on earth too much there rewards in heaven are 100 fold" or something like that. That is not to say that they should be suffering like that, God has the answers to that.

 

So you would be glad if you had a baby and it drowned in a flood?

 

It's not a question about how a person feels about it. "God works in mysterious ways". To answer your comment further at a personal level, I personally would not be glad concerning the part of missing the person on earth, I would find peace and comfort knowing that the person is heaven.

 

Saying god works in mysterious ways is, As Ricky Gervais said, the theological equivalent of saying "look over there!" and then running away. It's nothing more than justification for believing the illogical, nonsensical and absurd.

 

What I was reffering to with the "God works in mysterious ways" quote was how God does things could be and is not completely understood to us because God simply does not have to inform us.

 

Which is what has to be believed when the alternative is thinking that the reasons aren't understood by us because there are no reasons, there is no will involved and disasters are indiscriminate.

The belief that god works in mysterious ways is born out of necessity to answer the question "why does god allow bad things to happen to good people".

For me the answer to why bad things happen to good people is because bad things are indiscriminate. Viruses, plagues, disasters, disease are by their very nature indiscriminate, It happens to whoever is there, regardless.

But for you, someone who believes there is a discriminate force behind these things which could prevent them, you have to invent a reason why an alleged discriminate force would subject good people to bad things when it would be possible for it to avoid good people. And the reason you come up with is that the plan is "mysterious".

 

It is clear from The Bible what God expects from good people. From the past there is a "boiling point" that God reaches and he removes the bad people and takes care of the good people in heaven.

Sometimes indiscriminant reasoning is not enough after understanding that there are things occuring or out there that has no reasoning from man, not because man does not have the technology or does not have the ability to create the technology to understand these things.

 

Why a hurricane happens is not difficult to understand. Same for an earthquake, a tsunami and so on. Man has both the technology and the ability to understand why these phenomena happen. No "mysterious way" needed to explain catastrophes and good people dying or suffering.

 

I was writing in term of reaching a point of understanding for a person where beliefs from something like religion makes sense because reasoning from man does not suffice. Not from giving up on reasoning from man but from understanding that there are things that man has not reasoned (Bermuda Triangle for instance).

 

And you believe god "works in mysterious ways" because you somehow have to marry the contradictory ideas that god is 1) good and 2) willing to drown babies.

because no good entity could drown babies without a VERY good reason you assume there MUST be a good reason. and because you don't know what the reason is you simply say "pfff, must just be mysterious". The belief that god works in mysterious ways is born out of necessity because without it none of this crap makes any sense what-so-ever.

 

God is good to us because he appreciates his/her creations and what they are which is clear from The Bible. What is also clear from The Bible is that God can be bad to us if his/her creations are bad and the way God reacts is with vengance, wrath or discussion, information. God is beyond the concept of good and evil. What we know from The Bible is that God mostly is good to us because he/she likes it that way or wants to get to that point, in the bigger sense.

 

If god does exist he is very much not good to us. He drowns babies. Now save me the bible class and try to justify the drowning of babies by your god. Is it a debate tactic of yours to completely ignore what people are saying and veer off into a sermon? And if your answer is "god works in mysterious ways", or anything similar, read my previous post before answering.

For the moment i will ignore the fact that you managed to contradict yourself in such a small post by twice referring to god as "good" either side of claiming he is beyond the concept of good and evil.

 

I would feel better knowing that the innocent is in heaven. He reclaims the pure souls and cleared of transgressions and takes them to heaven, for whatever reason. I checked the post and I referred to good being what God mostly is. This is God, he/she knows the concept of Good and Evil and understands it and is at levels beyond it, why wouldn't God be. Saying that God is mostly good is not fair to God, I apologize. God is what we know from the Bible that is a benevolent being. God can be what God wants to be.