You know, the funny things about atheists is that a lot of them (or the least the ones that I talk to) don't actually understand basic theology. Which is fair enough I suppose. Because I myself don't fully understand things they're experts on. That's all good.
But one thing that I find hard to overlook is when they say that EVEN IF a God exists (thanks for humoring me I suppose), and do they come face to face with Him one day, they will simply tell God that the scientific evidence always pointed towards His non-existence, so they had no choice but to not believe in Him. They will calmly explain to God that because of the lack of evidence, they had every right to doubt. Not to mention they'd tell Him off for being such a meanie. Hmmm...
James 2:19 - "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder."
I don't know about you guys, but if powerful fallen angels tremble in fear at the mere thought of this guy we refer to as 'God'... Well, I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone meeting God face to face won't be showing Him a slideshow presentation that justifies their unbelief; they'd be too busy crying after having fallen flat on their face.
I'm gonna be honest. When I see Him, I'm gonna be dropping my nuts. Hasn't anyone else noticed that the first words most angels utter is "Fear not!"
I dont think im an atheist because i believe in the law of attraction, im open minded so i listen to what people say and i like to learn about it, but in this post from my point of view, its fiction.
ReplyDeleteThe world is not efficient. I dont understand why a God would create certain things or allow certain things to happen that would contradict to his "plans" of either people joining him in heaven, or him coming to us. You know what i mean that doco that allows us to reverse aging. Its whak.
"The world is not efficient."
ReplyDeleteIt was, a long time ago. Then humans (whether or not you take the first chapter of Genesis as fact or metaphor) ruined it.
"I dont understand why a God would create certain things or allow certain things to happen that would contradict to his 'plans' of either people joining him in heaven, or him coming to us."
Understand that God, while He is willing to forgive us for any sin, is also an advocate of free will. There's no point in arguing whether or not God SHOULD be; He just is. So we live in a universe where free will exists. The result of that is that we suffer the consequences or reap the benefits of any and every action we take.
In any case, it would seem that most things that hinder believers or seemingly go against His will are caused by humans, not by God.
yeah ive read genesis a long time ago though.
ReplyDeletei dont understand though, what are the consequences? hell? i thought he was supposed to forgive people for their sins anyway? so whats the point?
"There's no point in arguing whether or not God SHOULD be; He just is."
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether or not there is a God, i'm just not a supporter. Unnecessary evil exists in this world. Stuff happens that, if there were an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God, shouldn't happen. For example Africa (slaves, famines, AIDS, child soldiers...) or, The Holocaust.
If one day I was to meet God, I wouldn't "simply tell God that the scientific evidence always pointed towards His non-existence, so I had no choice but to not believe in Him" (although I do tend to favour science over faith). I would tell him that I'm not a fan. I guess yeah, I would "tell him off for being such a meanie." Because yeah, he has blessed Kanye West and every other singer/actor/Oscar Grammy Golden Globe award-winner ever (according to themselves), but he's also been responsible for some pretty terrible stuff.
Alice, everything you listed are direct results of Man's sinning against each other over history. Did you expect God to appear and wipe it all away in a blink of an eye, relieving us of the inevitable aftermaths of things that happened? No. We, as a race, have to take responsibility. We let terrible people get into power sometimes, and they do terrible things, but God isn't just going to swoop in and stop it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you guys again prove me right in your lack of understanding of theology. When God created this earth, He gave us dominion. This world was ours, to look after and to live off. But when Man sinned, we gave dominion to Lucifer (Satan, the devil, the bad guy, etc.). This world is the devil's playground. Only those who know God personally can intercede on humanity's behalf, but even then it's on God's discretion on whether or not He will command a miracle.
It's what I meant when I told Shaye about consequences; I wasn't talking about hell. I meant that in our world, there are always things that happen as a result of our actions.
You do weights? You get buff. You shoot someone in the head? They die. You lie to someone? They stop trusting you. Etc.
So it is with our world. There is poverty, there is war, there is all that; but that's because over the course of history, Man has refused to live in the ways that he specifically laid out for us. It's not punishment. It's just what happens as a consequence of doing bad things. He's not some rich billionaire who spoils his kids.
And in any case, all this is made a lot less significant when you consider something else you guys don't seem to realize: God cares a lot more about our eternity than He does about how we fare in this life. One life of suffering is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to an eternity of joy, contentment, and fellowship with the Father. It's all about perspective; consider Job.
In response to:
ReplyDelete"i dont understand though, what are the consequences? hell? i thought he was supposed to forgive people for their sins anyway? so whats the point?"
Basically, yes, hell. God always forgives people, but only if they ask for it. He made it that easy - Ask for a guaranteed free gift. Why people don't take it - now THAT, I don't understand.
Re: hell point, I meant to say that it is the final consequence of sin without redemption.
ReplyDelete"We let terrible people get into power sometimes, and they do terrible things, but God isn't just going to swoop in and stop it."
ReplyDeleteWhy not? He knows how to stop it. He knows what's going on. He loves everybody, doesn't he?
If having free will and dominion over the earth is the reason that the Kahui twins & Nia Glassie died the horrible way they did, and the reason that a woman is raped every 26 seconds in South Africa, and the reason that a woman in China was recently forcefully made to "abort" her pregnancy at 8 months because she already had one child, and the reason that kids in Kenya are living on piles of decomposing rubbish... i'd rather not have it, thanks. The price of free will is too high.
God did not have to give us the option to choose between the good and the bad. We would still be able to know what good is if we only had to choose between neutral and good. Sure he's not going to jump in and save us when we're in trouble (why do people pray then?), but the situations in the world today are the direct consequence of God deciding that man have dominion over the world.
Also something I don't really understand about the devil. Isn't he being punished by God in hell? How does he have the power to cause so much trouble? Does God allow him to do that? (I know I need to read a bible but for now it would be cool if you could explain that to me :) )
"Man has refused to live in the ways that he specifically laid out for us. It's not punishment. It's just what happens as a consequence of doing bad things. He's not some rich billionaire who spoils his kids."
What happens to the incredibly isolated tribes (i'm sure there are some in the Amazon) who are never going to hear of God in their life times? And the millions (billions?) of people in isolated areas before missionary contact? Did they all go to hell for their ignorance? It is really hard to define "bad things" when you have to consider cultural differences. (I feel like i'm rambling a bit but can explain better if you like?)
There are some things in the bible that I do know about and I just totally disagree with. Things like, Gen_3:16, "thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee". If that is what eternity will be like too, i'm not sure how content and joyful I would be..
Also as a rambly side note do you think that the bible needs to be updated? Has it been? Because you have to agree the world is a vastly different place than it was in Jesus' time.
Anyway, is that rambly and incoherent enough Jesse?
Disclaimer: This will be long.
ReplyDeleteYou have many points, and I'll try to address them all. Just let me know if I miss anything or misunderstand a certain point you're making. I like to think that, due to my superior(ish) intellect and medium-to-high attention span, I pretty much get what you're saying.
You have cleverly forced me to reveal my whole hand, which is this: I don't actually know for sure the answer to some of these questions, but I have some guesses that I'm sure aren't too far from the mark. Keep in mind I'm not telling you "what christians think", I'm just letting you know what I believe, and why.
"The price of free will is too high."
Well, I guess there's no getting around that point is there, because you do have a point. True, those horrors you have described are because people with free will have chosen to commit terrible crimes. However, unlike the people who bring up this point, I just don't find it hard to believe that God would still prefer that than a people without the choice. I don't find it hard to believe that God loves us so much that he has always given us the chance to choose our own paths. I don't find it hard to believe that God wouldn't approve of creating a people who were, in essence, just robots. Joy in such a world would not be true joy.
Like I said in my last post, I also believe that God is restrained from truly unleashing His power in this world. This happened when man handed over dominion of this world to Satan. And about the devil still being here, yeah, he is still here. He is condemned to an eternity in hell, but until the end of time, he'll be here, wreaking havoc and taking as many people down with him as he can.
Before I move on, I believe that no more can be said of this issue. Not that I'm trying to avoid it or anything. It's just one of those things where you either think "He should have" or "He shouldn't have". If we disagree, no amount of evidence or whatever can change that. Unless I become an agnostic/athiest. Or you become a christian. Or one of just changes our mind on that issue.
As for primitive isolated tribes who have never heard of God... well, I don't know for sure, but here's what I think. You see, when people talk of "cultural differences", I don't think that the differences are quite as vast as people make it out to be. Sure, some are canibals, some have trillions of wives, etc. But I think that there is a moral compass in every person, something inside every human being that draws a line between acceptable behaviour and being out of line, regardless of what customs their respective people practice.
For example, is there ever a culture that praises cowards? Is there any culture that condones killing out of hatred? Or a culture that doesn't value honour? A culture that doesn't think lying is an inherently "bad" action? I think that that no matter how barbaric, civilised, rightwing, leftwing, whatever a culture may be, there are just too many similarities in core morality throughout every civilisation throughout human history.
So to answer your question about people who have just genuinely never heard of our God, I reckon that He will see their hearts and make a judgement based on how well they have stuck to what they feel in their heart to be right. Get what I mean? I would give you some recomendations of books to read on this topic, but I hate it when people recomend books all the time instead of just explaining it to me. So I won't do it myself. I do hope that I've explained it well enough though, whether or not you agree.
Now, you mentioned prayer as well. I believe that people pray for many different reasons about many different things, but in essence, prayer is just a word for having a conversation with God. Talking to God. Listening to God. So, to answer your question in a short and annoying manner, the reason people pray should be to get closer to God. However, you're talking about it in the request sort of way aren't you? Why won't God do what people ask of Him sometimes, even when what they ask is righteous? And what's the point of asking God for things anyway when He knows what you want and what you should get?
ReplyDeleteWell. Stay tuned, you'll get those answers after this commercial break.
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Welcome back to the comment which is longer than most of my actual blog posts. Where was I? Oh yeah, prayer.
When we ask God for things to happen, there is more going on than just "will He do it or not?". Like I stated before, prayer is about getting close to God. Sometimes, He just wants us to pray because He wants us to be intimate to Him. There has been many times in my christian life where I hadn't prayed for ages, but then when I needed something, I prayed to ask Him. Then guess what? Talking to Him again would be amazing experience. Whatever we're asking for ceases to be important; what's important is that prayer is such a fundemental spiritual part of this walk. Also, praying a lot is like an excercise; the more you do it, the more sensitive you become to the spirit of God, therefore you can hear His voice more clearly and get stronger convictions.
It's also be a faith thing. Sometimes, God wants us to pray because He wants us to acknowledge that He is God, and that we believe in His word, and not just not in our own natural ability. This again builds our spiritual nature, and helps to strengthen our faith in Him.
About the Genesis verse you quoted, I believe this issue to be clarified by a passage in Ephesians 5:22-33. And as for exactly what heaven will be like, I have no fricken idea, sorry.
Lastly, your point about updating the Bible is interesting. The world is very different now isn't it. However, apart from making the language easier to read (no thous or thees), I don't think the Bible should be updated. The original writings written by all the different people in Bible are said to be inspired by directly by God, word for word. And back then, the written language was more precise, more meaningful, and lot more revered. Outside of the general "moral of the story" stuff we can get out of each story, there are so many more layers to every passage revealed by the study of the languages they were originally written in. For example, the english word "love" is translated from 4 different words in hebrew, all slightly different interpretations of the word love. This distinction would be loss in a general makeover meant to suit this generation, a generation that doesn't appreciate the beauty of language and literature.
In any case, any sensible person should be able to distinguish between God giving rules that apply to a certian time and God giving advice wisdom that trancends culture.