Do theists sort of think that belieiving in god makes god real?

[humbleman]

Just read it and stop bothering around... sh*t... Lol.

Why do you assume I haven't? And why would you prefer a Hebrew translation when most scholars consider most of the NT written in Koine Greek? And why won't you even state which grouping of holy books you prefer? Hey maybe you prefer the even larger Coptic version....lol

Personally, I prefer this one which includes the (generally) Protestant cast outs (but I still have my parallel NIV/KJV copy as well):
https://www.amazon.com/New-Oxford-Annotated-Bible-Apocrypha/dp/0195289609

If you don't understand the first part, you'll have no idea what are you dealing with with the second part.

The apostles had a meeting once and decided not to enforce biblical laws to new members, and they decided to enforce solely three or four biblical laws, because the new members can learn the scriptures every sabbath in the synagogues.

This is to say, the new gentile members must go to synagogues every sabbath and learn the Torah, the Prophets and the Scriptures.

It was not the "job" of the apostles to teach all that, their job was to announce the good news, that's all.

Do you understand this part now?

Good!

Now, you must understand the first part of the bible, for you...in HEBREW.

 

[humbleman]

Well, in order to further my knowledge about him through your expertise, let's focus on one area.

You said this:

From the far distance of His location, every time He tries to target a sole individual, He ended with lots of people dead by collateral damage.

This is the reason the bible says to believers to get apart from sinners.

Your claim is that your deeper understanding of the nature of God due to your Biblical study is that he wants believers to stay apart from sinners because he can't help but cause collateral damage. I assume you're talking about Corinthians there. I read that to mean that God is saying to stay away from the unbelievers and the like so as not to get swayed by their impure thoughts and arguments and put your soul at risk. You seem to be saying that it should be interpreted as his saying to keep your distance from them because of the blast radius of a smiting. Could you parse out the logic behind your position on this, because I don't get that from the text.

Also, the Bible says that everyone will die for their own sins. What's the Holy Justification for God killing other people because he can't spare a few billion short eons to work on his aim before creating humanity?

Before you stand in front of me with your insight, to which I do respect because I notice you do think and analyze quietly- tell me, how do you know that those victims -even women, children and elderly- were ""just" to the eyes of God?

When I read the bible and the Israelite are told to kill everyone and burn everything, do you know what? When you read other peoples doing the same, they did it to avoid epidemics. Burning conquered towns where the whole inhabitants were killed was to avoid epidemics caused by dead bodies in great amounts, which flies and other agents will spread out. You see this burning of bodies even in the Holocaust, Germans avoiding epidemics by so many corpses.

According to descriptions of those peoples, they used to have so much sexual deviations including zoophilia. With the lack of hygiene, it is possible an entire town can be infected, including children. As a conqueror living in that land, you won't want to be a victim of those diseases, and you don't have medicines to cure them. In those times best solution was to kill them all.

You defend people who died in catastrophes, because you, in your opinion, they were innocent.

But, are you sure they were what you think they were?

 

[James Brown]

I've read the Bible. Three times cover to cover, other passages countless times. I would totally beat you in a Sword Drill.

Now what? Am I qualified to criticize it? Or are we hoping that no atheist ever read the Bible and will thus slink away chastened, leaving the apologist to chortle smugly?

Did you understand what you read.

Yes.



Care for some sugar in your porridge?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, in order to further my knowledge about him through your expertise, let's focus on one area.

You said this:

From the far distance of His location, every time He tries to target a sole individual, He ended with lots of people dead by collateral damage.

This is the reason the bible says to believers to get apart from sinners.

Your claim is that your deeper understanding of the nature of God due to your Biblical study is that he wants believers to stay apart from sinners because he can't help but cause collateral damage. I assume you're talking about Corinthians there. I read that to mean that God is saying to stay away from the unbelievers and the like so as not to get swayed by their impure thoughts and arguments and put your soul at risk. You seem to be saying that it should be interpreted as his saying to keep your distance from them because of the blast radius of a smiting. Could you parse out the logic behind your position on this, because I don't get that from the text.

Also, the Bible says that everyone will die for their own sins. What's the Holy Justification for God killing other people because he can't spare a few billion short eons to work on his aim before creating humanity?

Before you stand in front of me with your insight, to which I do respect because I notice you do think and analyze quietly- tell me, how do you know that those victims -even women, children and elderly- were ""just" to the eyes of God?

When I read the bible and the Israelite are told to kill everyone and burn everything, do you know what? When you read other peoples doing the same, they did it to avoid epidemics. Burning conquered towns where the whole inhabitants were killed was to avoid epidemics caused by dead bodies in great amounts, which flies and other agents will spread out. You see this burning of bodies even in the Holocaust, Germans avoiding epidemics by so many corpses.

According to descriptions of those peoples, they used to have so much sexual deviations including zoophilia. With the lack of hygiene, it is possible an entire town can be infected, including children. As a conqueror living in that land, you won't want to be a victim of those diseases, and you don't have medicines to cure them. In those times best solution was to kill them all.

You defend people who died in catastrophes, because you, in your opinion, they were innocent.

But, are you sure they were what you think they were?

Yes, in ancient times we were sometimes forced to raze entire towns in order to prevent the spread of epidemics. This is because people of those days were limited and imperfect beings who had little understanding of how disease worked and they were forced to compromise and take an action they wouldn't have preferred as a result.

These days, in order to prevent the spread of epidemics, we can simply quarantine the area and test each person in it individually because our understanding of disease has improved somewhat. It's not a perfect solution, since we are limited and imperfect beings and we are forced to compromise in the actions we take as a result.

It sounds to me from the posts that you have made in this thread that your view of God is that he is similarly a limited and imperfect being who is forced to compromise the actions he takes as a result. Let me know if I am misunderstanding your views, because that would be a fairly nonstandard view of the Christian God and I don't want my responses to be directed at a viewpoint you don't actually hold.

The reason I'm reading your views that say is because an unlimited and perfect being does not have to make compromises. He does not miss. He does not need to cause collateral damage to the innocent in order to hit the guilty. He knows exactly how every individual atom of a disease interacts with every individual atom of a person, so his response to an epidemic can be to perfectly target the infected and ignore the unaffected.

In terms of my not knowing if the victims of natural disasters are innocents, I don't even know how to respond to that. Are you making the argument that the fact they died in a natural disaster means we can make the assumption that the over 200,000 people who died in the tsunami a few years back were all guilty of a crime/sin serious enough that they warranted execution and God was in the right to strike them down?

I'm not trying to be obstinate or snything with these questions, I just want to ensure that the arguments I'm responding to are actually the arguments that you're making.

 

[ruby sparks]

When I read the bible and the Israelite are told to kill everyone and burn everything, do you know what? When you read other peoples doing the same, they did it to avoid epidemics. Burning conquered towns where the whole inhabitants were killed was to avoid epidemics caused by dead bodies in great amounts, which flies and other agents will spread out. You see this burning of bodies even in the Holocaust, Germans avoiding epidemics by so many corpses.

According to descriptions of those peoples, they used to have so much sexual deviations including zoophilia. With the lack of hygiene, it is possible an entire town can be infected, including children. As a conqueror living in that land, you won't want to be a victim of those diseases, and you don't have medicines to cure them. In those times best solution was to kill them all.

You defend people who died in catastrophes, because you, in your opinion, they were innocent.

But, are you sure they were what you think they were?

In all seriousness, catch yourself on. No one, surely, can be so daft as to explain away what was clearly tribalistic human violence of an entirely commonplace sort (that has routinely happened before and since, right up to the present) the way you have just tried to. Trying to minimise infections my arse. Next you'll be saying that's why the Syrian government is bombing hospitals as we speak. Also, note that if you don't kill so many people in the first place (including pregnant woman and their fetuses), there aren't so many decaying dead bodies to cause epidemics.

At this point, I'm going to assume you're joking.

 

[funinspace]

Just read it and stop bothering around... sh*t... Lol.

Why do you assume I haven't? And why would you prefer a Hebrew translation when most scholars consider most of the NT written in Koine Greek? And why won't you even state which grouping of holy books you prefer? Hey maybe you prefer the even larger Coptic version....lol

Personally, I prefer this one which includes the (generally) Protestant cast outs (but I still have my parallel NIV/KJV copy as well):
https://www.amazon.com/New-Oxford-Annotated-Bible-Apocrypha/dp/0195289609

If you don't understand the first part, you'll have no idea what are you dealing with with the second part.

<noise>

Now, you must understand the first part of the bible, for you...in HEBREW.

You know, being forthright has some nifty benefits towards communicating with others in a chat board. “The Bible” isn’t just the Tanakh. Yeah, I get that the “first part”, which most people call the Tanakh or Old Testament (OT), was written in Hebrew. Anywho, enough of dissecting your cagey behavior... But your rational seems to be a bit funky. To suggest that one should be literate in Hebrew to read the Tanakh, would also imply that one should be literate in Koine Greek to properly comprehend the NT. One problem with that is, that one wouldn’t need to learn simply modern Hebrew, but the more archaic Hebrew of 2000 plus years ago. One should also probably get good at Aramaic as well. And even if one knows the older Hebrew, how much of the original paleo-Hebrew is available for reading the copies of the older texts?

Since people make whole careers out of knowing these languages, and since parts of the oldest Tanakh books are still a struggle for scholars to pin down exactly, it seems that it would be far more rational to rely upon Biblical scholars and read the Bible along with quality references. Since, probably 99% of Christians don’t have a quality grasp of older Hebrew, then another implication of your rational would be that 99% of Christians have no idea of what their Bible tells them…first or second part as you vaguely put it.

 

[Learner]

Tsunamis are not part of the biosphere. However, they are, along with earthquakes that cause them, part of what is laughingly called god's design.

Sure it was just a manner of speaking but as according to the bible imo ; Its merely a self -perpetual system running blindly in respects to humans... God is not steering these forces. We are now in a somewhat survival-mode (without God -anymore as the main influence of natural forces untill Judgement). No God involved .. Just as you think anyway from a "naturalist" perspective.

Its Satan's world! He's the new landlord. Maybe we should put the blame on him.

(brb)

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Its Satan's world! He's the new landlord. Maybe we should put the blame on him.

(brb)

I prefer blaming the Sith, mainly because it steers the conversation towards Star Wars and that's more interesting than Christianity and more thought has been put into the associated mythology.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And the fans typically don't get apoplectic if you write fanfic of some of the characters.

 

[bilby]

And the fans typically don't get apoplectic if you write fanfic of some of the characters.

Clearly you haven't met them.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And the fans typically don't get apoplectic if you write fanfic of some of the characters.

Clearly you haven't met them.

I actually have.
Lucas not only encourages fanfic, he's got a system of allowing some of it to be canon. Various levels of real and almost real and sort of real and not real...

But put a horny unicorn on the ark, and suddenly everyone says i'm going to Hell...

 

[Learner]

I prefer blaming the Sith, mainly because it steers the conversation towards Star Wars and that's more interesting than Christianity and more thought has been put into the associated mythology.

Ok fair enough lol. It'll be interesting to see what the movie would then seem to look or sound like when read... if Star Wars was written in ancient Hebrew and several of the episodes were written in ancient Greek to later be performed after translation into ye olde King James English.

 

[humbleman]

Before you stand in front of me with your insight, to which I do respect because I notice you do think and analyze quietly- tell me, how do you know that those victims -even women, children and elderly- were ""just" to the eyes of God?

When I read the bible and the Israelite are told to kill everyone and burn everything, do you know what? When you read other peoples doing the same, they did it to avoid epidemics. Burning conquered towns where the whole inhabitants were killed was to avoid epidemics caused by dead bodies in great amounts, which flies and other agents will spread out. You see this burning of bodies even in the Holocaust, Germans avoiding epidemics by so many corpses.

According to descriptions of those peoples, they used to have so much sexual deviations including zoophilia. With the lack of hygiene, it is possible an entire town can be infected, including children. As a conqueror living in that land, you won't want to be a victim of those diseases, and you don't have medicines to cure them. In those times best solution was to kill them all.

You defend people who died in catastrophes, because you, in your opinion, they were innocent.

But, are you sure they were what you think they were?

Yes, in ancient times we were sometimes forced to raze entire towns in order to prevent the spread of epidemics. This is because people of those days were limited and imperfect beings who had little understanding of how disease worked and they were forced to compromise and take an action they wouldn't have preferred as a result.

These days, in order to prevent the spread of epidemics, we can simply quarantine the area and test each person in it individually because our understanding of disease has improved somewhat. It's not a perfect solution, since we are limited and imperfect beings and we are forced to compromise in the actions we take as a result.

It sounds to me from the posts that you have made in this thread that your view of God is that he is similarly a limited and imperfect being who is forced to compromise the actions he takes as a result. Let me know if I am misunderstanding your views, because that would be a fairly nonstandard view of the Christian God and I don't want my responses to be directed at a viewpoint you don't actually hold.

The reason I'm reading your views that say is because an unlimited and perfect being does not have to make compromises. He does not miss. He does not need to cause collateral damage to the innocent in order to hit the guilty. He knows exactly how every individual atom of a disease interacts with every individual atom of a person, so his response to an epidemic can be to perfectly target the infected and ignore the unaffected.

In terms of my not knowing if the victims of natural disasters are innocents, I don't even know how to respond to that. Are you making the argument that the fact they died in a natural disaster means we can make the assumption that the over 200,000 people who died in the tsunami a few years back were all guilty of a crime/sin serious enough that they warranted execution and God was in the right to strike them down?

I'm not trying to be obstinate or snything with these questions, I just want to ensure that the arguments I'm responding to are actually the arguments that you're making.

Fine arguments and questions.

More than "imperfect" the action made to prevent diseases from entire towns by the ancient simply was not enough knowledge and technology.

On the other hand, modern quarantines is not what solves epidemics all the time. Check the case of the mad cows

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/25/mad-cow-disease-british-crisis

It may have started with the death of a cow on a farm in Pitsham, West Sussex, England, in 1984 – two years before "mad cow disease" was officially identified. It ended by changing the way the UK approaches farming, prepares food, conducts surgery and gives blood.

As the US department of agriculture confirms it has identified a single case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in California, American officials and farmers would do well to examine the British experience of what proved to be a devastating disease and led to a national crisis. It resulted in millions of animals being destroyed in an effort to control the disease and the deaths so far of 226 people from the linked human disease.

About God being limited or not.

In no moment God promised to take care of each problem and situation humans might have.

Inclusive, he promised a land to the Israelite, but the Israelite must have to do their part: fight for conquering the land.

In last Soccer World Cup, two teams finished the game without winning. Next step was to shot the ball five times to the meta, a part of the game known as "penalty". The team scoring the most should be the winner.

The players of Costa Rica, fell on their knees praying for God helping them to score the most and win.



Unfortunately God was watching another game or perhaps a movie, because the other team (Netherland) without praying to God won the game.

People think that God will be "protecting" them in everything.

Bad news for them is that in no moment, after the disobedience of Adam, such a promise was guaranteed. Even one can read that Abraham lied to a king saying his wife is his sister to save his own life. Later, God in a dream explained it to the king. This is to say, you must do your part, and might God bless you.

About thousands and thousands of people dying in a catastrophe, you ask how it comes God can allow that and why He won't prevent for that to happen.

Again, for you all those people "are innocent", but you don't know if God thinks the same.

Besides, when you create an art work that is very impressive, and when people is appreciating it in your gallery, you come and with a machete and break it in hundreds of pieces, yes, people will say you are crazy, you lost your mind, you acted wrongly, and more. However you feel that you did right because for you, the creator of that art work, it wasn't what you want, you changed your mind, you got tired of it, whatever, it's your art work and you and no one else will come to tell you what to do with it.

God is smarter than many, He knew people will try to challenge His mercy, His power, and more. The prophet was inspired to clear up human's disrespect and vain thoughts against God.

Isaiah 29:16

Surely your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay: for shall the work say of him that made it, He made me not? or shall the thing framed say of him that framed it, He had no understanding?

I can interpret the phrase from above in layman language, having God saying: "Who the hell you think you are? I made you, do you understand? So if I destroy you because I want to destroy you, can you stop me? Are you dumb? If millions die because calamities, who are you to judge me? I destroy to whoever I want to destroy and I bless to whoever I want to bless..." and crap like that... "holly crap", of course.

He can do it, and we are just the potter's clay and the framed thing... so, why you waste your life complaining?

 

[Hermit]

God is not steering these forces.

Assuming god exists, what the fuck was he thinking when he created them? Wise beyond our comprehension? I think not, unless of course he turns out not to be the loving and just creator of the universe Christians keep alleging he is.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I can interpret the phrase from above in layman language, having God saying: "Who the hell you think you are? I made you, do you understand? So if I destroy you because I want to destroy you, can you stop me? Are you dumb? If millions die because calamities, who are you to judge me? I destroy to whoever I want to destroy and I bless to whoever I want to bless..." and crap like that... "holly crap", of course.

He can do it, and we are just the potter's clay and the framed thing... so, why you waste your life complaining?

I'm not wasting my life complaining. Outside the posts I make on the subject on this forum, I don't give either God or religion more than one or two passing thoughts each year. The subject matter is irrelevant to my life as a whole.

Also, nobody is disputing the claim that, if God exists, he can destroy whomever he wants for whatever reason he wants and there's really nothing anyone can do about it. The question is why he would do that. If he is a benevolent individual, as is claimed by Christians, then what is his rationale for harming people who, as far as can be seen, have done nothing to merit it?

You're correct that we don't know that everyone in history who has ever been killed by a natural disaster weren't secretly evil and deserved execution for their sins, but there's no reason to assume that this is the case. If God is intervening in the world on a daily basis to kill off those who deserve to die, then wouldn't we find a higher correlation between tornado victims and child molesters and the like, as opposed to that not seeming to be the case at all?

 

[bilby]

I can interpret the phrase from above in layman language, having God saying: "Who the hell you think you are? I made you, do you understand? So if I destroy you because I want to destroy you, can you stop me? Are you dumb? If millions die because calamities, who are you to judge me? I destroy to whoever I want to destroy and I bless to whoever I want to bless..." and crap like that... "holly crap", of course.

He can do it, and we are just the potter's clay and the framed thing... so, why you waste your life complaining?

I'm not wasting my life complaining. Outside the posts I make on the subject on this forum, I don't give either God or religion more than one or two passing thoughts each year. The subject matter is irrelevant to my life as a whole.

Also, nobody is disputing the claim that, if God exists, he can destroy whomever he wants for whatever reason he wants and there's really nothing anyone can do about it. The question is why he would do that. If he is a benevolent individual, as is claimed by Christians, then what is his rationale for harming people who, as far as can be seen, have done nothing to merit it?

You're correct that we don't know that everyone in history who has ever been killed by a natural disaster weren't secretly evil and deserved execution for their sins, but there's no reason to assume that this is the case. If God is intervening in the world on a daily basis to kill off those who deserve to die, then wouldn't we find a higher correlation between tornado victims and child molesters and the like, as opposed to that not seeming to be the case at all?

It does seem remarkable that the most commonly acknowledged evil people in history all seem to have avoided death by natural disaster.

FFS, Hitler was posted to the Ypres salient in WWI; It would have required the most incredibly light touch of God's thumb in the scales of reality to have prevented him from leaving that situation alive. But he survived the trenches; and there were no tornadoes wiping out the beer hall in Munich where he started his political career; no earthquake or landslide sent the Berghof sliding down the mountain; lighting never struck him as he stepped out of the Wolfschanze; and a Tsunami completely failed to level the French coast while he inspected the Atlantic Wall.

But we are supposed to imagine that a three year old girl in Banda Aceh deserved to die in a Tsunami, because to think otherwise might suggest that there's no God running the show?

 

[humbleman]

I can interpret the phrase from above in layman language, having God saying: "Who the hell you think you are? I made you, do you understand? So if I destroy you because I want to destroy you, can you stop me? Are you dumb? If millions die because calamities, who are you to judge me? I destroy to whoever I want to destroy and I bless to whoever I want to bless..." and crap like that... "holly crap", of course.

He can do it, and we are just the potter's clay and the framed thing... so, why you waste your life complaining?

I'm not wasting my life complaining. Outside the posts I make on the subject on this forum, I don't give either God or religion more than one or two passing thoughts each year. The subject matter is irrelevant to my life as a whole.

Also, nobody is disputing the claim that, if God exists, he can destroy whomever he wants for whatever reason he wants and there's really nothing anyone can do about it. The question is why he would do that. If he is a benevolent individual, as is claimed by Christians, then what is his rationale for harming people who, as far as can be seen, have done nothing to merit it?

You're correct that we don't know that everyone in history who has ever been killed by a natural disaster weren't secretly evil and deserved execution for their sins, but there's no reason to assume that this is the case. If God is intervening in the world on a daily basis to kill off those who deserve to die, then wouldn't we find a higher correlation between tornado victims and child molesters and the like, as opposed to that not seeming to be the case at all?

I ask myself the same question sometimes.

Even more. I see fathers taking care of their children even when they become adults. Always on their side, helping them and being sure that the children are succeeding in life.

I might ask why God doesn't do the same with his children.

I completely understand your point, I'm not blind and won't pretend to never have asked challenging questions against the position of God in several things.

However, when is about God, I understand that if I'm going to believe that He does exists and that He made us, then I have no other choice but trying to understand the rules given by Him.

Here in America, respect for father and mother was the most essential value up to the 50's. The generation of the 60's changed it. In the 70's ignored it. But other cultures still keeping this value and they do respect their parents over lots of things in their lives.

According to the bible, God was using the prophet to make the Israelite to understand and leave idolatry away. God used an example. The prophet told of a family between the Israelite, where the father told their children to never ever drink a sole drop of wine.

The sons never questioned the reason why their father made such an order. The sons obeyed the father. God used that example and said that because those sons obeyed their father to do something that the same God didn't order, but the sons did it because their respect towards their father, God said that the name of that family won't be extinguished throughout generations.

Using this example, God was asking the Israelite to do the same, to obey Him like the sons did towards their father in that family.

Then, believing that God exists is also understanding that He deserves respect.

I'm not the right candidate to encourage others to show respect towards God because I truly am not a saint and less a religious person praying and doing things religious people do. But, the same as a criminal in jail will tell you -if you ask-, that committing crimes is bad, I can say the same, that disrespecting God is not a good idea.

This is what my answers in these topics are based on. Like you, I question a lot about God, however, I try to maintain a line as a border and try not to cross it... and I fail lots of times, but I still keep trying not to...

 

[abaddon]

I ask myself the same question sometimes.

Even more. I see fathers taking care of their children even when they become adults. Always on their side, helping them and being sure that the children are succeeding in life.

I might ask why God doesn't do the same with his children.

I completely understand your point, I'm not blind and won't pretend to never have asked challenging questions against the position of God in several things.

However, when is about God, I understand that if I'm going to believe that He does exists and that He made us, then I have no other choice but trying to understand the rules given by Him.

Here in America, respect for father and mother was the most essential value up to the 50's. The generation of the 60's changed it. In the 70's ignored it. But other cultures still keeping this value and they do respect their parents over lots of things in their lives.

According to the bible, God was using the prophet to make the Israelite to understand and leave idolatry away. God used an example. The prophet told of a family between the Israelite, where the father told their children to never ever drink a sole drop of wine.

The sons never questioned the reason why their father made such an order. The sons obeyed the father. God used that example and said that because those sons obeyed their father to do something that the same God didn't order, but the sons did it because their respect towards their father, God said that the name of that family won't be extinguished throughout generations.

Using this example, God was asking the Israelite to do the same, to obey Him like the sons did towards their father in that family.

Then, believing that God exists is also understanding that He deserves respect.

I'm not the right candidate to encourage others to show respect towards God because I truly am not a saint and less a religious person praying and doing things religious people do. But, the same as a criminal in jail will tell you -if you ask-, that committing crimes is bad, I can say the same, that disrespecting God is not a good idea.

This is what my answers in these topics are based on. Like you, I question a lot about God, however, I try to maintain a line as a border and try not to cross it... and I fail lots of times, but I still keep trying not to...

Looks rather like a "yes" answer to the OP's question.

The imagery of a dysfunctional family is a wee tad bit appalling.

 

[Jason the Rationalist]

I can interpret the phrase from above in layman language, having God saying: "Who the hell you think you are? I made you, do you understand? So if I destroy you because I want to destroy you, can you stop me? Are you dumb? If millions die because calamities, who are you to judge me? I destroy to whoever I want to destroy and I bless to whoever I want to bless..." and crap like that... "holly crap", of course.

He can do it, and we are just the potter's clay and the framed thing... so, why you waste your life complaining?

I'm not wasting my life complaining. Outside the posts I make on the subject on this forum, I don't give either God or religion more than one or two passing thoughts each year. The subject matter is irrelevant to my life as a whole.

Also, nobody is disputing the claim that, if God exists, he can destroy whomever he wants for whatever reason he wants and there's really nothing anyone can do about it. The question is why he would do that. If he is a benevolent individual, as is claimed by Christians, then what is his rationale for harming people who, as far as can be seen, have done nothing to merit it?

You're correct that we don't know that everyone in history who has ever been killed by a natural disaster weren't secretly evil and deserved execution for their sins, but there's no reason to assume that this is the case. If God is intervening in the world on a daily basis to kill off those who deserve to die, then wouldn't we find a higher correlation between tornado victims and child molesters and the like, as opposed to that not seeming to be the case at all?

I ask myself the same question sometimes.

Even more. I see fathers taking care of their children even when they become adults. Always on their side, helping them and being sure that the children are succeeding in life.

I might ask why God doesn't do the same with his children.

I completely understand your point, I'm not blind and won't pretend to never have asked challenging questions against the position of God in several things.

However, when is about God, I understand that if I'm going to believe that He does exists and that He made us, then I have no other choice but trying to understand the rules given by Him.

Here in America, respect for father and mother was the most essential value up to the 50's. The generation of the 60's changed it. In the 70's ignored it. But other cultures still keeping this value and they do respect their parents over lots of things in their lives.

According to the bible, God was using the prophet to make the Israelite to understand and leave idolatry away. God used an example. The prophet told of a family between the Israelite, where the father told their children to never ever drink a sole drop of wine.

The sons never questioned the reason why their father made such an order. The sons obeyed the father. God used that example and said that because those sons obeyed their father to do something that the same God didn't order, but the sons did it because their respect towards their father, God said that the name of that family won't be extinguished throughout generations.

Using this example, God was asking the Israelite to do the same, to obey Him like the sons did towards their father in that family.

Then, believing that God exists is also understanding that He deserves respect.

I'm not the right candidate to encourage others to show respect towards God because I truly am not a saint and less a religious person praying and doing things religious people do. But, the same as a criminal in jail will tell you -if you ask-, that committing crimes is bad, I can say the same, that disrespecting God is not a good idea.

This is what my answers in these topics are based on. Like you, I question a lot about God, however, I try to maintain a line as a border and try not to cross it... and I fail lots of times, but I still keep trying not to...

This encapsulates quite well the arguments for having difficulty understanding why people would or should believe or worship such an entity. Rules are set for people to follow but its a case of "do as I say, not necessarily as I do" which is pretty hypocritical. Its accompanied with "I'm not perfect, I make mistakes" - yes, we can say that everyone is imperfect, everyone makes mistakes, but I just don't see the point of worshipping an entity that I would say does not deserve to be believed in/worshipped. To me it would amount to worshipping a schizophrenic psychopath where one half is love, the other is destruction. You wouldn't know what was coming next. Can't see how this represents a good life lesson in terms of who/what to look up to. Quite why someone would wish to be guided by this is a mystery to me.

The people who believe it struggle to comprehend and/or explain certain aspects to the people who don't believe it, and the people who don't believe it struggle to comprehend what it is that the belivers believe and quite why they do.

 

[Juma]

However, when is about God, I understand that if I'm going to believe that He does exists and that He made us, then I have no other choice but trying to understand the rules given by Him.

Why????