God is sovereign over the entire universe: Ps 103:19; Rom 8:

[Novum]

God did do something to fix things. In effect, He "fixed" us. Jesus' death and victory over death was also our victory from this fallen world. Whether or not you believe that is affected by your expectations of God. In essence, it is your stumbling block.

Before we can even begin to discuss your points, we must first come to an agreement on the existence of god and truth of the bible. Otherwise, your words here make no sense to the nonchristian.

You remain, as always, full of crap. You simply cannot stop making lies up about me.

Blah blah blah blah, more delusional babble we've heard before.

I do not desire your fairytale story of salvation in heaven

Well, this doesn't help your status here much, does it? Today IS Independence Day in the US; we could grant you your independence today too, if you choose. :-?

Were you a constant victim of slander and lies from Imagican, your attitude might be different. I have no issues with anyone else on this board except for him. My issues with him have nothing to do with his beliefs and everything to do with his behavior - a reading of my replies to him would reveal this.

 

[Drew]

I'll give an example. In the movie Spider-man, the title character stands and watches as a man robs someone else and then runs away, literally running right past him (Spider-man). Yet Spider-man allows the man to pass, even though he could have stopped him. We find people culpable in court all the time for things like this - it's called "omission of action". If you have the ability to stop a crime and do not, you can and will be found responsible for it in a court of law.

So it is for your god, except infinitely more so because he is, we are told, infinitely more powerful and capable of stopping crime. Yet he does not. As it has been said, any rational jury would surely find your god guilty billions of times over of gross negligence.

Hello Novum (we meet yet again!):

As I have believe that I have alluded to in other posts, I do not necessarily think that the majority of Christians have a correct conception of God's omnipotence (or even His omiscience for that matter). I submit that the arguably naive notion that "God can do anything" may actually be "read into" the scriptures and reflect our lack of sophistication. You may wish to cast an eye to Daniel 10, where one can see that perhaps even God could not send an angel to help someone as quickly as He (God) would have liked. I started a thread on this (Daniel 10 and the Tardy Angel) but it kind of petered out.

I think there may be a vast web of implications associated with God's "creating the world a certain way" that have not entered these and related debates. My intuition suggests that the act of creating a richly complex world (like ours) might constrain even what God can do. Perhaps there is some deep feature of any possible reality that prevents it from being "all good" (as the kids say).

Perhaps God has indeed created the best of all possible worlds, and yet even the best world has suffering - there simply can be no better world.

This is, admittedly, just an intuition. To be fair, though, one should not presume that it is even possible for there to be any kind of complex world that does not include some "bad stuff".

 

[Novum]

Perhaps God has indeed created the best of all possible worlds, and yet even the best world has suffering - there simply can be no better world.

Yes, this is certainly possible. But I admit, when I take a look at the world around me, I find it very hard to believe that this is as good as it gets. Though, to be fair, I think we're getting better and better all the time - thanks to continued advances in science and medicine.

In the end, however, I feel like this question (is this the best possible world?) is by its very nature inherently something that we cannot, even in theory, answer.

 

[Drew]

Though, to be fair, I think we're getting better and better all the time - thanks to continued advances in science and medicine.

I agree with you on this - things are getting better. I think that many Christians will argue the opposite - that we are sliding into an abyss of decay that will precede the second coming.

I propose that such a view does not give serious credit to Jesus' statements about the Kingdom of God. I think many Christians really believe that we are waiting for that Kingdom. I think it is "already here". I will even go out on a limb and speculate that the arrival of Jesus can be causally connected, at least in some significant part, to the ultimate development of the technological world that we have now. I suspect that such a statement may not sit well with many non-believers. I admit, I am just speculating (but may revisit this).

In any event, I think God's sovereignty is realized in a much more subtle and sophisticated manner that reflected in the "He controls every minute event in the Universe" position.

 

[Novum]

Though, to be fair, I think we're getting better and better all the time - thanks to continued advances in science and medicine.

I agree with you on this - things are getting better. I think that many Christians will argue the opposite - that we are sliding into an abyss of decay that will precede the second coming.

Yes, and we have seen this belief in at least one poster here (gingercat), and I'm sure many more worldwide would agree.

Sadly, people like them for over 2000 years now have been worrying themselves to death over the doom-and-gloom they see in their lives, always certain that the end of the world is just around the corner. What a horrible way to live.

 

[Vic C.]

Though, to be fair, I think we're getting better and better all the time - thanks to continued advances in science and medicine.

I agree with you on this - things are getting better. I think that many Christians will argue the opposite - that we are sliding into an abyss of decay that will precede the second coming.

Yes, and we have seen this belief in at least one poster here (gingercat), and I'm sure many more worldwide would agree.

Sadly, people like them for over 2000 years now have been worrying themselves to death over the doom-and-gloom they see in their lives, always certain that the end of the world is just around the corner. What a horrible way to live.

May I see some Scripture that supports this? In the meantime, I will provide some:

1 Th 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
1 Th 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

2 Th 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
2 Th 2:8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
2 Th 2:9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
2 Th 2:10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
2 Th 2:11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

 

[Novum]

Though, to be fair, I think we're getting better and better all the time - thanks to continued advances in science and medicine.

I agree with you on this - things are getting better. I think that many Christians will argue the opposite - that we are sliding into an abyss of decay that will precede the second coming.

Yes, and we have seen this belief in at least one poster here (gingercat), and I'm sure many more worldwide would agree.

Sadly, people like them for over 2000 years now have been worrying themselves to death over the doom-and-gloom they see in their lives, always certain that the end of the world is just around the corner. What a horrible way to live.

May I see some Scripture that supports this?

I was not making a scriptural claim, and in this case, it is irrelevant whether there is any scriptural support for this position. It is historical fact, well-documented across multiple cultures for the past two thousand years, that people have always interpreted the bible to support their position that the end of the world is imminent. And they have lived their entire lives with this belief. Entire online communities today, like Rapture Ready, are filled with people who believe this.

As most educated Christians - hopefully including you, vic - know, it is irrelevant whether there is scriptural support for just about anything that Christians believe about their religion. They will believe regardless.

 

[undertow]

I was not making a scriptural claim, and in this case, it is irrelevant whether there is any scriptural support for this position. It is historical fact, well-documented across multiple cultures for the past two thousand years, that people have always interpreted the bible to support their position that the end of the world is imminent. And they have lived their entire lives with this belief. Entire online communities today, like Rapture Ready, are filled with people who believe this.

I am sure I have seen something about the Jehovah's witnesses predicting it for about a 100 years back?

 

[Imagican]

Nov,

You 'think' yourself 'SO' wise and all.............. I 'think' that you are simply 'fooling' yourself. For, if you were SO wise, there would some other evidence than your sarcasm to 'back it up'.

 

[Imagican]

But, that's NOTHING that a good dose of 'God' can't cure. Stick around here for awhile and that may be 'just what you get'. he he he.

 

[Novum]

I am sure I have seen something about the Jehovah's witnesses predicting it for about a 100 years back?

Way farther back than that. ;) Wikipedia articles here and here note that end-time predictions were being made as early as 175 AD and consistently since then, continuing strongly today.

Nov,

You 'think' yourself 'SO' wise and all.............. I 'think' that you are simply 'fooling' yourself. For, if you were SO wise, there would some other evidence than your sarcasm to 'back it up'.

I was not being sarcastic.

As I've noted here (and if you were to do a simple google search, you'd find the same), there is evidence as far back as 175 AD, if not earlier, that people have been making end-times predictions.

Plus, there's always Matthew 16:28 ...

"Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."

Guess ol' Jesus was wrong about that one, eh?

But, that's NOTHING that a good dose of 'God' can't cure. Stick around here for awhile and that may be 'just what you get'. he he he.

You're a weird one, Imagican. :roll:

 

[undertow]

May I see some Scripture that supports this?

It may go back even to scripture. The view of one Bible scholar:


"The second of the problems mentioned above -- if Jesus expected God to change the world, he was wrong -- is by no means novel. It arose very early in Christianity. This is the most substantial issue in the earliest surviving Christian document, Paul's letter to the Thessalonians. There, we learn, Paul's converts were shaken by the fact that some members of the congregation had died; they expected the Lord to return while they were all still alive. Paul assured them that the (few) dead Christians would be raised so that they could participate in the coming kingdom along with those who were still alive when the Lord returned. The question of just how soon the great event would occur appears in other books of the New Testament. A saying in the synoptics (discussed more fully below) promises that 'some standing here' will still be alive when the Son of Man comes. In the appendix to the Gospel of John (ch. 21), however, Jesus is depicted as discussing an anonymous disciple, called 'the disciple whom Jesus loved', with Peter: 'If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?' The author then explains, 'So, the rumour spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?"' (John 21.21-3).

The history of these adjustments to the view that God would do something dramatic while Jesus' contemporaries were still alive is fairly easy to reconstruct. Jesus originally said that the Son of Man would come in the immediate future, while his hearers were alive... Then, when people started dying, they [the followers of Jesus] said that some would still be alive. When almost the entire first generation was dead, they maintained that one disciple would still be alive. Then he died, and it became necessary to claim that Jesus had not actually promised even this one disciple that he would live to see the great day. By the time we reach one of the latest books of the New Testament, 2 Peter, the return of the Lord has been postponed even further: some people scoff and say, 'Where is the promise of his coming?' But remember, 'with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day' (2 Peter 3.3-8). The Lord is not really slow, but rather keeps time by a different calendar.

In the decades after Jesus' death, then, the Christians had to revise their first expectations again and again. This makes it very probable that the expectation originated with Jesus. We make sense of these pieces of evidence if we think that Jesus himself told his followers that the Son of Man would come while they still lived. The fact that this expectation was difficult for Christians in the first century helps prove that Jesus held it himself. We also note that Christianity survived this early discovery that Jesus had made a mistake very well."

E.P. Sanders (1993) The Historical Figure of Jesus, Penguin.