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Originally Posted by thaskalos
It is because of comments like these that I fear this thread may never end.
There is a reason why some of us continue to ask the same questions of you over and over, Overlay...and that is because you and Boxcar have not provided reasonable answers for them.
You are trying to portray God as our "Heavenly Father"...even though the bible describes his behavior as being anything BUT "fatherly".
A good father does not openly discriminate against his "children"...by caring about the welfare of the few, while neglecting the many. Have you ever provided an answer for the question of why God picked the Jews as his "chosen" people...and why Jesus -- who repeatedly stated that his sole purpose on this earth was to 'save the lost sheep of Israel' -- would refer to outsiders as "dogs"? Is this an example of proper fatherhood?
You keep on telling us that all the catastrophies that have occurred on this planet have been..."the consequences of the sins of man"...and you state that the "severity of God's reaction" has been discussed previously. They HAVE been discussed previously...but they have not been explained ADEQUATELY!
If you and Boxcar would occasionaly utter an "I don't know" when discussing God and his actions, then I would not be so persistant in pushing for adequate answers; but you guys have not said "I don't know" even once...and act as if you know EXACTLY what God has in mind...and why he does what he does. So...would you mind explaining to me what you mean when you say that the "severity of God's reaction" to the sins of man have already been previously explained? WHERE?
There are millions of kids starving in this world right NOW...while millions more refuse to eat the delicious food that their parents give them, because "they don't like it". If God is retaliating against the starving kids because of their "sins"...is he rewarding American kids because of their "virtues"?
If he was benevolent enough to still the sun so Joshua and his men could fight their enemies in daylight...then why can't he provide for the starving kids of our world today?
Is there anything worse than been a starving kid in a poor country...while knowing that, in some other countries, we throw perfectly good food in the garbage?
You say that God showed his merciful nature by the fact that not all of humanity perished in the Flood.
And I suppose those German soldiers were displaying their "merciful nature", when they were lining up the Jewish prisoners...and they were only shooting SOME, instead of all of them...
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We will never be able to have a productive discussion because you do not agree to a basic premise of Christianity: that every human being who has ever lived has been undeserving of God's love and favor strictly on their own merits, because of the sin that pervades every single person on Earth, as a result of which they (we) have ALL merited only eternal separation from God. When you appreciate the utter holiness of God, and the extent to which even the "best" (by our corrupted, fallen standards) human being comes short of that, you will be able to grasp the "amazing grace" ("grace" meaning favor and mercy that is completely undeserved) and love that God has nevertheless shown humanity by sacrificing His only Son to provide a means by which even the most heinous sin can be forgiven, and the pardoned perpetrator can be allowed to live eternally in God's presence.
Why did God decide to be merciful to a humanity (including even His "chosen people") that repeatedly forsook (and still forsakes) and disobeyed (and still disobeys) Him, and deserved (and continues to deserves) nothing but punishment as a result? I DON'T KNOW (there you go!), but He did.
And where does man's accountability for his own (sinful) actions figure in as a cause of your litany of the acknowleged woes present in the world? We have free will, and (although God has intervened and does intervene for good in human history in ways that we may not even be aware of) we are also agents by which God's will can either be facilitated and carried out, or else made more difficult to achieve.
