|
In a letter to God, pmartin writes...
(quote)
In case I am wrong, and you really are all those things, I would like you to answer some questions that puzzle me:
1. How come you have so much trouble communicating with people? From your post I can see that you have a good command of English, but yet what you have written has been so misunderstood that people have been torturing and killing each other for thousands of years simply because of their different interpretations. We have really been confused.
2. How come we humans have to provide hospitals, EMT teams, fire departments, and search and rescue teams in order to heal people and save lives? It would seem to me that if you were so almighty, you could do those jobs without so much help from us.
3. How come we have to have fundraisers and form charitable organizations in order to help people in need? It would seem that if you were perfect, you would have designed things so people wouldn't be so needy, and even in the current state of affairs it would seem that your omnipotence should allow you to help them without our involvement.
4. How come you can't carry out justice in our world? Many bad people live happy lives and many good people suffer.
5. How come you couldn't design plants and animals right the first time? We have dug out a lot of fossils and discovered that the course of natural history is rife with false starts, dead ends and other evidence of poor design.
6. How come you can't do a better job of controlling natural forces like weather or volcanoes? I know, you gave us plenty of warning with Mt. St. Helens and those who got killed knew they were taking a risk, and you might have had your own reasons for Pompeii. But it seems you were awfully lax in allowing the All Saint's Day earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 to crumble the cathedral just at the time all those devout people were in there worshipping you.
7. How come you let evil run loose on earth at all? That sure seems like a mistake to me.
8. Is anything about you infinite? It sure seems unlikely since there is nothing in nature that we have observed that is infinite. I will admit that the past extent of the time you have existed might be infinite, as I admitted at the beginning of this post. But anything else seems unlikely to me.
(unquote)
Well, pmartin, I'm not God, but I do know some things about Him, and I do know the answers to the questions you're asking...
A1: I don't think God has any trouble communicating with humans at all, I talk to Him and He talks to me. I LISTEN... If God has any trouble at all talking to you, you probably have something blocking you from hearing Him. Try getting right with God and LISTENING..
A2: God uses people to do things for Him, you're a sinner, I'm a sinner, because of that, we get hurt and die. That's the reason for hospitals, etc. Jesus lived a SINLESS life, He never was in the hospital.
A3: Do you really think that people are in need when they don't have a regular paycheck? I know a former homeless person that lived in a box behind a soup kitchen. He now has figured out that all that time living in a box was a blessing, not a setback, all day long he talked to God, all day long... Another example of people who you call needy that are more blessed than you and I, is africans. In africa right now, there is groups of poverty-stricken families that are closer to God that we will ever be, because they rely on Him for everything... EVERYTHING. They know that only a God of mercy and grace could give them food day by day when there aren't enough jobs for people over there. Every day these people pray that America would become poverty-stricken, not to bring us down, but to live our lives relying on God, not taking for granted everything that we have and stepping on the God that gives it to us.
A4: This answer is a no-brainer, justice isn't bad getting punished and good getting blessed. Not in a world run by a GRACIOUS God.
The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous.
-God, The Bible
A5: Umm... He Did! Sin messed things up! He didn't. We were created in the image of God, with the sinner I am, I'm not still a representaion of God, but I was at one time... Plants in the Garden of Eden were perfectly created. Since satan came along, sin came in and corrupted things.
A6: Do a better job? He does a great job, if He didn't give us a big lightning bolt or a tornadoe once in a while, how would we act toward Him? Not in respect and reverence! He let that volcano erupt on sinful people in a church, it's not like He took somebody that He was planning to use that next day and put them in that church, so that He couldn't use them. He has a plan.
A7: This answer pretty well sums up it all... Ok, imagine a giant chess game, this is the world. Ok, you're playing this game and this is a long game, let's say 6,000 years. Ok, now you're playing this chess game and every move you make is a perfect move, and it doesn't really matter where you move anyway, because you know for sure that you are going to win... in six-thousand years. Ok, there is absolutely no competition in this game, in fact, this is ONE BORING game. There is no way to lose! How long are you going to waste your time playing a game like that?? Unless your a very boring person, probably not for 6,000 years!... Ok, now what can you do to spice the game up a little bit? How about getting SOMEBODY ELSE TO PLAY AGAINST? That would make it a tad bit more interesting, don't you think? Ok, you have that person playing against you, let's call him evil. Ok, your playing against evil, and you make the first move, you move out a pawn. Then evil takes a turn, moving a pawn also. But after that first move, you tell him to get out of here and go home, so that you can play yourself in chess for another 6,000 years. Does that sound fun? your opponent takes one move and then your alone again... playing chess against nobody for thousands and thousands of years... Ok, well let's say instead of kicking out your opponent after the first move, you let him stay around and play chess for a while, like forever. This sounds like a better plan than playing against nobody forever anyways, you end up winning in the end, but in the meantime, you have something to do. This is what God did, He's not sitting there playing against nobody, and He didn't decide to kick out evil after the first turn.
A8: Ok, BESIDES TIME, you haven't OBSERVED anything in nature that is infinite, that doesn't mean that there ISN'T anything. Can you explain to me what light is? If you can't figure out what it is, how do you know so much about it? What's to say that it isn't infinite? Time? The universe? Death? Love? Planetary and celestial orbits? You can't even give accurate assumptions about how stars or planets are formed, and what's to say that they aren't infinite? Observations?... yeah right, you ever been close enough to a dead star to positively say that it really is? You ever stood on a dead star to show that is isn't still giving off radiation or other things? Cause I got news for you, if something is still doing something... IT AIN'T DEAD! If you actually believe in black holes, when do they die? Your "observations"(as you call them) say that when a star dies, it doesn't die, it still lives, just differently... Now if a was a drunk, and now I stay sober, are you living differently? Did you die and come back to life as a sober person? Now, I don't even believe in black holes, but if you do, you don't have any reason to think that nothing is eternal!
< Kenny, 16
|
