Why does God permit suffering?

God really can't be preoccupied with anything as time is not a limiting factor for him. But don't worry about the bs story called hell.

Hell as a place of torment has no validation in scripture.

thats fair enough erik, I dont think you have said anything which requires apology. But if you state quite categorically that you are right, with the inference that others (who you dont actually know) must therefore be wrong, you can't blame some for perceiving a certain...a* adamancy. Stick around I'd like to here more.

Hell? What does the Bible say?


* Many go there - Matthew 7:13 "... wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it."



* A place of torment - Luke 16:19-31 [probably the most vivid account] "The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades ... he cried and said 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.'" (Luke 16:23-24. Look up the other verses of this story told by Jesus in the Bible.)



* Everlasting punishment - Matthew 25:46 "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."



* Everlasting fire - Matthew 25:41 "And then He will say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.'"



* Furnace of fire - Matthew 13:41, 50 "The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practise lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth." (Matt 13:41)

"The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth." (Matt 13:49-50)



* Lake of fire - Revelation 20:15 And anyone not found in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.


When religionists read the bible, what part of it do they not understand?

Do you know of anything being thrown into the fire which continues to live?

What's the message here?

Adam and Eve were told the punishment for their disobedience would be death. I can find no place in the bible where God says "And that's not all folks!". Would have been the thing to do to let them know in advance, don't you think?"

neo, No loving anything would punish humans that have lived on this planet, most often than not, less than 100 years to punish them for eternity of suffering.

Right.

The idea of punishment after death is a false teaching which slithered into nominal christianity along with other abominations such as trinity and cross worship.

Such as "thou shalt have no other gods before me" and of "images" that christians continually disobey.

Obvious, is it not?

So do you not believe in the Day of Judgement? How can you claim there is no hell; are you just assuming everyone won't get what they deserve for what they did in this temporary life?

You're just like the unbeliever who denies ever facing his Lord-

"And they say: 'The Fire shall not touch us, except for a few but for a few days,' Say: 'Have you taken a promise from God, for He never breaks His promise? Or do you assert about God what you do not know?'" (Al Baqara, 80)

Question,

I lost my first post, so I am only going to focus on your final question, since that is the one that I think I can give the best answer to. Several months ago my classics discussion group discuessed "The Efficacy of Prayer," by C.S. Lewis. We concluded that our prayers are part of an eternal resonance, which existed before the creation of the world.

I will give this example: if person A prays for a new house, and gets that new house, but after he/she acquires that house calls someone to repair a leak on the rood, and then that person falls off the roof and goes into the hospital, then person B will pray for that person to be healed. If, while that person is in the hospital, he/she encounters a nurse who is going through a divorce that person will become person C and will pray for that nurses marriage. Now, person's A,B, and C are perhaps a result of prayers prayed before and after they entered the picture. The group concluded that God views time in a similar way in which we view space. He knew all of our prayers before the creation of the world. He knew which ones would be prayed in faith and which ones would not.

Our prayers are part of a type of spiritual evolutionary process. The conclusion of the group was that our prayers allows us to take part in this spiritual evolutionary process. They allow us to take place in God's sovereignty.

God knew before the creation of the world whether you were going to pray for the raise at work. In order for that prayer to be prayed many other prayers had to have been prayed and answered before hand. Perhaps someone prayed that you would receive that job, but before that someone prayed that you would get into the college you wanted to get into. Prayers have a cause and effect relationship.

So the question was, "What is the point in Prayer?" The point is that God knew before the creation of the world whether or not you would pray that prayer. He set up the world to follow a certain set of principles throughout the course of history that would cause certain circumstances to come into place, which would result in your need to pray that prayer. Your prayer is part of a resonance which will essentially cause another person to pray for something else in the future.

Now, God also knew before the creation of the world who would not pray or whose prayers would be prayed in vain. So He set up the world so that it would also follow a certain set of principles so that when you didn't pray the outcome of your choice to not pray would come about. Now, that doesn't mean that just because you didn't pray to get that job that you wouldn't get that job. It just means that there was no prayer for God to answer, so He set up the universe so that it would function according to your lack of faith, and his sovereignty acts on your job offer in such a way so that the effect of whether you would get that job or not would cause someone else to pray for something that would result in the continuation of God's sovereignty.

Do you remember when you were a kid you'd take a bouncy ball and bounce it in small spaces. It would ricochet from one wall to another and change angles quite frequently. God's soveriengty doesn't mean that He enters into creation in such a way that He changes certain events so that He simply gets His way. It means that God knew the function of the world when he set it up. We have free will, but God knew beforee the creation of how we would use that free will. He knew whether we would pray or not, so He set up the world to follow a set of principles and laws. Our prayers have a cause and effect relationship, much like that bouncy ball. The difference is that the world consists of an infinte series of bouncy balls, which all act and react according to the principles of God's sovereignty.

The problem with assuming that God's sovereignty means that God causes things to change after prayer is to deny the fact that God is so completely sovereign that He had the power to answer our prayers before we prayed them. He is so completely soveriegn that He caused an infinite set of bouncy balls to ricochet throughout the course of human history in such a way that the culmination of His plan would be fulfilled.

So why pray? Don't pray. God knew before the creation of the world whether you would pray or not. If you say, there is no point in prayer, then God knew that before the creation of the world, so He set up the world to function according to a set of laws that would act and react according to your lack of faith. He also knew if you would pray. and set up the world to act and react according to laws that would lead to God's will being done.

All of this doesn't mean that God created the world in such a way so that the universe would function according to our will. It means that He set it up so that it would function according to God's soverienghty. Prayer allows us to take part in God's soverieng plan for the world. God simply ignores the lack of prayer, and thus continues to act in such a way so that that lack of prayer would cause another person to pray and thus His sovereignty would continue to cause the world to function according to those principles and laws He set up.

Now, of course this leads to the problem as to whether or not such things as 9-11, Katrina, the Tsunami, diseases, war, and famine are part of that sovereign plan of an infinite number of bouncy balls that lead to the fulfillment of God's plan. My answer is Yes.

However, take for instance the Great Potato famine. For those who know the true hisory of that event you know that it was government manufactures. The british parliament decided that the problem was so great that rather than trying to do something about it they just let nature take its course. Thousands of people dies, while some managed to survive. Of those who survived, they may have emigrated to America. That choice to go to America instead of dying of starvation was the effect of certain events before that person went to America, and would cause a certain course of events to take place in the future. The Great Potato Famine was a terrible time in history but if not for the great potato famine someone may not have come to America whose decision to marry someone in America would lead to a family lineage that micht have culminated in the birth of someone who might stop an even greater evil from happening two hundred years later.

So is it right to say that Katrina, 9-11, the tsunami, and other events will ultimately lead to a greater good in the future. Well, Katrina destroyed New Orleans and devastated several other places throughout the south because of Human choice to ignore engineering problems. I hope America learned from Katrina. I hope America has learned the importance of not cutting corners to save money now so as to lose lives in the futulefvyre. If America has learned its lesson, because of humans' choices to ignore mechanical warnings, and in the future a category five heads towards New Orleans which could have had an even more devastating effect than Katrina, but was stopped becuase engineers learned from Katrina and made a much stronger levy, then a greater good came from it and an even greater devastating event may have been stopped.

Now realize that just as that category 5 Hurricane did not cause an even greater destruction because engineers learned their lesson from Katrina was the result of a cause/effect realtionship. So also Katrina was an effect of another cause.

The efficacy of prayer is that we have a chance to take place in God's sovereign plan. However, if we choose not to pray God sovereignly set up the world to act and reat according to a laws and principles that would ignore your lack of faith. You might get what you want and you might not; however, God's soveriengty ignores your faithlessness much like one of those bouncy balls ignores a piece of dust they never even touch. While the process of those balls ricocheting all from one wall to another never touches that piece of dust that piece of dust has no chance of acting within a cause and effect relationship of the path of those bouncy balls. However, that piece of dust is so insignificant in size that while those bouncy balls ignore the presence of that piece of dust the path of those bouncy balls will generate a cause and effect relationship that will effect good and bad in the life of that piece of dust.

Now, of course, we are not pieces of dust, but much like that piece of dust has no chance to effect or cause the path of those bouncy balls, neither does your lack of prayer have any chance to cause or effect the path of God's sovereignty that He set up before the creation of the world. However just as the path of those balls will inevitably change the course of that piece of dust, through such venues as the minute breeze they create, so also while your lack of prayer has been ignored by God's sovereignty, God's sovereignty will act in such a way that your llife will be effected to however God sees fit for it to act according to His sovereignty, in order taht your life may cause His greater good to cause the prayers of someone else to be answered.

So what is the point in prayer? It's point is that God has allowed humans the choice to take part in His sovereign will throughout history. But if you don't pray then God's sovereignty will act according to His choice to cause certain events to take place so that the course of those infinite number of bouncy balls will act and react in such way that they ignore your choice to not pray. Of course, whether or not you pray or not, God's sovereignty will cause your life to act according to a set of principles He set up before the creation of the world that would ultimately lead to the fulfillment of His plan for creation. Either way, God's sovereign plan from the beginning of the world will culminate in the finalization of the place He has gone to prepare for us.

I know that like computers, which have programs, Christians are supposed to be completely programmed by what is specifically said in the Bible, but I have no verses to provide. I am sure I could find biblical evidence, such as verses that say, "It is appointed a time for man to die," but I am simply going to chalk the above up to a philophy that is the result of rational thought. Of course, according to Wilso, I am incapable of rational thought.


I did not proof this before posting it, so I apoligize for anything I did not explain thoroughly enough. Feel free to ask me about anything you wanted answered, but I did not answer, or that you do not understand.


I also enjoy the dialogue and welcome future discussion.


The...........

neo wrote:
Do you know of anything being thrown into the fire which continues to live?

And I always had the impression your god was capable of doing just anything he wished. I can be so wrong sometimes, it frightens me!

Dante's Inferno

God permits suffering because man sinned in the Garden of Eden and continues to sin today. Remember, there is a devil that exists to ruin our lives and he is fighting a battle with God that will end in the Tribulation.

chr, When you say "there's a devil that exists," who do you think created the devil? You must remember that the all knowing god knew the devil would appear in his "plan."

Yes. God created everything, hence He must have created the devil. However, the devil was originally an angel who revolted against God because he wants to be the ruler of the universe. Therefore, he does evil to attempt to become ruler.

Just because an angel became the devil doesn't free god of anything. He knew what he was creating from day one (forgive the pun).

Here is some salve
http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=71780&highlight=

Sez hoo?

neo, you think your god does not know the future? (If one existed, I'd agree that it could not, and would therefore not be omniscient)

Is your god omniscient or not?