Can any Christian answer this?

If you're going to ask questions like these, I think you need to have an appropriate understanding of Christian and religious perspective. The wording of your questions suggests to me that you do not.

@owlafaye: "they are NOT nice people." I hope you realize that neither are you being nice to them.

I answer for the Christians: God is omnipotent, He creates all the worlds of Creation and Revelation, and only His obedient children understand His Will. The scientists cannot prove the existence of the atom to babies or uneducated people. People who deny the spiritual education cannot understand spiritual realities.

Ow - Christians are always attacked by people like you, maybe thats why they aren't "nice"?

1. Because Jesus crucified and is no longer here to burn bushes and turn 1 loaf of bread into meal to feed the masses. It is simple - you either believe or you don't. I am sure everyone has or had questioned the existence of God, but on the other hand, I guess they don't require any concrete "proof" or else they wouldn't go to church or acknowledge their faith. No one is FORCING anyone to believe.

2. I am not really sure if I believe in hell so i'm not sure how to answer this question. Some people take the Bible literally, while others do not so I suppose its up to that persons digression on whether or not they think thats true. The bible and commandments were written thousands of years ago when people were more naive and scare tactics worked better! but i guess we will never know what God is really like until we are dead.

3. As i stated previously many people take the bible very literally. I do not. Then again, I have never actually read the whole thing, but the way i look at it - it is more of a story with metaphors, analogies and underlying meanings to help one understand the point.

4. i do not think that God directly affects peoples lives. You answered your own question pretty much. I think that people BLAME God for things when they go wrong - Such as you are implying that he does when a good person may suffer while paris hilton lives a wonderful life someone else gave to her. I believe everything happens for a reason - but did God have something to do with it directly ? who knows. I dont think so. Why would God take a baby away from me and yet allow drug addict alcoholic mother who is just going to abort away have a child???? I dont think he has anything to do with either.

5. I am not really sure what you are referring to here so i cant answer.

ow- was this nice enough for you???? or am i still a nasty ***** simply because i AM a christian?

I'm not a "born again" Christian, but can simply say that, as a human being, I do not expect to understand God and His ways. At least not fully. Also, since God is God, I do not expect Him to answer for Himself to me for my own satisfaction. If you or anyone have a problem with that, you are a rebel.

1. Jesus rose the dead and performed other miracles right before the eyes of the people that murdered Him. Miracles and the such will not change humanity in God's favor. They never have and never will.

2. It does bother me. To the point of bitterness at times. There are much more difficult questions about God than this one. Then again, life it'self has questions that cannot be answered but we still live anyway.

3. The only way to accept the Bible as inerrant is by faith. You cannot prove it to be so. Is it God's word? I think so but cannot go into why in such a short space. If you are genuinely enquiring, we can have some back and forth about it if you wish.

4. Yes. For His own glory. You are viewing God through the glasses of humanism. Humanism makes man and his happiness the ultimate end of all being. God makes His own glory the end of all being. We do not like this because we are rebels.

5. Once again, with man as the center, it seems unfair. On the other hand, if God were cruel, why bless Job to begin with? Why bless Job even more afterwards?

I understand your questions because I share them, and as I stated earlier, other questions that are much more difficult to reconcile than these...

Olafay Christians are very nice people.

During the time of David, no matter what things God showed the people, they needed someone they could see. so God gave them a king, David, and took His hand out of things like doing all those miracles. To this day God gets blamed for anything wrong. People have freewill, bad things happen because of the way of the world. The evil thats in the world and the things people do to one another. Having riches here on earth does not mean you will have them in heaven. Christians strive for riches in heaven and because we believe in Christ, like Him we are persecuted for following Him while the rest need proof and things to see to believe. Christians wait for His return knowing what is to come, unbelievers just want riches and happiness and expect God to give it to them. If they can't have it they resent God and at the same time they say they don't believe their is a God, they are saying they don't believe because of things He's not doing. Kind of a counterdiction if you really think about it. If you don't believe in God then why would you think God has something to do with Paris Hilton having everything you don't? God doesn't make the person drink and drive and kill another human being, the person drinking did that. We make our own choices so we take the blame for what we do wrong. As for diseases, look what we have polluted the world with, in the old testament people were living to be hundreds of years old. Now the earth has so many chemicals and poisons its no wonder we have cancers. God didn't create that stuff, people did. You can't have it both ways. If you had everything you ever wanted, would you believe in God then?

You have a lot of great answers but like so many who ask these kinds of questions your mind is already made up. It would not change you at all no matter how good the answers are and that is the waste. Each of these people took time out to think about and fully answer your questions to the best of their abilities (so much for not the nice people comment), just because they care about you and hope you can find some truth and maybe a little faith to see things like they do. I really do hope you take to heart these answers and not just blow them off like I have seen so many on here do.

Why would anyone want to answer you? You are not here to discuss anything at all. you have provided your own answers to your questions.

For instance #2. Why do you call God a bully? It seems you are the one who believes in hell. I do not.

I have have been to hell and back. Have you? I am not happy with what happened to me at all.
Maybe you should just be happy you did not go with me.
No I am not happy with the way he world has turned out.

#5. What did Job say about it? Why do you seem to cite something as true and bash those who also accept it as truth?

Why make such blanket statements? You seem to be misinformed as to the fact that all Christians believe the same.

Perhaps you should study the truth about that. There is a profound difference with in the faith. It is called liberalism, moderates and fundys.

Direct your thoughts toward the fundys.


"Here come the Christians and they are NOT nice people."

Bull ****. I am the nicest person on EP.

What do you consider to be evidence? Should I give you an ontological, teleological, or cosmological explanation? Would it even matter if you chose to have faith in the non-existence of any god to begin with? If one must be convinced by force then it is not faith anyway. From the mere existence of the universe to the life and words of the Christian: the evidence for God is everywhere. If someone refuses to believe the words of Moses or the prophets will they believe if God were to even send His own son to live among us, die, and rise from the dead? If we reject every chance to have a relationship with God that we didn't earn/deserve to begin with then should we complain about the eternal destination we have wagered for ourself?

YOUR'E pretty much wasting your time with this,people believe or they don't.pukirahe seems to know everything and you & i are just lost.don't believe any religious nonsense and never ever will,everybody knows the same when it comes to the afterlife..NOTHING.

I don't believe in a Biblical God because of some of the things you mentioned. "GOD" in that sense, reminds me very much of an adolescent child.
BUT, I don't bash ANYONE for THEIR personal truth or beliefs.

1)
Does all the evidence in the world matter? Moses stood before Pharaoh and despite that clearly Moses could call upon God and perform many miracles....Pharaoh would not believe. The Jewish people worshiped God but didn't recocgnize the messiah while he walked among them and healed the sick and performed many miracles. They STILL killed him on the cross.

If raising himself from dead and having so many people witness him and give testimony for it isn't enough.....What do we need?

I suggest faith is in fact incompatible with perfect proof.

2)
I consider the evidence that science has is far superior to anything that the Jewish people had. I have never seen a road that made itself...yet the information pathways laid out in each of us are far more complex and function so close to perfectly with self correcting features.....now that's amazing engineering!

Besides what is it that God asks? Love him and love everyone else. Is that so much?

3)
I don't know if it is the pure and divine word of God but I do know that Jesus often began his sentences with "Have you not read...." followed by some truth that boggles their minds from the old testament.

If it's just a good guide in your mind....then take it as that. That good guide makes it perfectly clear what God really wants. The details of what you can or can not do are covered but matter very little and up for interpretation. If you can't make sense of it then pray your understanding is right....and COUNT on GRACE to cover you if you are wrong.

I know God loves you....grace is sufficient!

4)

Yes. Read Job.

God causes it to rain on the righteous and unrighteous for the sake of the few. Just as Sodom would have been spared if only a few more righteous people could have been found. I guess we aren't yet as bad as Sodom. I don't think we would be very likely to form a mob to rape some of Gods angels....ever. That takes some balls.

5)
Job loved God. God loved Job. Job was blessed far beyond any normal man in the end. If our reward for faithfully suffering doesn't come here, I have faith that God will make it right in eternity!

Satan is the accuser. He loves hurting us. God has allowed him some power to do that. He wants us to love him not because they are blessed...but even when we are hurting. To trust him completely...even when we lose ourselves or someone we love.

I believe my Dad once tortured my Dad so I would have faith. (Just for a couple of hours) I'm sorry that had to happen...but I have faith now that if complete...even if circumstantial.

1) Because belief in him is for our benefit, not His, and belief is only a choice in the absence of objective evidence.

2) I don't believe God does that, even the apostles demanded evidence. I believe in God because it helps me to be a good person. I don't think God could scorn a good person who had trouble believing.

I don't believe Ghandi is in hell.

3) In so much as it chronicles the life Jesus, it is evidence of God: it is a clear story of how one must act to be perfectly God-like.

I understand that the bible has been mistranslated for accidental and political reasons. I know which passages are agreed upon and which are doubtful as to their authenticity.

4) I do not believe bad people enjoy as good a life as the media makes us believe. It is much, much easier to maintain the appearances of a happy life than it is to really enjoy what you have.

If the basis of your doubt is injustice, you should try to correct the injustice in yourself: accept that you are a good person and accept what you need to be happy. What your body needs to be happy is very little, the enemy is the imagined needs of the mind. It is often easier for a poor person to recognize this than a rich one, which is why Jesus chose to be poor.

5) The pre-Christ understanding of God was focused around divine wrath: the idea that punishment could make you better, and that burdens could strengthen you, regardless of why they were imposed.

The devil challenged God that only blessings increase faith, God showed that hardships do the same. To Job, faith in God is the only thing of real value, materials goods are fleeting, and so he did not curse God for a less obvious blessing.

Although I like this story, I won't defend every story from the Old Testament. A lot of the stories were meant to teach morality to very barbaric people, and make no sense today. By contrast, Christ's understanding of morality is still highly relevant, and is echoed by great moralists like Ghandi and Martin Luther King.

yes

1. The events of bible proves miracles events do not satisfy our human natures for very long. But they had their purpose then and my question to you is - how do you know that miracles are not performed today? Evidence of His handiwork is all around us and yet there are those who would would reject Him even if they were to see Him face to face. Miracles happen all over the world. You hear about them when tragedies strike as with 9/11. but for the most part miracles happen all the time in the lives of ordinary people living lives as best as they can no matter what their circumstances. Sometimes they happen and we don't even know because we are not spiritually attuned to them and we dismiss them as 'luck' or 'coincidence'.

2. As usual those who have no understanding of spiritual things interpret them anyway. Hell is not a place, it is a state of mind and to some degree we all experience it when we come face to face with our own guilt for things we have done wrong - especially those that cause pain to others and ultimately ourselves. When He said 'thou shalt have no other gods before me' it was for our benefit not His. You know? - 'You go that way and it takes you to misery and grief' - 'You follow me and it will lead you to joy.' The whole point about wanting to believe is that it takes faith to move beyond wanting to believe and actually doing something about it. They are two different things and nobody goes to hell just because they don't believe.

3. Of course the Bible is not perfectly correct. Given the numerous translations over the years and the reliance on the knowledge of 'man' it is hardly surprising that it is not correct. However the King James Version was once universally accepted as the most correct and used by all churches for a long period of time. Now however, man in his 'wisdom' has gone onto interpret again, the Bible. Yet it is widely rejected that God would still reveal things to His children and it is this that I find hard to comprehend. Could it be that this society cannot find evidence of God because it does not want to?

4. God has given us agency which is the ability to choose right. He will no interfere with that gift and so we choose the course of our own lives and all the consequences that come as a result. But the beauty of that is that we learn how to cope with sorrow and disappointment and despair because often the choices we make are not wise. Nonetheless He does have a plan for all of us if we will but choose to follow - as his collective children AND as individuals. Too often I have seen His hand in my own life not to acknowledge this fact. And I might add it is in the deepest sorrows and despair that I have felt His comforting presence the most. Man hurts man and suffering is brought about by man. Yet the Lord can alleviate our suffering if we choose to go to Him and seek His help. As for Paris Hilton - who cares? Would I trade my humble normal life with hers? Hell no!

It was Satan that was allowed to inflict pain on Job not God. God only set the parameters within which Satan could work i.e he was not allowed to take his life from him. There was no wager with Satan either. What you do not seem to realise is that the Lord knew the strength of this particular son even as Satan did not. He knows all of our charateristics better than we do and He knows exactly what all of us are capable of bearing. Remember Job stayed faithful even when all his friends and even his wife told him to curse God and die. What kind of peace he must have had to be able to do that. What is it about the spirit of man that is able to survive horrendous circumstances and still be at peace. We hear of holocaust survivors, prisoners of war, and survivors of other tradedies that tell stories of conquering inner fear and the necessity of reliance on God whom they never knew before. A relationship with God is a personal and individual thing. If you really and truly want to know - go talk to Him on your own. He will know the intent of your heart and whether or not you seek Him honestly or you seek him just to prove a point and gather evidence.

you have a free will

I'm not christian but I'd like to try :)

1) Why would it be fair for God to expect a primitive culture to believe in him? - because this being divine has things to offer things that one might think are needed by mankind

2) he has become a trinity - one aspect is Jehovah - but he is three, his merciful son, and awe inspiring messenger

3) yes :)

4) our purpose here is to learn - and there are things here that can only be learned through suffering - most of our prophets have come from times of trouble. God gives us freewill, in a chaotic earth, in a web of faiths - should you choose to give up that he has granted you, he may help you - if not, then you may live, good or bad, happy or unhappy, he shall watch over you, but the choices are yours.

5)I(does non christian scriptures count?) "you create the gods of your own impurities - and cry against them when they are not perfect" Carl Jung's 'answer to Job' is a good answer too :)