Am I the only one who finds "God" to be baffling?

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Well I started a new job making 6 figures, and I didn't wish to an iron age fantasy Jew even once.

Congratulations on your job.

What is six figures?
I knew a ventriloquist that worked with 5 figures at the same time. It was quite entertaining.

My figure is not as fit this year. Can't get close to my P. B. push-ups at 95 in a row 2 years ago.

Spiritual physical and emotion balance is a goal I don't reach in the same day.

I don't figure on ironing much. Most of my shirts are permanent press. The other few cotton shirts, my kind wife takes care of. I can iron and she does it better.

Forgive me for my stream of conscious response to your post.
I digress.

Namaste (just came from a Yoga class)

6 figures=lots of $

6 figures = $100,000+

If people thank God for something in their life, would that mean God makes everything happen in everyone's life? Good and bad?

No, just the good. The bad stuff is another guy who God isn't responsible for. For some reason.

My gf and I went to the theater last night to see Green Room (great flick, 5/5). After it ended, we decided to sneak into God's Not Dead 2 (this theater is old and didn't have the electronic sign with the name of the movie, but luckily we could easily tell from the religious chanting emanating from the doors). It was around 20 mins from ending. I find it strange that God is an all-powerful being yet needs his own creations to defend its existence. It's baffling. My gf and I, being secular, couldn't believe what we were seeing in this. They put up this straw man that if the woman isn't allowed to speak about Jesus in her classroom, then a secular government would eventually make it illegal to even practice a religious faith, even saying such a law would be enforced at gunpoint. Ridiculous. This is legal propaganda.

I thank God for all.
Even the things I perceived as bad can be used for good.
In the ancient days The Lord was patient before judgement came. Sometimes hundreds of years.
These days I see road rage happen after a split second.
Or perhaps a WP reader throwing their device after losing service.
The most difficult( situations that affected this writer) ones includes death & grief.

The Lord gives and takes away. Blessed be His name.
I used to ask
Why is this happening to me?

On good days I ask
What can it learn from this?

So kind of God to let us learn from fatal or congenital diseases, random acts of violence, and natural disasters.

The only good thing I can see coming out of the Holocaust is that it made great source material for books and movies.

But honestly, I would rather have had zero holocausts.

And because of it, we're still seeing its effects with the ongoing Palestinian conflict. If only God were to intervene and tell people that they're arguing over nothing and that they've been worshiping fictional tales of alleged promised lands and whatnot. Is this part of some ongoing plan of his, where he pits different religions at war with each other? How malevolent.

What good can come from the Israel-Palestinian conflict? Or nuclear attacks on defenseless and innocent cities? I legitimately would appreciate your perspective on this.

you asked about how a belief in God, or lack there of, affects behavior. Answers to the "Why does this happen to me?" question show one difference. If you don't believe in an omnipotent creator, God, then all your answers will be about natural causes and things you, or other people, do. A belief in God can create this whole other emotional component, being angry at an omnipotent creator for tough times, faith when things are going well, or inspiration in the idea that everything that happens is for humanity's benefit. Without all that, you just make the best of whatever happens, seeking support from other humans.

It's interesting how any time someone presents a situation that is absolutely horrible for millions of humans, like natural disasters, some people still believe that God is omnipotent. Why couldn't a creator make a world free of natural disasters, or intervene to save sentient beings from harm if, for some reason beyond my current imagination, the natural disasters are impossible to avoid?


That being said, whether or not you believe, I think Joni Eareckson Tada's writings on suffering are very inspirational.

I know that if God existed and gave us everything we asked for (and we received it 100% of the time), then there would be no point in existence (I welcome any objection).

The fact of the matter is is that: every bit of suffering and evil in this world is possible without the presence/existence of a deity. I believe those that make excuses for all of it in favor of their deity simply doesn't want to admit that fact. Either a supernatural deity exists that can rid the world of all evil, or there is none and that we are alone in this indifferent world of suffering and cause-effect. Those that argue for an in-between just don't want to be swayed from their belief in their deity.

But I ask, why is it bad to question God's existence? Is it because of the threat of hell? If that's the case then I sincerely hope that you evaluate your belief to see the flaw in that logic.

It is not bad to question.

Keep doing it.

I am one that loves questions.

I have many more questions than answers.

Like many people in the Bible many folks on WP have posted lots of questions.

Keep asking them.
Hopefully your answers grow as you do



Zvi

Okay, a question:

Why don't Christian women seem to follow the advice of 1 Timothy 2:12?

Hi Scarabola,

"I know that if God existed and gave us everything we asked for (and we received it 100% of the time), then there would be no point in existence..."
I can't really imagine an existence like this. It sounds like an existence without challenge of any kind, except learning and creating perhaps. Some people believe that's what heaven will be like: everything you want.

"...every bit of suffering and evil in this world is possible without the presence/existence of a deity."
Absolutely true, but why is it impossible with the existence of a deity? Must one always define "deity" as all-powerful? Cultures with multiple deities don't.

"...alone in this indifferent world of suffering and cause-effect."
That about sums it up; without God, humans are together on this planet, possibly alone in the universe. BTW, that'd make biodiversity and preventing evil even more important, because there'd be no one else but us, and plant/animal life. There'd be no God to recreate everything once we destroyed it.

I really can't imagine a person whose only reason for not doing evil is the threat of hell either. I have heard people say that the existence of eternal suffering would preclude a good God however. I mean, wouldn't it be more rational to snuff out the existence of the evil being, instead of creating more suffering? That would not satisfy the human lust for vengeance, but then, a god that is all-loving would be above such a need.

Re: Tim
Back in the day women were apart in the service.
The section was about talking to the men from a distance. It would be disrupting. Sort of like phone users during movies.

You might want to read the entire New and Old Testament in Hebrew or Aramaic or the translation from those languages in your native tongue.

That would give you lots of questions to have fun with.

OY OY
These threads are fun
I hope other readers are getting smiles and knowledge

I have read much on this one verse and much has been made of this one verse. It is highly contraversial and not just for the obvious reasons. This verse refers to women being quite, not teaching, and not having authority over men. I will now begin a typed rant from everything I can come up with off the top of my head without giving references. Supposedly, this was written by Saint Paul who was a great egalitarian and write that there is no slave or free or man or women for all are equals in the church. Yet has also demanded female subserviance. He has reconized the validity of female teachers and preachers and ordained a few himself, but has also maintained that women be silent and speak and not have authority. This is slightly better understood when it is recognized that all of these different ideas of Pauls were located in different letters with those letters calling for male domination and female subserviance being thought of as being written by someone other then Paul. They were also wriiten at a later date then the earlier egalitarian ones. Paul may have changed his views about gender equality as he aged, his letters to different churches may have contained different ideas suited to those specific churches, or they were written by different authors who wanted a return to the patriarchial dominance that was so characteristic of Rome. Christianity was already weired enough to the surrounding pagan culture, making males dominant would have been a way of making Christianity more acceptable to the surrounding culture of already male centerred religions. these people would have then put the letters under Paul's name as a way of making them more authoritative or because they thought they were writing in line with Paul's thinking. Back to Timothy 2:12, this letter is one of the cotraversial ones that may have been written at a later date or by another person. But what does it mean that women should not teach, should be quiet, and not have authority? There is a greek word here "authenteo" which means to have authority and here it refers to women who should nto have it. The word "authenteo" has very few outside sources during this time period in Rome and the surrounding area and while the denotation "having authority" is always the same, the cannotation is always different ranging from having begign authority, having honorable authority, having stolen authority, having totalitarian authority, having malign authority, and whatever else adjective can be placed near authority. There is not enough context in the verse to show what the cannotation should be and little is known of the recipiant of the letter to show why this order is being sent. The verse may also not say" women shouldn't teach or have authority", but may say "women shouldn't teach authoritatively, should teach other's authority, shouldn't teach with authority" and so on. I've been ranting too long on this without reference. Wikipedia has an entire wiki page on this ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_Timothy_2:12 )
Here you will find FAR more on this debate. It goes much deeper.