You are a free agent with choice. You can do bad things or good things depending on you entirely. God does not need to know your immediate future, but does know your ultimate future. There is a condition called by many different names that will keep you on the right path no matter how many times you wander off. This condition is very simple: whatever you do will return to you. Over the years and reincarnations everyone will finally “get” it. So the better you are returns to you also until you reach the final goal which is unconditional love which is better known as God to those that make it.
In my distant past, I was privileged to use a Presby. church for a few years. The minister was a man who was struggling with his own loss of faith and who spoke openly from the pulpit about his struggle. He felt he was destined to continue doing all the ‘good’ things one expects from a minister, but he wondered if it was necessary to believe in all the tenets of the ‘Faith’ in order for his work to be effective.
I don’t know how that worked out for him. I do know that his struggle reflected the issues raised here concerning ‘bad things happening randomly and to good people’…that sort of argument.
Not mentioned before, I don’t think, that church had a very active ‘prison’ ministry, providing spiritual and physical help for prisoners and ex-prisoners, some of which was very effective.
Goo goo g’joob.
Yes. We are creatures in 4 dimensions. God is beyond that.
Theirs is not the only opinion, nor ever the majority opinion, and has been increasingly less so since the mid-19th Century.
Yes, and many other -isms. See above.
Biblically, it’s usually heads of state whose hearts are hardened. For Jacob and Esau the whole concept revolves around the fact that they are twins whose future was predetermined by birth order, and therefore who would inherit. The phrase in Romans that God says “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have rejected” is based on their actions after birth, not before.
See below.
Okay, I’ll have to read more on determinism before I can answer that. There’s a level of scientific inquiry here I am not familiar with, and I do not like to argue from a point of ignorance where there is information available.
Didn’t see anything, heard. Experienced his presence through the angels’ song.
Um, Jonah chose to run, and look where it got him. Abraham, sure. Andrea Yates was declared certifiably insane, and I have never said that every claim of mystical experiences are genuine.
Yes, being omnipotent, God could make you do what he says.
“Could” make??
Look-if you don’t want to answer the damn question because the answer might harm your cause, then just refuse to answer it, but please stop with these obfuscations.
Okay, an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God, not bounded by time or physical limitations, creator of the universe, and you want him to move and act in accordance with your expectations?
Psalms 8:4: what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? 5 You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.
That’s not being exceedingly generous as it is?
Yes, being omnipotent, God can make you do what he says.
Re-read this, then try your best to answer the question that is asked, which has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with what your god might choose to do:
I don’t want to get in the middle of this discussion (because I can see where it has led - even though I have had my own encounters with the divine), but I’m not entirely sure how you could possibly perceive that your question hasn’t been answered.
You would have to do what he said you would do.
Thank you.
Make up you mind.
Are we his extra special creation and is he our loving father or are we ants that dare not ask the honour of just a glance from the mighty creator?
You can’t just jump from one to the other every time it’s convenient.
Just like a character in a book.
edited to add: [Jessica Rabbit]I’m not a sinner-I’m just written that way.[/JR]
All of the above.
It’s the new “Vagueism”. As long as you don’t put too much thought into it, everything can be true!
`So, you don’t really have a actual answer to my questions.
That’s all right, you know.
I quoted the Psalms. The scriptures contain plenty of references to both man’s insignificance before God, and God’s mercy and grace towards mankind. God is not obligated to mankind.