Where did God go?

Great Debates
1

Assume that God is real, omniscient, omnipotent, omni-whatever.

Where is He? Where has He been the last 2000 years? Waiting? Resting? Why no prophets, no miracles, no fantastic proofs of His existance? He says “do not test the Lord your God” but don’t you think He would get tired of all his name-bashing and say “HEY! ALL YOU PEOPLE! THIS IS GOD SPEAKING! I AM REAL. OBEY ME OR BE SMITTEN!”

Why has God been conspicuously absent since His ressurection? Do you think it’s related to the reign of Satan as described in Revelations? Is He getting ready for His reunion tour in '05? Are there just so many people now that it’s hard for Him to keep track of us all? Is God within all of us as the Holy Spirit? Assume that God and the Holy Spirit have a set amount of power and influence, and then divide Them between the amount of people alive now, and has He become so weakened by our numbers, so diminished, that He no longer is strong enough to show His true potential?

Where is God?

–Tim

2

And please, no “He is alive and within all of us. We see His works every day.” Oh, come on! He moved with power and force in the past, smiting His enemies and raising His chosen ones. The Lord our God is unchanging, so says He. So why would He pull back and take a quiet stance for two millenia?

–Tim

3

I hate to break this to you, but God came back less than a generation after his death (Luke 21:32). You must have slept through it.

4

Well, you could turn that around, and say that if you see no evidence of God’s presence now…maybe the stories of things he’s supposed to have done long ago are just that: stories.

5

There are plenty of miracles and what not, you just don’t get to see them on tv:). Consider the fact that he is obvious rarely. There was a whole world besides the Jews in which god took a more subtle hand. Likewise god appeared to the rest of the world differently compared to where Jesus was in the new testament. When does god say he is unchanging? And even if he did people and goverments change, god does specific things for specific purposes. I doubt he cares about “name bashing”

6

Who wrote the holy books? People with faults like you and me who took it upon themselves to enterpret Gods will.

Holy rollers of Judea and other points around the eastern mediteranean.

What makes you think that people were different a few thousand years ago? It’s the same scam.

Jack

7

I recall in some part of the Old Testament it said something like ‘In those times, God did not talk to people’ to explain the surprise of one of those biblical dudes when God did start talking to him. It looks like (according to the Bible) he occasionally takes a break from all the miracles and such.

8

What NiceGuyJack said, except that I would change “interpret” to “invent.”

9

Well, there was that universal deluge thing.

“I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.” – Malachi 3:6

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” – Hebrews 13:8

10

The number of people who claim to have encountered God in one form or another has not shrunk down through the ages; in fact, if anything it has increased. Granted, it may not take the form you demand. God does not perform at your behest.

Perhaps you should train a seal and call it God. It might not perform miracles, but then a trained seal might be called a miracle. It would have the great benefit of performing when and how you want it to. You could start a church around it, and make yourself high priest: the Church of the Trained Seal. The miracles might not be mighty or powerful, but by Seal, when you tell Him to perform, he toots that damn horn! (as long as you don’t run out of fish…)

11

Because if he kept on coddling us, we’d never grow up.

12

Tim, this is a great thread, with a well-spoken OP. If I’m reading you right, you are saying, “Don’t show me subtle stuff; why isn’t God making like the OT picture of Him, smiting sinners and passing miracles right and left?”

I have three answers to offer you, none of them complete or truly satisfactory. Their only virtue is in being honest.

  1. Assume the Bible – at least the period from Abraham on – to be historically accurate for the purposes of this paragraph. Even with that assumption, you’ve got nearly 19 centuries of events in one country that He apparently chose as a “focus group,” with what He did covered in material that, with determination, you can read in a week. (In most translations, that’s severe masochism, but possible.:)) In other words, throughout most of the world, and most of the time in the one area He was doing any serious Godding work in, He was not particularly obvious.

  2. Although you specifically excluded it, I have to say that He does do His work through His followers – not the “religion politicians” who preach their personal prejudices in His name, but the caring individuals who try to show the Christ within them to the world. There are more than a handful of them on this board; there are probably a fair number of them in your community, if you’re willing to get to know them. They’re not street-corner evangelists or tract distributors; they’re the folks giving out food to the poor at the storefront ministry, the lady running a minimal-cost child-care operation, the guy who leads a open-to-all Bible study in his home out of caring rather than ego. And He was very explicit, towards the end of His last documented “personal appearance tour,” that that was how He planned to work from here on. In fact, He promised miracles through it if people would have as much faith as a mustard seed. (That line puts me on a guilt trip – little bitty seed produces eight-foot plant; I don’t seem to be able to work more than a couple of miracles – and those few, ones that the skeptical contingent would call coincidental, good psychology, and such, rather than His doing.)

  3. Along with this last thought, let me offer for your reflection a variety of books, most notably The Lord of the Rings, where there may be blood and thunder going on here and there, big flashy spectacular miracles that look like a joint concert of God and Motley Crue, but the important stuff is done by small people in secret – the Ring goes to the Cracks of Doom not through a conquering army but through the efforts of three little hobbits hiding from the orc infantry, and one of them himself conflicted in body, mind, and spirit.

There’s a story told in religious circles of the day after Ascension Day. Jesus is hanging out with a bunch of angels, and they compliment Him on the fine job he did. Then they ask, what’s the next step? He says, I picked out these 12 guys, mostly peasants from Galilee, and they’re going to carry on my work. Ah, say the angels, but what’s your fallback plan in case they fail? “I don’t have one,” Jesus says.

13

**Homer wrote:

Why no prophets, no miracles, no fantastic proofs of His existance?**

Prehaps you’ve not heard of the Prophet Mohammed, founder of Islam? Or Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints. Have you read up on the Divine intervention to St. Theresa?

14

Poly

Religion politicians? Hmmm… Where’ve I heard that one? :wink:

You’re right. The Opening Poster might not likely spend much time in God’s houses of worship, where we witness miracles with some regularity, not the least of which is the miracle of rebirth. The Opening Poster might not likely watch the Christian television channels, where the works of God are covered in some detail instead of ignored as they are on CNN. The Opening Poster might not likely see God in things that he feels are mundane, but that we feel are glorious.

It is no surprise that if a man puts his head in the sand, he will see no evidence. And it is no surprise that if a man pokes his fingers in his ears and yells, “La la la la,” he will hear nothing.

15

So, anyone who perceives a difference in the way God is described as acting in the Old Testament–or the Gospels of the New Testament, for that matter–and the way everyone seems to experience God as acting today is just being spiritually blind and willfully obtuse?

16

Libertarian: *The Opening Poster might not likely see God in things that he feels are mundane, but that we feel are glorious.

It is no surprise that if a man puts his head in the sand, he will see no evidence. And it is no surprise that if a man pokes his fingers in his ears and yells, “La la la la,” he will hear nothing.*

Lib, given how sensitive you generally are (and not without reason) about instances of “believer-bashing”, I’m rather surprised to see you indulging in this kind of snooty “unbeliever-bashing”. Here’s an OP who wonders, we presume sincerely, why we don’t see God act in the very specific and extraordinary ways in which believers claim that many people formerly saw God act. There’s nothing wrong with Polycarp’s politely pointing out in response that believers consider that they do constantly see God acting in equally spectacular ways, which simply don’t happen to be so superficially supernatural. But there is something wrong with your extrapolating from that remark to sneer that the only reason the OP doesn’t see the matter the same way is that he’s willfully self-blinded.

That is fundamentally no different from having an atheist sneer that the only reason you believe in a deity is some psychological inadequacy or moral cowardice that makes you cling to lies. I realize that the tenets of your faith may require the conviction that God is so benevolent and active that the only way anybody could fail to see him is through willful blindness (just as the tenets of some atheists’ faith may require the conviction that the only way anybody could kid themselves into believing in God is through inadequacy or cowardice). But your way of expressing that conviction is extremely unbecoming to somebody who claims to be trying to increase the level of courtesy and respect in debates about faith.

[Note added in preview: And yeah, what MEB said. :)]

17

Thank you to all who have responded so far, both positively and negatively. Special thanks to Polycarp for such a spectacular commentary. :slight_smile:

I ask this question because my parents are both big religious nuts, my Mom going as far as being a fundie in most respects. Dad’s not so bad (no offense, fundies) but he’s still a little blinded by his religion.

I, for one, believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I believe the stories of the Bible. However, I believe they are just that: stories. I will elaborate momentarily.

I do not feel God in my life. Everyone says that you can feel Him moving in you and through your life, but no amount of prayer or meditation has shown His nature to me, however.

However, at my weakest hour, I have always found redemption from unknown sources. Whether it was the relief of pain immediately before I took steps to commit suicide, or a lawyer I had never met before and never seen again taking my case pro-bono when I got in over my head, or a sudden strike of insight on human nature when it was most needed, at the darkest point I have always found relief. This both frightens and fascinates me, that I can be so bereft of God until I need Him most.

I’m not holy by any means, oh Lord no. I break so many laws and sin so many times it shocks me that God would even want to hear my name, and no matter how much I claim to have strong faith or pure love for my Creator, I still realize that my faith and love is as small and weak as the figurative mustard seed.

Thus the base of my original question; is this how God has said He will show himself? I see Him not until I need Him most. I am, and was, looking for assurance that there is no great current to be felt in my mind or in my chest, but only a slow undertow, unfelt until most needed. This is the Hand of God?

Thank you.

–Tim

18

I got so wordy that I forgot to elaborate on the stories aspect.

If I have learned correctly, all that we know of pre-Noah times is what was told to Moses on the mountain before we were given the Ten Commandments.

The Bible also says that “There is nothing new under the sun”.

My take on all this is that what was told to Moses on the mount was a parable, just like the parables that Jesus told his disciples. I believe that the civilization that God destroyed with the flood was a highly advanced civilization, and the flood wiped out all evidence of such. I believe that God told the history of creation to Moses in parable because people, in Moses’ time, were not capable of understanding the true, exacting history. How does a primitive man comprehent technology? He cannot. So God told him what he needed to know in parables. Having parables also ensures that the meaning of the story is not changed; man can change a story by accident or design, but if told a parable, will likely not change it.

So yes, I believe that there was a Garden of Eden, flaming sword, flourish of mankind, and so forth, but that Genesis isn’t to be taken in a purely literal sense, but in the sense in which it was intended.

I also believe in science, evolution and logic, I believe that God planted the seeds and waited for their fruition. Perhaps Adam and Eve were the first self-aware, intelligent apes. I believe that the destruction of the garden, marked by the ‘flaming sword’ likely denotes nuclear devestation. Is there evidence of past nuclear activity in the Sahara Desert? That is near the rivers three, Africa is where mankind is supposed to have arisen from, and a sandy wasteland would be the result of complete and total nuclear devestation, after many millenia of erosion. I also believe that there is likely a large amount of inspired writing by the Joseph Smith et al. I think that perhaps the original sin was not taking advantage of the freedom of choice with which we were imbuned, that is, following the lead of another without thinking for yourself. I also think that perhaps the “Tree of Life” and “Tree of Knowledge” were perhaps two sides of the same coin, the same plant. Marijuana, maybe? I don’t know. Or course, I may just be crazy. :wink:

–Tim

19

(Beeeeeeep) Hi. This is God. I’m away from the Universe for the moment, but if you’ll leave your name and petition or praise, I’ll get back to you. Have a nice life. (Click)

20

Hmm, I realize that with my last post to this thread, I’ve possibly diverted a good thread into a super-freak-out. Sorry. You can ignore my rather odd ravings if you’d prefer. :slight_smile:

–Tim