stopped 9/11. he's either those things and complicit in evil
or not all powerful which discredits christianity. humans did the evil deed with free will, BUT what about the victims free will?
2006-09-11 22:54:50 · 8 answers · asked by unitedkchap44 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
According to the Bible, God does not just fail to prevent such disasters, He actually created floods, plagues and so on to punish Man. That isn't anything I want to worship.
2006-09-11 23:01:13 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
“ The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are able and willing.If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can but will not, then they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent..Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, why does it exist? ” -Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
Freewill doesn't play into this at all. We are talking about god's actions not our own. If god can stick his arm down here and do anything at all, then he is responsible for evil. The same as a cop would be responsible for knowingly letting a murderer go free.
Believers claim all the time that god answers prayers, helped a football team win, cured cancer, called someone "home"..but he couldn't have given the hijackers a heart attack or something?
I firmly believe that, given the powers that the God of the Bible supposedly has, any average 8 year old kid could do a better job at running the universe.
2006-09-12 06:14:52 · answer #2 · answered by AiW 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
While I understand your thinking, and empathize with the loved ones of the victims, your thought process is seriously flawed.
The only perfect man to ever walk the face of this Earth was ridiculed, spat on, savagely beaten until bleeding, stripped, tortured with a wreath of thorns, forced to drag a HEAVY wooden cross through the streets, nailed to it, and hung there for hours until he agonizingly bled/suffocated to death. All this as a sacrifice for crimes that He did not commit, and in the end asked God to FORGIVE the very ones who murdered Him.
Therefore, no one on this earth can say that they were short changed.
When it comes to being humans with free will, either we are or we are not. That means either we are COMPLETELY free to choose good or evil, or we are puppets on strings no longer responsible for our actions. There is no in between.
"Would" and "could" are two separate things. The fact that God would not, does not mean that God could not. God could have stopped the four planes on 9/11, but so could we had we as a nation been more alert and less "politically correct". Just because God chooses to act, or not to act, does not mean that there is a single limitation to what He can do. Terrorists have been hijacking planes for decades. Is it God's fault that the FAA didn't mandate steel doors on airplane cabins until after 9/11? Whose fault is it that Pres Clinton ignored a document on his desk (later stolen by Sandy Berger from the National Archives) with a written note in the margin that referred to using planes as weapons?
The WTC was bombed in 1993, so anyone who chose to work there knew of the real possibility that it could happen again. I was in the Army at the time of the first attempt, and the consensus among virtually everyone that I knew was that the terrorists would take another shot. The question was not "if" but "when". Several of us lower enlisted soldiers at lunch one day in about 1995 came to the conclusion that the best way to take down the WTC was to hijack a plane and fly it into the buildings. Were we the only four persons in America who could figure this out? Is it God's fault that no one in power in the USA acted on what was so obvious?
If you will actually pick up and read the Bible, preferably with the guidance of someone knowledgeable about the book, you will see that evil has persisted for thousands of years, and innocent Christians have suffered some of the worst abuse.
Also keep in mind that you, I, and every human on this Earth is of extremely limited understanding and intellectual ability compared to God. In our present state, we could not possibly understand the Lord's rationale even if we could know all the necessary information.
2006-09-12 06:38:05 · answer #3 · answered by L96vette 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Free will is free will and it doesnt mean those TERRORIST cannot hurt those victims. FREE WILL IS NOT FREEDOM TO HURT OTHERS.
Yes, God is loving. And He is also just. And He is also alpowerful/almighty. Why would we even start to think that He thinks the way we do? Or reason like us?
When human sinned against God, death entered the world. By our own free will, we also have sinned against God(in one way/one time or another though not to say that those caused their death) and though God's heart is broken everytime we sin, He doesnt stop us because we do them by our free will. The sin also made this world imperfect so while we are here, expect things like those to happen. But remember THAT GOD IS JUST, and one day, there will be punishment for people who did not lay their sins on the one sacrifice God gave.
And please do not equate death to punishment because death is sure to come on anyone in one way or another. And death, by the way, is God's way of taking people to Him, those who believed in His Son that is.
2006-09-12 05:56:20 · answer #4 · answered by bestfriend 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
As long as you are searching God out there, wanting him to intervene in human affairs, you are adhering to delusional thinking.
God is not outside of us, and nothing is outside of God.
2006-09-12 06:08:27 · answer #5 · answered by wuwei 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
God is a myth.
2006-09-12 05:57:06 · answer #6 · answered by eva b 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
if they are in heaven they are better off you. if not, They have lost their chance to be better off than you.
2006-09-12 06:00:29 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
huh?
2006-09-12 06:00:25 · answer #8 · answered by keshiasen 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋