| | God's Will, or not?Page 1 of 2 (1, 2) | You probably heard the reports of an awful bus crash in Texas yesterday, 15 Vietnamese Catholic pilgrims died. No doubt these were well-meaning people, excited to be together and believing they were doing God's work. They were actively following their beliefs, and perhaps could therefore be called more committed to their religion than most people.
Despite that, an all-powerful god, either by action or inaction, allowed them to die a violent death. It seems wasteful, pointless and not in God's best interests. Is it not reasonable that we should ask why God should allow or cause such a thing? Saying there's a reason we can't know because He works in mysterious ways isn't a answer, of course. What lesson is God teaching when those committed followers die horribly while the corrupt and worse are left untouched, and they thrive?
Is the lesson - don't think about things, you couldn't possibly understand? If so, what is the Bible for? How are we supposed to know what to do? | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 6:39:58 AM | | Death... the one common destiny of us all. No one knows what tomorrow will bring and still wisdom is better than folly. Still, no one remembers when the poor but wise man saves the day. God is, to me, like the poor but wise man always stepping in to save the day, but this is never remembered. Wisdom is despised and the foolish are ruled by folly... not willing to admit there own humanity they replace grace and faith with an unanswerable why. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 6:46:45 AM | | assuming god even exists, what makes you think he is a cosmic santa claus whose duty is to save everyone from misfortune, punish evil doers and pass out goodies to all good xtians?? | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 6:49:18 AM | Couldnt have said it better Stat 
And who says these men, these women were more worthy than the child of a junkie hit by a stray bullet?
It was still a life.
My personal view is....that busload of people believed they were going to a greater good.
The child probably just screamed in disbelief and died in pain.
Keep it real.
Just because TV sensationalises certain events (that sell their advertising) it doesnt mean god does.
And you might have missed all the nasty people who died today. The ones you wouldnt give a second thought to, care about, or maybe even go so far as saying "yes but they dont count".
Sorry. Yes they do.
He who sits in judgement of his fellow man will in turn be judged also by his god.
(something to keep in mind) | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 7:09:15 AM | Thanks for your insights, though you seem to be attacking the question rather than suggesting an answer.
Statueman, your answer is good and pleasing in a philosophical sense - there is no Why, there just Is - is that what you're saying? But what is God's role in this? Are we not allowed to ask questions, must all be blind faith? Is there nothing to discuss?
As for him being Santa, if he's not going to do good for his loyal followers, why would they follow him? Religions do, I'd remind you, routinely promise their followers plenty of goodies (though usually not soon!). And it is not my assumption that there is a god.
Champrins, wouldn't you agree that most religious people who use the Bible as a guide to morality would say that the pilgrims are more worthy and less sinful than a junkie hit by a stray bullet? I agree that all lives are equal, my question is aimed at those who think that God's followers are doing God's work, and asking why he'd allow loyal and especially diligent servants to do horribly. That worse and better things happened isn't the question.
Also, please correct me if I'm wrong - isn't the story that God will sit in judgement upon us whether we judge others or not? And are you not judging me, rather than my question? | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 7:17:57 AM | Buddy. If you have a problem with christians. Instead of going around trying to prove they are all a mob of numb nuts, why dont you just sit down with yourself and decide what you DO want, and what DOES work for you, and go do it.
Nobody is holding a gun to your head to try and make you BE a christian nor ACT like one.
But quit provoking and attacking those who do, just because you dont.
Exactly the same disease in my opinion.
Gods will? I thought the christian god handed free will back to humans. But then again, what would I know? | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 7:27:54 AM | My dear but increasingly angry champrins
- people are indeed trying to convince me and others to join their religions
- you are not even attempting to answer the question, just attacking me
- if you're so easily provoked by a simple question, I advise you to ignore it rather than attack the questioner. Nobody is holding a gun to your head, to coin a phrase, forcing you into a discussion.
Nevertheless, I'm glad you think of me as your buddy. Unless...you weren't being sarcastic, were you? | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 10:04:21 AM | Accidents happen. Most caused by man, not God. Not everything that happens on the earth has been caused by God's will. If you believe in God, you must believe in the devil as well. Which means, that if the crash was caused by something supernatural or religious perhaps it was the devil instead.
I just don't buy that everything that happens in this world is because of "God". Man makes mistakes too and can cause accidents to happen all on his own. I sat in on a World Vision concert once. And everything that went wrong with the singers during the day, they kept saying, "must be the devil at work". I say bs....people make things happen. We let these things happen...man needs to take responsibility for actions and not let a being that may or may not exist take blame for it. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 10:12:05 AM | | Everything happens for a reason, sometimes we can't know the why because we can't know what God knows. This goes back to the age old question "why does God let bad things happen to good people", well if nothing bad ever happened would we recognise, or more importantly would we appreciate the good things in life? Life is a rocky road, a road of trial & error & if we don't learn it's lessons & hold on to a few regrets we never truely live. That's my view anyway;^] | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 10:20:32 AM | | When one employs the logic "there is no god in the first place", questions like these are no longer puzzling. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 10:28:24 AM | If your faith is based on the premise that if we do good, then God will prevent bad things from happening to us, welcome to reality. Apparently that's not how it works. The question of why bad things happen to good people is a fundamental one in religion. Until you answer that in your mind, your faith will not endure adversity. You'll say "Thank God" when good things happen, then drop away when the "Celestial Servant" fails to come through.
A better approach, in my opinion, is to believe in God, but also believe that God gave us free-will. That the bad things that happen don't happen because God wills them, but because God sticks to the bargain. "If I interfere, you won't have free-will." Sometimes I think "He" must grit "His" figurative teeth. Must be hard sometimes to keep hands-off. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 10:29:03 AM | I agree that it gets messy when we attribute things to God's will or Satan's will. Was it Satan attacking or God testing and working in mysterious ways?
I disagree that if one believes in God they must also believe in Satan. (Though many traditions have noticed a positive and negative energy system of some sort.)
I disagree with the assumption that because the people who died were evangelical Christians, that they were "God's Servants" any more than almost anyone else.
I think of God's Will as the Highest Good. The will of the one who is able to see the highest good, if you prefer.
I think God, or Grace, can work all things that happen toward the highest good. But there is free will, and there is even chaos. But Grace kind of scoops up the events and weaves them back into the tapestry of the highest good.
I agree that saying "God works in mysterious ways" is a cop out.
However, I think it's clear that we don't know what is in the highest good all the time.
If a Lion prays for a successful hunt and a good meal, and Mr. Rabbit prays for safety from the Lion, and only one of them gets to have their prayer answered, which is for the highest good? Lion or Rabbit are certainly not in a position to know. They're a little biased.
If the woods are overpopulated with deer, Nature creates disease or they die from not enough food until things balance out again. The deer died for the highest good of the ecosystem.
We don't like to think of ourselves as part of an ecosystem, but we are. We get overpopulated, we drive cars, they get to close together, they crash. We raise the temperature of the planet, we get tsunamis, people die, and as painful as it is to us who are left here, it is helpful to the planetary ecosystem. It's very possible that the people who died feel neutral or good about being on the other side.
This whole business of saying, "It was God's will, and it's not for us to understand" is just a way of saying that there are other perspectives to consider, some of which might not occur to us now. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 10:42:24 AM | The lesson that God could be teaching us by allowing this bus crash and other unwanted events to take place is that he is strictly non-interventionist. This would explain why he also doesn't heal amputees, fix the global warming problem or end reality TV.
On the other hand, it could be that God does not exist and humans are no more favoured by events than are other species. Any examination of nature shows that animals constantly face cruel deaths in the face of circumstance. Usually the less fit individuals in a population suffer disproportionately from predation by other species. It is a driving force behind evolution.
These unfortunate Vietnamese people were not victims of predation but I'm guessing that neither did they have the economic means to each be the sole occupant of a high end BMW with anti lock brakes, all round airbags and other safety features. Even if they did have such means and took advantage of them, there would still be some chance of an individual driver facing some unpredictable life ending catastrophe.
I think it's fair to add that bus or train travel is probably safer on average than driving around in a car. I know there are occasional well publicised mishaps like this one and the case of the young man who was stabbed to death and decapitated on a bus in Canada, but for the majority of us, bus travel represents an excellent, relatively eco-friendly way of getting around. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 11:05:19 AM | | When I grow a colony of bacteria in a petri dish, I'm not overly concerned when a group of them dies off. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 11:23:00 AM | He probably needed them in heaven more than on earth
and probably couldn't wait for them to get old and die,
so he took them sooner than later. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 12:40:08 PM | | Oh hurrah, yet ANOTHER thread about the problem of evil. Is it beyond most people to understand that this topic has been brought up time and time again? They always see something bad and jump to start a threat about theodicy without checking to see the myriad other threads about the same problem. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 1:31:27 PM | | Man needs to take responsibility for actions of man - simply put. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 2:36:16 PM | | Apparently the name of the church is "Vietnamese Martyrs Church of Houston" so I guess even in death they couldn't escape irony.... | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 2:40:48 PM | | I don't think it should be any surprise that there are multiple threads on the topic of evil, when it is one of the timeless questions of humankind. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 2:47:40 PM |
I don't think it should be any surprise that there are multiple threads on the topic of evil, when it is one of the timeless questions of humankind.
The timelessness of the question is irrelevant, a redundant thread is a redundant thread.
Various topics concerning evil are fine, but the same question of theodicy is redundant. the only thing that ever changes between them is the circumstances which the OP uses to bring up the question. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 3:01:51 PM | Yeah, OK.
I guess I just don't like that particular forum rule about no redundant threads. Who wants to read 30 pages of posts before you can chime in? We're not trying to inventory the views of everyone in the world. We're here to have human conversation, which is always going to be redundant. Maybe there should be more subcategories to organize similar threads. I don't really understand the purpose of the non-redundancy rule. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 4:14:59 PM |
Thanks for your insights, though you seem to be attacking the question rather than suggesting an answer.
it does seem that way, but only because i'm not ready to suggest an answer yet :)
As for him being Santa, if he's not going to do good for his loyal followers, why would they follow him?
i think the general idea is that one's reward is in heaven. i.e., god does not waste his time worrying about material circumstances because they are ultimately irrelevant and meaningless. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 7:45:10 PM |
Statueman, your answer is good and pleasing in a philosophical sense - there is no Why, there just Is - is that what you're saying? But what is God's role in this? Are we not allowed to ask questions, must all be blind faith? Is there nothing to discuss?
12watch4
Thankyou. Actually I cheated and stole a couple of paraphrased ideas from Ecclesiastes. Guess there really is "nothing new under the sun". It does get to me that no New Testament references come to mind but I do believe that if you have a question God really doesn't mind you asking. I suppose there is something to discuss but the only New Testament reference that comes to mind I'm afraid won't really answer the question either. I submit it to you only as something that well... came to my mind
Luke 13
1There were present at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? 3I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. 4Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
After 9/11 this passage came to my mind. Please don't blast me if you don't see a connection but as I said I am only submitting to the thread what comes to my mind as a believer and student of Jesus and the words I believe are pretty accurately credited to him.
But for the first time let me say that some things do indeed seem to be a matter of faith. But there is no part of me that would agree that we shouldn't ask... Jesus said to "Ask, Seek and Knock" and Solomon said that it is God's glory to conceal a matter and a Kings glory to seek it out. So I suppose that the scientist and the philosophers and us forum posters are all like kings... seeking an answer. And I think we like doing it... seeking that Godlike view of things may seem arrogant to some. But I'm reasonably sure our Almighty creator gave us grace because of and not inspite of our individual everlasting why's. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 9:32:21 PM | | God can't control what happens and I have many reasons to believe that the lord works in mysterious ways. My friend got shot in a hunting accident and had an mri scan and in the scan, they fouind a tumor that, had it been left unscanned, it would have killed him, So god works in mysterious ways, he lived, BECAUSE he got shot. I don't see what happened as a coincidence, I see it as faith. he can't save everyone all the time. | |
|
| God's Will, or not?
Posted: 8/9/2008 10:46:07 PM | ^^^^^
Your friend's tumour being discovered sounds like pure good luck to me. If God purposely played a part by causing the accident, why didn't he do an even better job and shrink the tumour or prevent it growing in the first place.? Also, for reasons of consistency, shouldn't we hold God responsible for all accidental shootings that take place in the US? | |
|
Home
login 
