Anyway, here's a bit from the linked article: "Obama sought to show a swift and united disaster response with the United States as an assertive leader, but he said the effort must be an international one." Bush did more for Africa than any president before him (ask liberals Bono and Geldof, who know) and gee...did anybody in the media consider the States as an 'assertive leader' with Bush at the helm leading the crisis of AIDS and POVERTY? And, by the way, I completely agree with Obama on the "international" remark.
Pardon me for using a disaster to make a point about the media again (I'm usually not one to 'never let a serious crisis go to waste' as Rahm Emanuel famously advises), but I just beg for fairness in the media. AND........so much MORE importantly... Please pray for the Haitians....what a terrible disaster to a place which is so difficult in its best times.
z
335 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 335 of 335Faith,
I shouldn't have said he "blamed" God. I did not say he lost his faith. I simply meant he kept wondering why God was doing this to him and it's clear it was GOD who was doing it to him.
You're almost there.
Job did not wonder why God was doing anything evil to him, he wondered why God was no longer protecting him from the evils being done to him.
It is clear it was NOT God doing these evil things to Job, but allowing Satan to do them.
What I quoted is very clear that Job regarded it as God Himself who was doing these things to him. We know from the beginning of the book that Satan asked to be permitted to torture Job so of course Satan is the immediate doer, but Job is right to recognize that it is really God who is doing it. This bit about "losing his protections" is nowhere in the scripture. Find one place and quote it for me. It's not there. You're reading that into the scripture. Throughout Job speaks as if it is God doing it, and he keeps wondering why.
If you're going to quote the first part of the book where Satan says God has a hedge of protection around Job, that doesn't make the case. Literally it may be that God removed the hedge, but Satan can't do anything he pleases, God is always in control, and Job ALWAYS speaks as if it is God who is doing these things to him. He doesn't blame God, but he wants to be able to make his case to God because he doesn't see why he deserves this.
Faith,
I think you're missing the buildup to the climatic point where God does confront Job.
You're missing that Job never accused God of wrongdoing. Job's "why me, Lord?" suffering came to the point that he even cursed the day of his own birth, but he never, ever, once challenged God's authority or considered God unjust or rebuked his grace.
Job simply wanted to know why God had abandoned him to Satan's devices.
Job's seeming "blame of God" for his misfortunes are spoken in context as hypotheticals in response to his friends who continually chided him in his misfortunes that he "obviously" had brought God's judgement upon him, that he had sinned, and needed to confess and repent of it.
Throughout, Job answered them with questions. He had no sin to repent of, at least as such that he could remember. He knew himself to be a faithful servant of God. His friends did as well. None could point out a sin he needed to confess and repent. Job's righteousness could not be adequately questioned by his peers. Even God (to Satan) honored Job as the most righteous of his servants on Earth.
Job could find no explanation for "why God would do" such horrible things to him in light of the fact of his faithful service and righteous living. Job outright rejected the ideas of his friends that the evils that had befallen him were the judgement of the God he served.
It can't be much more clear than that. He knew God's grace had been removed from him. He did not know why, and the justifications from his peers that presumed to speak for God on the matter still came up short on answering why.
And when God finally answers, the first thing He did was rebuke and shame those who presumed to speak for God, those that mocked Job in his misfortunes as a sinner deserving of his fate.
And then he turned to Job to rebuke him for presuming to question the mind of God, a righteous mortal but not a perfect mortal. And Job covered his mouth in shame that such questioning ever passed his lips, even as hypotheticals to his peers that presumed to speak for God.
Even Jesus, dying on the cross, cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
To be forgotten by God is the most horrible thing that could happen to someone. It is hell, literally.
But Job in his lifetime, even through his tortures at the hands of Satan, was the most righteous man on Earth. His faith in God never wavered. He had selfish questions for God, sure. But he never cursed God to his face.
Satan can do anything he pleases to anyone not protected by God. Satan can not, however, break the faith of a truly righteous man.
And God most certainly is not in control of whether or not a free-willed being is righteous or not.
God rewards faith, not robots.
I have some disagreements with how you read the Job situation, but it's not worth pursuing. It's not relevant to what we were discussing about Haiti, which I'm claiming is about how God deals with nations, not individuals. Haiti is not a righteous nation that could be compared with Job, anyway, and the idea that God sent this devastating earthquake to prove their righteousness as He allowed suffering for Job would make for a ludicrous motive.
The problem here for me is that you keep characterizing my belief that God judged Haiti for their false religion which amounts to witchcraft as saying "they deserved it" and other nasty ways you've characterized my statements. If you just don't want to hear about reasons for it while they are suffering, that I could understand. If you just disagree with my reasons, let's just leave it at that. But you are way out of line the way you are denouncing me for attitudes you are imputing to me falsely, as if I'm putting myself above them, wishing them to suffer, not caring if they suffer, and so on and so forth, and the way you were flinging around the foul language.
In other words: Job never practiced witchcraft. Job WAS a righteous man. To compare him to Haiti is beyond ludicrous both because he's an individual and Haiti a nation, and because he's righteous and Haiti is not.
Just did a complete annotation of that article on the "fatalism" in Haiti's voodoo at my blog, if you want to see my take on it:
psi bond: You said this "The point you seek to obfuscate in this thread by irrelevantly rambling on about abortion doctor killers, Muslims, supposedly fair comparisons of Christianity and Islam, clamoring about who got there first (as if you can really know that), and God-knows-what-else---is the fact that some Christians believe it is irreverently countering God’s will to interfere (using modern methods) with what God is thought to have done. As you said, “It's the silliest and cruelest of conjectures, “ and happily it is. I think, a relatively rare one.
Nonetheless, personalizing it to the scope of your own experience can serve only as a high-handed tactic of dismissal.
There are none so blind as they who see only what is around them."
your tone saddens me for you....you try so hard to hurt but it only reflects so badly on yourself.
Try to engage in conversation without the innuendos and assumptions; it's terribly unattractive, says a lot about you that you'd probably rather not show, and promotes no intelligent or mature discussion.
He does try hard to hurt, doesn't he? Picks words to hurt, not to be accurate. Makes conversation very difficult.
Faith,
I wasn't comparing Haiti's plight to Job's, or even Haitian righteousness (or lack thereof) to Job's righteousness.
I was, however pointing out God's rebuke of the "wise men" who attempted, in Job's time of suffering, to cloak themselves in self-appointed "moral authority" to presume to speak for God to mock Job's humiliation as a judgment from God for unconfessed sins.
If there's any subtle lesson in Job that stands out neon bright in front of the others, it's that "moral authority" coming out of the mouth of anyone but God alone is presumptuous at best and blasphemous at worst.
"Concerning The Rejection of Flawed Human Moral Authority in Theodicies" could be the subtitle of the book of Job. That's what it's about, after all. Most of the dialogues in the book of Job consists of foolish "wise men" kicking Job while he's down.
I think that even the fact that Job wasn't an Israelite just hammers that point in some much deeper.
And so, who were the "wise men" to presume to judge Job in crisis as "suffering the will and punishment from God?"
And who are you, Faith, to presume to judge Haiti in crisis with the same self-styled God impersonations?
I mentioned before that every judgement from God in the Bible came after a warning and a call to repentance.
The Haitian earthquake was not a judgement from God. It was an earthquake suffered by people who are now hearing "that's what you get for pissing off God" and "See, God's a tyrant" from modern day Eliphazs, Bildads, and Zophars. Where are the Elihus?
That's sad.
Oh brother. Oh well, now I get your complaint, guess I'm slow.
So, let me get this clear. Since they are as pure as Job, Haiti is going to protest that they aren't sinning with their voodoo and their other superstitions so anybody who suggests that God judges nations for such things, though it's right there in the Bible that He does, will in fact BE judged by God as a false friend like Job's friends.
Got it. I disagree. End of subject.
As for God's warnings, there were some warnings before 9/11, and perhaps there were even some warnings to Haiti, I don't know, and neither do you, but there is really no reason to think God still issues warnings the way He did in the Bible. Where is your evidence for that? However, I do think that any preacher in Haiti who DIDN'T point out that God has a bone to pick with their false religions would be very remiss. Perhaps there WERE some giving warning from the pulpits beforehand. You, however, would reject such a warning, wouldn't you, and denounce the preacher-prophet as false. I'm sure you reject the idea that America is coming under judgment too and would ignore all the warnings from preachers who list the reasons God should judge this nation. You don't care about warnings. You just reject the whole idea of God's judgment.
Elijah prayed for famine to judge Israel for their idolatries. After three years and his killing of the prophets of Baal he prayed for the famine to be lifted. During the famine do you think he politely refused to say that it was judgment on the land?
Didn't Daniel confess the sins of Israel that had brought them under captivity in Babylon? Did he politely decline to call it God's judgment for their sins?
Didn't Jeremiah weep for the destruction of Jerusalem, and for the sins that had brought it on them? Their suffering was horrendous. Did he politely decline to call it God's judgment. He wept his eyes out for his people but he never denied it was God's judgment.
There is no comparison whatever with these situations and Job's with his friends.
You don't like God's judgments, it seems, and don't want to hear about them.
Oh, and I'll say one more time that this way of characterizing my beliefs is scurrilous, cheap and mean:
The Haitian earthquake was not a judgement from God. It was an earthquake suffered by people who are now hearing "that's what you get for pissing off God" and "See, God's a tyrant" from modern day Eliphazs, Bildads, and Zophars. Where are the Elihus?"
YOU think God's a tyrant, apparently, I don't, far from it. I think He's longsuffering with people who ignore His warnings time and time again, for years, decades, centuries, before He finally has to bring judgment. And I don't think in the crass terms you think in such as "that's what you get," there isn't one iota of such a punitive attitude in me, but obviously there is in you.
For God to issue warnings, there have to be people who can hear his warnings and convey them. This was the case with the prophets of Israel. Some pagans even have some sense of God's doings, but it's much rarer and less clear. In general pagan lands get judged all the time without being warned because there is no one to warn them. But the disasters, the judgments, occur anyway.
Job 13:15 gives the crux of these arguments neatly and succinctly:
"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him."
~ King James Version
Either one accepts that and lives accordingly, or one does not. Either way suffering and deprivation of one kind or another are inevitable. Faith of the quality of Job's makes it more bearable that's all.
Whether you believe in Him or not, ultimately there's no arguing with God (Truth). He always has the last word, even though you may refuse to hear it.
~ FreeThinke
Faith,
So, let me get this clear. Since they are as pure as Job, Haiti is going to protest that they aren't sinning with their voodoo and their other superstitions so anybody who suggests that God judges nations for such things, though it's right there in the Bible that He does, will in fact BE judged by God as a false friend like Job's friends.
No, you're not getting it clear at all.
Try this:
Eliphaz came at Job with the point of view that no truly righteous man could suffer as Job was suffering, thus there must be some secret, concealed sin of Job's motivating God to punish him.
Bildad started out in sympathy for Job but became an accuser, demanding to know what Job was hiding that God would punish him so.
Zophar went from comforter to droning on and on to Job in his suffering about the consequences of a life of sin.
Elihu was angry and frustrated with the prior three's preening gall to speak assumptions of God's mind, sitting silent and listening to the elders pontificate on God's judgement and their exaggerated sense of moral authority until he could contain himself no further. And he went off on them, for a good five chapters of the book of Job. He takes the others to task on their interpretations of divine providence and that adversities and troubles are a time to turn to God even more.
And when God finally weighed in on the matter:
After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job's prayer.
God reclaimed his moral authority from Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar's pretentions to it, and sent them packing. He was so angry with them he wouldn't even hear their prayers - he told them to have Job perform the sacrifice on their behalf!
[Note that God had nothing to say to Elihu to take away or add to his five chapter rant against Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. Elihu had it correct from start to finish.]
You might even take a lesson away from the names of the characters, as the meaning of names in the Hebrew Bible often contain lessons about the character's role themselves:
Eliphaz = "god of gold"
Bildad = "old friendship"
Zophar = "chirping bird"
Elihu = "He is my God"
And it fits. Eliphaz was concerned that prosperity is a mark of righteousness. Bildad was compassionate, yet became convinced there was something Job was hiding. Zophar droned on and on incessantly.
And Elihu said nothing that displeased God when he tore down those moral authoritarians while reminding of God's providence in all things.
-----
When you're proclaiming the Haitian earthquake to be a punishment for the wicked, you're being an Eliphaz, a Bildad, a Zophar.
Be an Elihu.
Oh I got it, beamish. There is no comparison between national guilt and the situation with Job and I've shown you that but you won't pay attention. You simply reject God's judgments, that's the end of it.
Funny thing is that YOU are the moral authoritarian here.
Good grief, beamish, Job's friends had to MAKE UP stuff about how he must have sinned because there wasn't the slightest sign of any of it. There is no such problem with the nation of Haiti. There's something wrong with your head, sorry. You just want to point the finger at me for some reason. Hate God's judgments I guess. Best I can do with it.
Psi bond...i just saw a comment about moderation and it had nothing to do with this thread or you, don't flatter yourself...it was a very serious threat and it's over for now.
Also, you said "The point you seek to obfuscate in this thread by irrelevantly rambling on about abortion doctor killers, Muslims, supposedly fair comparisons of Christianity and Islam, clamoring about who got there first (as if you can really know that), and God-knows-what-else---is the fact that some Christians believe it is irreverently countering God’s will to interfere (using modern methods) with what God is thought to have done. As you said, “It's the silliest and cruelest of conjectures, “ and happily it is. I think, a relatively rare one.
Nonetheless, personalizing it to the scope of your own experience can serve only as a high-handed tactic of dismissal."
Don't speak to me or anyone else like this again.
TESTING.
I HAVE POSTED TWO COMMENTS AND THEY HAVEN'T PUBLISHED.
Faith,
I don't reject God's judgements.
I reject YOU being able to tell the difference between a judgement from God and an earthquake with anything resembling clarity or certainty.
Go ahead. Name a judgement from God upon a nation that didn't target specific things (plagues of locusts eating crops, all firstborn children slain, etc.) or didn't slaughter everyone in that judgement save for a few allowed to escape (Sodom and Gamorrah, Noah's Flood, etc.)
You are wrong. Dead wrong. Nonsensically wrong. The Haitian earthquake was no judgement from God, despite your repugnant, self-serving, zealous bigotry towards Haitians and their religions to wish it were so.
The Haitian earthquake would have happened regardless of the nature and character and religion of the people on the island there. It would have happened even if no people were there.
That's the bottom line.
you're making a distinction that because Job is a individual that God would act differently
nations are made up of individuals and a border is something we put on the map
If one cannnot determine why God would allow good or bad things to happen to individuals the only difference is the scale, consider that He would have saved Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction if there had been one righteous person
when dealing with people, His grace (unmerited favor) is doled out despite what's on our ledger, otherwise Jesus died for naught
It rains on both the wicked and the righteous
Faith and Beamish:
I don't think anyone can state categorically as a fact that the Haitian earthquake was a judgment from God or just an unfortunate natural turn of events since neither of you are God nor are you privy to God's mind.
WHY it happened is not the important thing. THAT it happened is what we need to focus on.
It might well be a judgment of God, but it might just as possibly not be. In either case, it's not for us to say.
so I would humbly submit that if one cannot know why God would allow certain things to happen to individuals why would we attempt to prescribe a reason for a group of individuals
BTW Faith, if God makes elects certain people and not others why would God punish someone who has no choice in whether they choose Him or not? or to repent?
isn't election the Calvinist view?
Go ahead. Name a judgement from God upon a nation that didn't target specific things (plagues of locusts eating crops, all firstborn children slain, etc.) or didn't slaughter everyone in that judgement save for a few allowed to escape (Sodom and Gamorrah, Noah's Flood, etc.)
Are you kidding? I already named the famine in Elijah's time, and the Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem. I'll also name the Assyrian captivity after which all the ten tribes of Israel were dispersed. There was also the destruction by Titus in 70AD.
And why are you making such distinctions anyway? How do the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the flood of Noah in which only a few escaped not serve as a model for God's judgment? Why are you excepting them? Most people excape most judgments. So what? They're all God's judgments. They come in many different forms. A plague of locusts, a flood, fire and brimstone, an earthquake.
The Haitian earthquake would have happened regardless of the nature and character and religion of the people on the island there. It would have happened even if no people were there.
Couldn't one say that a plague of locusts also would happen regardless of the nature of the people and religion somewhere? Or gee, maybe Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by a natural disaster and God had nothing to do with it. You call one type of disaster judgment and for some ridiculous reason exempt another from the same label.
Such as earthquakes. Here's a PROPHECY of a judgment by earthquake along with a lot of other kinds of destruction, in Isaiah 29:6 Thou shalt be visited of the LORD of hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise, with storm and tempest, and the flame of devouring fire. God says He will cause this earthquake, not to mention the thunder and storm and fire. Read the whole chapter. This is God's judgment being described. Very likely that was the prophecy of the earthquake described in Amos 1:1 and Zechariah 14:5 that had occurred by then.
And how about Revelation 11:13 which is also prophecy of God's judgment to come: 13 And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven.
You are wrong. Dead wrong. Nonsensically wrong. The Haitian earthquake was no judgement from God, despite your repugnant, self-serving, zealous bigotry towards Haitians and their religions to wish it were so.
And there you go again with the nasty evil-speaking. I have no bigotry toward Haitians and you are a liar to twist what I've said into that -- just like any leftist I might add, who finds "hate speech" in anything biblical.
I certainly DO have an objection to their satanic religions, and so should you if you are a Christian in any sense at all, which I seriously doubt.
You liken me to Job's friends; I'll liken you to those who persecuted and killed the prophets because they didn't like what the prophets told them.
Mt 23:31
Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Lu 11:47
Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
Matthew 5:11-12 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Z, you've mentioned something about losing a post a few times now. You may be writing a post that is too long for the software. You'll get a message in red under the writing box if so, that says you are limited to such and such a number of characters or something like that.
If that is the problem, you just need to split the message up and post parts of it separately.
Here is how I do it: Highlight the lower half of the message and cut it -- don't "delete," but "cut" so it will be saved. Post the rest. Then paste in the part you've cut and post that.
Look at Job's woes.
His wealth of livestock was stolen, his servants enslaved or slaughtered, his children killed when his son's house fell upon them, his flesh blackened with painful boils. His wife told him to "curse God and die." His friends became accusers.
God didn't steal Job's livestock. God didn't enslave or kill his servants. God didn't collapse a house on his family. God didn't raise boils on Job's flesh. God didn't make Job's wife challenge Job's faith. God didn't lead his friends to accuse him.
None of Job's woes came from God, and some of them came from the free will choices of humans trying to interpret what they saw in Job as a punishment from God.
The only judgement from God whatsoever in the book of Job is God's rebuke of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, where he would not accept their prayers and sacrifices for forgiveness unless Job offered them on their behalf.
Note also that Job was not required of God to make those sacrifices on behalf of his friends. Job had free will in that as well.
Job retained his righteousness through and through. And God knew he would. God believed in Job even when Satan had made it difficult (but not impossible) for Job to believe in God.
God or religion. Job chose God.
Elbro I didn't say that God would necessarily ACT differently with individuals, I just say it's an entirely different case and I'm not talking about individuals. I don't judge individuals at all ever. I often know when I'm being chastised by God, and we SHOULD know that, but only for ourselves, not for others.
The Bible itself talks of nations all the time. God doesn't treat nations as defined by arbitrary borders but as families or tribes or covenanted entities, and all through the OT you'll find Him identifying this or that nation's sins and the judgment He is going to bring against it. The USA is a covenanted nation.
Nations are not subject to grace, only individuals are. Jesus died for individuals, not nations. Individuals may die in a general judgment and yet not be personally judged but saved, as certainly must have happened to many on 9/11 and in Haiti as well. No, nations and individuals are not the same thing and should not be treated the same. A nation is not just a group of individuals. A nation may come under judgment while individuals are dealt with very individually even in that same event. Or a nation may be blessed while evil individuals are judged. Either. I don't ever say that God is punishing the Haitians. God deals with the Haitians as individuals. Some of those individuals are more responsible for Haiti's plight than others and they may be especially punished in this event, but I don't know that and it may not be true. Often the wicked escape. God knows why. But I do think individuals should recognize that we are a collective when it comes to our membership in a nation. As Americans I think we should all individually own up to and repent for the sins of America as having brought 9/11 upon us.
God's raining on the wicked and the righteous is a description of God's kindness to all on this earth; it has nothing to do with the grace that saves. Two will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left...
I don't want to get into a discussion of Calvinism. I don't make a big deal out of it and certainly don't reject Arminians. But beamish was attacking me for Calvinist beliefs. Some Calvinist ideas are hard for people to digest. There's no point in worrying it all to death.
Job treated all his suffering as coming directly from God and if you think not you don't know how to read. That's all I'm going to say about this. I'm through with this discussion with you, beamish.
Mark: I don't think anyone can state categorically as a fact that the Haitian earthquake was a judgment from God or just an unfortunate natural turn of events since neither of you are God nor are you privy to God's mind.
There is no such thing as an event that happens by chance. It is all in God's will. I can state flatly that the earthquake in Haiti was God's judgment and I do so on the basis of knowing God's mind because He has revealed it to us in His word, and ANY Christian who knows the Bible IS privy to God's mind and is intended to be.
I'm through with this discussion. Some people here, one in particular, have behaved abominably and is not going to change his mind. But I've said my piece whether anybody reads it or believes it or not.
God's raining on the wicked and the righteous is a description of God's kindness to all on this earth;.....
it's a description of how bad things can happen to good people
so it's not because of His gracious longsuffering that we haven't had the same calamities befall us?
Nations are not subject to grace, only individuals are.
and what of Nineveh? what if there had been one righteous man in Sodom and Gomorrah, God would have not destroyed it. Grace most certainly does apply to nations.
God knows why.
wow my point entirely
I thought you'd whip out Romans 9 to the Calvinist question.
Elbro, if you really want to go on discussing this, let's do it by email, OK? Bring that last post into email if you want an answer to it.
Thanks.
if this 'judgement' from God was a foregone conclusion then there was no way the Haitians could have avoided it anyway.
faith...I'm done too.
Mark,
I don't think anyone can state categorically as a fact that the Haitian earthquake was a judgment from God or just an unfortunate natural turn of events since neither of you are God nor are you privy to God's mind.
That's precisely where I'm at. I wouldn't dare to even suggest the Haitian earthquake is a judgment from God, nor as a mortal sinner with faith in God's grace and salvation begin ticking off "reasons" to believe it is a judgement from God.
I see people suffering and in need of assistance. Others see evil Satanic black witchcraft practitioners getting their holy come-uppance.
I'd like to think my perspective is the Christian one.
If it's not, I'd gladly renounce Christianity. My relationship with God is too important to be involved with a religion that has absolutely nothing to do with Him.
I'm not giving up Christianity, so...
WHY it happened is not the important thing. THAT it happened is what we need to focus on.
It might well be a judgment of God, but it might just as possibly not be. In either case, it's not for us to say.
Precisely. The Biblical model has always had a prophet of God come warning of coming judgements. Jesus is held to be the last prophet.
I've not checked the TV lately, but I don't think Jesus came back before the Haitian earthquake.
I have absolutely no lack of sympathy for people undergoing judgment, I have much sympathy for them. You read evil motives and attitudes into my perfectly straight statement that the earthquake was judgment. That makes you a liar.
And a really pernicious evil liar too. Your way of twisting my factual neutral conclusions about God's judgment is evil, really evil, as bad as psi bond, which is really saying something.
Faith,
I read you claiming to know the Haitian earthquake was a judgement from God and that His reasons for it have to do with voodoo cults. You are sold, self-convinced that that is the indisputable fact.
You must know God's mind better than anyone here. How dare us challenge your moral authority?
Those people killed in Haiti deserved to die. The surviving people suffering, crying out for assistance? Ah well, they've just got overblown senses of entitlement. Besides, if they live through this tragedy, that's just a bunch of Satanic voodoo hucksters and charlatans that God's gonna have to finish off later, "in the fullness of time."
Repugnancy. That's what I get from your view, Faith.
People like you drove me out of church and towards God.
You have a twisted mind, Beamish. you are determined to find fault where there is none. You read into what I've written your own twisted repugnant self. I've said nothing like what you impute to me. You don't know how to separate fact from attitude. Go take a flying leap you evil liar.
Repugnancy. That's what I get from your view, Faith.
No, it's what you get from your own evil imagination, not my view, which you haven't yet grasped.
Faith,
I've grasped your view well enough to know it is diametrically opposed to a Christian view.
Look at you. Just look at you. Not only are you puffed up and certain that the Haitian earthquake was in fact a judgment from God, you're ready to tick off justifications for it: Haitians are Satan worshippers. Their faith in voodoo has sparked God's wrath. God justifiably killed 200,000+ people so you could get on the internet and pontificate about how right your views are and how wrong Haitians are. How whatever Calvinist Christian (oxymoron alert) rituals they avoid in the coming days will only prolong their suffering, and adherence to voodoo will keep them in non-recovery.
That's quite a lot of biowaste coming from a "elect" sectarian that theologically doesn't believe the Haitians have the free will to turn away from voodoo in the first place.
So, a false counsel calls me a liar.
God be praised.
I'm not the slightest bit puffed up. That's your evil imagination, just as it is your evil imagination that I in any way delight in others' sufferings. What an uncharitable piece of work you are. What I've said is to my mind nothing but simple truth. And now you are lying about Calvinism, because of course you don't understand it any better than you understand anything I've said here, but you don't have the humility to recognize that no matter how many times I try to show it to you. You are content with your own unbelievably evil twisted imagination.
You are committing a terrible sin here. I hope you will see the light eventually, repent and be forgiven.
I can certainly see why some people would say the earthquake is a judgment from God.
There is a lot of Satanic influence in Haiti. But there is a lot of Satanic influence elsewhere, too.
I won't say God didn't create the earthquake, and I won't say He didn't.
All I'm saying is that to attribute something, anything, to God without knowing it for a fact is presumptuous at best.
As I said, it's better to consider not why it happened than it is to acknowledge that it did happen, and then do what we can to help the victims. In that way, we show God's love and forgiveness by letting His gracious light shine through us.
The history of the Jewish people is an excellent example of a great nation continually cycling through disobedience of God, judgment, and repentance, over and over again.
Time and time again the Hebrew children rebelled against God, repented, and been forgiven, and still God loves and protects them.
But then, the Jews are His chosen people. Things might not go so well for the Haitians.
Or Americans, for that matter.
Ask the Philistines, if you can find any.
It may be better to avoid such discussions altogether, Mark, I don't know. I know they just come up and I have a strong opinion about it so I give it. People are always asking in the midst of a disaster, "How could God have done this?" and I'm not going to say God didn't do it, or give some wishywashy answer. That doesn't necessarily mean they have to be hit over the head with the message of judgment either. A vague evasive answer may be best under some circumstances. But if I'm asked in a neutral context the answer I give is the one I've given here. I don't see any alternative explanation. It can't be chance, it can't be nature acting on its own, God is sovereign over all things, He doesn't do anything for frivolous reasons, so judgment is the explanation. And then it seems fair to consider what you know about a nation's situation as reason for the judgment. If you know many practice voodoo and the powers that be approve it, the church and the state both, which is apparently the case in Haiti, that's a really really good guess. There are no doubt many other things. I can come up with a long list for American of course, but I don't know enough about Haiti. As for why not other places that also have satanic practices -- it's all in God's timing, what can I say? He'll get to them. If you know of any you should tell them of their danger so maybe they can repent and save themselves from judgment.
Faith, God is in control. That doesn't necessarily mean he always sends disasters on the wicked. It means that whatever disaster should befall us, deservedly or not, He is Who we turn to when all seems lost, and He will comfort us.
Are you just as anxious to call it God's judgment if, God forbid, something catastrophic should happen to you?
I welcome all conversations and encourage everyone NOT to avoid discussions like this; I thought it was very good... with smart people and interesting points of view. I'm proud to have most of you here.
Thanks very much.
Mark said...
Faith, God is in control. That doesn't necessarily mean he always sends disasters on the wicked. It means that whatever disaster should befall us, deservedly or not, He is Who we turn to when all seems lost, and He will comfort us.
Mark....so well said..thanks very much. He is who we turn to; sometimes I think THAT's why bad things happen, as a matter of fact.
Your welcome, Z.
Here's a thought:
Perhaps this earthquake was God's way of demonstrating to us Who is really in control.
Or not.
Are you just as anxious to call it God's judgment if, God forbid, something catastrophic should happen to you?
I'm not "anxious" about any of this.
I certainly do consider whether I'm under chastisement or not. I pray about such things until I understand them.
But I am not talking about individuals, I am ONLY talking about nations, and there is no other explanation but judgment in the case of a disaster. None.
Why this has to be taken as some kind of creepy desire to see people suffer I do not know. It's just Bible knowledge. And if anything it's a desire to understand things that the usual wishywashy answers don't fulfill.
It means that whatever disaster should befall us, deservedly or not, He is Who we turn to when all seems lost, and He will comfort us.
Very true, but that's about how we are to deal with disaster, not about how it is to be explained. And those who don't believe in God aren't going to be turning to Him, are they? So we do what we can to help those who have already suffered, and for those in danger of judgment the first priority is to preach repentance and salvation.
I won't say you're wrong, Faith. There is some merit to your argument.
I just admit I don't know whether this is a judgment from God or if it isn't.
But I do know God knows what He is doing, and whatever He does, it is exactly the right thing to do, and exactly the right time, and in exactly the right place.
Good will come of this.
Romans 8:28
And now, I have a (Tiger Woods) golf (video) game to play.
Toodaloo!
Yes, good always comes out of anything including disasters to those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose. I also pointed that out back in this discussion many times. There's no guarantee good will come to those who don't love and trust Him. They need to be set free from their false beliefs.
Faith,
I understand the so called "five points of Calvinism" and their opposite fold in Arminianism just fine. You live in a world(view) meticulous in its self-justifications. God sent his only begotten Son to save you and your fellow elect Calvinists, the only ones of the "whosoever shall believeth" that actually can believe. God's grace thusly only comes to Calvinists, the rest of us are totally depraved and incapable of hearing the call to God that only Calvinists can hear. We should feel so blessed that you're here to set us straight, except well, since we're not Calvinists we can't feel anything.
There's certainly more theological gymnastics involved in getting Christians of a religion 2000+ years old and Calvinists of a "reformation" some 500 years old to see eye to eye on anything having to do with grace, salvation, and judgement, but disarming a Calvinist of their "no true Scotsman" fallacies (the ad hoc attempt to retain unreasoned assertions) goes a long way towards converting former Calvinists to Christianity, or at least opening their minds and hearts to a better appreciation of the Bible they believe no one "truly understood" until 500 years ago thanks to them.
Needless to say, Calvinism is the conclusion of a faulty set of premises. I don't think I'd be in error or exaggeration to say it has lead more people away from God than voodoo cults have. At least voodoo cults are a bit more honest about not having anything to do with biblical Christianity.
You don't even see a possibility that you're wrong. It doesn't even occur to you that the Haitian earthquake is not a judgement from God - "nothing happens by chance" - it's God's will if you're struck by lightning or win the lottery or if drinking snake venom kills you.
And so, the 7.3 Richter scale Haitian earthquake just absolutely has to be a judgement from God upon the nation of Haiti. I suppose windows shattered in the Dominican Republic by the same quake and follow up aftershocks measuring up to 5.5 on the Richter scale was God's judgement upon the Dominican Republic for being a nation with too many windows?
What glee we can have mocking this ridiculousness.
But you won't get it. I'm "evil" for holding up a mirror to you and your words.
That's right, there's no possibility the earthquake wasn't God's work, none whatever.
And who gave you the authority to "hold a mirror" up to me?
Your weird parody of Calvinism doesn't deserve a moment's thought. You don't even know how serious a Calvinist I am but true to form you take off on flights of denunciation just from sheer meanness.
Beamish, go to Haiti and pitch in, since that's what you want to do. Maybe you can be of some use there; you're just multiplying evil vibes here.
Faith,
Fair enough. Have it your way.
What did the nation of the Dominican Republic do to deserve God breaking some of their windows with a nearby earthquake?
And who gave you the authority to "hold a mirror" up to me?
Isaiah 32:1-8 seems to apply here.
Two (actually, more than two) Christians here have tried to get you to back off your foolish errors in proclaiming with certitude that "God has judged" the "wicked nation of Haiti" with an earthquake.
Christians are very much authorized to confront error.
Beamish, there are OTHER Christians who agree with my view, some of the best in Christian history. The Christians at this site are not the final authority. And besides, you are not to "confront error" in an absolute stranger on a website and in the tone of malice you've conducted it here, and with the faceless sort of Christian brothers one finds at a website. This claim is just a bald excuse for giving your opinion a false show of authenticity.
And again I protest your mean tendentious language in "the wicked nation of Haiti." You again are misrepresenting my argument, and are again being a liar. I don't know how you justify to yourself treating someone this way.
Do you need help getting to Haiti? I'll be happy to contribute to a donation fund.
Faith,
If "nothing happens by chance," is it God's will that more than one Christian has found fault in your reasoning and confronted you directly with it?
Is God motivating me, against my will, to chastise you? Is God leading me to discern you are in error?
[and slighlty spooky to me: Did God make the word verification for this comment the word "bless" rather than a random string of letters as usual?]
The LORD works in mysterious ways.
If "nothing happens by chance," is it God's will that more than one Christian has found fault in your reasoning and confronted you directly with it?
Certainly. No doubt it's to try my patience among other things. Perhaps it's to teach you some humility too -- though I don't see that happening yet.
Is God motivating me, against my will, to chastise you? Is God leading me to discern you are in error?
No, because you are committing sin in doing that and God doesn't lead us into sin. Certainly He permits it the way He permits Satan to try us and in THAT sense He wills it.
[and slighlty spooky to me: Did God make the word verification for this comment the word "bless" rather than a random string of letters as usual?]
Indubitably. What it means you'd have to say, since it was given to you.
The one coming up for me is "cryof" -- I'll have to think if there's a meaning in it. Cry of --- help, hope, anguish???
The LORD works in mysterious ways.
Indeed. As the poet Cowper wrote, for our edification.
Beamish, there are OTHER Christians who agree with my view, some of the best in Christian history. The Christians at this site are not the final authority.
I think we can agree that God is the Alpha and Omega of authority. He's not sharing his throne with me, you, the best Christians of history, or anyone else.
And besides, you are not to "confront error" in an absolute stranger on a website and in the tone of malice you've conducted it here, and with the faceless sort of Christian brothers one finds at a website. This claim is just a bald excuse for giving your opinion a false show of authenticity.
Make no mistake, I'd be the same person with the same view if we were face to face.
And again I protest your mean tendentious language in "the wicked nation of Haiti." You again are misrepresenting my argument, and are again being a liar. I don't know how you justify to yourself treating someone this way.
Be serious and honest. You obvious don't believe "God judged Haiti" because they are "NOT wicked with the sins of voodoo cults."
Do you need help getting to Haiti? I'll be happy to contribute to a donation fund.
I'm still "testing the spirits" on whether or not the call I feel to go to Haiti are genuinely of God. If that's where God really wants me to go.
I thank you for your offer. I believe if God wants me there, He'll take me there, even if a whale has to spit me onto their shores after resisting.
For now, I'm not certain going to Haiti is what God wants me to do.
I'll ask that you'll send that donation instead to relif efforts and missionaries already there.
Be serious and honest. You obvious don't believe "God judged Haiti" because they are "NOT wicked with the sins of voodoo cults."
I am serious and honest. I don't know how to get this basic fact across to you. You are stubbornly obtuse on this, utterly convinced that your own mean projection onto my words is what I myself said.
No, I'm not even going to try. I'm too sleepy and anything I say you are only going to twist again.
Maybe tomorrow if I'm up to it.
Good night.
Faith,
Allow me a different tact or approach then.
If God is in control of absolutely everything...
And everything that happens to people on Earth is coming from either God's direct action or consent...
And God's judgments are all justifiable and just...
Is there really, truly any injustice in the world?
Is what we percieve as "evil" in the world really God in action, behind the scenes?
Should we, for example, thank God for the 9/11 hijackers as instruments of His judgement upon our nation, rather than despise them for their murderous acts?
This is the problem I have with your view of the Haitian earthquake, and your "God controls everything" premise. It seems to give God's imprimatur and sanctity to true evil. No one can be sinful, wicked, abominable of and in themselves. It's God's fault. "God's earthquake" in Haiti is not a cataclysmic tragedy that stands along in and of itself, but rather a virtuous act of God's divine retribution.
To me, this view is wrong. Frighteningly wrong.
You have a common objection to this idea, and I appreciate that you are laying it out honestly instead of simply projecting it on me as you have been doing. I don't know if I have the knowledge to answer it properly, or the ability to say it in a way that would give you a sense of why others don't see it the same way you do, but again, I appreciate the tone of your question and I'll probably try to say something about it tomorrow. Good timing too, so I can pray about it tonight first.
Z: your tone saddens me for you....you try so hard to hurt but it only reflects so badly on yourself.
Try to engage in conversation without the innuendos and assumptions; it's terribly unattractive, says a lot about you that you'd probably rather not show, and promotes no intelligent or mature discussion.
As you often do, you assume a scornful and sanctimonious tone to make it seem all about my purported personal failings. But my well-considered criticism of what you wrote is just that, not an intentional personal insult. It addressed the words and tactics you employ, not your personal qualities, of which I know nothing. It is the silliest and cruelest of conjectures to assume that I am writing to insult you or anyone here. The truth is, I don’t call anyone here a liar, double-dealing liar, hypocrite liar, evil liar, or other intentionally hurtful names, or use foul language with anyone, and I don’t write here for any reason but to seriously discuss relevant issues of substance.
I would like to correct one mistake here, my mistake. The take off I wrote on your borrowed jab at me ("None are so blind as they who will not see") was not one that would meet the standards of English purists, of which I am one. I should have written:
There is none so blind as he who sees only what is around him.
beamish: God is bigger than petty "bad stuff happens to people not of my religion" and "God is a tyrant" charlatanry.
psi bond: A tyrant is a sovereign, whether benevolent or malevolent, who has absolute control over the lives of the people and is unaccountable to them. If there is charlatanism, it is in he who makes believe that is not true.
God does not have "absolute control" over anyone's lives. Everybody has free will to choose to serve God or actively rupudiate such notions from their own lives.
Faith says she believes God has control over everything: “What kind of weak God would He be who wasn't sovereign over all His creation? He counts the hairs on our heads, you can be sure He's in charge of the direction and magnitude of the hurricane and the earthquake (January 14).” “God is in charge of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING in my view (January 18).” I’m not sure what connection counting hairs has with absolute control, but you may get the message.
So if you believe there is free will, it is because he has enabled it. However, if it is his will that there be no free will, God can disable it in a flash. Further, some Christian sects subscribe to the doctrine of predestination, which is the antithesis of free will. Even if you believe God has only partial control of things, he is a powerful sovereign who is unaccountable to the people---which is to say, a tyrant, by definition.
Mortality is such that death is inevitable for everyone.
I didn’t realize that was in dispute.
Bad stuff happens to good people. Good stuff happens to bad people. People of no religion are exempt.
Indeed. But good stuff and bad stuff only happen to the living. There's nothing good or bad that can happen to the dead. They can't be helped or hurt further.
Help must go to the survivors of tragedy.
That appears obviously true but it gets complicated when you realize that it is not known who is alive or dead, and who can survive if scarce resources are used to sustain him or her. Many are still trapped in the rubble the earthquake made. And loved ones whose bodies have been found are not being buried properly. They are lying in the open or being loaded into dump trucks.
To claim that God, because he is the sovereign, is responsible for the unimaginable suffering now occurring in Haiti is no different than claiming God was responsible for the Holocaust, which if true is just as atrocious. Fortunately for believers, the truth is no such “truths” are objectively verifiable.
God's not stopping good people of free will from helping the needy survivors in Haiti.
You response is a non sequitur. I personally don’t think he is doing so either. But some present it the notion that God controls all things as an absolute religious truth that only the obtuse can’t get.
Political ideology may be hampering many from giving help by contributing to relief in Haiti. In Bill O’Reilly’s survey of his mostly conservative audience, 48% said yes while 52% said no when asked if they would donate to Haiti.
Sitting in contempt of the dead by claiming God put them to death for their religious practices or sitting in contempt of God for not intervening to stop the earthquake from occuring are equally disgusting to me.
Indeed, it sounds disgusting from your description of it. However, I would add that if it is assumed that a god that is in control of everything, then not doing anything to avert this earthquake makes him contemptible, in my humble opinion---your humble opinion notwithstanding.
Concluded
No matter whatever external, immaterial, spiritual message is to be discerned or guessed at from this tragedy and the crisis in its aftermath, God has left our free will intact and our reactions to this crisis entirely ours.
I would like to think that. But Christians of some sects will dispute it. So will scientific determinists. If one takes the view that all events are caused, whether by God or by natural laws, then human actions cannot be exempted.
I would hope that we would strive for the faith of Job, who didn't need an organized religion to guide him and his mocking peers didn't discourage him from doing the right thing..
I would hope that each person exercises free will to do what he thinks is right, even if that is not what some Bible-reading folks may believe is all right.
I don’t aspire to be a good-humored Job. Job was the hapless victim of a proud wager God made with Satan, which God won, as he must have known he would, being omniscient. In my humble opinion, God should not collect together millions of diverse individuals to make his points in the killing fields of Haiti, or to win his sure bets with Satan.
That's God believing in us. It all ends when God stops believing in us.
Lincoln famously said to a Christian minister that we should pray, not that God is on our side, but that we are on God’s side. That is to say, it is not so much that God should believe in us, but rather that we must believe in God.
Howsoever, I cannot believe that reproaching as sinful and wicked millions of people who are trapped in a heartbreaking disaster---whether Jews or Haitians---is compatible with being on decency’s side.
Psi Bond, WOW.
All the best.
Psi Bond,
Free will vs. determinism is one of the oldest philosophical debates in Western civilization. I doubt any one of us will hash it out to the point one view triumphs over the other.
I find the free will argument more persuasive, but there's a lot to be said for determinism as well at the biochemical level, reducing everything we feel, every drive and motivation behind our behaviors to brain chemistry responses to stimuli. But then you go lower / smaller than that to the quantum mechanical level and find no order whatsoever - quantum states can be anything with no discernable pattern whatsoever, no stimuli controlling a particular quantum state to be one way or another.
It can be an interesting discussion, but I find such discussions require beer. :)
Faith,
Whatever you prayed must have had some sort of an affect on me. I awoke this morning wanting to apologize to you for any and all rudeness I may have displayed to you.
I still don't agree with you, but I could have handled the disagreeing a bit more maturely, and for that, I apologize.
If God is in control of absolutely everything...
And everything that happens to people on Earth is coming from either God's direct action or consent...
And God's judgments are all justifiable and just...
Is there really, truly any injustice in the world?
Of course. Scripture says so. This may seem like a paradox but there are lots of such seeming paradoxes in the Bible. Do we believe scripture or not? it tells us we are accountable for all our misdeeds and even our misthoughts. Scripture says so. We aren't robots and God's absolute sovereignty doesn't make us robots. We have to understand that God is of a completely different order than we are. We always want to reduce him to our level, make him fit OUR idea of what's possible and what's just. I gave a couple of references somewhere up this thread, to Jonathan Edwards and Arthur Pink on God's sovereignty. They are very thorough and detailed in discussing this problem and they are both deeply spiritual men. Jonathan Edwards is also considered by some to be the greatest American genius we've ever had. Not sources to be sneered at.
Is what we percieve as "evil" in the world really God in action, behind the scenes?
Should we, for example, thank God for the 9/11 hijackers as instruments of His judgement upon our nation, rather than despise them for their murderous acts?
What does scripture say? As Christians, are we ever to despise our enemies? Aren't we to bless them and pray for them? Doesn't scripture say that we have only what we've been given and not to lord it over others? That doesn't make their act less evil but it changes our relation to it. We recognize that we could just as easily have been born into their position as ours and it's only God's mercy on us that we weren't. It should humble us. Vengeance is His, not ours. God will judge them, but we should have pity on them because His final judgment will be severe.
I don't think a NATION can act in a Christian manner, but we as Christian individuals must. The nation may have to go to war, but Christians are told by our Lord and Master not to resist evil. How many obey that these days?
This is of course counterintuitive and "unnatural" but much of Jesus' teachings are just that. What Christians in our generation seem not to appreciate is the POWER we lose by choosing the worldly way of responding to evil instead of His way. It takes His strength to do it, of course, to overcome our human resistance, but if we do yield, THAT is when the church triumphs in this world. When Jesus died Satan was defeated; we are also called to die to ourselves, NOT to retaliate, always to yield. The flesh protests but the Spirit insists, and when we obey this call wonders are unleashed, beamish. Satan IS defeated, again and again when we die to ourselves. This is shown throughout Christian history. Power unheard of belongs to those who willingly die to self, and if it comes to that and we die physically, the church as a whole benefits -- "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" said --I think-- Athanasius but I might have the wrong guy. Miracles happen. Evil men are converted, violence is prevented, blessings rain down.
That's not exactly about God's sovereignty I guess and I suppose I'm sounding preachy but isn't this THE Christian message and don't most of us these days instead choose the worldly message over His? Christianity is truly an otherworldly anti-worldly heavenly doctrine, full of paradoxes by worldly standards: we are strong not when we are strong, but when we are weak; we live not when we save ourselves but when we yield ourselves to be put to death, etc. etc.
I don't claim to live as I should, but I do claim to understand how I'm supposed to live and hope I'll yet learn to live it.
This is the problem I have with your view of the Haitian earthquake, and your "God controls everything" premise. It seems to give God's imprimatur and sanctity to true evil. No one can be sinful, wicked, abominable of and in themselves. It's God's fault. "God's earthquake" in Haiti is not a cataclysmic tragedy that stands along in and of itself, but rather a virtuous act of God's divine retribution.
Read Edwards and Pink. Read John Owen. There are dozens of other good writers on this subject too. I don't think I'll ever convince you. Maybe they can't either.
To me, this view is wrong. Frighteningly wrong.
I think your God is too small and too much a human invention. You don't appreciate the incredible otherworldliness of the Christian call.
Sorry if I got too preachy here. I expected to write a different post, but somehow got off in a different direction, and I probably didn't exactly answer your question either. Just not up to it I guess.
Just saw your apology, beamish, and much appreciate it, thank you.
I hope my latest post doesn't change your mind.
If you go to Haiti willing to die, voodoo practitioners may be converted to Christ. Simply taking care of their physical needs, simply having compassion for their suffering is merely human; but being willing to die for them is heavenly and full of God's power to turn them to Christ.
What does this have to do with God's sovereignty? I'm not sure, but it seems to be what's on my mind. When I figure it out I'll post on it.
Faith,
I have mixed feelings about my "urge" to go to Haiti. My family thinks I'm nuts for even considering it. And myself, I'm wondering if the urge didn't come from my reaction to hearing the dreadful news that Jean-Bertrand Aristide is preparing to come back to Haiti to seek the presidency once again.
Truth be told, I'm not sure I'd be willing to die for anything in Haiti but the opportunity to kill that monster once and for all.
I will say this too: criticizing those who get impatient and angry under the circumstances in Haiti, even the looters, was wrong of me. They need someone to die for them too so that they can die to their selfishness too and we're all like them to one degree or another before we know Christ.
I was applying a worldly standard to them, a cultural Christian standard and worrying about their victims -- but they are victims too.
As for God's sovereignty, maybe this is the connection I'm foggily getting to here: If you see such a disaster as merely accidental or natural and not the consequence of or judgment against human sin, not an expression of human enmity against God and the sickness of this whole world that Jesus died to save us from, then your solutions will also be natural, worldly and fleshly, however kindly and compassionate, and the spiritual power of real repentance and conversion to Christ which is needed to overcome the sin-sickness of this world, won't be available to us. That sort of Christianity isn't Christianity, it's worldliness.
I'm preaching to myself about all this, I realize. The one thing I'm aware of lacking as well as the church as lacking is the spiritual power that comes from dying to self. I know it in my head, I've even experienced it at times so I know what I'm talking about, but living it consistently is something else.
Again, God's absolute sovereignty seems essential to this understanding although I'm not doing a very good job of saying how.
Dying for the people could also save them from exploitative leaders.
OK, since I'm preaching to myself this morning I'm going to apologize to psi bond too. I'm sorry for retaliating with all that verbiage about your lying. I think you misrepresent my view of God's sovereignty but as a Christian I'm not to retaliate and I too often do just that. So I'm sorry, psi bond, please forgive me.
And I retaliated against you too, beamish, please forgive me.
Perhaps I'm also wrong to discuss this at all at this time. I think that's probably the case. Just because I believe what I'm saying doesn't make it right to say it at this moment. Shouldn't have let myself be baited by Elbro's statements, wrong as I think he is about the explanation for such things as this disaster. Tricky stuff all this.
Faith,
Sometimes it's hard for the salt of the earth to retain its saltiness.
We could all learn to have patience and serenity.
Psi Bond, WOW.
All the best.
Hey, Z!
Non-zero tolerance may take shape from the forge of a free-for-all blog (like this one).
If we assume, beamish, that man is predestined or programmed to sin, he is not morally responsible.
Underlying the macroscopic material world we live in, quantum events are what matter, and it is not absence of order, chaos, that operates at the quantum level, but a different kind of natural law, stranger than politics, in which space may have the eleven dimensions of string theory, most of them imperceptible, and fatalism and determinism break up under the paradoxes of Heisenberg Uncertainty and Gödel's incompleteness theorems. In the eleventh dimension, a beer may have no head at all, beamish.
OK, since I'm preaching to myself this morning I'm going to apologize to psi bond too. I'm sorry for retaliating with all that verbiage about your lying. I think you misrepresent my view of God's sovereignty but as a Christian I'm not to retaliate and I too often do just that. So I'm sorry, psi bond, please forgive me.
Faith, of course, I forgive you. Your unladylike verbiage did not reach my heart. You may not be a perfect Christian, by your own admission; I may not be a perfect non-Christian, by the nature of things. So it goes.
At the risk of being described as obtuse, I nonetheless do not accept the view you have of God’s sovereignty. Verily, though I may be damned for it, I won’t.
Ya never know, psi bond, I might actually succeed sometime in describing it in such a way that you would agree with me about God's sovereignty. I won't hold my breath of course but ... you never know.
I doubt there's any way from logic and philosophy to make the case though. It really requires taking the Bible as God's revelation.
`I ca'n't believe that!' said Alice.
`Ca'n't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'
Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one ca'n't believe impossible things.'
`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.!'
-- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, ch. 5
Faith: Ya never know, psi bond, I might actually succeed sometime in describing it in such a way that you would agree with me about God's sovereignty. I won't hold my breath of course but ... you never know.
Ya never know, I may have been perfectly made so as to be unable to receive "The Truth".
I doubt there's any way from logic and philosophy to make the case though. It really requires taking the Bible as God's revelation.
It requires assumptions that are unacceptable to a rational mind, for it takes blind Faith (I don’t mean you, of course).
No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.
-- Zen proverb
Determinism the Buddhist way
Revelation, not assumption.
Just thought I'd stick this on here, for the Christians who are thinking about all this, not so much for psi bond. I just listened to the first part of this discussion about the Haiti situation by Scott Johnson at Sermon Audio and I think he does a good job on it, getting into the history and so on, how there really was a voodoo pact made in 1791 for instance.
I have problems with a lot of stuff Johnson does, but sometimes he's very good too -- just to give that caveat. He won't be at Sermon Audio after this Sunday, but at a new site linked from there and I don't know how that one is going to work by comparison, but while he's at Sermon Audio it's easy to hear his talk and/or copy out his PDF file which contains the same information:
Here's the audio, and here's the PDF file
Johnson covers this You Tube discussion of voodoo by a Haitian Christian who calls himself Stever CrownCaster, so you can watch it yourself direct:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQpzMjtMeCA&feature=related
Revelation, not assumption
Assumptions of revelation
Knowledge of revelation, not assumptions. Faith brings knowledge.
Knowledge of revelation, not assumptions. Faith brings knowledge.
Assumption of revelation, not knowledge. Faith brings fervor.
Faith: I have problems with a lot of stuff Johnson does, but sometimes he's very good too
___________________________
Not much is known about Scott [Dr. Scott Johnson] himself as he hides behind bio-less profiles on YouTube and his website, Sermon Audio. What is known is that he lives in Fort Myers, Florida, was divorced from a wife of whom he says, "does not have a submissive bone in her body", is busily brainwashing and beating his daughter, Taylor, a little girl whose questions he cuts off and snarls at ("Taylor, I'm recording!" or "Taylor, sit like a lady!") before bragging about how submissive she is because of his excellent parenting skills, (which include beating his daughter and encouraging her to pray for gays to die before they "drag others to hell") and bashing his "unsaved" parents who do such blasphemous sins like watching Oprah or doing yoga.
Other notable events in his life involve participating in the Mr. Atlanta bodybuilding competition in the early nineties, busting a Senator for being a filthy adulterer, going on a fourteen city tour to talk about Bird Flu that he mentions over 9000 times, buying the bible on CD and playing it in his house TWENTY FOUR SEVEN, personally driving the Angel of Death away from him when he woke up one night (obviously not understanding the concept of "hangover"), filling a bathtub with ashes and rolling around in it while bawling.
Scotty on God
Everything in the Bible (only the King James version - all other versions are cursed) happened exactly as written. Scott accepts only the King James Version of the Bible with British spellings ("Savior" has six letters and is therefore evil; it should be spelled "Saviour", with the "u" in there).
Angels got horny for human women thousands of years ago and fucked them, creating angel-human hybrid giants that are still around - they're just damn sneaky.
Nordic people are all satanic and automatically damned.
99% of the world is born wicked and are automatically damned and need to die.
If your great grandpa masturbated, you're gonna have to pay for it.
Women shouldn't be doctors or teachers as they're inferior and should submit themselves like the bitch-slaves they are.
The commandment about keeping the Sabbath doesn't matter because he doesn't like it.
The commandment in the bible against divorce doesn't matter because he doesn't like it - so his divorce doesn't count.
Whenever there's something he doesn't like, he says, "Well, we're not under Levitical law right now," despite quoting "I am God; I changeth not." for stuff he does like.
It's worse to make out with the member of the same sex than to rape someone of the opposite sex. Go figure.
Scotty's allowed to judge people because there's a verse somewhere that says the righteous, pure of heart can. Ho boy.
"Hate crime" (including kicking homos out of stores and restaurants) against gays are justified because those silly fags will just drag people to hell anyway.
God really loves it when you scream at him while praying to punish people you don't like.
When he says something that reveals he's a bigot and homophobe, he can immediately retain his godliness by saying, "I'm not a bigot or a homophobe." Because if he says it, it is so.
Pride is the greatest of sins and everyone else should be ashamed. O RLY.
Actually, Scotty's "preaching to himself as much as I am all of you" which allows him to be the sinless image of perfection because when he contradicts himself, he wins... what?
Listening to music with drums in it is demonic, even though he uses music with drums IN HIS OWN VIDEOS.
He does his whole ministry himself. Him. Scott A. Johnson. Sorry if he's too busy to reply right away, fans, after all, one man can only do so much. There used to be a guy named Doug who commented (never into the mic) from time to time, but Doug hasn't appeared in a while now. There's also his daughter and a woman named Nonetta
Scotty on Science
Your Meyers/Tolkien/C.S.S. Lewis/any popular books will physically curse your house.
The cute, fluffy Easter bunny is a fornicating pagan.
Whenever a jet leaves a trail across the sky, it's actually a cloud of mind-controlling chemicals being sprayed on the unsuspecting public. Curiously, every time he prays against the cloud it dissolves in five minutes, 3 if it's windy. MIRACLE MAN!
Your television is tracking you and can tell the government where you are.
Aliens (angels in disguise of course) are playing out a gigantic "good cop"/"bad cop" routine with the government.
Bird Flu will wipe out 95% of the world's population.
Vaccines are just liquefied babies and monkey parts.
You can cure cancer by eating muffins (delicious!).
Your toothpaste is controlling your mind and lowering your 'resistance.' To what he has yet to say.
They've already invented: holograms, mind-control receptors, weather control devices, limitless energy sources, and cures for every disease. "They" are unavailable for comment.
Kyle XY is a prediction of the future.
Scotty on Politics
Scotty personally exposed a senator who was cheating on his wife. Wait. Actually he just stood outside the senator's house and wished (wished hard!) for him to die until the scandal broke on its own.
George Bush was steering Hurricane Katrina.
George Bush will declare martial law and will become a dictator before the end of his term.
Hilary Clinton will win the white house.
Obama will declare martial law and become a dictator before the end of his term.
Obama is an illegal immigrant (therefore depraved and immoral) Muslim.
2009 is "the year".
I'm sure someone could misrepresent you in equally screamingly hateful terms. Why do you resort to such a cheap shot?
Why don't you identify your source, by the way, and link to it?
I do recommend listening to the first part of this last series of talks, however, or reading the PDF on it. The guy he quotes does a good job on it.
Do you have any evidence that he is misrepresented, Faith? The link is easy to find on Google.
He doesn’t think homosexuals are possessed by “stinkin’” demons? He did not say jet trails across the sky are actually clouds of mind-controlling chemicals? He doesn’t exist?
Haitian history is a chronicle of suffering so Job-like that it inevitably inspires arguments with God, and about God. Slavery, revolt, oppression, color caste, despoliation, American occupation alternating with American neglect, extreme poverty, political violence, coups, gangs, hurricanes, floods—and now an earthquake that exploits all the weaknesses created by this legacy to kill tens of thousands of people. “If God exists, he’s really got it in for Haiti,” Pooja Bhatia, a journalist who lives in Haiti, wrote in the Times. “Haitians think so, too. Zed, a housekeeper in my apartment complex, said God was angry at sinners around the world, but especially in Haiti. Zed said the quake had fortified her faith, and that she understood it as divine retribution.”
This was also Pat Robertson’s view. The conservative televangelist appeared on “The 700 Club” and blamed Haitians for a pact they supposedly signed with the Devil two hundred years ago (“true story”), advising people in one of the most intensely religious countries on earth to turn to God. (Similarly, he had laid the blame for the September 11th attacks and Hurricane Katrina on Americans’ wickedness.) In Robertsonian theodicy—the justification of the ways of God in the face of evil—there’s no such thing as undeserved suffering: people struck by disaster always had it coming.
At the White House, President Obama, too, was thinking about divine motivation, and he asked the same question implied in the hymn sung by Haitian survivors under the night sky: “After suffering so much for so long, to face this new horror must cause some to look up and ask, Have we somehow been forsaken?” But Obama’s answer was the opposite of Zed’s and Robertson’s: rather than claiming to know the mind of God, he vowed that America would not forsake Haiti, because its tragedy reminds us of “our common humanity.”
-- George Packer, New Yorker, January 25, 2010
The night after the earthquake, Haitians who had lost their homes, or who feared that their houses might collapse, slept outdoors, in the streets and parks of Port-au-Prince. In Place Saint-Pierre, across the street from the Kinam Hotel, in the suburb of Pétionville, hundreds of people lay under the sky, and many of them sang hymns: “God, you are the one who gave me life. Why are we suffering?” In Jacmel, a coastal town south of the capital, where the destruction was also great, a woman who had already seen the body of one of her children removed from a building learned that her second child was dead, too, and wailed, “God! I can’t take this anymore!” A man named Lionel Gaedi went to the Port-au-Prince morgue in search of his brother, Josef, but was unable to find his body among the piles of corpses that had been left there. “I don’t see him—it’s a catastrophe,” Gaedi said. “God gives, God takes.” Chris Rolling, an American missionary and aid worker, tried to extricate a girl named Jacqueline from a collapsed school using nothing more than a hammer. He urged her to be calm and pray, and as night fell he promised that he would return with help. When he came back the next morning, Jacqueline was dead. “The bodies stopped bothering me after a while, but I think what I will always carry with me is the conversation I had with Jacqueline before I left her,” Rolling wrote afterward on his blog. “How could I leave someone who was dying, trapped in a building! . . . She seemed so brave when I left! I told her I was going to get help, but I didn’t tell her I would be gone until morning. I think this is going to trouble me for a long time.” Dozens of readers wrote to comfort Rolling with the view that his story was evidence of divine wisdom and mercy.
-- George Packer, New Yorker, January 25, 2010
Most stories coming out of Haiti are sad, and I too have noticed that many attribute the disaster to God and accept it as His will, which is touching. But they don't seem to have a clear idea WHY, and that's what the Christian perspective offers. Scott Johnson's source is pretty good on that subject. Understanding is the first step to recovery.
Apparently Haiti used to be a wealthy beautiful island, and its degeneration into a poverty-stricken disaster-prone nation began with that voodoo ritual that they did as a ceremony to free themselves from colonial rule in 1791. Put that together with the regular practice of voodoo rites by a majority of the people since that time and the hope of freeing them from the continuation of the very cause of their suffering is dim. An inspired leader could help a lot in that direction though.
If you need a "secular" analysis of the contribution of voodoo to their problems, I think I linked to an article back a ways that describes the influence of the religion as promoting a fatalism that leads to passivity in the face of all events -- and an example of that might be their recognition that God is behind disasters, but that doesn't move them to change the situation that provoked God, they simply say it's God's will and that's that, and things stay the same. The idea of repentance from sin doesn't figure in the equation.
You Tube has a lot of video of voodoo rituals. Obviously satanic stuff. I posted this earlier I think, but here's the Haitian Christian who calls himself Steve CrownCaster again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQpzMjtMeCA&NR=1
Since there are Haitians with his perspective, what's needed is for them to influence the people against their dangerous religion. Perhaps one of them could even become President of the nation?
No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.
-- Zen proverb
Determinism the Buddhist way
PSI BOND: so eager to quote Buddhism but so impossible to believe in a just God.
But, of course, if one has read the Scriptures, one knows that God is just and that His will trumps all...and that nobody dies without his having known it beforehand and that people like Jacqueline died because it was her time. And that whatever happens is part of His plan and that life on earth is infinitesimal compared to the Kingdom of Heaven...the goal, the best plan any of us can hope we're blessed with.
Gee, if we can't believe that, how do we believe in Buddha quips? When, actually, that quote says exactly what I just said.
Faith: Most stories coming out of Haiti are sad, and I too have noticed that many attribute the disaster to God and accept it as His will, which is touching. But they don't seem to have a clear idea WHY, and that's what the Christian perspective offers. Scott Johnson's source is pretty good on that subject. Understanding is the first step to recovery.
Though you can dilute their poignancy by saying most are sad, not all stories out of Haiti are sad. Two people caught in the collapse of El Caribe, a five-story grocery, survived after being buried in the rubble for four days by appropriating the food off the shelves. Although they probab;y think of God as a loving god rather than a vengeful god judging vast collections of people, the great majority of Haitians are Christians like you, Faith, Lord Griffiths notwithstanding. It is odd how unwilling you are to acknowledge that. I don’t share your faith, Faith, and I don’t believe Scott Johnson is the 21st century Moses who will lead us with transcendent understanding of all things, including homosexuals as demon-possessed. It seems that you have a compelling need to believe Haitians are God worshippers of an inferior order. You must know that many American Christians have also asked, “Why me, God?” Even Jesus reportedly asked why God had forsaken him.
Faith: Apparently Haiti used to be a wealthy beautiful island, and its degeneration into a poverty-stricken disaster-prone nation began with that voodoo ritual that they did as a ceremony to free themselves from colonial rule in 1791. Put that together with the regular practice of voodoo rites by a majority of the people since that time and the hope of freeing them from the continuation of the very cause of their suffering is dim. An inspired leader could help a lot in that direction
though.
Haiti prospered when French Catholic plantation owners controlled it. When, in 1804, Haiti won its independence, it was required to pay huge reparations to France for the loss of property, which consisted of the land and the slaves who had become free human beings. An inspired leadership initiative on the part of the rich nations to forgive its debt could help Haiti improve its now severely damaged economy. Allowing Haitian illegal immigrants in the U.S. to remain would also be a step in the right direction, since most of them are hardworking and send money back home to their families.
Z: PSI BOND: so eager to quote Buddhism but so impossible to believe in a just God.
But, of course, if one has read the Scriptures, one knows that God is just and that His will trumps all...and that nobody dies without his having known it beforehand and that people like Jacqueline died because it was her time. And that whatever happens is part of His plan and that life on earth is infinitesimal compared to the Kingdom of Heaven...the goal, the best plan any of us can hope we're blessed with.
Gee, if we can't believe that, how do we believe in Buddha quips? When, actually, that quote says exactly what I just said [more concisely]
Golly, Z, you may believe whatever is helpful to you. I didn’t mean to suggest, however, that I believed that Zen proverb, which you are eager to scorn as “Buddhist quips”. I don't find it any more credible than I do Scott Johnson, Faith’s bizarre guru. Although I presented the proverb as an example of Buddhist determinism, it should be clear, from my prior statements, that, in the light of the groundbreaking results of Heisenberg and Gödel, I conclude that determinism is untenable. Hence, the place where a snowflake falls is neither the right nor the wrong one.
You preach a comforting Bible sermon, Z---no judgment from God ever falls on the wrong place, eh? No flaky judgments. Your holier-than-thou rationalization (it’s all God’s will, God is good, whatever happens, which fatalism Haitians are being chastised for believing by Lord Griffiths) remains unconvincing to me. Sorry. The god who took away Jacqueline’s life, despite her prayers, was not benevolent, not in my book, which is based on liberal not Old Testament principles.
Indeed, in my universe, were I God, she would not have died that way. I would have answered her prayer, and she would have gone on to earn the love of others, and make others happy, and, in the fullness of time, Jacqueline would have died in bed. It would have been a wonderful life. Sigh! (Preaching to myself.)
On my blog, a woman named Mona pointed to Haitian corruption and declared: “I won’t send money because I know what will happen to it.” Another reader attributed Haiti’s poverty to “the low I.Q. of the 9 million people there,” and added: “It is all very sad and cannot be fixed.”
“Giving money to Haiti and other third-world countries is like throwing money in the toilet,” another commenter said. A fourth asserted: “Haiti is a money pit. Dumping billions of dollars into it has proven futile. ... America is deeply in debt, and we can’t afford it.”
Not everyone is so frank, but the subtext of much of the discussion of Haiti is despair about both Haiti and foreign aid. Pat Robertson, the religious broadcaster, went furthest by suggesting that Haiti’s earthquake flowed from a pact with the devil more than two centuries ago. While it’s not for a journalist to nitpick a minister’s theological credentials, that implication of belated seismic revenge on Haitian children seems defamatory of God
Americans have also responded with a huge outpouring of assistance, including more than $22 million raised by the Red Cross from text messages alone. But for those with doubts, let’s have a frank discussion of Haiti’s problems:
Why is Haiti so poor? Is it because Haitians are dimwitted or incapable of getting their act together?
Haiti isn’t impoverished because the devil got his due; it’s impoverished partly because of debts due. France imposed a huge debt that strangled Haiti. And when foreigners weren’t looting Haiti, its own rulers were.
The greatest predation was the deforestation of Haiti, so that only 2 percent of the country is forested today. Some trees have been — and continue to be — cut by local peasants, but many were destroyed either by foreigners or to pay off debts to foreigners. Last year, I drove across the island of Hispaniola, and it was surreal: You traverse what in places is a Haitian moonscape until you reach the border with the Dominican Republic — and jungle.
Without trees, Haiti lost its topsoil through erosion, crippling agriculture …..
-- Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, January 21, 2010
Albert Mohler, a Baptist in the US, wrote: “In truth, it is hard not to describe the earthquake as a disaster of biblical proportions. It certainly looks as if the wrath of God has fallen upon the Caribbean nation.
"Add to this the fact that Haiti is well known for its history of religious syncretism — mixing elements of various faiths, including occult practices. The nation is known for voodoo, sorcery, and a Catholic tradition that has been greatly influenced by the occult.”
Mr Mohler refuted the suggestion from Pat Robertson, the American preacher, that Haiti was cursed by the devil.
“Why did no earthquake shake Nazi Germany? Why did no tsunami swallow up the killing fields of Cambodia? Why did Hurricane Katrina destroy far more evangelical churches than casinos? Why do so many murderous dictators live to old age while many missionaries die young?”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6990002.ece
If you would like to know what I think of Albert Mohler's comment, it's at the bottom of this post at my blog.
You can also check the margin for Scott Johnson or just read the comments to that same blog post to find out that I don't regard Scott Johnson as anything like a guru.
But I've noticed that truth isn't of much interest to you when it comes to how you characterize your opponents' views.
Psi Bond..be serious; Do you hear yourself? You talk of GOD and Christianity as if it's something you know about and you obviously scorn THAT, but then you say I'm not supposed to scorn BUDDHISM!?
And, by the way, I really don't...there is a lot of sage advice in Buddhism. The trouble is, as my Christian girlfriend who was a devout Buddhist for 25 years "you have to believe it's all about YOU and it's such a relief when you realize it isn't"
It's fine that you don't believe what I do, psi bond. I don't CARE, believe me. And your zeal to slam faith in Christ is typical of nonbelievers..you're very very predictable. I'm just very grateful I finally started to study the Scriptures and have had a miracle of understanding I never did before; nothing I DID, trust me...but I see so much and wish you and every other doubter could.
I just wish you the best.
And, for your sake, I hope Christianity is DEAD wrong.
God bless.
If you would like to know what I think of Albert Mohler's comment, it's at the bottom of this post at my blog.
Your response to Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Time.com called him the “reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U.S”; called “an articulate voice for conservative Christianity at large” by the Chicago Tribune), is merely to assume you have superior expertise, by virtue of being older, concerning God’s wrath and the fullness-of-time religious doctrine. God’s vengeance may rarely be timely but it is sure, you are sure. If dictators often die of old age and missionaries often die young, as Mohler points out, it is presumably because fullness of time is set at different rates for different folks. So, murderers, torturers, swindlers, etc. may escape the consequences of their crimes in this world, but in the next one they are apprehended. How marvelously comforting that is!
You can also check the margin for Scott Johnson or just read the comments to that same blog post to find out that I don't regard Scott Johnson as anything like a guru.
When you cite Scott Johnson here as a reliable audio source, one to whom everyone can listen and be enlightened, it is natural to infer, though you may not like it, that he has a guru-like influence on you. As far as comments to the Mohler riposte, I got as far as the first one that said she agreed with Scott Johnson and Pat Robertson, and she believed, because of membership in Skull N Bones, George W, Bush, and his family, were Satanists.
But I've noticed that truth isn't of much interest to you when it comes to how you characterize your opponents' views.
I’ve noticed that you lack clear-eyed vision of the motivation of people out of step with your religious opinions. Despite all your verbiage, you are not really transparent about your views, evading answering my questions about them. The best one can do therefore is make good faith inferences, which I have done. Characterizing my doing so as a dearth of interest in the truth is a crass misrepresentation.
Psi Bond..be serious; Do you hear yourself? You talk of GOD and Christianity as if it's something you know about and you obviously scorn THAT, but then you say I'm not supposed to scorn BUDDHISM!?
Be sensible, Z. I only said you showed zeal in denigrating a harmless Zen proverb I cited, not in slamming Buddhism. You talk scornfully as if you understand what I was saying, which you don’t since it was nothing about Christianity per se and Buddhism itself.
And, by the way, I really don't...there is a lot of sage advice in Buddhism. The trouble is, as my Christian girlfriend who was a devout Buddhist for 25 years "you have to believe it's all about YOU and it's such a relief when you realize it isn't"
Buddhism is fundamentally about understanding that happiness is in dying to self. Desire is disharmonious. “No matter what road I travel, I’m going home,” Shinsu said.
It's fine that you don't believe what I do, psi bond. I don't CARE, believe me.
I already know that. You just feel a need to defend your idea of God, with which I have no problem, to the extent that you have revealed it.
And your zeal to slam faith in Christ is typical of nonbelievers..you're very very predictable.
I have no zeal, Z, to slam faith in Christ. But it is very predictable you would claim that I did. Trust me, what you think I am saying is your misreading, and whatever belief helps you is OK with me. I merely present my own perspective on zealous religious doctrines that interpret contemporary events and proclaim judgment against America. About whose Christian theology is correct, I really have nothing to say
I'm just very grateful I finally started to study the Scriptures and have had a miracle of understanding I never did before; nothing I DID, trust me...but I see so much and wish you and every other doubter could.
I know we are dumb, we who doubt, and shall perish.(I studied the scriptures, too, trust me.)
I just wish you the best.
Ditto.
And, for your sake, I hope Christianity is DEAD wrong..
Be serious, Z. No, you don’t. And I don’t.
God bless.
Ha! I know you can’t help yourself.
Namaste.
I believe Dr. Mohler lost his sure grip on Biblical revelation and I implied nothing about my age with respect to him.
I said clearly here that I have problems with some of Scott Johnson's teachings, so you are wrong that I implied anything about him as some kind of guru.
I'm so tired of your false and nasty remarks, psi bond, just tired of it. Goodbye.
And don't bother responding to me, psi bond, I'm deleting this page from my favorites list and have no intention of returning to it.
"I know we are dumb, we who doubt, and shall perish.(I studied the scriptures, too, trust me.)"
You didn't study with an open heart or you'd know that's dead wrong.
And please stop reading into what I say and misrepresenting and giving your view as gospel. it's insufferably conceited and just plain silly to boot.
Faith: I believe Dr. Mohler lost his sure grip on Biblical revelation and I implied nothing about my age with respect to him.
Well, assuming he has read her, a big assumption, Dr Mohler may believe Faith has lost her grip, and, in fact, Faith did pointedly cite on her blog her greater years over him in expressing the reasons for her disagreement with his rebuttal of Pat Robertson's infamous words---which, as Nicholas Kristof appropriately said, are defamatory of God.
I said clearly here that I have problems with some of Scott Johnson's teachings, so you are wrong that I implied anything about him as some kind of guru.
It is wrong to think I said Faith directly implied Johnson was some kind of guru. No, not at all, but the respect and authority she accorded to those of his teachings she cited suggested a guru-like relationship.
Yes, Faith rejects some teachings like the silly charges that George W. Bush and his family are Satanists, on grounds of a perceived lack of evidence, but she doesn't reject on similar grounds charges that the Haitian people en masse are guilty of Satanism. She assumes on her blog that most Haitians are voodooists (“its practice by a majority of the population is enough of a reason for God's judgment on the nation”), despite the facts that the CIA World Factbook states roughly half of them are, and that, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica 2010, most of the nation’s Protestants consider Christianity to be incompatible with voodoo. Thus she makes up facts that support her opinion. That Catholicism is paganism like voodoo is treated as a fact by her on her blog.
I'm so tired of your false and nasty remarks, psi bond, just tired of it. Goodbye.
I am tired of Faith’s nasty insinuations that I am a liar---i.e., one for whom, as she falsely charged in her previous post, the "truth isn't of much interest."
I forgive her, but I cannot forget the noticeable maliciousness in it.
Be merciful to those who doubt
-- Jude 1:22 (NIV)
"I know we are dumb, we who doubt, and shall perish.(I studied the scriptures, too, trust me.)",]
Z: You didn't study with an open heart or you'd know that's dead wrong.
Doubtful me of little faith, I failed to study it with a credulous spirit, and, unlike you, nothing that I did not do enabled a miracle of understanding. I confess I didn't study it with a blind faith, for, alas, I must be dumb and perishable goods.
And please stop reading into what I say and misrepresenting and giving your view as gospel. it's insufferably conceited and just plain silly to boot.
Blaming it on me once again, the truth is you are projecting yourself, Z. I am not falsely reading into what you say; you are, in fact, doing that to me and getting hostile and insulting to boot. For instance, I did not say, as you vehemently accuse me of doing, that you denigrated Buddhism, and I did not slam your faith in Christ, despite your silly accusation that I typically did so.
But I wish you the best, Z, whatever you believe.
Namaste.
Earthquakerism dissected:
____________________________
The New York Times
January 24, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
Between God and a Hard Place
By JAMES WOOD
Boston
In the 18th century, the genre of “earthquake sermon” was good business. Two small shocks in London, in 1750, sent the preachers to their pulpits and pamphlets. The bishop of London blamed Londoners’ lewd behavior; the bishop of Oxford argued that God had woven into his grand design certain incidents to alarm us and shake us out of our sin. In Bloomsbury, the Rev. Dr. William Stukeley preached that earthquakes are favored by God as the ultimate sign of his wrathful intervention.
Five years later, when Lisbon was all but demolished by an enormous earthquake, the unholy refrain was heard again — one preacher even argued that the people of Lisbon had been relatively fortunate, for God had spared more people than he had killed. It was the Lisbon earthquake that prompted Voltaire to attack Leibniz’s metaphysical optimism, in which all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Theodicy, which is the justification of God’s good government of the world in the face of evil and pain, was suddenly harder to practice. But the preachers kept at it. “There is no divine visitation which is likely to have so general an influence upon sinners as an earthquake,” wrote the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, in 1777.
Have we made much of an advance on this appalling discourse? Our own earthquake-sermonizer, the evangelist Pat Robertson, delivered an instantly notorious defense of the calamity in Haiti. This was classic theodicy. First, good comes out of such suffering. This event, said Mr. Robertson, is “a blessing in disguise,” because it might generate a huge rebuilding program. Second, the Haitians deserve the suffering. According to Mr. Robertson, when the Haitians were throwing off the tyranny of the French, they “swore a pact to the devil. They said ‘we will serve you if you will get us free from the French’ ... so the Devil said ‘O.K., it’s a deal.’ and they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got themselves free but ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” The Dominican Republic, he said, had done quite well, and had lots of tourist resorts, and that kind of thing. But not Haiti.
This repellent cruelty manages the extraordinary trick of combining hellfire evangelism with neo-colonialist complacency, in which the Haitians are blamed not only for their sinfulness but also for the hubris of their political rebellion. Eighteenth-century preachers at least tended to include themselves in the charge of general sinfulness and God’s inevitable reckoning; Mr. Robertson sounds rather pleased with his own outwitting of such reckoning, as if the convenient blessing of being a God-fearing American has saved him from such pestilence. He is presumably on the other side of the sin-line, safe in some Dominican resort.
We should expect nothing less from the man who blamed legal abortion for Hurricane Katrina. But even when intentions are the opposite of Mr. Robertson’s, and in a completely secular context, theological language has a way of hanging around earthquakes. In his speech after the catastrophe, President Obama movingly invoked “our common humanity,” and said that “we stand in solidarity with our neighbors to the south, knowing that but for the grace of God, there we go.” And there was God once again. Awkwardly, the literal meaning of Mr. Obama’s phrase is not so far from Pat Robertson’s hatefulness. Who, after all, would want to worship the kind of God whose “grace” protects Americans from Haitian horrors?
Concluded
The president was merely uttering an idiomatic version of the kind of thing you hear from survivors whenever a disaster strikes: “God must have been watching out for me; it’s a miracle I survived,” whereby those who died were presumably not being “watched out for.” That President Obama did not really mean this — he clearly did not — is telling, insofar as it suggests how the theological language of punishment and mercy lives on unconsciously, well after the actual theology has been discarded.
Or has it? If the president simply meant that most of us have been — so far — luckier than Haitians, why didn’t he say that? Perhaps because, as a Christian, he does not want to believe that he subscribes to such a nonprovidential category as luck, or to the turn of fate’s wheel, which is really a pagan notion. Besides, to talk of luck, or fortune, in the face of a disaster seems flippant, and belittling to those who have been savaged by such bad luck. A toothache is bad luck; an earthquake is somehow theological.
The only people who would seem to have the right to invoke God at the moment are the Haitians themselves, who beseech his help amidst dreadful pain. They, too, alas, appear to wander the wasteland of theodicy. News reports have described some Haitians giving voice to a worldview uncomfortably close to Pat Robertson’s, in which a vengeful God has been meting out justified retribution: “I blame man. God gave us nature, and we Haitians, and our governments, abused the land. You cannot get away without consequences,” one man told The Times last week.
Others sound like a more frankly theological President Obama: a 27-year-old survivor, Mondésir Raymone, was quoted thus: “We have survived by the grace of God.” Bishop Éric Toussaint, standing near his damaged cathedral, said something similar: “Why give thanks to God? Because we are here. What happened is the will of God. We are in the hands of God now.” A survivor’s gratitude is combined with theological fatalism. This response is entirely understandable, uttered in a ruined landscape beyond the experience of most of us, and a likely source of pastoral comfort to the bishop’s desperate flock. But that should not obscure the fact that it is little more than a piece of helpless mystification, a contradictory cry of optimistic despair.
Terrible catastrophes inevitably encourage appeals to God. We who are, at present, unfairly luckier, whether believers or not, might reflect on the almost invariably uncharitable history of theodicy, and on the reality that in this context no invocation of God beyond a desperate appeal for help makes much theological sense. For either God is punitive and interventionist (the Robertson view), or as capricious as nature and so absent as to be effectively nonexistent (the Obama view). Unfortunately, the Bible, which frequently uses God’s power over earth and seas as the sign of his majesty and intervening power, supports the first view; and the history of humanity’s lonely suffering decisively suggests the second.
James Wood, the author of the novel “The Book Against God,” is a staff writer at The New Yorker.
A Living Link Has Passed
Rest softly in your plumage, golden friend.
I found you warm, yet lifeless, though your eyes
Pierced my heart as though you wished to send
Longings still my way. A rude surprise
It was to find that you have passed --
Taken leave -- without the faintest sound.
The twenty years we had went by so fast.
Love grew slowly ‘tween us, but once found
Evolved into a rather poignant thing,
Despite your squawks, and shrill, ill-timed demands,
Even your envy of the cats was touching.
Vain, inane, your comical commands
Inspired chuckles, while your innocence
Left a scar upon my conscience.
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