Here I come...
...ready or not.
Amos 4:12 NIV
"Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel,
and because I will do this to you, Israel,
prepare to meet your God."
Posted on 09/03/2023 10:10:00 AM PDT by daniel1212
Sometimes we screw it up. But not always. The very essence of free will is that we do often make the correct choice.
This is true both in personal life and in politics.
For example, Jan 19 2020 government allowed a mixture of free choice and not-so-free mandates in use of fossil fuel.
Jan 21 the US shifted and greatly increased the mandates and reduced the freedom to choose. The results are obvious.
Jan 21 Biden signaled to Putin and Bidenomics would finance Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time Biden created inflation. Removed the ability of the working poor to buy gasoline to get to work. Bidenomics created inflation that hurt the poor much harder than the rich.... and with no freedom to choose.... with Biden bastardizing his concept of a God who mandates.
No I did not side stop... The Bible is clear, this is not how creation was intended... we live in a fallen creation... both man made and natural tribulations were not the intention... but are the reality of our separation with God...
The relationship and reality of our developing with God will be reestablished in time... but for now we we strain forward until that time comes...
You ask why... and the Bible states does the pot question the potter... obviously the meaning is to state it is His creation and His right to dictate the purpose of such...
You may choose to believe such or not... but that is the reality of what a follower of Christ understands...
Short answer?
No.
I refer you to a few words that GOD said to Job near the end of the Book:
“Once upon a midnight dreary...
What kind of qualities, does evidence need, to be considered extraordinary ?
I just referenced Job in another thread just a few minutes ago!
“N E V E R M O R E!”
Ezekiel 2:6
“And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee and thou dost dwell among scorpions. Be not afraid of their words nor be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.
Why the aversion to serial killers?
2 Peter 3:9 NIV
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Luke 13:4
... Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?
I’m curious, and I doubt that I would be one of those you presume to be angered.
Romans 9
19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
“Suffering is a result of sin”.
Those kind of statements really push me away.
So each cancer patient, even the innocent babies, are suffering sinners and paying the price in God’s eyes?
Starting somewhere in the late medieval period (Occam's razor, etc.) people started studying the natural world ("the world is made by a reasonable creator, it is his artwork / handiwork. if we study it, we'll get to know Him better.")
From that, people began to observe rather than merely wax eloquent; to record carefully, then to predict based on the experiments, by creating ideas of what was causing the behaviour they observed, *and then correcting their ideas if what they saw, didn't agree*.
Over time, people forgot to think of this practice as "natural philosophy" and began to consider as though the idealizations or theoretical frameworks ("models") for natural behaviour, were not idealizations from generalizing under controlled conditions, but were "really" what was going on. Think of the philosophers' reactions to Newton's laws of mechanics -- "hooray, we now know how the whole world works, we don't need a fictitious "God" to explain stuff. I F'ing Love Science!"
But implicit in that was an error, which I tried to indirectly mock/make reference to with the Bud Light commercial: the idea that God or gods, were really superstition designed to explain a complex, ever changing world, and that science was the superior method of doing so.
And so, since that's all the natural scientists cared about, was being able to predict/control things (and thereby improve the lot of humanity, or at least get rich helping *some* people, in return for money), they assumed that that had always been the goal of theology, too, and made fun of theology either for not being very good at it, or for wasting its time in esoteric disputations ("how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?")
Disclaimer: typed in a great hurry while watching YouTube Videos on strength/flexibility training and doing several other things. Meant as a broad overview hand-waving rather than a historical treatise. Close cover before striking. Void in Arizona, Georgia, and anywhere else with apparent voter fraud.
#FJB
...ready or not.
Amos 4:12 NIV
"Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel,
and because I will do this to you, Israel,
prepare to meet your God."
And I say (stolen of course, as there is nothing new under the sun) that one does not learn very much without pain or suffering.
(Various t-shirts agree with me.)
Here ya go, Dude!
Well; we all have to BELIEVE in Something!
Even if that belief is in Nothing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.