Posted on 11/10/2005 1:33:57 PM PST by conserv13
No, you should definitely not do that.
Just blow up their house then?
Don't be silly.
I'm just trying to follow your line of reasoning. If, when God needs someone's attention, he has to send a massive hurricane that leads to the flooding of an entire city because they wouldn't pay attention otherwise, what should we do when we need to accomplish the same objective?
However, where God does give the administration of true justice to men he allows and even demands just punishment. Prison, war, etc.
God nudges; He forgives; He nudges again; He forgives; He nudges harder; He chastises mildly and forgives; He reminds; He reminds; He reminds; He chastises a bit more; we ignore; He forgives; eventually...He judges if we are His children or if His children are oppressed; or, so it seems to my small mind peering into a mirror darkly at an incomparably greater Mind.
I don't know much about the tornado, but surely God is allowing catastrophe in His omnipotence. To be unjust, however, would make Him the author of sin. It's just my opinion--necessarily a tiny opinion in the burning light of His omniscience--that:
(1) Some tragic events are unfortunate happenstances as the example from the Gospel when Jesus asked His disciples if they thought that the collapse of the tower killing nearly a score of workers was because this construction's crew were sinners above all the rest. Christ's answer was no!
(2) Some tragic events are the result of evildoers as a murder or rape would be. A belief in God being not only merciful but also just demands His perfect recompense for the victim toward the perpetrator. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."
(3) Some tragic events are the result of direct intervention of God Himself on evildoing as in the deaths of Ananias, Sapphira, Herod Antipas, etc. in the New Testament and any number of destructions in the Old Testament.
Personally, I believe the devastation along the Gulf Coast was a combination of all three, but mostly #2. And, suffering does cleanse if it is in chastisement; but, suffering vindicates if it is punitive. With life's span being wispily short in comparison with eternity, afterlife is almost the full balance of our being's existence. Thus, a shortened life may be a blessing to the one departed (a la Twain's Mysterious Stranger) while a great suffering is left behind for the bereaved.
Yet, how can we know the delectable pleasure of warming ourselves before a winter's fire if we have never known cold? How can we truly appreciate reunion if we have never known loss? How can we experience a multitude of added and ever-continuing joys which would have been withheld from us if we had not experienced a multitude of intense but (beside eternity) brief pains? Hence viewed, suffering is a very large gift for relief from pain is exquisite, and unending earthly thrill sates and dulls and maddens.
A very long life, then, may also be a blessing if it gains much wisdom in traversing many dark valleys as well as gaining much experience of complex pleasures such as the warm fire and reunion that could otherwise have not been truly appreciated or even known at all, and simpler pleasures afore-known in this life are even more of the bounty of His grace. I really do believe that God knows what He is doing. A brief life, a long life, a hard life, a "blessed" life--in short, it's all good!
I said people who respect Christianity.
Are you trying to play God?
The first death is of little consequence; it is the second death that people should fear.
But being an ape, I guess you have nothing to fear because God only judges people. (/sarcasm)
Seems rather harsh to me.
But when you realize that it's to prevent people from a worse fate, it's actually not so harsh, but redemptive.
an image from inside Pat Robertson's brain:
http://abbeynews.com/wp/gsmite.jpg
LOL.
Justice is determined by what is done and to whom, not by who decides to do it. Or is it less evil for Bill Gates or George W. Bush or <insert your personal hero's name here> to decide to murder a random, innocent bystander than for someone else to do it?
However, where God does give the administration of true justice to men he allows and even demands just punishment. Prison, war, etc.
So every one of those New Orleansinians did deserve it? Gotcha.
But what worse fate, and it's to be avoided by doing what???
Don't you see? You're taking a random act of nature and imputing a divine purpose to it after the fact. You're just going by your own beliefs & prejudices & notions, and latching on to anything that seems significant or ironic about a disaster (Katrina in this case), but it's no more rational than when an airheaded liberal imputes significance to the patterns laid down by a deck of Tarot cards or an astrological chart or swirls of tea leaves at the bottom of the cup.
You're in deep danger of tumbling down into a rabbit hole of self-delusion.
Really? You believe that Katrina's devastation was mostly caused by evildoers? Do tell.
I'm not sure what Bill Gates has to do with the discussion. However, even George Bush would not take the law into his own hands beyond what is stipulated in the law. If he went beyond what is proscribed for his job, he could be impeached.
latching on to anything that seems significant or ironic about a disaster
On the contrary, I haven't picked out anything significant or "ironic" about the Gulf Coast disaster. In fact, I never postulated that God had, in fact, unleashed any kind of judgment. I had said that MAYBE there was some kind of judgment involved as God does use disaster to get people's attention. The Bible's lessons show us that.
9/11 was America's fault too (Amazing how two people so different as Osama bin Laden and Pat Robertson can agree - or perhaps not)
Mr. robertson is right on this one.
Those that forsake the Lord will in turn be forsaken.
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