Start with the Holocaust.
They wanted to allow trannies in the Ladies Room.
It is possible that God created the universe and life forms and then just lets it all run on its own based on the laws he created. At least that is what it looks like but who knows? It is above our understanding.
God is not our celestial butler.
Why do people think God sits around watching weather patterns like some child with a “make your own planet” with the weather system add-on module?
These things are simply ridiculous.
God didn’t decide to make Harvey occur....God is letting us find our way on this earth, and by our responses to challenges like Harvey, and I think HE has seen a lot...
Here we were (are), a very divided country, at each other’s throats politically, religiously, socially. Then Harvey came along.
Now, I’m not going to argue that Harvey was a blessing or a good thing — but as the old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining.
The silver lining in this crowd is the heroic efforts of all kinds of people to help neighbors, friends, family, strangers, whomever they could help, however they could help — and the generosity of those who cannot be present to help personally, in order to support those who are.
This is inspiring, and this is who we are. This terrible disaster has made us pull together and show the magnificence in our character. For a little while, most of us have forgotten our differences.
This is a good thing.
That is why we have the OT book of Job. There is a time when it is okay to get angry at God. He has big shoulders.
No, it's not hard to understand.
Amo 4:7 "I also withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would have rain, and the field on which it did not rain would wither;
Amo 4:8 so two or three cities would wander to another city to drink water, and would not be satisfied; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.
Amo 4:9 "I struck you with blight and mildew; your many gardens and your vineyards, your fig trees and your olive trees the locust devoured; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.
Amo 4:10 "I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, and carried away your horses, and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.
Amo 4:11 "I overthrew some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning; yet you did not return to me," declares the LORD.
The truth is that we don’t know. If Isaiah were here speaking what he had heard from God, then we would know.
But we don’t.
The writer also forgets that maybe God’s patience is starting to run a little thin.
I remember a FRper posted a week ago that Houston is the location of the largest Planned Parenthood in the country. The writer should look into it.
Human mortal life on earth is the real “valley of the shadow of death”, and the thing to remember is, as we have been told:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
That is the understanding we need, and can have, more than whether or not G-d will reach out to prevent some calamity coming toward us. We need to remember G-d will be with us, all the time, and even in the worst of times.
Fwiw, Harvey was not the first hurricane to hit this area and it won't be the last.
God gave us the tools to observe and understand these things for ourselves, along with the free will to choose to live wherever we choose to live, but to also live with the consequences of our choices.
From nature's point of view, what are the benefits of or what could be the purpose of a flood?
So God decided to do some indiscriminate killing of those who prayed in Houston and those who did not. Nice. What vengeance against the innocent.
Is that what it is going to be like at the pearly gates:
"Sorry, bub. You were a complete devotee to the Christian cause, but alas, you lived next door to three atheists. Down you go."
Fair question and one many Christians will ask God to answer.
Here are the logical options as I see them
There are no logical options for a finite person to apprehend an infinite God.
If you wish to amuse God, tell him of your plans.