harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 I am not aware of a time in the history of the world that there were not earthquakes, thunderings, lightnings floods etc. How is this prophesy fulfilled? And has any wickedness been destroyed by them in modern times?That is how my question has not been answered. If you want to be sceptical about it, you can be as sceptical about the olden times as you can be about modern times, so I can't see how that changes anything.As to the question of whether any of the wicked has been destroyed, who knows? Perhaps they have, perhaps they haven't. Unless God tells us, we have no way of knowing. We are all sinners in the end.You are also overlooking that one purpose of the signs are to punish and/or warn the wicked, not just destroy them.
Robert F. Smith Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 LOL! I guess it shows.Nope. I don't believe in divine disasters brought on to punish anyone.Robert Smith's comment in response to mine that "Clear thinkers realize that God may be allowing free agency to prevail, even if that principle undermines normative Judeo-Christian dogma" reminds me of a thought-provoking response a seminarian gave a former Christian-turned-atheist acquaintence of mine. The question was how could God exist with so many bad things occuring in the world. The gist of the response was that God had to allow for free-choice. He could not be all loving, all knowing, and all powerful but allow so many horrible event to happen to people unless God was willing to let the world make its own decisions as to how it would live.Good point.Another consideration is that geology is impersonal, so that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and such can occur without entailing some divine plan. Sandy has just shown us how awesome and dangerous nature can be (even if we refer to such events as "acts of God" for legal reasons), and that we need to find ways of living that allay some of the great dangers we gamble with by poor planning.All that quite aside from God's possible direct intervention in human affairs on occasion, for very specific reasons.
Robert F. Smith Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 And other fairy tales.http://www.livescience.com/11339 weather changed history.html http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030210343.htm http://news.yahoo.com/huge ancient civilization collapse explained 123449804.html
harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 Another consideration is that geology is impersonal, so that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and such can occur without entailing some divine plan. Sandy has just shown us how awesome and dangerous nature can be (even if we refer to such events as "acts of God" for legal reasons), and that we need to find ways of living that allay some of the great dangers we gamble with by poor planning.All that quite aside from God's possible direct intervention in human affairs on occasion, for very specific reasons.I believe in an omniscient/omnipotent God who is fully in charge of his own creation. Nothing happens by chance, and he is never surprised by anything.
Libs Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 Nope, what is great is that God gives us the opportunity to rise to our own greatness. We live in a perilous world surrounded by the fury of natural forces with the depravity of fellow humans thrown in and he allows us to the opportunity to respond in our own way. Imagine the pressure exerted by the feelings of a loving father to throw an umbrella of protection he must resist.I agree. Well said.
california boy Posted November 4, 2012 Author Posted November 4, 2012 If you want to be sceptical about it, you can be as sceptical about the olden times as you can be about modern times, so I can't see how that changes anything.As to the question of whether any of the wicked has been destroyed, who knows? Perhaps they have, perhaps they haven't. Unless God tells us, we have no way of knowing. We are all sinners in the end.You are also overlooking that one purpose of the signs are to punish and/or warn the wicked, not just destroy them.Do you think that people see what they want to see. If you are religious and are expecting natural disasters to warn mankind of the second coming, then you attribute natural disasters to the warning voice of God. If you don't think natural disasters are a warning to the wicked, then you view the increase natural disasters to global warming and not from God's intervention. Any thoughts
Storm Rider Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 It is evident in ancient scripture that God directly intervened through natural disaster to affect certain groups. I assume that the same thing happens today with about the same regularity it did anciently, which was very rarely.I tend to think of this creation as a giant machine with natural laws that God created. For the most part the machine runs itself without much direct inflence by God. Just as anciently there are natural disasters that occur and God's people continue to lean on their faith to aid in overcoming all forms of opposition. It rains on the righteous as much as on the wicked. Righteousness is not a tool to insulate us from bad things; it is a tool for dealing with bad things when they occur and for aiding us in responding well.Wickedness is wickedness; I see no need to split hairs or try to explain away what every child knows is wrong. It takes an adult to rationalize that wickedness is actually righteousness. I think the best we can do with those that are caught in sin is to say we do not condemn them and ask them to sin no more. In this way we learn to judge others in the same way we would wish to be judged, which is to say our place is not to condemn anyone for their sins. However, we know what sin is because we look in a mirror every day. 2
harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 Nope, what is great is that God gives us the opportunity to rise to our own greatness. We live in a perilous world surrounded by the fury of natural forces with the depravity of fellow humans thrown in and he allows us to the opportunity to respond in our own way. Imagine the pressure exerted by the feelings of a loving father to throw an umbrella of protection he must resist.He does throw an umbrella of protection as and when required. There are many passages in scripture which teach that the righteous are protected against the forces of evil, including natural disasters according to their faith; while the wicked are not so protected. I would say all of us (wicked and righteous) are a lot more protected than not protected.
harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 I tend to think of this creation as a giant machine with natural laws that God created. For the most part the machine runs itself without much direct inflence by God.I don't think that is how the machine works, otherwise what guarantee do we have that the sun will not explode, or the earth will not be destroyed by a stray commet before the plan of salvation for this world is complete?
harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 Do you think that people see what they want to see. If you are religious and are expecting natural disasters to warn mankind of the second coming, then you attribute natural disasters to the warning voice of God. If you don't think natural disasters are a warning to the wicked, then you view the increase natural disasters to global warming and not from God's intervention. Any thoughtsYes, but I don't see how that changes between ancient times and modern times. There were people in the Book of Mormon times who were sceptical about the signs, and there were people who were believers. Likewise today there are those who are believers and those who are not. I am a believer, so I see it differently from the unbelievers.
Storm Rider Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 I don't think that is how the machine works, otherwise what guarantee do we have that the sun will not explode, or the earth will not be destroyed by a stray commet before the plan of salvation for this world is complete?You are thinking in absolutes rather than what I think. This is God's creation and his will is done. He may intervene directly in many areas, but I don't think he directly intervenes all the time. Sometimes crap happens not because did flung it on someone, but because it just happened. I have learned not to take things personally at every turn. If evil only lead to evil in this life, then it is impossible to understand how evil people appear to be blest so abundantly or why innocent people are killed or why children die from horrible diseases. God does not "do" this, it is just something that happens. God heals the broken heart and he leads us to joy and peace in the face of such things; he does not prevent bad things from happening to good people. 2
Mark Beesley Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 There is no such thing as a natural disaster caused by God.God is, by definition, a supernatural being. Anything He causes to occur is a supernatural event.So, no God does not cause natural disasters to punish people. He masks supernatural events as natural disasters to serve whatever purposes He may have.Now then, having masked a supernatural event as a natural disaster, it seems rather fruitless to try and unmask that which God has masked unless and until He does so through His prophet.
Tacenda Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 (edited) The only way I can fathom God hoisting disasters on us is when I think that He knows where we will end up, basking in His light. Edited November 4, 2012 by Tacenda
Bill “Papa” Lee Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 I went back to the OP thinking I took a wrong turn...how did we get here?
thesometimesaint Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 I don't think that is how the machine works, otherwise what guarantee do we have that the sun will not explode, or the earth will not be destroyed by a stray commet before the plan of salvation for this world is complete?What guarantees the sun won't explode? That little thing called science. There isn't enough material in the sun for it to explode. In about another 4-5 billion years it will use up all of its hydrogen, expand rapidly to around the orbit of our earth, Then slowly cool to a brown dwarf.As to a stray asteroid. There is no guarantee outside of relgion. Asteroids have in the past hit the earth, and there is no reason to suspect they won't continue hitting in the future. However;Truly massive ones hitting us are rare, in human time scales. We spend lots of money keeping tract of the near earth ones, but at the present time there is nothing we can do to stop them.
Bikeemikey Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 I recommend reading Abraham Joshua Heschel's "God in Search of Man." Also worth reading is Psalm 73 and Buber's essay on it.Both are excellent.
Bikeemikey Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 (edited) Good point.Another consideration is that geology is impersonal, so that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and such can occur without entailing some divine plan. Sandy has just shown us how awesome and dangerous nature can be (even if we refer to such events as "acts of God" for legal reasons), and that we need to find ways of living that allay some of the great dangers we gamble with by poor planning.All that quite aside from God's possible direct intervention in human affairs on occasion, for very specific reasons.Disasters are caused by geological considerations.For example, some areas of the world are not subject to earthquakes as they are not in prome locations, likewise with hurricanes.The idea that God uses these events to punish the wicked would need to first follow the idea that God causes the wicked to want to live in locations prone to such events...It just doesn't make sense. Edited November 4, 2012 by Bikeemikey
Kerry A. Shirts Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 Disasters are caused by geological considerations.For example, some areas of the world are not subject to earthquakes as they are not in prome locations, likewise with hurricanes.The idea that God uses these events to punish the wicked would need to first follow the idea that God causes the wicked to want to live in locations prone to such events...It just doesn't make sense.Agreed. That is because we cannot seem to get out of the morbid ancient literal Bible thinking, and we pretend to know that they experienced objective reality and that is why there is still relevance today of holding onto the Bible views, which are not unified and coherent anyway. But we overlook that to feed our own biases about the "realities" the Bible depicts. We still have the mindset that if the Bible says so, it must be so, or else have really happened the way it is depicted. 1
thesometimesaint Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 I think we should view ancient Biblical stories as the religious history of a people. Not necessarity as a literal history.
Kerry A. Shirts Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 I think we should view ancient Biblical stories as the religious history of a people. Not necessarity as a literal history.More like religious stories. I mean they weren't even put down in writing until the Babylonian captivity many thousands of years after Adam.... there is simply no way to have known anything of what happened for that first few thousand years by those people. It is from their 585 B.C. point of view on every subject they chose to write about. And they obviously ignored whole hosts of things that they didn't feel were pertinent, but is part of the Ancient Near Eastern history. This isn't history, its mythologized story telling. There is precious little that is factual from any kinds of physical investigations of the O.T. these days, the archaeologists have literally taken down piece by piece anything of the story or the supported history of the William F. Albright/Frank Moore Cross, Jr., paradigm. Archaeology and history simply doesn't fit what we have in the Old Testament.
telnetd Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 So, no God does not cause natural disasters to punish people. He masks supernatural events as natural disasters to serve whatever purposes He may have.This reminds me of a song by .. "you say po-tay-toe,I say po-tah-toe, You say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe ... let's call the whole thing off".Gail
harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 You are thinking in absolutes rather than what I think. This is God's creation and his will is done. He may intervene directly in many areas, but I don't think he directly intervenes all the time. Sometimes crap happens not because did flung it on someone, but because it just happened. I have learned not to take things personally at every turn. If evil only lead to evil in this life, then it is impossible to understand how evil people appear to be blest so abundantly or why innocent people are killed or why children die from horrible diseases. God does not "do" this, it is just something that happens. God heals the broken heart and he leads us to joy and peace in the face of such things; he does not prevent bad things from happening to good people.We appear to be talking about different things. I am not relating your reply to my original post.
harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 There is no such thing as a natural disaster caused by God.God is, by definition, a supernatural being. Anything He causes to occur is a supernatural event.So, no God does not cause natural disasters to punish people. He masks supernatural events as natural disasters to serve whatever purposes He may have.Now then, having masked a supernatural event as a natural disaster, it seems rather fruitless to try and unmask that which God has masked unless and until He does so through His prophet.There may also be a case for arguing that there are no natural disasters at all, but only supernatural.
harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 The only way I can fathom God hoisting disasters on us is when I think that He knows where we will end up, basking in His lght.The Lord "slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes." (1 Nephi 4:13)
harfad Posted November 4, 2012 Posted November 4, 2012 What guarantees the sun won't explode? That little thing called science.Science does not guarantee anything. Only God can.As to a stray asteroid. There is no guarantee outside of relgion.I am interested only in discussing the subject in the context of religion.
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