Subject:
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Re: Mercy? (Was Re: My Prayer on this National Day of Prayer)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 16 Sep 2001 20:20:20 GMT
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Viewed:
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1301 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Adam Murtha writes:
> I have reconsidered,
Great! My prayer worked! You reconsidered!
> and I conclude that I feel I need to say more. I rarely have a chance to
> debate religion, as I come from a large Catholic family, and I'm the only one
> who doesn't attend church, and no one will talk about religion around me,
> unfortunately.
Sorry to hear that. Hopefully, we can accommodate you. (By the way, I'm
Protestant, so I may share some of your concerns with Catholicism.)
> I've read the last few of your posts and I find some more interesting
> information. In one message you say:
> But God may have another reason. He may want to use these tragedies to
> cause people to search for Him. He may also want to warn America against
> future possible terrorist attacks, which may be even worse than this was.
> If we are alerted to this attack, we can more easily spot others.
>
> A wise man once said "If 'ifs' and 'buts' were candy and nuts we'd all have
> a merry christmas."
LOL. Who said that?
> You have said many things similar to what I quoted above, and all of it is
> quessing and speculation on the mysterious ways that god works. And this
> isn't an attack on just what you said, but what is a regular occurance in any
> religion, how they approach events and how they determine what god or gods
> that they believe in, had a hand in.
All religions are based to some extent on faith. One has faith that what he
believes is correct.
> You yourself even used the term technicality, how could something created
> 'perfect' by god have a technicality.
I didn't apply the term "technicality" to God. I meant that man's goodness
derives from God, since God is the source of all goodness. If you
presuppose the nonexistence of God, this is nearly impossible to prove.
That's why I referred to it as a technicality.
> You also talk about how god created man, and the universe, and to that I'm
> going to say no. There is a huge amount of evidence against that any being
> did either of that, and I'm not not go more into that. But that is your
> belief and I'll respect that.
I would disagree - in fact, there's a huge amount of evidence - both
philosophical and scientific - that a Creator exists, and a further huge
amount that this Creator is the God defined in the Bible. If you'd
reconsider, I could go into that further. (I pray you reconsider this, too :).)
> You said that I forgot about the 50,000 person capability of the WTC. I
> certainly did not.
Sorry. I should have said, "You didn't indicate the 50,000 person capacity".
> You have repeatedly said that the reason of the tragedy may have been to
> shock people into action, or two seek god or some other reason. Would you
> not consider the 5000 people a large amount, even though it wasn't the full
> 50,000? And what if it was the full 50,000 people? Where would have been
> god's mercy there? The fact that it wouldn't have been 100,000? One million?
I am not trying to dismiss the magnitude of this tragedy. Of course it is a
large amount. I merely say it could have been ten times this much, and it
wasn't.
> As I have said before, if god wanted to shock people into action, or into a
> belief system, I think if he would have stepped out of his 'kingdom in the
> sky' and layed the law down, I know that would have personally shocked me.
> And no one would have had to die. But instead god uses an old, ambiguous,
> long winded book.
I certainly agree with you on this. But this isn't the way God works. From
postulate 2, http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=12833, I said that
God wants us to respond to Him of our own free will. God is willing to go
to extreme measures, even let Jesus be spat upon and killed, to let us
maintain our free will. If He suddenly appeared to us out of the sky with
an ultimatum, that would remove our option of making our own decision.
> You also said again that if god intervened he would have been accused of
> being too controlling,
I was addressing the point someone else raised that people might accuse God
of being too controlling if He interfered with their "fun".
> and I may have missed further explaination, but how is god being controlling
> in any way?
He's not being overtly controlling at all. He's allowing us to maintain our
free will. But He is engineering things behind the scenes.
> And who would accuse him or anyone or anything that of being too controlling
> to have this event not take place.
This is the point I tried to address before. If He had, people might accuse
Him because *they wouldn't have known what He was intervening to prevent*.
People can't see into the future and they don't know future potential
sequences of events. They would be unfairly accusing Him of inconveniencing
them by interfering, because they wouldn't be able to see that He was in
fact *protecting* them by His interference.
Again, they would not necessarily accuse Him this way if He had intervened,
but this argument anticipates the possibility.
>
> Adam
--Ian
>
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Ian Warfield writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Adam Murtha writes:
> > > Thank you for explaining in further detail that statement.
> >
> > You're welcome.
> >
> > > Although I'm not sure what you mean by "We wouldn't have the perspective of
> > > knowing what came next. The accusation might potentially arise because
> > > people would not know the true magnitude of what was prevented." But I
> > > believe it has something to do with the mysterious ways that god acts, as I
> > > have heard.
> >
> > Sorry, I tried to cram too much information into too few words :). I meant
> > to say that if God had prevented the attack, we wouldn't have appreciated
> > its sheer horrific magnitude, since we wouldn't have lived through it. If
> > God had substantially intervened, the accusation that He was being too
> > controlling might indeed have arisen. We would be blaming God unfairly,
> > because we would not have known what He was protecting us from.
> >
> > > You have written quite a bit about god and his plans and ideas, which I find
> > > interesting.
> >
> > Thank you.
> >
> > > But I disagree, in fact I might say that you are wrong if I wanted to
> > > continue this debate about religion, which I don't. I respect other people's
> > > beliefs and thoughts, and will continue to do so, and hope others will do the
> > > same for me and my thoughts. Everyone has there own thoughts and ideas, and
> > > I'm not here, nor is anyone else I think, to change the way other people
> > > think.
> >
> > Well, I pray you'll reconsider, but I'll respect your wishes and not debate
> > you further.
> >
> > >
> > > Adam
> >
> > --Ian
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