A Noah's Ark question

[_Drifting]

If children starving in Africa is part of God's plan then he needs to come up with a better plan.

Aside from the arrogance, unfounded arrogance, of assuming you "know better" than God...perhaps His plan is to motivate you in to actually making a contribution and an effort to feed those children...instead of the paltry donation you donate online - that likely amounts to giving a salty cracker to a thirsty child. The plan - obviously- is intended to motivate yo to do more for those starving kids, but you seem content with being here...wow, talk about a better plan.

I do more to stop children starving than God does.
And CFR on "the paltry donation {I} donate online..."

I may or may not know better than God, one day I will or will not find out.
If I'm wrong God will forgive me because He knows my human frailties. He, allegedly, gave them to me after all.

[_subgenius]

If I'm wrong God will forgive me because He knows my human frailties. He, allegedly, gave them to me after all.

but the choices you made in spite of them were yours alone

[_Drifting]

If I'm wrong God will forgive me because He knows my human frailties. He, allegedly, gave them to me after all.

but the choices you made in spite of them were yours alone

The choices I made/will make are based on the available information.
If God makes it difficult to see His involvement then He has to accept some culpability for making it too hard for me, when He knew upfront my susceptibility because He made me.

[_Franktalk]

The point needs to be made that God cares for the soul.

Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Joh 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

We see a comparison of life in the flesh to life in the spirit.

And what of the flesh?

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Gal 6:8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

1Co 5:5 To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

I can not make people believe in a spirit. I can only declare that I know I have one. I can only declare that I know God is a Spirit as well. Exactly what that means I do not know. One day I hope to find out.

[_Drifting]

The point needs to be made that God cares for the soul.

Mat 10:39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Joh 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

We see a comparison of life in the flesh to life in the spirit.

And what of the flesh?

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Gal 6:8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

1Co 5:5 To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

I can not make people believe in a spirit. I can only declare that I know I have one. I can only declare that I know God is a Spirit as well. Exactly what that means I do not know. One day I hope to find out.

So, belief in God is no more beneficial in this life than say a belief in Xanu, or the healing properties of a comfort blanket.

[_bcuzbcuz]

Ah, I get it. The wages of sin is death. People who sin deserve to die, right? I seem to remember you saying you had the right to kill someone who threatened your family. The wages of sin and all that.

I have to ask who owns your life in the flesh?

I don't know that I understand the question. 'Owning', to me, is not a concept that I spend much time thinking about. My name stands on the contract for my house mortgage, for example, but that is merely an obligation to pay the bank, which actually 'owns' the house.

When I lived amongst the Dené natives of Northern Canada they laughed at the European concept of owning. A common expression was, "A hundred years from now, will you have made any difference? You Europeans come and change things, then you go away and then the next European comes and changes them again." But my friend, Art, thought having a grass lawn was about the funniest thing he'd even seen. "You plant seed for the grass to grow, then you spend all your time mowing it down."

I came to respect their concept of owning. So who owns my life in the flesh? No idea. I'm just paying the mortgage.

[_subgenius]

I do more to stop children starving than God does.
And CFR on "the paltry donation {I} donate online..."

You "say' you do more than God does
...but as you so often criticize and condemn the church for not actually "proving" how much, you fail to affirm that you do anything at all...even if it just a simple "lie" on this board!

The following link is the the only CFR i have so far...but the average reader can readily discern your actual level of commitment.
You have balked at this affirmation before

[_son of Ishmael]

That might be the case in the US, Europe and a few other countries, but the majority of the world's poor don't have a lot of choices. Why doesn't God listen to their prayers?

What makes you think God is not listening to their prayers? Because they are still having babies who will starve? Should God take away their desire for sex? Should God come into their country and kill off the leaders who steal the food and supplies being sent by other nations to help alleviate the problems? Should God then set up leadership educational systems so that history will not repeat itself?

Whose free agency should God take away? In fact, why do you blame God for choices which mankind makes which effectively continue the situations the world's poor are born into? Why not blame the real villains and get rid of them? How would you propose this be done? If God goes in and cleans house, won't you also complain about that? It seems to me that through your eyes God is going to turn out to be the bad guy no matter what He does.

Instead of trying to blame God for everything, why don't YOU be the hero, sell off everything you own, and go over there and correct everything that is wrong with the governments of those countries. Get politically involved and put your actions where your mouth is. Do you think you might wind up taking up arms against those governments and act as judge and jury? After all, aren't you trying to do the right thing? Lock up all the evil doers and prevent them from being able to use their own free agency. Be aware that you will be doing what you don't like God doing; yet you are very willing to blame Him for whatever is not right in the world.

To those who think the flood is a myth: Nobody could have died - it was a myth!

To those whose historical date times are out of sync: According to Biblical historicity, the confounding of the languages took place AFTER the flood. Therefore, there were no chinese, no europeans, etc., everyone spoke the same language and lived on the same land mass before the the Tower of Babel was built.

To those who wish to claim that God is a mass murderer without conscience, at least use ALL of the claims made in the Bible surrounding the flood in order to reach your conclusions. In other words, don't pick and choose what you want to in order to support your conclusion, use ALL of the evidences provided when reaching your conclusion. Anything less than using All of the evidence provided is being less than honest, and serves only to give your arguments zero credibility. Since the Bible is your source, either use all of the evidence it provides; or use none of it.

To those who do not believe in God: Why would you think that God SHOULD be listening to the prayers of the poor....or anyone's prayers? If He does not exist, He most certainly cannot hear or answer prayers.

Blessings,

jo

Wow Jo you are really on a roll. The point of my comments is that it seems that God only answers the prayers of very few people. I can't imagine a prayer more sincere than that of a man whose children are starving to death. Yet your answer is "Well you should have controlled your sex drive and had less children." If God is omnipotent, I would think he could find a way to answer that man's prayer without violating the prime directive of screwing with people's free agency if he wanted to. Maybe he just doesn't want to.

by the way I do give a good portion of my income to help the needy. Since I don't pay tithing to the COB anymore I have money that can actually go to a good cause.

[_Drifting]

I do more to stop children starving than God does.
And CFR on "the paltry donation {I} donate online..."

You "say' you do more than God does
...but as you so often criticize and condemn the church for not actually "proving" how much, you fail to affirm that you do anything at all...even if it just a simple "lie" on this board!

I notice you failed to respond to the CFR.

As for how much the Church gives to help the poor and needy - I know exactly what proportion of its income the Church in the UK passes on to helping the poor and the needy. I know because it's published by law. See thread about "Church in UK publishes 2011 financial accounts". Or for real proof, register with Companies House Direct and obtain your own copy.

In further support the finances in Canada are also available online and they are remarkably consistent with what we see in the UK.

We also know how much the Church worldwide gives to helping the poor and the needy because Provident Living publishes it. It's currently standing at $1.4 billion in total for the last 26 years. That's widely reported to be about a third of what the Church ploughed into City Creek. It's seems "Feed my sheep" has been taken to mean "provide upmarket shopping facilities near my Prophets Penthouse pad".

In fact my signature lines show what the Church's current priorities are...

For more financial research into the Church's use of donations see the Business Week article which is rather well researched despite the Church's secrecy about its financial goings on.

[_jo1952]

Wow Jo you are really on a roll. The point of my comments is that it seems that God only answers the prayers of very few people. I can't imagine a prayer more sincere than that of a man whose children are starving to death. Yet your answer is "Well you should have controlled your sex drive and had less children." If God is omnipotent, I would think he could find a way to answer that man's prayer without violating the prime directive of screwing with people's free agency if he wanted to. Maybe he just doesn't want to.

I see that you put your own twist on what you thought I said. My comment about the sex drive was "should God take away their sex drive"; In other words, should He take away their free agency (and one of the few choices that can at least bring them momentary happiness).

by the way I do give a good portion of my income to help the needy. Since I don't pay tithing to the COB anymore I have money that can actually go to a good cause.

It is very easy and very safe to write a check. Do you know for a certainty that the money you are donating is being used the way it is being claimed to be used?

This still does not put your actions where your mouth is. Instead of being so critical about what you think someone else is or isn't doing, you sure don't seem sincerely anxious to place your own well being at stake by placing it into the fire. If you aren't willing to actually do something with your physical presence in a poverty stricken country where people are starving, then you have no room to complain and use a standard against others which you are not willing to follow yourself.

So, if YOU were God, how would you handle it? It is a simple thing to be critical; and you have a very strong opinion about how He's handling things. Let's see what solutions you can come up with, and allow the rest of us to review them and give our opinions about them.

Blessings,

jo