Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cybvax0.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.origins,net.religion,net.religion.christian Subject: Re: The true God lives in the real world Message-ID: <720@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Sun, 1-Sep-85 17:05:49 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.720 Posted: Sun Sep 1 17:05:49 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 2-Sep-85 09:38:41 EDT References: <304@pyuxn.UUCP> <2137CJC@psuvm> <397@scgvaxd.UUCP> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 78 Xref: linus net.origins:2277 net.religion:7111 net.religion.christian:1171 Summary: In article <397@scgvaxd.UUCP> dan@scgvaxd.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) writes: > Can you imagine Moses' dismay if God would have told him to go to > Pharoah and demand the release of his people and Pharoah would have > told Moses to go fly a kite! God told Moses this so that Moses would > know that God was in control. So that Moses could be confident that > he wasn't out of his mind. That it was an omnipotent and omniscient > God who he was dealing with. A god could just as easily have softened Pharoh's heart, and spared everybody a whole lot of trouble. That too would have impressed Moses. > The fact that God hardened Pharoah's heart doesn't release Pharoah > from responsibility for his own actions. This is an old theological > debate from way back. Can free will and God's sovereignty both exist > at the same time. The answer is YES! Hardening Pharoh's heart is clearly a god manipulating a human contrary to the human's will, however much you deny it. Pharoh might well have released them without that interference. > > Then, for variety, jump forward a few thousand years to Lisbon, Portugal > >on Nov. 1, 1755. One of the more destructive earthquakes in European history > >occurred in one of the most devoutly Christian cities of the time, on a > >religious holiday when most of the population of the city was in the huge > >stone cathedrals: 60,000 people were killed. What kind of god would knock > >down his church onto his own worshippers? For an example of the long-term > >results of that tantrum, read Voltaire's "Candide". > > James 4:14 You do not what your life will be like tomorrow; Life is > just a vapor that appears for just a moment, than vanishes away!" Only a dmager god would make lives so wretchedly evanescent. So what if the authors of the Bible noticed that life is brief? Anybody can observe that, the same way they can observe the sun rising. > 60,000 is nothing compared to the several million that were killed > during the persecutions of Nero and his cohorts! They didn't > complain and they had a choice. Jesus warned of the man who built > up his barn to stock up his goods but forgot to provide for his > eternal soul. I am sure that those who died from the earthquake > who were truly children of God were not the slightest bit upset > when they woke up in His wonderful presense! I'm sure you would be truly horrified to find out the truth of the damager god, since you haven't the stomach for anything except for your pollyanna fairy tales of a nice god. I count numerous billion who have suffered because of the damager god: the 60,000 and Nero's "millions" can all be laid at the damager god's feet. > > And then find an insurance policy and read the list of events that > >are considered to be "acts of God" - earthquake, flood, tornado, etc. > > Acts of God, but a result of man's rebellion. The state is not wicked: you are wicked for opposing the state and making the state punish you. What a boot-licking, servile and pathetic attitude. The damager god says you deserve to be oppressed. > > If god exists and did all the things he is credited with doing, then > >he is powerful, and sometimes he does good. But sometimes he is destructive > >to the point of evil, and certainly he is capricious. My own opinion? - > >he may or may not exist, I have no proof, if he exists I much prefer to > >avoid his notice. > > > If the God of the Bible exists, I would truly want to belong to > Him. For I have never seen such an act of love as that which He > demonstrated. > > "Herein is God's love demonstrated; In that while we were yet sinners, > Christ died for us!" Romans 5:8 Lots of people die much more real deaths than the putatively ressurected JC did. That "he did it for love" propaganda is merely a revisionist fairy tale designed by the damager god's minions to enslave the weak minded. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh