My apologies for my absence. I'm afraid that Facebook has been my downfall. I will post this for your perusal. Stuff like this always interests me because they actually ask a pretty good question, but the mob mentality against Christianity reminds me of arguments I would have in the 6th grade: "Oh Yeah? So!Well, you're stupid!" You know- stuff like that. How do we answer this without being equally snarky back at them? Let's see if you can figure it out...Have at it!
UPDATE: Here is someones response
Not bad, but not satisfying enough for me either...the question I have is, although some people inexplicably are spared while others inexplicably die, does that really make the argument that God doesn't exist? At the MOST, we could say that we don't understand or like the way he works and we would not want to serve that kind of God. But to deny his existence would mean that we:
1) Are smart enough to understand everything there is to know about spiritual things. And we can explain how over a billion universes came to be and how this one universe has life, and incredibly complex life at that, but it was all by chance. I guess there are just millions of people who have done the theorems and worked out the mathematical odds on their kitchen tablecloth and know for certain, with no wavering or doubt, that there is absolutely no God. Wouldn't an intelligent honest person have to admit that there is no way to know that for sure? Isn't it, at best, a hunch?
2)We would have to believe there isn't a God, but yet believe that nature can think. This random Cosmic belch that we live on, has the amazing ability, without any design whatsoever, to recognize what needs to change about itself in order for it to survive. It's interesting that they don't claim the changes are by accident, just life itself. Yeah, that makes total sense. Isn't that belief attributing god-like qualities to nature? So, you'll believe in a mother nature kind of god, but not a God that could make mother nature?
3)We would have to believe that there is no meaning to life. No purpose. We are born, we disturb the gravel on earth for about 80 years, and then we die. Is there any thought more depressing than that?
Yes, it may seem that we are taking events that are bound to happen sooner or later, and ascribing them to a God that we have never seen. But the alternative for us is untenable: despite a world around us that points to design, and planning, and creativity, and complexity beyond any man's ability to create - we will stubbornly deny that He exists. We cannot do it. There is just too much evidence to the contrary.
As obvious as it seems to them that there isn't a God, it's just as obvious to us that there is.
And so, we choose to give him credit when good things happen (because the Scriptures tell us to), and we pray to Him for help when bad things happen (because the scriptures tell us to do that, too). We don't fully understand Him. We don't have definitive answers to their statements. But just because we don't have an answer doesn't mean that there isn't one - and someday God will let us in on it all.
Until then, we choose to believe, and trust. People like Heather Macdonald may think it is naive and silly, but I feel comfortable in my belief, because Miss Macdonald has a lot more to lose than I do if I'm right, than if she is.
UPDATE #2 - MORE BY HEATHER MACDONALD
She is responding to all of the uproar over her post. This is part of what she said:
“The bus ads suggest a utilitarian reason for skepticism: you’ll enjoy life more. The only touchstone that I can possibly imagine for deciding whether or not to adopt any particular belief is its truth, in this case: Does the evidence of human experience support the claim that we are attended to by a loving, personal God? Even if the conclusion that we have no ‘Friend’ in the sky leads inevitably to melancholy or dissatisfaction, it is better to live unhappily in truth than happily in delusion, in my view. (As I have written before, however, I am puzzled by the claim that life would be meaningless without God. Schubert wrote some 600 songs, nearly every one of them a gem of lethal beauty and exquisiteness. You want something more?)”
You can read more of her opinions at www.secularright.org
Ray Comfort adds:
Comfort added, "I will donate $10,000 to him, or give it to any children's charity he names. All I ask is that he goes into a studio and gives me 20 minutes on why there is no God and why evolution is scientific. Then I will give 20 minutes on how we can know God exists and why evolution is nothing more than an unsubstantiated and unscientific fairy tale for grownups. Then we both will have 10 minutes to respond.
You can read the rest of his article here.
This is interesting too“The truth is, however, that if you go to South America, you will find a huge number of conversions to Protestant Christianity. If you go to Korea, you will find Christian churches with 100,000 members. If you go to China, you will find 100 million Christians. And if you go to Africa, you’ll find that countries whose populations were only five percent Christian 100 years ago are now 50 percent Christian. These trends have not gone unnoticed by historians, who are startled by them and have attempted to explain them away, and they are the empirical basis for my claim that God is doing very well in this world. What’s important to understand is that the New Atheism is not a triumphant cry of success, but rather a bitter reaction to the success of religion.”
You can read the rest of that article here. This guy debates athiests too.
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5 comments:
Well, that was depressing to read, but not supprising. No wonder God had to go to such lengths to save us. We (mankind) are truly unworthy of the marvelous grace that has been given us. We presume to understand and judge God with our feeble minds and attempt to disprove His existance because bad things happen. He proved His unfailing, unconditional, unmeasurable love to us once and for all so if we all suffer temporally or die in plane crashes, it can not change that. Forgive us Lord when we speak ill of You in our ignorance. When we place ourselves above our place and attempt to place You below Yours. Forgive us when we ignore Your mercy and long suffering and call Your justice unjust. Forgive us when we trample Your goodness in the dirt or worse we try to take credit for it ourselves. Forgive us for our rebellous spirit that sees Your will and runs away from it. Forgive us when we put our desire to sin above our obedience to you. Forgive us for not making you Lord of our life. How do You put up with us?
Sorry,
john
"The righteouss live by faith" We can't fully explain why these things happen, but we can KNOW, through faith that God is sovereign and He lets everything happen for a reason. We don't know if maybe one person in one of those families of the victims is now a believer through that tragedy... or a righteous man of God was praying over the plane where no one was hurt and the Lord spared them. Or maybe that didn't happen and there was a young child that is about to be a mighty preacher in this next generation that the Lord is going to use. WE DON'T KNOW. But truly it is sad and heartbreaking that these people are spitting in the face of God. It is almost impossible to talk with them because their minds have been dulled by sins decietfulness and by empty philosophy. But what is impossible with man, is possible with God, and the Spirit knows the mind of God, so if He leads us to speak to one of them, there is no doubt who will win the argument. But Lord let us not debate just to argue, but let us be sensitive to Your Spirit and do everything in love.
I think the perfect response was the following one by Alex Guggenheim (Response #20).
"Attempting to explain the mechanics of divine omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, divine sovereignty and its decree(s) that also encompasses the reality of human decisions, human conditions and a universe subject to the present physical realities is frankly impossible since it requires an infinite and eternal mind.
What we do know is this. God is NOT chargeable for sin, failure or a violation of his own divine and perfect integrity. Hence, if a man assigns to God the success of a flight and the failure of another, a man or woman has done that. Has God shown up at your door to declare he did either? You are assuming such assignments have come from God.
It is a matter of certainty that a person’s death does come as God decrees but God’s decree(s) does not negate the reality of both the laws of physics or human volition. He may incorporate such realities in his decree(s) in eternity past, it appears quite weighty he does.
Calvinists are, by the way, theological rationalists and poor examples of more thorough theological considerations."
I really doubt anyone could have said it better...
Am I the only one that had to read that 4 times to comprehend what he was saying?
"although some people inexplicably are spared while others inexplicably die, does that really make the argument that God doesn't exist? At the MOST, we could say that we don't understand or like the way he works and we would not want to serve that kind of God. But to deny his existence would mean that we:"
Some are spared? if by that you mean Enoch and Elijah, then yes, some are spared...but i like to think that they will be the two witnesses spoken about in revelation. and no one dies in inexplicably. man dies because man has sinned. bible explains it pretty well. Even Jesus's death is explicable...he was offered by God as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.
the only thing that is really inexplicable about death is the Love of God (john 3:16). He is so passionately committed to his creation.
"Until then, we choose to believe, and trust. People like Heather Macdonald may think it is naive and silly, but I feel comfortable in my belief, because Miss Macdonald has a lot more to lose than I do if I'm right, than if she is."
Pastor Phil, YOU ARE RIGHT. there is no if, haha! our God is the living God!
"And if you go to Africa, you’ll find that countries whose populations were only five percent Christian 100 years ago are now 50 percent Christian. These trends have not gone unnoticed by historians, who are startled by them and have attempted to explain them away, and they are the empirical basis for my claim that God is doing very well in this world."
this is very true. and speaking of wich, here is a video you will never see on the news in America. ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shxu0ba-SKU
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