It seems to me you should be able to use the constrains of your questions to answer them:
Quotes by "
FarWanderer"
bjs wrote:
Why does God allow suffering?
Is suffering allowed? Yes. Why does anything allow suffering? Inability and choice.
Why did God, omnipotent, rest on the 7th day?
Did he rest? Yes. Was it required, or simply because he'd finished his work? Since he was finished, rest is likely allegorical.
Why does God create souls that he knows are bound for Hell?
Does God create souls? The Bible says all children are a gift, it does not say he creates their souls. Since they are a gift, they are our own. However, this means life does not belong to God. So as Christians claim, he evidently allows the inseminations, and shepards the birth, but is not responsible afterwards. So, he neither creates souls, but he does know they are bound for hell. The only answer was provided by Divine Insight, when we ask WHOM God sacrificed Jesus to? The mainstream story of Christianity is that God pathetically had to make a sacrifice of his only son so that the merest fraction of humanity could be saved from damnation. So he must allow the birth of the majority of souls knowing that he has only saved a few.
Why was Jesus's sacrifice necessary for an omnipotent God?
Is God omnipotent? Obviously not, is he omnipotent to within the parameters of our perception and ability to express in writing? Let's go with that. If that is so, there must be a creature higher than him to which Jesus must be sacrificed, so that a fraction of a fraction of us could live.
Why did God let things get so bad that he had to flood the whole world? Why didn't he intervene earlier?
As intimated above, there must be another power that God is unable to stop, mucking with his designs, and his powers of response are only extreme, inelegant, and impossible ones.
Why did God allow Satan into the Garden of Eden?
It must have been, quite simply, God was unable to prevent him, as he was unable to stop the creation of Nephilim.*
Why does God only reveal himself to very select people in very select times?
Does he reveal himself? Or is it more likely that these prophets are mentally instable? By all modern evidence, we must conclude these people are infinitely more likely to be suffering from hallucinations and delusions.
Why did Jesus's Resurrection have to happen 3 days after his death? Why wait for it to happen behind closed doors?
Was there a resurrection? We have no more evidence for it, than we do Tom Thumb or King Arthur. It is essentially impossible, and definitely unnecessary, and the key easy bit of evidence, Lazarus' testament about his death and resurrection, is lacking. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude, it is fiction,
Why is the talent distribution among humans so seemingly arbitrary?
In nature, we find strength in diversity, so, without a positive conclusion available from the Bible, and finding an answer readily from demonstrable reality, we should conclude talent is a result of evolution, not magic.
Why did God test Job? Why would he make a bet with Satan?
The story of Job is an adaptation of a polytheistic story, where two gods vied for Job, you should dismiss it from Christian cannon.
Why does God use Scripture to spread his word, instead of speaking to us directly?
Obviously one may modify Epicurus' below to answer this one - Is God willing to spread the word, but not able?...
Why did God permit slavery?
God does not permit slavery, he condones it. Why does God condone slavery? He must not think it is evil.
* = Although Nephilim means something ridiculous in Hebrew, it simply means 'love-child' in Greek, (Nee = born, Phil = love, so, the flood story is easily interpreted in Greek to say the world had become over-run with children born out of wed-lock, who needed to be killed by this God.
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Replying to post 13 by JehovahsWitness]
WHY DID GOD ALLOW THE WICKEDNESS OF NOAHS DAY?
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurious
