What has God done in past century?

[marco]

If we are to assess how good a man is as a father we would perhaps list the various good things he has done for his children. Let's look back over the past century to see what good God has done for humanity. Of course we could say he's given us RAIN; he's given our cattle GRASS; he has supplied OXYGEN over the Earth's lifetime. But what has he done recently? Some would say he's not been too good, having sent hurricanes, floods and tsunamis and famines.

Are there ANY good things we could say God has done in the last century?
Has he stopped being good?
Would it be right to conclude there is no evidence of goodness, so it would be best to consider there is no God rather than there is a bad God?

[JehovahsWitness]

Also, is that the only or even the main way you see God working in our present day and age, through recruitment to the WTS?

Let me just set you straight on one thing, we are JEHOVAH'S WITESSES, that is the name of the brotherhood to which we belong (Jehovah is the name of God, and we adopted this name based on Isaiah 43:10). If by WTS you are refering to the Watchtower & Bible Tract Society, that is an American non-profit corporotation that is a legal requirment to publish literature and I have no idea who or how many members it has on its board.

The only people I have ever come across that have a difficulty telling the difference between the two are apostates and the gullible ill-read that suckle at the teat of apostates.

You are most welcome,

JEHOVAHS WITNESS

[Clownboat]

Also, is that the only or even the main way you see God working in our present day and age, through recruitment to the WTS?

Let me just set you straight on one thing, we are JEHOVAH'S WITESSES, that is the name of the brotherhood to which we belong (Jehovah is the name of God, and we adopted this name based on Isaiah 43:10). If by WTS you are refering to the Watchtower & Bible Tract Society, that is an American non-profit corporotation that is a legal requirment to publish literature and I have no idea who or how many members it has on its board.

The only people I have ever come across that have a difficulty telling the difference between the two are apostates and the gullible ill-read that suckle at the teat of apostates.

You are most welcome,

JEHOVAHS WITNESS

I find this to not reflect reality.
I have debated in person a few Jehovah's Witnesses. Without fail, every single challenge brought to them was attempted to be answered via the Watch Tower.

"Hold on a sec Boat, let me reference the Watch Tower so I can tell you what I'm suppose to think" is how it comes across.

They were Watch Tower followers, and Jehovah's Witnesses by name.
You also seem to pull your material posted here from the Watch Tower, like I have come to expect.

Having noticed this patter does not make one gullible nor ill-read. I would call it being observant.

If you went to temple and spouted disdain toward the Watch Tower, would you not be frowned upon or even possibly dis-fellowshipped?

[JehovahsWitness]

Let me just set you straight on one thing, we are JEHOVAH'S WITESSES, that is the name of the brotherhood to which we belong (Jehovah is the name of God, and we adopted this name based on Isaiah 43:10). If by WTS you are refering to the Watchtower & Bible Tract Society, that is an American non-profit corporotation that is a legal requirment to publish literature and I have no idea who or how many members it has on its board.

The only people I have ever come across that have a difficulty telling the difference between the two are apostates and the gullible ill-read that suckle at the teat of apostates.

... Jehovah's Witnesses by name.

That is exactly correct, we adopted that name on 26 July 1931 and we are very proud of it and that is what we wish to be known as. People thought at the time the name wouldn't stick, it is a rather strange name for a religion but it has.



JW

ps: I have a little check-list of how to spot an apostate (or one of their poodles) and an aversion to the Divine Name and a reluctance to call us by our chosen name is up top.

[marco]

Are you therefore implying that frequency, severity and human tolls of "hurricanes, floods and tsunamis and famines" are unaffected by population sizes, coastal and high-density living patterns, land use and soil erosion, or anthropogenic contributions to climate change and geological instability?

You know I am not implying any such thing. I was dealing with the things outside of man's control, not the advisability of lessening the severity of natural disasters. The child swept away in a tsunami bears no responsibility for his fate. For those who believe in a God, God does. The question of man being a part contributor to God's destructiveness is for another day perhaps.

If - following your would-be portrait of misery and woe - you can so easily dismiss the fact that this is actually the best period in all of human history as being supposedly just the result of our own genius and actions, why does your thread apparently ignore those same realities in the case of most of the suffering we see?

I am most appreciative of the rise in man's fortunes over the past couple of centuries. I am aware that man has served man well. The thread is about God's modern contribution and instead of giving a donation here you emphasise man's success. I deduce that you believe God has done nothing good for us unless, as I said before, you attribute to God the fruits of man's industry. I don't think we can allow this.

[marco]

The only people I have ever come across that have a difficulty telling the difference between the two are apostates and the gullible ill-read that suckle at the teat of apostates.

I have a great admiration for apostates, some of whom place their lives at risk by exercising their right to think independently. It is not clear to me that the appearance, per se, of a group of Christians proclaims the largesse of our maker. Other groups, such as the Catholic Church, have been singing God's praises for centuries, most commendably in Latin. But choral voices and door-to-door sales folk do not demonstrate that God is providing the hungry with good things. God is remarkably silent; it's people who make the noise.

[Peds nurse]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

What would you expect God to be doing?

If you expect God is Christian then I can tell you he is constantly working through his people to share the good news.

The onus is not on me to suggest deeds for God but one recognises a box of chocolates when one sees it, and the thought behind it.

You can tell me that you believe the Christian God is working hard. I can suggest he's not. My reason? Look around at the misery in the world. No chocolates at all. No manna from heaven and no Red Sea opening up.

Mr. Marco, ALWAYS a pleasure to share my thoughts with you!

So, if there wasn't any misery in the world, then you would believe in God? And when you speak of misery are you referring only to natural disasters? I believe that people over the course of time, have created far more misery for each other than any natural disaster. So let's say, no natural disasters, no people who constantly hurt each other, creating misery, so then what or who is left to even believe in God?

[marco]

So, if there wasn't any misery in the world, then you would believe in God? And when you speak of misery are you referring only to natural disasters? I believe that people over the course of time, have created far more misery for each other than any natural disaster. So let's say, no natural disasters, no people who constantly hurt each other, creating misery, so then what or who is left to even believe in God?

Hello nurse; it is always a problem to respond to your reasonable suggestions.

I have been misunderstood - my fault, probably - for I did not exemplify the disasters as indications of God's non-existence but as examples that could be taken of his ill-will whereas there are no examples of his good-will. If tsunamis ceased I don't think we would rush to church but perhaps to the beach.

I can accept that misery as well as happiness can be man-made; and since we are looking for signs of God, I am not referring to human-made miseries nor human-made happiness.

The scenario you paint, with disasters and miseries missing, is a nice one and yes, there would be no need for prayer. Given the silence of deities now, there is also no need of prayer - just good will to all men. My best wishes as always.

[Peds nurse]

[Replying to post 27 by marco]

for I did not exemplify the disasters as indications of God's non-existence but as examples that could be taken of his ill-will whereas there are no examples of his good-will.

This is interesting to me, for a couple reasons, and I hope to not offend you. How would one know of God's good will or even ill will, if one didn't even acknowledge God? I think of a surgeon operating on a patient, and the patient dies. The family accuses the physician of ill will because their loved one died, but they didn't see the heroic measures the physician took to try to save his/her life. The only thing the family witnessed is the outcome, but those in the surgical suite can testify to the surgeons skills.

[Mithrae]

Are you therefore implying that frequency, severity and human tolls of "hurricanes, floods and tsunamis and famines" are unaffected by population sizes, coastal and high-density living patterns, land use and soil erosion, or anthropogenic contributions to climate change and geological instability?

You know I am not implying any such thing. I was dealing with the things outside of man's control, not the advisability of lessening the severity of natural disasters. The child swept away in a tsunami bears no responsibility for his fate. For those who believe in a God, God does. The question of man being a part contributor to God's destructiveness is for another day perhaps.

And likewise as you brushed past in your OP, god gets credit for the planet, the sun, the oxygen; for every life and every scrap of joy we see in this world. You instantly shrugged off and downplayed that obvious consequence, and insisted that you wanted to talk only about what's been happening 'recently' (as if there were no tsunamis in the past) and implying that the bad somehow outweighs all the good ("Look around at the misery in the world. No chocolates at all").

Others had already pointed out the failures of your argument's entirely subjective nature, that without any baseline for comparison you have no grounds for concluding whether or not god has been active on this world, but it was this would-be picture of misery which got my attention as being particularly fallacious. If the world we live in is a good one (which it seems to be) and if it's possible that if we'd done things better we could've had a world even better than today's a thousand years earlier (which we could have), there are much better grounds for suspecting a benevolence behind our world than a malevolent or uncaring reality.

If - following your would-be portrait of misery and woe - you can so easily dismiss the fact that this is actually the best period in all of human history as being supposedly just the result of our own genius and actions, why does your thread apparently ignore those same realities in the case of most of the suffering we see?

I am most appreciative of the rise in man's fortunes over the past couple of centuries. I am aware that man has served man well. The thread is about God's modern contribution and instead of giving a donation here you emphasise man's success. I deduce that you believe God has done nothing good for us unless, as I said before, you attribute to God the fruits of man's industry. I don't think we can allow this.

As I suggested in post #17 responding to Willum, a strong case could be made from the facts that
> promising scientific beginnings in Ionia were stifled through social stratification centuries before Christ;
> the earliest Christian message was popular with the lower classes and taught ultimate equality in Christ, and while the politically co-opted Roman church became intensely hierarchical, the 16th century Reformation began to reverse that tendency, and preceded the scientific revolution;
> since then the countries at the very leading edge of scientific, industrial and democratic progress have usually and mostly been those with predominantly Christian backgrounds;
> and the Jewish culture, from similar religious roots but emphasizing individual study and enquiry even more than Protestantism, has produced a vastly disproportionate number of the world's great scientists, philosophers and Nobel Laureates.

So while I personally withhold judgement for now, a believer certainly could argue that humanity's progress over two thousand years has been alternately hindered and helped by how poorly or closely God's will has been followed.

[marco]

And likewise as you brushed past in your OP, god gets credit for the planet, the sun, the oxygen; for every life and every scrap of joy we see in this world.

I am accepting, for the purposes of debate, that God engineered things. It is his flawed handiwork I am dealing with. When we call a plumber and afterwards discover a leak we do not usually give a list of all the benefits the plumber has bestowed on us.
So God made oxygen, hid it and Priestley discovered it. Wonderful. He made the San Andreas fault in his 6-day labour.

without any baseline for comparison you have no grounds for concluding whether or not god has been active on this world, but it was this would-be picture of misery which got my attention as being particularly fallacious.

The basis for comparison is the booming of God in the Bible and his silence now. One mentions the misery to call to attention the engineering flaws. I do not, of course, attribute these flaws to God; they are the results of whatever crashes and bangs occurred earlier, without the hand of some giant adjusting things. I appreciate you consider God to be stars, bits of debris and anything else, so you have the tough task of supporting a thesis you don't uphold.

So while I personally withhold judgement for now, a believer certainly could argue that humanity's progress over two thousand years has been alternately hindered and helped by how poorly or closely God's will has been followed.

Well you've defended yourself into error here. That scientists came from a largely Christian system, even though they may have been atheists, does not allow one to take belief in God as a contributing factor to their successes. They may have worn white coats - does the colour white improve their science? You seem to be arguing along these lines. Scientists in the past have been hounded by Biblical beliefs; and recently we effectively murdered Alan Turing because of some idiotic Bible story. When we put God in his tabernacle and lock the gold door, we get on much better.

So, in summary, nothing new on the God horizon. The world behaves in exactly the way we would expect were it subject to the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Another day we shall agree, perhaps. Go well.