God's Ways

[Paul of Tarsus]

Many have said that "the Lord works in mysterious ways." If we were to outline the ways of the Christian God, then how would we describe those ways? Those ways are indeed often mysterious, and here's a partial outline of what I have been told about God and his ways:

1. He created the world, but when that world proved to be imperfect, he blamed us for its faults.
2. Although he has worked countless wonders, he never bothered to do so under circumstances in which we can all be confident he did so.
3. If we doubt any of those miracles that we cannot be sure happened, he will punish us for doubting.
4. To let us know he loves us he sent his son Jesus into the world demanding that Jesus die a horrible death.
5. He very often neglects details.
6. When people argue about him he doesn't bother to resolve the issues.
7. He "chose" the Jews never bothering to explain what's special about them leaving many of them wishing he had chosen somebody else.
8. Although his son Jesus reputedly despised commercialism especially commercialism tied to places where people worship God, God ended up creating a religion that makes very good use of commercialism making many members of that religion very wealthy.
9. He prefers to talk to men.
10. He can make people act as if they are mentally ill.

[nobspeople]

Many have said that "the Lord works in mysterious ways." If we were to outline the ways of the Christian God, then how would we describe those ways? Those ways are indeed often mysterious, and here's a partial outline of what I have been told about God and his ways:

1. He created the world, but when that world proved to be imperfect, he blamed us for its faults.
2. Although he has worked countless wonders, he never bothered to do so under circumstances in which we can all be confident he did so.
3. If we doubt any of those miracles that we cannot be sure happened, he will punish us for doubting.
4. To let us know he loves us he sent his son Jesus into the world demanding that Jesus die a horrible death.
5. He very often neglects details.
6. When people argue about him he doesn't bother to resolve the issues.
7. He "chose" the Jews never bothering to explain what's special about them leaving many of them wishing he had chosen somebody else.
8. Although his son Jesus reputedly despised commercialism especially commercialism tied to places where people worship God, God ended up creating a religion that makes very good use of commercialism making many members of that religion very wealthy.
9. He prefers to talk to men.
10. He can make people act as if they are mentally ill.

If god exists as the bible describes, then he's not like us. As such, there's no way to describe him in a way that makes logical sense to our brains.
I'm not sure where you received your bullet points of god, but they seem kinda' 'out there', in a way. But they would be simply opinions, which come from people and many people are, indeed, 'out there'.

[Miles]

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11. He's called a loving god but condones slavery
12. He's called a just god but has no problem killing innocent women, children, and babies
13. Doesn't care that people are born with maladies and deformities, at least not to the extent that he's willing to fix them
14. Says homosexuals who have sex with one another are detestable and worthy of killing, but doesn't explain why it's detestable.
15. Because for many people he's never presented compelling evidence for himself, he obviously doesn't care that millions will end up in hell.
16. Left his inspired Word, but doesn't care that it's splintered its followers into competitive, even warring, factions
. 7. He "chose" the Jews never bothering to explain what's special about them leaving many of them wishing he had chosen somebody else. (relisted it because its originality)
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[nobspeople]

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11. He's called a loving god but condones slavery
12. He's called a just god but has no problem killing innocent women, children, and babies
13. Doesn't care that people are born with maladies and deformities, at least not to the extent that he's willing to fix them
14. Says homosexuals who have sex with one another are detestable and worthy of killing, but doesn't explain why it's detestable.
15. Because for many people he's never presented compelling evidence for himself, he obviously doesn't care that millions will end up in hell.
16. Left his inspired Word, but doesn't care that it's splintered its followers into competitive, even warring, factions
. 7. He "chose" the Jews never bothering to explain what's special about them leaving many of them wishing he had chosen somebody else. (relisted it because it's so original)
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11 - I think that's been an argument for a few weeks in here with no one side budging on their POV (shockingly!)
12 - Agreed - but it's always justified. I guess those stupid, tiny babies just didn't have faith and righteousness; or they weren't sinful so their deaths were immaterial (depending on which sect of Christianity you participate in)
13 - That's our fault, not God's. He did nothing wrong - humanity brought it on themselves!!!
14 - To be fair, he's GOD and doesn't need to man-plain anything to us, lowly, nothings!
15 - Oh come on! He's always provides evidence! If we don't see it it's because we don't WANT to see it
16 - Meh....

[tam]

Peace to you,

Many have said that "the Lord works in mysterious ways." If we were to outline the ways of the Christian God, then how would we describe those ways? Those ways are indeed often mysterious, and here's a partial outline of what I have been told about God and his ways:

The WAY is Christ (I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life - no one comes to the Father except through me). If you want to know about God (the Father of Christ), then what Christ tells/shows us is what we should be listening/looking to. Christ is the one who reveals his Father as His Father truly is.

1. He created the world, but when that world proved to be imperfect, he blamed us for its faults.

The world did not prove to be imperfect; it became imperfect by the actions of man. Because of what the one man Adam did, the ground was cursed, sin and death entered into the world, the world and the life in the world and even his own offspring were made subject to Death.

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

(see also Romans 5:12-21, where Paul speaks of sin and death entering the world through the one man, though all men also sin)

So the "blame" is just appropriate.

Since we have real world examples of man harming the earth (and one another), this should not be too hard to grasp.

2. Although he has worked countless wonders, he never bothered to do so under circumstances in which we can all be confident he did so.

Did He promise to do that? Is that needed for those whom He draws to His Son?

I mean, He has done what you have said above with Israel (in Egypt), and yet men still proved to be unfaithful. Israel certainly had reason to be confident since they all saw specific wonders, even wonders that saved their very lives; their very existence. Yet, they lacked faith at many times, even turned away and worshiped other gods at times.

It is not about mere belief that He and His Father exists. It is about faith in (faith which is a gift from God) and love for God and His Son.

That doesn't mean someone who doubts God's existance cannot receive life (even eternal life). They won't be uncertain any more about God or His Son when that Son returns (or when they are resurrected from the dead), but there are certainly those who did not know Christ (and so did not know His Father), but who can be known BY Christ, and blessed BY His Father, based upon what they have done (see sheep and goats parable, where the sheep are non-Christian). Such ones can also be invited into the Kingdom and given life. If you ask me, that is pretty freakin' awesome, merciful, loving, kind and forgiving. Some are also in that Son here and now (called and chosen), and will remain in Him, and reign with Him in His Kingdom for the "thousand years" as king-priests.

Good news, all.

viewtopic.php?p=731804#p731804

3. If we doubt any of those miracles that we cannot be sure happened, he will punish us for doubting.

Like what? Do you have an example?

4. He sent his son Jesus into the world demanding that Jesus die a horrible death to let us know he loves us.

God did not demand this. Sending His Son to us was from love - to save us, to ransom us back from Death, to call and train us in peace, to teach us truth, lead us into all truth. God did not force man to torture His Son. Christ also had the choice to come, to not come, to refuse to go through with the arrest and subsequent execution. As Christ said, He could have called on an army of angels to prevent His arrest if He chose. Yet He did this also out of love, 'no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends', and yet Christ even did so for those who were yet His enemies.

5. He very often neglects details.

Did the person who told you this give you any examples? Or perhaps they meant that details have been neglected in what is written, but that assumes what is written is God's means (even sole means) of communication with man. Even the book (what is written) makes no such claim. (Job 33:13-18; Hebrews 1:1, 2; Hebrews 3:15, 16; John 10:14-16; Acts 9:10, 11; Acts 10: 9-20; Proverbs 8 - wisdom, who is Christ, calling out; John 1:14)

6. When people argue about him he doesn't bother to resolve the issues.

Resolve for whom? Because He did send His Son to bear witness to the truth, to reveal the Father. Whether one listens to that Son or not, well, that is another matter.

7. He "chose" the Jews never bothering to explain what's special about them leaving many of them wishing he had chosen somebody else.

Someone told you that many Jews wish that God had chosen someone else? I'm not sure that is true, but even if many do wish that, there are many who do not wish that.

(God chose Israel - which includes Jews but also ten other tribes of people - based upon His promise to Abraham concerning Abraham's offspring, then again through Isaac, and then Jacob. The birthright had actually belonged to Esau, but Esau sold it to Jacob for a bowl of soup. Israel is chosen because of the patriarchs, and also because they, themselves, entered into a covenant with God, for them and for their offspring.)

8. Although his son Jesus reputedly despised commercialism especially commercialism tied to places where people worship God, God ended up creating a religion that makes very good use of commercialism making many members of that religion very wealthy.

So who told you that God created such a religion? If Christ is the Truth and the Image of God, why would God have created a religion that does the very things that Christ spoke against?

The only religion that God gave and sanctioned was the Temple/Priesthood system given through Moses. The priests and pharisees corrupted it (hence the rebukes about some turning the Father's house into a marketplace; a den of thieves). Christ even said that the the time was coming and had then come when people would not worship in "Jerusalem" or on some other mountain (such as where the Samaritans - descended from the Northern Kingdom of Israel - worshiped). Because the kind of worshipers the Father wants are those who worship in spirit and in truth.

And yeah, the heads of those religions (and some members) are indeed quite financially wealthy. But Christ didn't even have a home (no place to lay his head).



Peace again to you!

[Diagoras]

The world did not prove to be imperfect; it became imperfect by the actions of man. Because of what the one man Adam did, the ground was cursed, sin and death entered into the world, the world and the life in the world and even his own offspring were made subject to Death.

Do you sincerely believe this is how the world began, and that if one man hadn’t eaten a piece of fruit from a specific tree, that the ‘concepts of sin and death’ wouldn’t exist?

I may be wrong, but thought your background was in nursing. That would mean you’d have been taught more than basic biology, and so I wonder how you might reconcile the science (of death in this instance) with what is clearly a creation myth.

[Paul of Tarsus]

If god exists as the bible describes, then he's not like us. As such, there's no way to describe him in a way that makes logical sense to our brains.

It sounds like you're admitting that the Christian God doesn't make sense. That might be true if you insist that that God is real, but if you see him as make-believe, then the pieces all fall into place.

I'm not sure where you received your bullet points of god, but they seem kinda' 'out there', in a way.

The mysterious ways of God that I listed in the OP are way out there. I didn't make anything up. I became familiar with those ways by reading the way-out Bible and listening to way-out Christian evangelists and apologists.

But they would be simply opinions, which come from people and many people are, indeed, 'out there'.

[tam]

Peace to you,

15. Because for many people he's never presented compelling evidence for himself, he obviously doesn't care that millions will end up in hell.

Hell is just the world of the dead, where the dead sleep until the (second) resurrection. Not a place of eternal torment (unlike what some teach). There's lots of threads on the subject. But at the second resurrection, everyone in their graves come out - some to life, some to judgment and the second death (Rev 20:11-15; John 5:28, 29). It is not based upon their belief (or lack thereof) in God, because none of these ones are Christian. Christians who have died are resurrected at the first resurrection (Rev 20:4-6).

From the topic "Would a good God send a decent atheist to hell':

viewtopic.php?p=731804#p731804

Peace again to you!

[Diagoras]

Hell is just the world of the dead, where the dead sleep until the (second) resurrection. Not a place of eternal torment (unlike what some teach). There's lots of threads on the subject. But at the second resurrection, everyone in their graves come out - some to life, some to judgment and the second death

The idea that the dead are just ‘sleeping’ is probably more poetic in origin than scientific. Estimating the number of people who have died since 33AD isn’t easy but would be close to 100,000,000,000 (a hundred billion). But apparently God’s keeping track of everyone, no matter their age at death or when and how it happened?

That’s going to be an administrative nightmare. I reckon God’s lost whatever equivalent of a tracking spreadsheet he started with, and has decided the job of judging everyone is going to be too hard. Easier to just let everybody stay dead.

Another thing (there’s literally hundreds of questions this idea raises): when you say ‘everyone in their graves’, what are you expecting for all the bodies that have fully decomposed? Skeletons in fertile soil don’t last much more than twenty years or so. Do you get a magical new physical body, or is it just a ‘soul’?

Note: the answer to that question is largely irrelevant. The bigger question is: what reason could there be to not question such a far-fetched idea?

[JoeyKnothead]

From the OP

Many have said that "the Lord works in mysterious ways." If we were to outline the ways of the Christian God, then how would we describe those ways? Those ways are indeed often mysterious, and here's a partial outline of what I have been told about God and his ways:

1. He created the world, but when that world proved to be imperfect, he blamed us for its faults.

Naw, that was Eve set that all about. Ya know how chicks can be when ya try to tell em not to do something.

2. Although he has worked countless wonders, he never bothered to do so under circumstances in which we can all be confident he did so.

Them Christians sure think he did.

3. If we doubt any of those miracles that we cannot be sure happened, he will punish us for doubting.

I chalk that up to 'everything I don't like is communists syndrome'.

4. To let us know he loves us he sent his son Jesus into the world demanding that Jesus die a horrible death.

I'd gladly swap with Jesus, if he'd sit in for me when the pretty thing's mad.

5. He very often neglects details.

God is an architect?

6. When people argue about him he doesn't bother to resolve the issues.

Dunking folks in a lake of fire for all eternity sure looks to resolve at least some of the issues.

7. He "chose" the Jews never bothering to explain what's special about them leaving many of them wishing he had chosen somebody else.

My understanding is this is a misunderstanding of what the Jews have to tell. Most of em I've heard tell it, say they chose God, not the other way around.

8. Although his son Jesus reputedly despised commercialism especially commercialism tied to places where people worship God, God ended up creating a religion that makes very good use of commercialism making many members of that religion very wealthy.

Arks ain't cheap.

9. He prefers to talk to men.

Ever stumble onto a flock of hens sitting there in the living room, acarrying on about stuff? Did you know Sally down the road is a two faced slut who has two kids by three different dads and her husband ran off with a woman twice her age? Who wants part of that conversation?

10. He can make people act as if they are mentally ill.

Why's everybody looking at me?

I respect the idea of debating, of questioning everything, but...

These questions are moot, and nigh on pointless. I predict we'll see the bible brigade come aswooping in, citing chapter and verse, hollering the high Hosannas, and we won't get us no closer to the truth than we are to Pluto.