Every person born on this planet is born into sin, is destined for hell and needs a Savior. Salvation is by faith in Christ on the basis of His death on the cross. Good works or self-denial have nothing to do with being saved John 3: Dare 2 Share is a church assisting ministry that provides resources for youth leaders and equips teens to relationally and relentlessly reach their generation for Christ.
Over 1, of these resources are provided completely FREE! D2S also conducts nationwide youth evangelism training conferences. The events are structured for students in junior high and high school, ranging from 12 to 18 years old. Regardless of gender or denomination, D2S teaches from a Christian perspective. I was ambushed by the amount and quality of the evidence that Jesus is the unique Son of God… I shook my head in amazement.
I had seen defendants carted off to the death chamber on much less convincing proof! Modern historical scholars like Craig Blomberg and N. Wright have advanced the area of historical theology and the study of the claims of the Gospels to exciting new heights. The results of such ground-breaking studies are one of the greatest threats to modern day atheism. Thomas, and this was the case for me. He solved all the logical dilemmas. When I was an undergrad I came across the saying that learning a little philosophy leads you away from God, but learning a lot of philosophy leads you back.
As a young man who had learned a little philosophy, I scoffed. Most atheists believe that modern science has ruled out the possibility of the existence of God. To list just a few examples: Galileo and Kepler astronomy , Pascal hydrostatics , Boyle chemistry , Newton calculus , Linnaeus systematic biology , Faraday electromagnetics , Cuvier comparative anatomy , Kelvin thermodynamics , Lister antiseptic surgery , and Mendel genetics. An honest atheist might presume, upon encountering Christians for example who have reasonable explanations for their supernatural beliefs, that the existence of God is at least plausible.
Consider the notable conversion of former atheist blogger, Jennifer Fulwiler. But encountering intelligent believers in God was a key chink in her atheist armor. Leah recalls the challenging impact of reasonable Christians in her academic circle:. We covered a huge spread of topics so I got so see a lot of long and winding paths into the consequences of belief.
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Leah is now an active Catholic. Edith Stein would eventually convert to Catholicism and die a martyr. She is now known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. He debated William Lane Craig and others on the existence of God. Ben Wiker, Flew explains:. One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe. He concluded that it was reasonable to believe that the organization of space, time, matter and energy throughout the universe is far from random.
Its order necessitates a designer. It is a well established fact that the more secular a society is, the lower the crime rates tend to be. It is also a well established fact that with regard to prison inmates, Christians represent a larger percentage relative to their percentage of the overall population than atheists represent as a percentage relative to their percent of the overall population. In either case, this of course demonstrates correlation and not causation. But then I am not claiming religion is necessarily the cause.
I would add that doing the right thing out of fear of punishment or hopes of some large reward is not morality. Hi Hugh7, I ask you in a spirit of humility and questioning, if there is no absolute truth, then how can we know an absolute reality? I never said there is no absolute truth. I think there has to be a real universe, otherwise what is it that are we arguing about?
Over the last few centuries we have discovered that reality is a lot more complicated than we thought — that everything is made of atoms, which are mostly empty space, for example. Or that space and time are more flexible than we thought. I think we will go on discovering more and more of that kind of thing, including how we are deluded.
For example we now know that we begin to move before our conscious minds have formed the intention to move. I think no matter how much we discover, reality will always be more complicated. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You simply shift the problem of evil to the easily observable, still with no way to explain it.
So you are claiming that reality itself is evil and life is not worth living for aggregate humanity. The most miserable life that any human ever lived is but a blink of an eye compared to the timespans of heaven. Yes, some people are born into squalor and misery and torment on this planet from which they never escape—until death. But heaven is available to them, and that is for eternity. Without the capacity to commit evil and hurt others we would not be human beings with moral agency.
But through things like disease, violence, and natural disaster we are motivated to learn about the physical world around us. If there was no distress and danger in the world, what kind of science would exist? Would there be any reason for scientific research if there were no illness and no natural disaster? Do you desire a world with no problems to solve? And yet I would wager, since you have time to engage in this discussion right here, that your life is already pretty close that as it is. And yet you still view the world itself as full of inexplicable evil and torment.
Are you angry at God for not making you some sort of kept animal in a video game? No, reality is a mixture of good and evil, and for most of the world, the good outweighs the evil. First, because of our natural curiosity to find out how the universe works a universe in which science has yet found no trace of nor need for any supernatural agency. Then because there are many issues which are not disasters.
The good can be improved. The uninvented can be invented. Cellphones would still be useful even if we did not use them to summon rescue helicopters. John, I am losing track as to who I did and did not answer. I do not see that i responded to you, so here goes:. Your claims are patently absurd.
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Christianity dictates that one must believe in the Christian god and in Jesus at a minimum, am i not correct? So demonstrate that those billions of people who die of starvation, and cancer, and natural disasters to the person do not fall into that category. My idea of a world with no evil is simply a world with no evil. We both have time to engage in this discussion, so whatever you wistfully apply to me, do so to yourself as well. I will take it from your use of seven consecutive question marks that you cannot rationally address any of the points I raised, and I will pray for you.
Hope you feel better. So, the quarter million people who lost their lives in the tsunami some time back were all killed because they did not acknowledge your god? Children starve to death in Africa because they did not accept your god even though they may not ever have heard of him? Milton — your argument is that there is no God because he does not operate as sort of a Super Hero Saving Squad.
This is a childish notion. God has a plan and every single human being is part of it. People died in that tsunami because spoiled cretins like me and you would rather spend time arguing with each other on the internet than developing ways to detect and alert people to natural disasters. The technology to warn and evacuate people in tsunami zones already exists. Have you contributed anything to that field of study? Kids are starving in Africa because their parents are unable or unwilling to feed them, and because me and you are not feeding them either.
Because, according to Christianity, he designed the system that produced these results……. His alternative is to deny there is a God who cares about people because some times bad things happen. Therefore he prefers a world in which child rape, etc are simply natural occurrences, which have no intrinsic moral effects. He is acting like a baby, who wants a God who prevents each and every instance of evil, everywhere, or he is not going to believe in him.
You forget that believe in God is to also believe in Satan. There is a spiritual realm and it influences everything that happens in this world, whether for good or for evil. Satan is an awful, awful individual. He is rotten and takes absolute glee in the pain and agony and atrocities that take place in this world. They are his doing.
But God allows it because he created us as free, he wants us to have the choice otherwise there is no point. And at the end of set time alloted, our choices will be rewarded eternally. And we are offered an eternity, a promise, stated over and over again in the Bible where there will be no more suffering, no more pain, no more crying, no more dying, no more war, but everlasting, everlasting peace and safety.
An eternity with God. Sin and satan will no longer exist or threaten to touch us. But even now, the promise remains in Romans 8: I bhave experienced this personally. There is no lose with out gain. Look at the nation of israel.
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They are prime example of this truth and evidence that God does exist. They have experienced some of the worst hatred and suffering than any group of people on the earth and yet they remain and maintain their faith. After the holocaust, after great, great loss, because of it they gained back their homeland and then their capital and holy city. After thousands of years of exile, they made a great gain followingtheir great loss. Look at the life of Joseph. He went through tremendous tragedy and set back and in the end he said what you meant for evil, God meant for good.
That is the final answer. We obviously live in a fallen and wicked world. Why should that keep us from faith? It should actually increase our faith!! Because the bible doesnt say not to expect trouble, it actually promises it. But Christ defeated him at the cross and promises to dispose of him for good at the end of the age.
Until then, we have to live in the world that he is ruler of and embrace the love of God and the promise that our pain may endure through out our lives, but joy will be ours through Christ, eternally. Ultimately, faith is listed as one of 9 fruits of the spirit. It is a supernatural thing to believe. It is not in our nature or in our surroundings, it is of God himself. For more on this, please watch this video.
Are you under the impression that suffering is of no worth? I would say that it is of little to no worth, yes. Especially when one has no idea why they are suffering inexplicably. God can, will and does intervene, especially when we seek Him.
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They are being the hands and feet of God, being his love in action! To believe in good, does not mean to deny evil!! It is a very real and obvious fact of life in this world. But it does not help those who lost their lives or were permanently maimed. Heather, please ask God to cure all cancer patients in the country of Australia? Have him do it at midnight tonight. If that happens, I think a lot of atheists will become believers. Jesus and the Apostles already healed thousands and only a few were convinced.
You only have anecdotal accounts. That is wholly insufficient to support such claims. There are no medical records to consult, and no witnesses to talk to. If Jesus wanted to impress the world, he should have eliminated disease. Now that would have still resonated throughout the world. I am sorry he is not an amputee.
Thousands of these on the internet. But thanks for the effort. What makes this a miracle rather than a rare event? Yes Heather like the Salvation Army who indeed have been trying to compete with the Catholic Church when it comes to child abuse. I appreciate the good that some religious organizations do.
There is no denying it, nor would i wish to. But the question of a god preventing evil is quite apart from the question of people helping others recover because he chose to allow it to happen. All of that merely proves the existence of Satan in a fallen world. There was no such in Eden and there will be none in the New Earth.
God has given us the free will to choose evil or to choose good. Which have you chosen? No, it proves much more. Your statement implies one of two possibilities exist. The free will question does not come into play. One cannot choose not to get cancer, or not to go blind because of a parasite infection, or choose not to be swept away by some natural disaster. A child cannot choose not to starve to death because there is no food. I am nowhere addressing whether one chooses to believe in a god or practice a religion. I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
His ways are perfect. I do not understand them. I am not God. But the more I study His character, the more complex He becomes. I love your thought process. I wish you Shalom. When you figure out how a supposedly completely benevolent being can commit immoral things, get back to me. I wish you well. Milton, You seem to believe that you have a unique point of view. Were you seriously seeking the answer — several people have given you suggestions for finding it.
So I believe that you are not actually seeking an answer — but rather merely seeking to destroy the faith of others. Christ came to earth. They traveled the known world — baptizing with water and the holy spirit. With difficulty, a man might give his life for his friends — but no man will give his life for something he knows to be a lie. And most of the disciples died in very difficult fashion, for the sake of the gospel. For something they had no doubt was true. Thats the truth of the matter. The truth of Christianity is in the changed lives — not in theoretical philogenical constructs.
If you truly wish an intellectual answer to your questions — read Lewis, kiirkegard, Buber. Your questions are not unique, and they have been answered. Obviously God could stop evil. He could have made us all robots who do nothing but His will all the time. That is obedience, but it is not love. Unlike the Muslims, we place love above submission. The true God is a God of love and He believes His children will ultimately choose to turn to love. Preventing harm to people does not in any way make the human population into robots.
What he might ultimately believe is first of all unknown to anyone. A god of love would not be a god who sits by and watches immoral things happen and does nothing. It does not matter what he ma want ir do in the future. The child was raped. I appreciate your honesty. That is the default position for humanity — misery exists and there is nothing ahead but death and rot. I choose to believe him.
I understand those who choose otherwise. I was there for a very long time. Why do Christians make this leap? This is a false choice. You seem to think EITHER God must make humans who only obey his will, all the time, merely mindless robots, OR God must allow people to starve, must allow rapists to get off with no consequences, must allow tornadoes an tsunamis and etc. I believe in the police. I believe police can exist, and stop some crimes from occurring, without totally overruling free will.
I believe any god could allow a world to exist without overruling free will and yet still provide some check to the worst excesses. Why not give a child miraculous powers to stop an attacker? Or the child is starving to death, but when he prays God sends mana from heaven to help him. You are parroting an excuse for evil given to you by your preachers and teachers, but if you think about it using your own common sense you will see the excuse in inadequate. He made a perfectly valid point, if a bit overstated. What would human life be like if God took away all human pain and suffering?
Atheist make this goofy leap that the only good God is one that would take away human misery, because God could do such a thing. I find his argument naive in that he equates all gods in history with the Judeo-Christian God who spoke against child sacrifice. He infers that all religions practised child sacrifice and placing children in the foundations of buildings for protection. Unfortunately, as a disciple of Christ, I agree with his point about the narcissism of Western Christianity. Under an evolutionary, scientific view the highest form of life is the human but my view is that God is even higher and incomprehensible to us as temporal beings, limited in time and space.
I do not know how I can fully comprehend the God that I consider to be transcendent. Phil, thanks for your feedback. If it does, what has been done by this god which we can all know for sure it was done by a god? Hi Pierre, I apologise for not responding to your polite questions. I have been off-line with other more pressing matters.
I am not sure if I can answer your question in a way that will satisfy you. Unfortunately I see that either scientific evolution, or belief in God god , both have a large element of faith. Neither can be proven, both require adherents to believe in aspects that have not been witnessed or proven. My experience is a God who manifested in his creation, the sun, moon, planets, earth, animals, plants fish and birds.
I cannot prove his existence to you. For me it is belief. I will inform you that my belief comes from partially from similar understandings to CS Lewis and Chuck Colson. Chuck Colson, who was imprisoned for his role in the Watergate Scandal under President Richard Nixon marvelled that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ must be fact.
There is no reason that 12 men would die for a lie. Unfortunately, all gods tend to be supported by the same kinds of weak evidence as the Christian god. Unless there is some way to really quantify this god in a realistic way, his existence will be questionable. You cannot say at the same time that you know this god and then say he is incomprehensible. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.
Maybe, a very weak argument, is that I know Donald Trump. I am unlikely to ever meet him, and as an Australian, the US President is mostly an abstract concept to me but still nonetheless very real. Many people are moving away from empiricism, only that which can be perceived can be proven. Modernity relies on empiricism, but post modern thinking questions truth. Under the new paradigm supernatural and incomprehensible phenomena are welcomed as fascinating. I find the same with spiritual matters. I have experience that I can only describe as intimate, comforting and real but as I move closer and attempt to define these experiences I have no explanation.
My faith journey is happy to attribute these experiences to a loving, creator God. Rather God Himself says that He uses the evil, which is in the world because of man, to serve His holy purpose. Is there a holy purpose or any good result from child rape etc…no, but neither does Gid cause this to happen but brings comfort in the midst of it. As any good parent, God does not stop us from failing or seek to remove the consequences of our actions, rather He loves us through them that we may learn from both good and bad.
What Imsaid wasmthat if you seemamchild being raped and do nothing even though you have the power tomstop the rape, you are immoral in that instance. Are you saying that there is a moral justification for child rape? If you were a parent, would you allow your child to rape another child for the purpose of some greater good? You seem to want to dictate to religions what a proper conception of God must be, according to your limited understanding of God. He needs to walk! And then later on the guy dies because of gangrene. Usually atheists are full of seeming good debate points, but no real deep understanding of human life.
God Himself says that He uses the evil, which is in the world because of man, to serve His holy purpose. Not superior reasoning, just reasoning. At the end of the day, if your god designed the system, he is immoral for designing such a system, and immoral for not preventing the harm it causes. Simple, we got our ideas of God from Christians, nobody else. This is the God Christians convey, one who finds them parking places and saves one person from a plane crash which He did not prevent.
And is simultanously all-powerful and all loving and all knowing. In short, an impossible being.
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Because I think it is immoral to allow these things when you are easily capable of preventing them. This goes back to my original question, so let me post it yet again and you can be the first to not dodge answering it. It is an easy yes or no question. If you could stop a child from being raped with no danger to yourself or others, would it be immoral for you to turn your head and not stop it? If you think it is moral to allow the child to be raped, please explain your justification.
If you think it is immoral, then we agree, but your god has some explaining to do. Michael, do you believe God can do anything? If so, he could accomplish his holy purpose regardless of whether or not the child gets brutally raped. Or perhaps you could explain how preventing a rapist from brutally raping a child causes God to lose some of his power. You conceive of God as Malevolent, because he does not do what you think he should do.
Yet you do not know everything. You do not know what effects one action has on anther. You arrogantly think this way because you do not know what the total effect of any one action might be. Free will does come into play in any situation in which man is an actor. Children dying due to lack of food is something that people can control.
They choose not to, because they engage in war, or implement communism, or do any of the things that cause famines. So many having free will, will experience the effects of using that free will incorrectly. The only place your idea holds up is the case of tsunamis, etc. Your assumption is that there is no afterlife an unproven assumption and that the only thing that matters is what happens to people on earth.
As I said before, if we take religion on its own basis, then those who die in a tsunami probably go to heaven,at least the vast bulk, and their situation is improved. So at least the claims of Christianity make logical sense, at least taken on their own terms. We live in a fallen world, ruled by Satan and hatred.
But we can personally choose another path. Unfortunately, few make that choice. So you are saying you believe it is moral for a being that has the power to stop suffering to not act and end it? You actually believe it is moral for your god to stand by while amchild is raped a d watch it rather than stop it? Therefor he is wholly resposible for any and all results. And what is that reason? Is he not capable? Does he not know about the killings?
Does he not care enough to do anything about it? I thought you Christians believed that it was HIs idea! And also that he WAS Jesus. He obviously could have prevented it. You, too, are hard to follow. So your god is omnibenevolent and all loving and he wanted to not have those thing happen. He cannot allow them and be omnibenevolent at the same time.
I would accuse the Father of child abuse for sacrificing his Son if I believed in either of them. So you have TWO all powerful deities in your universe. I do wish you peope would keep your story straight. No one chooses to be a child rapist. One day, the hateful and bigoted will finally recognize this truth for what it is, the child rape is normal. One day, child rapist will also proudly be able to stand under the rainbow flag.
As for starving children, tsunamis and earthquakes, we should be thankful that these natural forces help keep the world from be over populated. It saves the abortion clinics a lot of work. In fact, if there is no God, then there cannot be good or evil. To even acknowledge such a thing is to acknowledge a good, a God. I never mentioned whether someone chooses to be a child rapist. I am not blaming him for anything. I am pointing out the consequences of religious reasoning.
Other people say he exists. Other people say he allows this sort of thing for some greater good. I am pointing out that it is still immoral. Morals are subjective and not objective, at least not in that sense.
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We make our own moral codes. Assuming that all these people go to heaven, then it is in fact promoting them, and improving their condition. You might as well say the doctor is a bad man for making you take that awful tasting medicine. Are you saying it is the moral thing to do to sit there and do nothing when a child gets brutally raped — when given the power to prevent the rape at no risk to yourself or others?
If you say they go to Heaven because of their works, why believe? In what sense is a tsunami medicine, and why were only the people on the coasts surrounding an earthquake blessed with it? If you think they go to Heaven because of their faiith, then God sent some of them to Hell who would otherwise lived and converted. The facts being what your version of Christianity says they are, right?
Why are you rationalizing these things? Blaming God for the evil acts of evil men exhibits a juvenile and childish way of thinking about God and His ways. Merele pointed out that the Christian god is presented as omnipotent and omnibenevolent which means he should have both the power and the will to prevent such things. Therefore he is either not omnipotent, not omnibenevolent, or he is malevolent. It really is that simple. You seem to have figured God out so there is nothing more to say.
Mankind can come to Milton Platt for all the answers in life. I will assume you do not have the answers, either.
We minimize a hurt in their life that they expected God to fix.
I challenge you now to explore the unfathomable depths of evil. Start first by gazing into the mirror and the deep crevaces within your soul. God has intervened many times in human history. Evil became so bad He sent a flood to destroy every living breathing human being, except Noah and his family. For every psunami He has probably stopped one hundred others. Just using reason based upon what Christians tell me their god is. And by the way, feel free to provide the evidence supporting the claim he prevented any rapes at all.
Why would god have to destroy mankind to stop evil? You can prevent somewne from committing an immoral act without killing them. People do it all the time. Where ever does it say that God should prevent any harm from coming to people? Usually this sort of comment comes from someone with a very shallow concept of God as some sort of Santa Claus, or Giant Mommy that must protect us all the time. No religion takes that approach to God. They have a more grown up vision of God. Samton, you are completely missing the point.
I asked a question which has a yes or no answer and nobody seems to want to answer it. The question was if you have the power to stop a child from being raped without any risk to yourself whatsoever and you choose to do nothing, is your decision moral or Immoral??? If you think it would be moral, then I would deem you immoral by my stsndards.
If you deem it immoral, then your god is immoral for doing just this. Would you care to answer the question instead of trying to characterize someone you know nothing about? May I respectfully suggest you do like Sarah: Every Catholic parish that I know begins a course in Christianity and Catholicism in that order in September. Find one near you and learn the answers to these valid questions.
Or may be God speaks to us all in the same way but we as mere mortals interpret his message differently? That makes his message worthless if there are billions of different interpretations. Do you accept the interpretation of ISIS? What makes you the person that gets to interpret for everyone else? That is my point. A message from a god should not need interpretation. It should not be open to human interpretation at all it should be clear and direct and understood the same way by everyone. The Quran is the work of humans, just like all books, including the Bible.
I was under the impression that god reveals himself in the Bible, which is constantly being interpreted. He reveals Himself in whatever ways He chooses. Annie — Did God ever reveal himself to you?
If so, how did you go about verifying it was God? God reveals Himself to me everyday in the most wonderful ways. Annie — please provide your best examples of what happens when God reveals himself to you. And how do you know what is being revealed to you is God? As Milton points out, how I think God has revealed Himself to me is of little value to anyone but me.
Annie, please go into detail. Thanks for really wanting to know about how God speaks to me, Pierre! Every day I listen to the Bible while I work and my nearly 2-year-old son has his day-time nap. Do you gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? I hope this answers your question. I am praying that God would reveal Himself to you today, Pierre. Annie — Thanks for sharing that.