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Divine Intervention and Faith

Amadeus said:
Whatever you were trying to sell me, you lost me as a customer.
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Yeah right. :roll: Do you think nobody notices your penchant for starting bait thread after bait thread so you can bash religiosity, and in particular, Christianity? Do you really think you are getting away with anything? Do you honestly think anyone thinks you are sincere?
 
countryboy said:
Yeah right. :roll: Do you think nobody notices your penchant for starting bait thread after bait thread so you can bash religiosity, and in particular, Christianity? Do you really think you are getting away with anything? Do you honestly think anyone thinks you are sincere?
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Moderator's Warning:
Civility, please. The OP's question is legitimate as long as discussion remains respectful and within the RDF bounds. Let's not make this personal.
 
Logicman said:
What made you think I wanted you as a customer?
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Because you were responding to me. I thought you were actually trying to make some kind of a point that I'd be interested in. People who disagree with me often make valid points that I can respect. You went in a different direction.
 
Amadeus said:
Hey, thanks for the responses everyone.

A mentor/friend of mine died earlier this year of cancer. She took me under her wing about 10 years ago and gave me my first significant job. She was a devout Christian, attended church weekly, volunteered, and was an all-around top-shelf person. Never smoked or drank.

Seems to me that this would have been the type of person that should have received some kind of divine intervention, if God is handing them out.

For every anecdote of God assisting someone, there are dozen if not hundreds where God should assist someone but doesn't.

Not trying to break anyone's faith, but hopefully that sheds light on why some people don't believe.
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Your loved one is no longer suffering. Her pain is over and she now rests in heaven with God. She received the end to pain she was asking for and is at peace. Now that she's there, she probably wonders why she fought so hard to hang on to her previous life. I know it doesn't always feel that way to those of us left behind and facing a world that goes on without our loved one. But death isn't the end, it's the beginning of eternity. Death seems unfair only because we can't see what is on the other side.

I don't know why God chooses to help some and not others. It's easy to see why God might have chosen to take your loved one, it was time for her to be with him in heaven. But I know that doesn't take away the questions of why it had to happen in the painful way it did or at such a young age. Having lost a loved one who was only 16, I have many of those same questions. I don't know the answer. But I do know this: the bible doesn't tell us that we should expect for God to deliver us from the pain in this world; except through the means with which your own loved one was delivered, death. If you held a view that God should have taken away her pain and let her live longer on Earth because she was a devout Christian, your view wasn't in line with Christian teaching. God didn't fail to act in the ways he says he acts, he failed to act according to the ways you think he should act.

Going back to my earlier point, I find grief to be one of those pointers to God that we are born with. It taps into your innermost desires for justice. "She shouldn't have died, she was a good peson, this isn't fair", that's a genuine, heartfelt, and utterly human response to this tragedy. Those kinds of feelings that well up inside of us at times like these are exactly what I spoke of earlier. We have these desires inside of us for things that the world cannot satisfy. We desire fairness, justice, and eternal life. It's almost as if we are created to live in a world unlike the one we are currently stuck in. We were created to live in a world of peace, justice, and fairness, without death or suffering. I find that Christianity provides the best answer to why we feel the way we do in times like this.
 
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lizzie said:
To me, living is about evolving- not physically, as everything physical does, but mentally and spiritually, and I consider myself a student who is here to learn, so that I may continue to grow until I no longer need to be here.
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Thus, perhaps that may be what's implied by the verse about "being like clay in the Potter's hands."




Originally Posted by Amadeus
Yes, especially when someone is in pain and God isn't there to help.
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tosca1 said:
Thus, perhaps that may be what's implied by the verse about "being like clay in the Potter's hands."
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Well, being like clay would imply that there is no mind, thus no impulse to grow and evolve, and that only the potter is responsible for the changes in the creative process, and I'm more inclined toward believing that it's a joint venture of sorts, so I'm not sure that analogy would touch on what I believe. Now, if you were to envision that God puts a little of itself into every piece of pottery created, and that bit of God is responsible for the impulse to change, evolve, and improve, then I could see that being the case, as I believe that we are all like tiny little aspects of God itself, and we reflect the many faces of creation. (Not creation, as in the creation story, but creation as in the creative process and the energy required and expended for the sake of it)
 
Originally Posted by Amadeus View Post

Hey, thanks for the responses everyone.

A mentor/friend of mine died earlier this year of cancer. She took me under her wing about 10 years ago and gave me my first significant job. She was a devout Christian, attended church weekly, volunteered, and was an all-around top-shelf person. Never smoked or drank.
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What makes you think your friend didn't humbly accept God's will, and had peacefully gone home?


Seems to me that this would have been the type of person that should have received some kind of divine intervention, if God is handing them out.
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So really, this is more about you? You're angry because YOU lost your mentor?

How do you know God didn't intervene at all? Just because the kind of intervention you expect didn't happen doesn't mean there was none at all.



For every anecdote of God assisting someone, there are dozen if not hundreds where God should assist someone but doesn't.
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But you can't know that. You're only basing your assumption on a very shallow viewpoint - from a mere human's point of view at that. You're among those who think assistance comes only in the obvious form.



Not trying to break anyone's faith, but hopefully that sheds light on why some people don't believe.
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Some people don't believe....because they cannot bring themselves to HUMBLY ACCEPT God's will.
 
lizzie said:
Well, being like clay would imply that there is no mind, thus no impulse to grow and evolve, and that only the potter is responsible for the changes in the creative process, and I'm more inclined toward believing that it's a joint venture of sorts, so I'm not sure that analogy would touch on what I believe.
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What's the saying again about some of the "best laid plans" come to naught? How many have experienced failure no matter how well you tried and done the best you can? Like losing out on a promotion? Ending up where you are even though you've planned to be somewhere else? Getting knocked down by events or things that are beyond your control?

As you've said in your response to Paschendale, you believe that we've got roles to fulfill.
However we want to make plans....God's own plan will eventually prevail. We may have the free will to choose what we do or where we go, but in the end we'll be fulfilling what it is we are supposed to fulfill.


Here's a clip from Pastor Charles Price from Living Truth.
http://www.livingtruth.ca/LT/


 
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tosca1 said:
What's the saying again about some of the "best laid plans" come to naught? How many have experienced failure no matter how well you tried and done the best you can? Like losing out on a promotion? Ending up where you are even though you've planned to be somewhere else? Getting knocked down by events or things that are beyond your control?

As you've said in your response to Paschendale, you believe that we've got roles to fulfill.
However we want to make plans....God's own plan will eventually prevail. We may have the free will to choose what we do or where we go, but in the end we'll be fulfilling what it is we are supposed to fulfill.
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Yes, it's hard to say with any certainty, either way, but I'm of the mind which says we all end up in the same place, even though we are traveling different paths. It's not so much that I believe we don't have free will (because I do), but that I believe no matter which course of action we take, the impulse is forward movement, and that what matters is the movement, and not the particular method. Some of us take the scenic route. Some take the expressway. Others do both.
 
Amadeus said:
Why doesn't God intervene anymore? I'm admittedly not a believer, and one of the reasons is that God doesn't make his presence known. If he is out there, he seems to have come to the conclusion that humanity should be left alone.

Aside from the Bible (or whatever religious text you subscribe to), what sustains your faith in God?
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Who says he doesn't?
Maybe you are just ignoring the signs he is putting in front of you.
I don't believe in coincidence.

then there are times he doesn't give the answer you want.
 
Amadeus said:
It's great that you received medical benefit from your experience, but to assume that God intervenes your behalf when things go well is a tad worrisome to me. If God is really pulling the levers of luck and chance, and paying out a jackpot to those who pray the hardest, it really comes back to the age-old question: Why do bad things happen to good/devout people, while good things happen to bad people?

For that matter, God has never in recorded history healed someone with a condition that is physically impossible to recover from. It's a though there's a cap on what types of injuries he's willing to 'intervene' on.
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He made the blind to see and the lame to walk.
He healed the leapers and brought life to people that were dead.

it has all been recorded in 4 different books.

I know people that have had cancer and cured and it never came back.

Why do bad things happen to good/devout people, while good things happen to bad people?
Because the world is sinful and bad things happen. I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me.
Some times bad things happen and God reveals his mercy and grace at the end.

other times it is used to witness to others or to prep you to help someone else.
Good things happen to bad people? yep they. It is Gods mercy and grace that is poured out showing his love.

43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
 
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