I checked the temperature for El Paso Texas tonight and it is saying 26 degrees. My heart is hurting for all those people that were told to come here. They do not have tents or warm clothes. There are many children and innocent victims in this group. I can’t even imagine being in that temperature without any protection. Please Lord Jesus, take care of them tonight.
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Then why does he allow evil to deny the free will of the innocent?
Innocence does not exist.
Free will without consequence would be in opposition to an all loving God. One can not have both free will and no consequence whether consequence be good or bad.
Free will is the very essence of pure love since one can't enslave someone to one's will while also claiming they love them.
Nice dodge. Explain why he values the free will of a child rapist over the child. If you want to remove "loving" from your assertion and argue for an evil god instead I'll let you get away with it.
Not attempting to dodge.
You are confining yourself and your arguments to a hierchy of "love". That is not love and the reason why I first have to help you define it properly.
Your arguments begin on a false premise. You are pre-supposing that God "chooses" to allow anything simply on the basis that 'choice' exists for choices sake. God is love and as such leaves choice to one that his creation makes and not one that God makes. God does not give "evil" vs "righteous" paths. God provides the path to salvation or none. "None" is one that includes all that is not good. One can label it what one chooses whether one calls it evil, bad or anything else makes no difference. The end result is the same, an eternal existence in the absence of God. That is to say an existence without good, love or light. Both within and enveloped IN the absence of God.
So when you base your argument on the value of a rapist vs the value of a victim you are coming into a conversation from a false premise to begin with since the very question you pose is speaking of a God I do not know.
The point is; you presume to falsely define God from an atheist perspective. You have no perspective that could be valid in my world view. Atheism has nothing to say about God. At-least nothing that can stand to be taken seriously. You are by definition mute on point.
If you want to argue benefits of good vs bad we certainly can but we must first agree on terms. I will warn arguing good vs bad is horribly unproductive since in your world view NEITHER is "good" or "bad". Those terms are simply choices one makes in the course of an existence.
If you want to argue good vs bad within my world view than we can but you MUST first entertain the existence of God. Fair warning however, if you decide that you want to have a conversation with that in mind you will find yourself questioning and intimately jettisoning your atheist world view. I of course welcome that conversation. You on the other hand may find that you will also have to jettison many of your fleshly desires. THAT, I submit, is a bitter pill many former athiests struggle with the most. That is to say, knowing God but refusing to discard those desires.
God values love and his creations whether it be the sinner or the victim. God does not make a choice, his creations choose.
Now to address your question with regard to rapist vs victim and their value in the eyes of God. The victim, should this victim continue to live a life of good will be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. The rapist, should he/she not repent will exist in the absence of God for eternity. So you see, it's not what God values, since God gives his value to both rapist and victim, it is precisely what victim and rapist value. His creations ultimately have the free will to choose Him or not. It's never a choice for God. He has already accepted both of them, it's up to them to reject Him.
Matthew 7:23
‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
You see, God knows no evil. Since He is incapable of evil none could come from his creation. It's either good and love or not at all. Nothing.
First of all, I hope you had a merry Christmas. I did. My first born is just old enough for it to be wonderful.
Please don't get me wrong, I'll be an a-hole and argue with you endlessly because I enjoy it and think it's good for society... Or something. I just like hashing it out.
You took a really long winded, and frankly well done, way of agreeing that whatever this God thing is, it's indifferent to human suffering. He's taken a view of free will that days its super important unless evil takes it away, then it's no big deal. He'll make you whole in the afterlife somehow.
And I do take a bit off offense. Do you think that Christianity alone has claim to good and evil? That I somehow can't see it?
You're trying to frame the conversation in a way that only allows one conclusion.