Why Praise God When He's The One Who Brought Coronavirus To Us?

[samtonga43]

I don't get a God who professes to care about us, then sends a plague on us. Plagues were a good God-play in the old Moses Biblical times but today plagues like COVID just seem so out of place. They're messy and they turn people away from God way more than they did 3000 years ago, thanks to scientific knowledge we have now that we didn't way back then. It's almost like God has started a zero-sum game with us--trying to see how many people He can drive away from him and in to the arms of satan before He finally relents and says, Okay, I've lost enough souls to satan this round. I'd better stop." And people just go on praising Him for all the misery He heaps on them. I don't want people to hate God. I think that's pointless. But I would like people to step back from their biases and look at the cold hard facts for once.

 

[samtonga43]

King James, the greatest translation in the history of man uses the word, "evil". I'll stick with evil.

KJV is not the greatest translation in the history of man. You're being silly now.

 

[Clara Tea]

Why praise God when he brought covid.

Revelation 15 (7 plagues) makes it clear that plagues are punishments for attack Iraq (God had warned everyone not to attack Iraq). Obviously, Iraq had not been involved in terrorism, so God was right, and US presidents were wrong.

I want you to notice that all miracles of God (like Covid), look like God had no hand in them. Yet, God sees the future, and even if it looks like mankind (or nature) made the virus, one could always argue that he did not. This is part of freedom of choice that God offers to everyone.

 

[blü 2]

It does not necessarily mean that God wants it to exist just because God allows it to exist. Those are two separate matters. God has His reasons for allowing it to exist, not the least of which is noninterference in this world, as well as allowing humans to work things out themselves and learn form the experience so they will be more prepared in the future.

Ah, dear Trailblazer, we've been here many times before. If God is omnipotent (and omniscient, and perfect, and ...) then nothing can, nothing ever did, nothing ever will happen contrary to what [he] perfectly foresaw before [he] made the universe. And since [he] made the universe like that, it is always and only the universe all of whose details [he] foresaw and intended.

Given [his] omni status, there's no other possibility.

But you knew I'd say that.

You make God sound like a person, a kind of superman, but God is neither.

I'm talking about what any moral being would do. If God's a moral being then I stand by what I said ─ [he] should intervene rather than let bad things happen.

What would it cost? You assume it would cost nothing to interfere with human free will upon which the entire operation of the world is based.

There is no theological free will with an omni god. There is no physical free will in that humans can't make decisions independently of their evolved decision-making brain functions.

Besides, how do you know that God did not help through helping humans, which is the only way God can help.

A God who can only help "through helping humans" is not an omni god. Which is it?

Those vaccines sure got developed in record time.

That's a humanist line, not a theological statement. It's a human problem and humans must fix it, and the vaccine projects haven't done a bad job.

God is not subject to morality because is not a human. Only humans have moral responsibilities.

Then if your God exists, I reject [him] outright as meaningless in my terms.

 

[samtonga43]

You are free to do so.

 

[Vee]

So God brings something as evil as Coronavirus on us and people are praising Him for it.

Did He now? I though we got coronavirus from destroying nature and messing up the world that we depend on. If I understood well, if humans stopped cutting down forests and messing up the natural world, many viruses would stay where they belong and we wouldn't even know they exist. If we took care of the planet like the bible says we should do, we wouldn't be in this situation, but while I've been writing this post I'm pretty sure a few more trees went down in a rainforest somewhere, and they weren't put down by God.

 

[firedragon]

I don't get it. I read a lot of COVID long haulers stories of ongoing suffering and misery on several forums (people whose symptoms mild and severe linger months possibly years after finally testing negative). Many to most ask for prayers to get over it and a few who praise God when they do--only to fall ill against weeks or months later in many cases.

What I don't get is the Bible says this:

I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Isaiah 45:7

Instead of praising God we should be holding Him responsible for all the misery and death Coronavirus is doing to us. He tells us in no uncertain words He's the one who created this monstrous evil we have labeled Coronavirus.

Now before you throw "Bad translation" at me you should know that this is the King James, widely regarded as the most perfect translation ever done. Many Christians regard it as the authoritative word of God straight from God's mouth.

So God brings something as evil as Coronavirus on us and people are praising Him for it. Sort of like when someone kicks you, you say, "I like that. Do it again."

I just don't get the logic--or illogic of it, that's a better word.

Alas. An Atheist who believes in the Bible, literally.

 

[thomas t]

I believe prasing God is for believers only.

Christendom refuses to judge God in this way and break from the habitualized status quo. It refuses to eat of the forbidden fruit and move Christ from the right hand of the Father over to the left hand.

Because of this, Christendom continues to exist in a lower, more shallow version of truth. A truth that doesn’t completely fill and which causes repetitive, addiction like re-feeding.

I don't think that Christianity's truth is shallow.
Corona does not transfer Jesus from right to left.
If Corony would kill me today, I would praise God (thanks to God, I'm Corona free at the moment), since I expect life after death.
I'm already curious a bit...
I would also praise and thank God if I could do the next song recording on Friday though.
Either way; God is a good God to me, I think.

 

[samtonga43]

Alas. An Atheist who believes in the Bible, literally.

Double Alas! This atheist also believes that the KJV is the 'most perfect' translation. (Surely 'most perfect' is just wrong, since 'perfect' is already superlative.)

 

[firedragon]

Double Alas! This atheist also believes that the KJV is the 'most perfect' translation. (Surely 'most perfect' is just wrong, since 'perfect' is already superlative.)

Well. Thats also true! Double Alas!

 

[Colt]

The Bible reflects the human understanding of God with much speculation and conjecture. The Israelites actually evolved into better concepts of deity evidenced by their own scripture.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I am of a mixed mind about it. I am a deist and deists would say, no God has nothing to do with it. But a part of me thinks there is a pattern playing out here. In the Middle Ages it was bacterias that destroyed whole populations. Now we have antibiotics. We seem to be moving into the age of virus pandemics. Think about it. The last great pandemics have all been viruses.

I don't know. I think of "pandemics" as people actually dying on contact. Thousands of people who have COVID symptoms do get better. Also, I don't believe COVID deaths are strictly from COVID and no other related illnesses. So, to me, I'm just careful (especially with numbers) on what I read and see in the news. However, I'm just speaking of the United States. If I get myself worked up over contagious illnesses all over the world, I wouldn't know where I'd be.

I guess in this case it's best to be a deist. Although that term doesn't quite make sense to me since theist are just deity believers, the nature of the belief is irrelevant. In the sense, though, god putting things in motion and leaving things be makes more sense as since it's not involved in the working of this particular planet of all of them, then there is no reason to blame it.

 

[Andrew Reil]

Life is a test. It is a test to see who has the faith in that which belongs to them. Those who are weak in faith will wait and rationalize. In my view.

Life is a test. It is a test to see who has the faith in that which belongs to them. Those who are weak in faith will wait and rationalize. In my view.

Please help me understand what you mean by "that which belongs to them". What sorts of things would belong to you that you should have faith in? Also, what do those weak in faith rationalize?

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

He was using "light" and "darkness" as analogous with "peace" and "evil."

He did not create darkness - but His creation of light caused darkness to come into being.

He did not create evil - but His creation of peace caused evil to come into being.

It was Man - through Adam and Eve - who decided to partake of the fruit - which gave them Knowledge of both Good and Evil.

It was Man who chose to know about the opposites in all things. Light and darkness. Peace and evil.

If you want to blame God for the coronavirus - go ahead - but you should then thank Him for your health as well - since He is just as responsible for that as well.

Also - unless He told the Chinese to eat bats or breed this thing in a lab - I don't believe it is His fault.

None of this is in the Bible. This is all your personal interpretation of some extremely vague passages. I think it's baloney that I am guilty for something a couple of mythical characters did 6000 years ago. This was an invention by the church to get pagans to believe that they were born in sin and needed Jesus to get them out. Again, this is a very subjective interpretation. 20 other people in here can each interpret the passage entirely differently. I only go by the language and the language has God clearly saying,

"I create evil"

Don't read more into it.

 

[samtonga43]

[QUOTE I only go by the language [/QUOTE]

And there, my friend, is your problem.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

I don't know. I think of "pandemics" as people actually dying on contact. Thousands of people who have COVID symptoms do get better. Also, I don't believe COVID deaths are strictly from COVID and no other related illnesses. So, to me, I'm just careful (especially with numbers) on what I read and see in the news. However, I'm just speaking of the United States. If I get myself worked up over contagious illnesses all over the world, I wouldn't know where I'd be.

I guess in this case it's best to be a deist. Although that term doesn't quite make sense to me since theist are just deity believers, the nature of the belief is irrelevant. In the sense, though, god putting things in motion and leaving things be makes more sense as since it's not involved in the working of this particular planet of all of them, then there is no reason to blame it.

That is why I am in conflict about it. I can't help but feel that a Higher Power should share in some responsibility in what happens to His creation, although from all outward appearances He/It doesn't.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

[QUOTE I only go by the language

And there, my friend, is your problem.[/QUOTE]
With 30,000 different denominations and near as many different interpretations of the scriptures I say the problem is clearly yours.

 

[sojourner]

Man has ALWAYS been more evil than good. God, if He is meting out punishment for the wrong we do we should have disappeared long ago.

Humanity may have ACTED more evil than good, but as we all know, we are not defined by our actions.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

If you think he's absent, then why are you blaming him for Covid?

That's the crux of my dilemma. God admits that He creates evil. That is proactive therefore God must have done it or at the least permitted it to run rampant. It's like a father playing hide and seek with his kids. He pops out and says boo and then disappears somewhere and the kids look for him and can't find him.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

Humanity may have ACTED more evil than good, but as we all know, we are not defined by our actions.

Nooooo, of course we aren't. Ever hear the expression "Actions speak louder than words"? Is it the thought I want to rob my rich neighbor that hurts him or my actually robbing him.