Snowflakes....designed or accidents of nature?

[Nada]

Yes he did. Every part of the gun & the bullet are his handiwork. In this case, weather systems are(I am grossly over-simplifying but bear with me) an amalgam of heat & water. Rain or snow, the clouds they fall from, the wind that blows them and the heat that strengthens them all come from God. The rotation of the earth(also God) causes the spinning motion. And when the cloud is too 'full', it deposits the water in one form or another. Lightning is another thing.

Assuming a designer, he must have set it up this way, because this is how it works. Life relies on it. If you want a world in perfect balance, Mars is a good exhibit. Then there's earthquakes, which are caused by the cooling of the earth(which God also did), so on so forth ad infinitum.

I understand what you are saying but you fail to realize what I am saying.It was not supposed to be this way.This world is not in the same condition it was when God created it.The Earth was created in perfect condition with set rules in place.Things have been altered due to what happened in the garden of Eden.Now the animals will kill humans.Now the weather is all crazy and out of whack.Oceans altered by oil and other pollution.Global warming.Reduced ozone layer.It goes on and on.This is not because of God.

 

[Nietzsche]

I understand what you are saying but you fail to realize what I am saying.It was not supposed to be this way.This world is not in the same condition it was when God created it.The Earth was created in perfect condition with set rules in place.Things have been altered due to what happened in the garden of Eden.Now the animals will kill humans.Now the weather is all crazy and out of whack.Oceans altered by oil and other pollution.Global warming.Reduced ozone layer.It goes on and on.This is not because of God.

And when was this pristine, unblemished state of the Earth? Because we're reasonably well-aware of the geological history of the earth, and there simply was no 'Eden' period.

 

[Nada]

And when was this pristine, unblemished state of the Earth? Because we're reasonably well-aware of the geological history of the earth, and there simply was no 'Eden' period.

Lol...

 

[Nietzsche]

Lol...

Right, because hundreds of thousands of individuals, potentially millions, who have been working independently on this for decades, all came to the same wrong conclusion.

 

[Nada]

Right, because hundreds of thousands of individuals, potentially millions, who have been working independently on this for decades, all came to the same wrong conclusion.

Lol... You're on a roll now.Lol....

 

[Nietzsche]

Lol... You're on a roll now.Lol....

For my side to be wrong, millions of individuals would have to either be secretly working together for decades, or they have all independently come to same wrong conclusion, despite being from a myriad number of cultures & faiths and many being unable to contact one another.

For your side to be wrong, it requires making the startling leap that maybe Bronze-Age Israelites weren't the most knowledgeable people around.

Occam's Razor suggests yours is wrong, as it requires the largest number of independent, conspiring or coincidental factors. Basically, yours requires the most preset qualifiers to be true. Too many assumptions, spread amongst too many people, with too great an ability to be found out. Mine only needs one to recognize that Bronze-Age societies aren't the best place to rest ones' scientific knowledge on. Unless you'd like to argue in favor of geocentrism, flat-earth and a 'firmament'.

 

[psychoslice]

 

[Vishvavajra]

Those natural disasters are just that.According to the holy scriptures God does not cause evil.He also has a set time for Judgment.These things that happen are just unfortunate occurrences.

Isaiah 45:7

It is a core element of Judaic thought that Yahweh is responsible for both the good and the bad things that happen. In a truly monotheistic framework it cannot be otherwise. I'm not aware of a mainstream strand of Abrahamic theology that claims otherwise.

(And that's not even getting into the many instances in Judaic myth in which Yahweh outright smites people, including whole nations, as one could say that's just how ancient myth is and that it doesn't represent a real theological position.)

 

[Nada]

Isaiah 45:7

It is a core element of Judaic thought that Yahweh is responsible for both the good and the bad things that happen. In a truly monotheistic framework it cannot be otherwise. I'm not aware of a mainstream strand of Abrahamic theology that claims otherwise.

(And that's not even getting into the many instances in Judaic myth in which Yahweh outright smites people, including whole nations, as one could say that's just how ancient myth is and that it doesn't represent a real theological position.)

Using the elements or His people to carry out His will was something that happened in a time before.God does not do this anymore for He has a set time for Judgment in the near future.Killing his creations because they disobeyed His commands is not a bad thing.it is declared judgment.People confuse the two often.Therefore it would not be considered an evil act.God does not commit evil acts.


James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;

 

[Vishvavajra]

Using the elements or His people to carry out His will was something that happened in a time before.God does not do this anymore for He has a set time for Judgment in the near future.Killing his creations because they disobeyed His commands is not a bad thing.it is declared judgment.People confuse the two often.Therefore it would not be considered an evil act.God does not commit evil acts.


James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;

That quote doesn't have anything to do with the question at hand, which is not whether God tempts people to evil but whether he is thought to visit evil on people. Nor does it magically invalidate the well established principle, as stated by Isaiah, that God is the source of good and all evil alike. If you're going to claim scriptural authority, you don't get to behave as if one verse cancels out another.

As for the other part, I think folks in Laos must have felt the tremors from the shifting of the goalposts. We're talking about natural disasters (i.e. evil in the literal sense of the word, not the moral sense). Either God is held to be the source of that evil or not. The picture painted by scripture is a consistent yes, yet you claim no. OK. I would actually be sympathetic to that position, but you also claim scriptural authority, which isn't going to work, for the reasons stated above.

Lastly, even if you could legitimately rebut the point by claiming that God's killing people through natural disasters wasn't really evil in the moral sense (which you can't, 'cause that's just special pleading and semantic wrangling rather than an actual rebuttal of the point in question), the problem remains that it's a morally reprehensible view. The idea that creating someone gives you licence to torture and kill them is depraved. We do not allow parents to treat their children in that way.

The creation of sentient life does not come without moral responsibilities, nor does being created come with obligations of servitude to one's creator. In all cases, in order to be considered morally good, one must act with compassion, kindness, and love. Failure to do so is wrong, regardless of the relationships involved. If you give God special exemption from all moral precepts, then God's goodness is a meaningless assertion. "God is good because he is God, and God must be good" is called begging the question. It is not a legitimate argument.

Of course, you can say that Isaiah is wrong and God is not responsible for disasters or any other sort of evil, and that would be fine. But in that case you don't get to have it both ways and say that God is the source of all that is good, as by that point we've already established that phenomena can occur naturally without any divine intervention.

 

[McBell]

Snowflakes....designed or accidents of nature?

Well, going forward with your misuse of the terms, "accidents of nature".
Sad you are unable to comprehend the definition of the word "accident".

 

[Nada]

That quote doesn't have anything to do with the question at hand, which is not whether God tempts people to evil but whether he is thought to visit evil on people. Nor does it magically invalidate the well established principle, as stated by Isaiah, that God is the source of good and all evil alike. If you're going to claim scriptural authority, you don't get to behave as if one verse cancels out another.

As for the other part, I think folks in Laos must have felt the tremors from the shifting of the goalposts. We're talking about natural disasters (i.e. evil in the literal sense of the word, not the moral sense). Either God is held to be the source of that evil or not. The picture painted by scripture is a consistent yes, yet you claim no. OK. I would actually be sympathetic to that position, but you also claim scriptural authority, which isn't going to work, for the reasons stated above.

Lastly, even if you could legitimately rebut the point by claiming that God's killing people through natural disasters wasn't really evil in the moral sense (which you can't, 'cause that's just special pleading and semantic wrangling rather than an actual rebuttal of the point in question), the problem remains that it's a morally reprehensible view. The idea that creating someone gives you licence to torture and kill them is depraved. We do not allow parents to treat their children in that way.

The creation of sentient life does not come without moral responsibilities, nor does being created come with obligations of servitude to one's creator. In all cases, in order to be considered morally good, one must act with compassion, kindness, and love. Failure to do so is wrong, regardless of the relationships involved. If you give God special exemption from all moral precepts, then God's goodness is a meaningless assertion. "God is good because he is God, and God must be good" is called begging the question. It is not a legitimate argument.

Of course, you can say that Isaiah is wrong and God is not responsible for disasters or any other sort of evil, and that would be fine. But in that case you don't get to have it both ways and say that God is the source of all that is good, as by that point we've already established that phenomena can occur naturally without any divine intervention.

Oh....ok.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I understand what you are saying but you fail to realize what I am saying.It was not supposed to be this way.This world is not in the same condition it was when God created it.The Earth was created in perfect condition with set rules in place.Things have been altered due to what happened in the garden of Eden.Now the animals will kill humans.Now the weather is all crazy and out of whack.Oceans altered by oil and other pollution.Global warming.Reduced ozone layer.It goes on and on.This is not because of God.

There's no evidence for any of that. Earth and the universe has not ever been in a state of stasis. It was born from fire and conflict and that is how it continues.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

God was no such thing.There is meaning to that story but many will never know.

I know what the meaning is supposed to be. But it still stands that God gave Satan permission to be a devil, and encouraged him to do so.

But God did not pull any trigger.Thats my point.

If God is the one who set up and designed the earth, he set it up to have natural disasters. Without the weather patterns we have, which includes these disasters, life on earth could not function. They are very necessary, but very destructive.

I understand what you are saying but you fail to realize what I am saying.It was not supposed to be this way.This world is not in the same condition it was when God created it.The Earth was created in perfect condition with set rules in place.Things have been altered due to what happened in the garden of Eden.Now the animals will kill humans.Now the weather is all crazy and out of whack.Oceans altered by oil and other pollution.Global warming.Reduced ozone layer.It goes on and on.This is not because of God.

There is no evidence to support. Even going back as far as Pangaea, we can see the evidence that there have been natural disasters even before humans were around.
And if the Earth was created to be perfect, God is at fault for it's neglect and letting it fall into such a state.

 

[Vishvavajra]

There's no evidence for any of that. Earth and the universe has not ever been in a state of stasis. It was born from fire and conflict and that it how it continues.

It's very typical of a certain kind of myth that is meant to express the difficulty of the human experience. The Greek Hesiod also posits a prior age in which life was easy and there was no suffering and death, but which ended and eventually led to the world we live in. That sort of story resonates with people because we feel that life is hard, yet we can imagine a better world in which it's not. So it's natural to imagine that that was the way it once was, and that somehow things have degenerated from that point. Or else that we're working from hardship towards perfection. Or sometimes both.

The important thing is that those are myths, expressions of human experience in narrative form. They are not historical fact. They are not scientific hypotheses.

We know why weather happens, and we know that it's not physically possible for an atmosphere like ours to not have storms. Nor is it possible for a planet like ours, with a molten core, to not experience the occasional earthquake and volcanic eruption. Those things, unlike some forms of climate change, are not caused by human activity and were happening long before humans existed. They have happened and continue to happen on other planets in our solar system. And in many ways they're not as bad as they were a few billion years ago when the planet was younger, when it would have been altogether uninhabitable to us.

In any case, I get myths. I respect myths. I don't mind when people couch things in mythic terms. But people have to know when to switch over and not get their myth and their science mixed up. For example, there are lots of myths that posit that the world was created from the carcass of a slain creature. That's a very evocative image, but we're not literally living in the corpse of a sea monster or a frost giant. At least, I hope we can all agree on that.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

It's very typical of a certain kind of myth that is meant to express the difficulty of the human experience. The Greek Hesiod also posits a prior age in which life was easy and there was no suffering and death, but which ended and eventually led to the world we live in. That sort of story resonates with people because we feel that life is hard, yet we can imagine a better world in which it's not. So it's natural to imagine that that was the way it once was, and that somehow things have degenerated from that point. Or else that we're working from hardship towards perfection. Or sometimes both.

The important thing is that those are myths, expressions of human experience in narrative form. They are not historical fact. They are not scientific hypotheses.

We know why weather happens, and we know that it's not physically possible for an atmosphere like ours to not have storms. Nor is it possible for a planet like ours, with a molten core, to not experience the occasional earthquake and volcanic eruption. Those things, unlike some forms of climate change, are not caused by human activity and were happening long before humans existed. They have happened and continue to happen on other planets in our solar system. And in many ways they're not as bad as they were a few billion years ago when the planet was younger, when it would have been altogether uninhabitable to us.

In any case, I get myths. I respect myths. I don't mind when people couch things in mythic terms. But people have to know when to switch over and not get their myth and their science mixed up. For example, there are lots of myths that posit that the world was created from the carcass of a slain creature. That's a very evocative image, but we're not literally living in the corpse of a sea monster or a frost giant. At least, I hope we can all agree on that.

Indeed. That's the problem when you take as literal what was never meant to be literal. Myths speak to us on a much deeper, irrational and symbolic level. They are in a different sphere from the mundane reality and should be kept separate lest either be contaminated by the other. In this way, both myths and mundane history and science are true.

 

[outhouse]

I think if people choose to place mythology in nature.

There is no place they cannot place it with imagination and twisting the evidence to meet personal apologetic needs.

Its the process they take that has entertainment value


I like the truth like whiskey, straight up lol no sugar coating please

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I like the truth like whiskey, straight up lol no sugar coating please

Bleh!!! If you make the truth like beer, or Jäger, or rum then I'll drink it all up. Or maybe tequila would be a better example, as I do not like it with salt, lemon, or lime.

 

[outhouse]

Bleh!!! If you make the truth like beer, or Jäger, or rum then I'll drink it all up. Or maybe tequila would be a better example, as I do not like it with salt, lemon, or lime.

Been sober for 8 years, 6 months and 3 weeks lol but who's counting

Never had a problem, never ran out. Just got bored with it, the night I became a father.

 

[JayJayDee]

I see there being no justification for a bunch of fat and overpriviledged Americans having it so damn easy because God watches over us while he allows people to suffer at the hands of groups like ISIS or the Nazis, why he allows so many of the horrid birth defects that happen, and why he allows thousands of children to die every single die from starvation.

Do you know what kind of life God purposed for man in the beginning? He placed humans in a garden of pleasure and gave them the opportunity to live forever in perfect health and happiness. All he asked for was obedience to one simple command. It caused them no deprivation whatsoever to obey their Creator, but disobedience would introduce sin and death.
The life we live at present is very far removed from that because of what they did.

Man chose this life. He chose to pull away from his Creator and rule himself independently. He not only sentenced himself to death but also sentenced his children to the consequences of his choice. This is why God allows humans to do what they will. It isn't God who causes man's inhumanity....it is humans doing that to each other. Free will is the issue and free will wrongly exercised leads to what we see in every part of the world down through the centuries.

In all his history, man has tried every form of self-rule and failed....miserably. Doing his own will leads him nowhere. Doing the will of the Creator is what would have prevented the present situation but God has promised to fix all the problems on planet earth....after a very educational object lesson. Man wanted self rule so God allowed them to experience it first hand. Here we are in 2015 and what have we learned? Absolutely nothing!

God has given all an opportunity to get to know him, and to obey him as rightful sovereign, but those who only want to do their own thing (like Adam) will not get to experience the life to come....the real life. (Isa 55:11; 65:17; Rev 21:2-5)

What people forget is that God has the power over life and death. He also has the power to erase the memory of all past traumatic events so that there will be nothing to spoil the life we can look forward to......everlasting life in paradise will be given back to those who remained faithful.

When humans are done trying out all their schemes, God plans to bring his own rulership back to this earth and those who do not want his rulership will not have it forced upon them. He has already appointed his king and his assistants, so it is just a matter of time before he brings mankind to an accounting. Those who reject God's king will not get to enjoy life on their own terms any longer. Legal precedents will have been set so that no rebel, either in heaven or on earth will ever get an opportunity to oppose the Creator or his purpose again.

Then why do so many suffer with starvation? Not a Western "I'm hungry" what we think of as starving, but starving in the since that they cannot sustain their bodily functions, they are so underfed that they look like walking skeletons, and they are so malnurited they suffer a long and painful death from their body eating itself until there is no more left and biological functions cease.
Really, is god so bored with being god that he was busy designing snow flakes while
the black plague devastated Europe?

If God intervened in the affairs of men, the lessons would not be so compelling. Wouldn't we all then assume that self rule is not so bad if we were shielded from the full consequences of our choices? But this way we get the full impact of what rejecting the Creator's rulership means. In every area of life, obeying the laws of God would always result in peace and harmony, but divisions, based on the abuse of free will, cause dissent and dissent leads to conflict and violence. World Wars have resulted. How many millions have died at the hands of their fellow man? How many starving children would there be if all mankind shared their resources and loved one another? Put the blame where it lies.

God designed the mechanisms for snowflakes long before humans were created. He is not bored, nor is he stupid, nor is he human. He is not hampered by limited knowledge or thinking. He knows "the end from the beginning" so when humans brought sin into the world, he knew at once the best way to handle this rebellion which began in the spirit realm.

Dealing with it the way he has, settles the issues once and for all time, never to be raised again. That way, God can get on with the business of being God. There is a vast universe out there that I am sure he has wonderful plans for.

Personally, I think his handling of matters is brilliant.