Where was God during the Las Vegas shooting?

[Muffled]

If a claim is unfalsifiable, then we're unjustified in assuming that it's correct.


But we're not?

In other conversations I've had with Christians, they've insisted that we are in order to argue that God doesn't manage each person's life... which is how they try to argue that God isn't responsible for human evil. So which is it?

We think we are because we make our own decisions but the fact is the decisions we are able to make have already been determined for us.

I believe that is wishful thinking. God is responsible for everything. However that does not mean that evil is His perfect will and the Bible certainly makes it clear that God is good. What it means is that God allows evil but seeks repentance. For instance Pharaoh was influenced by God to reject the requests of Moses for his people to leave. Pharaoh could have decided to simply let those people go but God used his ego against him. That allowed Pharaoh to do evil but then God punished him for it.
It would be like a policeman plying an alcoholic with drink and waiting for him to drive away and then arresting him for DUI.

 

[Muffled]

If you have a friend that is helping you, that friend is not responsible for the bad things that happen to you.

I believe a friend who takes an alcoholic to a bar is helping the person revert to alcoholism. Granted he didn't make the person decide but only a fool would think the outcome would be different.

 

[Muffled]

You make it sound like the massicare was gods plan and the shooter was a god helper doing his work to call his people home. I dont believe that at all.

I believe God may very well make plans for a person to die. There is definitely a Biblical story to that effect. Whether it is the case or not in this instance is a moot point. No-one dies without God's permission re Job. However it is not necessarily God's people. There are multiple stories of God warning a person not to do something because it would lead to his death. God saves His people from death when He wishes. As for those who do evil there is no doubt God can be behind that. The king of Babylon killed many Jews and God was behind that.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It would be like a policeman plying an alcoholic with drink and waiting for him to drive away and then arresting him for DUI.

IOW, grossly unethical.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

i keep wondering if we're in the final years of the world.

We are not the world. We are but tourists to eternal reality.

I see Trump as the anti-christ.

I would, but hard as it is to believe, we COULD have worse. Not by much, but still true.

it's the plan hes going to twitter something that will start the end of days by shooting all or nukes at some other country which will cause that country to send all theirs back

If we're lucky, the rest of the world is more mature than us.

If you have a friend that is helping you, that friend is not responsible for the bad things that happen to you.

It literally makes them accomplices.

1. The presence of evil does not philosophically contradict the existence of a perfect God.

Unless you expect Him to be perfectly useful.

3. From the very first chapter of the bible God predicted the suffusion of evil we see around us.

I thought everything was good in the first chapter and it's only starting in chapter 2 that God changes His mind.

4. Christianity was founded on the death of it's leader.

Which means it was founded on a completely missed point.

5. God did not stand aloof from our suffering, Christianity teaches that God entered into our suffering with us.

For three days in the entire history of humanity. Gosh, I'm glad God could find the time to pencil that in.

6. He does not conquer despite suffering, he conquered through suffering.

Conquered what?

7. Since the bible says that it is appointed everyman to die, why do you doubt God when it happens?

He also promises eternal life. Which brochure do we keep and which do we throw away?

9. For love to exist freewill must exist, for freewill to exist the ability to choose evil must exist, if evil exists suffering must exist.

So, our government shouldn't provide you with roads, as it per your free will that you feel you need to go anywhere. You could just stay home.

10. The only way to guarantee that suffering would never exist is to take away freewill and turn us into automatons. Which would mean real love could not exist.

As long as the neurochemicals involved are a thing, it can. All emotions are chemical in nature.

 

[MonkeyFire]

God is a pacifist. Its the dual edge sword of Jesus' mouth in revelation.

 

[1robin]

Unless you expect Him to be perfectly useful.

Well he already paid the last full measure of devotion by providing everyone perfect ultimate justice even when betrayed of it in this life by a morally insane race of beings.

You do not mean perfectly useful, you mean a God who would ask you what to do in every situation. A God made in our own evil and limited image.

I thought everything was good in the first chapter and it's only starting in chapter 2 that God changes His mind.

Do you understand the difference between a prophecy and the recording of a contemporary recording of a real time event?

Also I meant first chapter as a euphemism for very early on.

Which means it was founded on a completely missed point.

What? Concerning people making divine claims following the one who defeated death which validated every claim he ever made is not missing the point. God's raising Christ from death specifically demonstrated that his claims did not miss the point. If God raises you from death I might consider what you say a little more seriously.

For three days in the entire history of humanity. Gosh, I'm glad God could find the time to pencil that in.

1. His earthly death was not his greatest suffering. Why are you condemning something you apparently don't know that much about? That is especially absurd when what you condemning on that flawed basis is the only ultimate hope available to mankind.
2. However concerning crucifixion, have you ever read a coroner's report concerning Roman scourging and crucifixion. The event spawned the term excruciating for pity's sake.
3. Not that 1. & 2. were all that Jesus suffered to purchase eternal contentment for anyone who simply accepts the evidence and believes.

Conquered what?

Hell, the second death, eternal separation from God, an ultimate end to oppression, slavery, murder, sickness, suffering. Has anyone ever secured more for others than Christ. I don't even think you take your own claims seriously.

He also promises eternal life. Which brochure do we keep and which do we throw away?

We throw out the one you have apparently written, and keep the one you apparently don't understand. It was not physical death Jesus saves us from, it was the far worse spiritual death he saved us from at no cost to ourselves nor comprehension by yourself.

So, our government shouldn't provide you with roads, as it per your free will that you feel you need to go anywhere. You could just stay home.

What on earth are you talking about?

As long as the neurochemicals involved are a thing, it can. All emotions are chemical in nature.

Let's try something new and get you a little depth to your "knowledge". Try this one on for starters it's only a page or two.

These Are the 7 Types of Love

 

[Apologes]

God permitted the evil to occur much like he permits any good to occur. He didn't go anywhere.

 

[DennisTate]

I always ask this question after something bad happens. It makes me mad when something good happens and everyone praises god for the great things he provides. But then something bad happens and god gave us free will. This just means stuff happens. Good and bad... stuff happens. God isn't controlling anything. If he's real, it makes me mad that he can just sit by and watch this stuff and do nothing about it. I struggle with religion. I've been reading a lot of books by Tim Keller and Case for Christ, and a few others. Once in a while, I'll start feeling like maybe there is something. But then something like Las Vegas or the Church shooting that just happened not too far from where I live here in Tennessee happens and then I ask, where was god? Was he just taking the day off? Does he not care? Or does he just not exist?

For the record... G-d was in the same place that He / She was in during the holocaust......

Howard Storm: "I asked how God could let the Holocaust of World War II happen. We were transported to a railway station as a long train of freight cars was being unloaded of its human cargo. The guards were screaming and beating the people into submission. The people were Jewish men, women, and children. Exhausted from hunger and thirst, they were totally disoriented from the ordeal of being rounded up and sent on a long journey to an unknown destination. They believed that they were going to work camps, and that their submission to the brutality of the guards was the only way to survive.

We went to the area where the selection process was taking place and heard the guards talking about "the Angel Maker." We went to the place the guards were referring to as "the Angel Maker," which was a series of ovens. I saw piles of naked corpses being loaded into the ovens, and I began to cry. ...."These are the people God loves." Then he said, "Look up." Rising out of the smoke of the chimneys, I saw hundreds of people being met by thousands of angels taking them up into the sky. There was great joy in the faces of the people, and there appeared to be no trace of a memory of the horrendous suffering they had just endured. How ironic that the guards sarcastically called the ovens "the Angel Maker."
...
I asked how God could allow this to happen. They told me that this was not God's will. This was an abomination to God. God wants this never to happen again. This was the sacrifice of an innocent people to whom God had given the law to be an example, a light, to the rest of the world. This Holocaust was breaking God's heart...."

I asked, Why does God let things like this happen? They told me that God was very unhappy with the course of human history and was going to intervene to change the world. God had watched us sink to depths of depravity and cruelty at the very time that he was giving us the instruments to make the world a godlier world. God had intervened in the world many times before, but this time God was going to change the course of human events.// (Howard Storm, My Descent Into Death, page 42,43)