Originally posted by josephwYou don't give an answer by qiving a new question. I just want an answer from you. So I ask you again, the same question as I have already asked three times only in thes thread lately.
I was trying to answer, but you can't see that. When I asked you, "why do you think God did it?", I was getting to the answer. You want a yes or no, and in time you would get your answer, but what you would really like to do is get worked up and all emotional about it and argue instead of showing a modicum of objective interest. Instead, because you are predisposed to a negative view based on your bias, you miss out on finding out what the truth is.
I think you give evasive manouevres to avoid to give an answer...
Originally posted by FabianFnasFundamentalists believe in these two rules:
Our friend josephw is a fundamentalist. Fundamentalists don't like answering questions, they like giving answers. If they get questions they can't answer, they feel threatened, their very faith is thretened. So they avoid to answer questions they don't know the answer of. They think others are in denial becase they don't want to pose the correct questions ...[text shortened]... one else.
(#2) If it happens that I'm not right, see (#1).
Note - this is not a joke.
(#1) I am always right, because I am better than every one else.
(#2) If it happens that I'm not right, see (#1).
This shows just how biased you really are. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have no problem whatsoever admitting that, if anything, you are more likely a good deal better than I am. I have many faults.
I think your problem is that you just can't stand it when I stand up to your blatantly sarcastic insulting attitude. Can't you see the hypocrisy of what you are saying in your posts?
Originally posted by FabianFnasNot true. From my perspective I see that my answer will be met by more objections and sarcastic remarks, so what I'm doing is trying to get through to you on a more personal level. That way maybe you will stop making me out to be some kind of absolute idiot. How can I talk to you when it's obvious you think I'm some kind of a nut?
You don't give an answer by qiving a new question. I just want an answer from you. So I ask you again, the same question as I have already asked three times only in thes thread lately.
I think you give evasive manouevres to avoid to give an answer...
Do you see what I mean?
Originally posted by josephwCan't you just give me the answer...?
Not true. From my perspective I see that my answer will be met by more objections and sarcastic remarks, so what I'm doing is trying to get through to you on a more personal level. That way maybe you will stop making me out to be some kind of absolute idiot. How can I talk to you when it's obvious you think I'm some kind of a nut?
Do you see what I mean?
Originally posted by scottishinnzAnd you are debating with me about it when you don't even believe any of it is true! 😕
Firstly, no-one with even the most basic grounding in physics thinks it's possible. However, the bible specifically says that God sent the flood. Who else, after all? The devil? Isn't God powerful enough to stop him, or doesn't he care?
What's the point in going into it?
"However, the bible specifically says that God sent the flood."
Okay. So it says this in the Bible. So, for the sake of the discussion, regardless of whether you believe the story to be true or not, I ask you why did God do it? I am curious as to whether or not you know WHY God did it. I know you don't believe it, so I ask this simply to continue the discussion in an exploratory way.
We're just talking here, right?
Originally posted by FabianFnasOf course I can!
Can't you just give me the answer...?
Your question was whether or not it was a good thing that God killed everybody with a flood. And by the way, it has been estimated that the population of the world at that time was about what it is today.
The answer is no, it was not a good thing, but necessary.
Now I ask you again, why did God do it?
I have to go now, but I'll be back later today. I think.
Okay, the reason why I don't want to fall into the questions and counterquestions game is that (and you guessed it) my view has nothing to do with it. My mind is made up, I know the answer, *my* answer. (What is *your* answer?)
My question to you is how you can put the two postulates (1) "God is good" and (2) "God killed nearly all of humanity in one go" and put them together without realizing that it is an oxymoron. (1) and (2) cannot be true together. You say they are true, both of them, and my question is, still, how do you explain it? How do christians explain it?
So an simple answer is in order. "God can still be concidered good, loving, and caring, despite the fact that he killed nearly all humanity in one go in the great flooding, because... (your answer here)"
FabianFnas,
You wrote:
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Sending all of the humanity to death, all but 8 people, is a good deed? (The great flooding!)
Please, stay on this topic for a while and tell me that god did a good and loving thing?
Explain how believing this is good and not a denial?
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Where would a Christian see "goodness" in the flood in which God saved 8 people and particular animals for a new age and new earth?
Did you read the related passages? Did you study the matter in context of the rest of the Bible?
Except for a remnant of peopled who followed after the revelation of God, from the fall of Adam the human race slide down a declining degeneration of corruption. Against the backround of this sinking collapse there is the positive testimomy of such people as:
Abel, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
At the point of Enoch we have a testimony that God is not a Persmissivist who will allow this decline in morality to go unjudged. Though He does not totally destroy mankind He does leave a legacy of two things.
1.) There will eventually be a world wide judgement.
2.) There is nonetheless still a way of divine salvation.
This is what we on this side of the flood should learn. God will not permit the unchecked collapse of morality without bringing in judgement. In His judgement God will provide a way of salvation.
This salvation is not only from judgment but also from the wicked world that necessitates judgment.
1.) The ARK saved Noah and his family from the flood of judgment.
2.) The WATER saved Noah and his family from the sinful world.
Perhaps you only see in the Flood account - Judgment. We believers in Christ see judgment also. But we do not fail to see a salvation from punishment on one hand and a salvation from the wicked world on the other hand.
The flood of water saved the Godly people. They need to be saved. God created man for Himself - to express God's image and glory. That is an important part of the meaning of man's creation. Man therefore should be preserved and saved from the worldwide rebellion.
God preserved the godly line of believers from being swallowed up by the wickedness of the age. The water took care of that. And those who believed were preserved by the ark. The ark with its saving of man and animals is a type of Christ.
This is a story foreshadowing the preservation of God's creation.
Perhaps you think God should just let everything rot away in the rebellion. But we see the goodness of God's instructive example, prophetic salvation, faithfulness to His word, and power to save.
Furthermore, I imagine that while the ark was closed and the people saw that they were doomed, probably many of them cried out to God and repented.
So as to eternal salvation I expect to not be surprised that many of those judged in the flood will not have perished forever.
More concerning the flood of Noah:
"And Jehovah said, My Spirit will not strive with man forever, for he indeed is flesh; so his days will be one hundred twenty years." (Gen. 6:3)
The Spirit of God is trying to convince and convict men to repent and turn to Him for grace and power to live godly. He says that He will not strive with man forever.
The term "flesh" here refers not simply to physical body. It denotes the fallen man. Man's sprit was meant to be the highest and most powerful component of his being. In the fall of man the God contacting spirit became dead and man's soul and dying flesh ascended to rule the personality.
Just before the flood God pronounced that the downward fall of man had reached a culmination with mankind:
"And the earth was corrupted before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked on the earth and all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And God said to Noah "THE END OF ALL FLESH HAS COME BEFORE ME, for the earth is filled with violence because of them, and now I am about to destroy them with the earth ..." (Gen 6:11-12)
God further said that the IMAGINATIONS and the THOUGHTS of men were only evil continually.
"And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only EVIL CONTINUALLY." (Gen. 6:5)
This is like a modern TV show in which there is unending scenes of fornication and murder - one scene after another. The imagination of all men and women was like a contunually violent video game - evil continually.
Perhaps some fill that God as the great Permissivist should show His love by allowing this to continue forever. But in His love He brings in the water to saved Noah and his believng family from the rampant gangrene of worldwide sin.
Today, the atmosphere of corruption is again seeping into the imagination of all people. The flood of curruption is again rising. Today's morality in many ways is yesterday's immorality.
If you stay in a room where everyone is eating garlic, ecentually you get use to the smell. It no longer bothers you. Jesus warned that the last days would be like the days of Noah.
It is God's love that there is a salvation in Christ. And it is God's love that those of us who want to be saved from the gangrene of the infestation of filth into a continous stream of consciousness can be saved from the world by what is coming.
You are on the Titanic and should realize you are. Jesus saves.
Originally posted by jaywillThank you, jaywill, you did what josephw didn't want to do, or didn't know the answer of - you did actually answer the question.
FabianFnas,
You wrote:
================================
Sending all of the humanity to death, all but 8 people, is a good deed? (The great flooding!)
Please, stay on this topic for a while and tell me that god did a good and loving thing?
Explain how believing this is good and not a denial?
====================================[ to not be surprised that many of those judged in the flood will not have perished forever.
However, I would like to go further.
You say that god saved the the Noah family from the sin of *all* the other inhabitans of the world at that time? Were all the others sinful? Everyone? I cannot believe it.
So god decided to erase all the sin from the earth by killing everyone, only Noah and his family would survive.
What was this sin of the entire population? What did they do so they deserve to die?
I still cannot understand that christians think that god is good, caring and loving, when he did this monstrous thing. Why not using a more loving method?
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Thank you, jaywill, you did what josephw didn't want to do, or didn't know the answer of - you did actually answer the question.
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He looked like to me he was giving some time to think about how to answer.
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However, I would like to go further.
You say that god saved the the Noah family from the sin of *all* the other inhabitans of the world at that time? Were all the others sinful? Everyone? I cannot believe it.
So god decided to erase all the sin from the earth by killing everyone, only Noah and his family would survive.
What was this sin of the entire population? What did they do so they deserve to die?
I still cannot understand that christians think that god is good, caring and loving, when he did this monstrous thing. Why not using a more loving method?
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One of the things I do as a Bible reader - I learn not only what the Bible says, I learn WHAT ELSE the Bible says.
Some people don't seem to learn what the Bible ALSO says.
For example can you tell me why Jesus rebuked His disciples John and James when they proposed to bring fire down on a village that didn't receive their preaching?
"And they did not receive Him, ... And seeing this, the disciples James and John said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them ?
But turning, He rebuked them and said, You do not know of what kind of spirit you are. The Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives but to save them. And they went into another village." (Luke 9:54-56)
Here I read of Jesus reluctance to instantly wipe out sinners. So you see I tend to want to get a full picture of what else the Bible says.
He does not intend to destroy men's lives but to save them.
I noticed also, as I read through patiently, the there is one entire book of the Old Testament dedicated one subject - God's desire NOT to have to judge a society. That is the book of Jonah. Jonah was mad because God want the Jewish prophet to tell the enemies of the Jews to REPENT or that God would judge them. "No way!" says the self serving prophet Jonah, in essence. "Let them keep sinning and get judged so Israel will be rided of its enemies."
You might read the book of Jonah. This entire book is reserved to demonstrate that God is not happy to have to punish a society. And He had to hamstring his prophet Jonah to do the job of warning the people. And they DID repent and were spared - to Jonah's frustration.
So I think I like to not get stuck on one detail and assume that the entire attitude of God is ONLY represented by one or two chapters. I always liked to read the whole Bible to get a well rounded and complete picture of God's heart.
Now to the problem of possible innocency of some of those who drowned. This is what we are told -
"And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that EVERY IMAGINATION OF THE THOUGHTS OF HIS HEART WAS ONLY EVIL CONTINUALLY." (Genesis 6:5)
Perhaps we have not yet seen such a world situation. Perhaps this is something which we cannot imagine. Yet at the same time it is certainly where we are headed. For we are told the last days would be as the days of Noah.
Now, perhaps this would not include children of a certain very young age. What about them? Is it fair that they should be drowned in a flood of judgement?
My answer would be that if that is the case, God cares much more about it than I do. And in the eternal scheme of things He will account for that and balance all things out .
I believe as Abraham did when he grilled God with many questions to assure himself that God's judgement of the city of Sodom would be righteous:
" Far be it from You to do such a thing, to put to death the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked. Far be it from You!
Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justly?" ( Gen. 18:25)
Like Abraham, I have a faith that the Judge of all the earth will do justly.
For the sake of a instructive lesson of crucial importance to the rest of mankind following the flood - and a lesson related to eternal, not temporal salvation, through Jesus Christ, God made an example of that world.
If in that example there were some who were not worthy to drown, I am certain that in the eterna scheme of things, the Righteous Judge will take that into account.
In the mean time there are some things which I do not need to speculate about. I know that they are true. I am a sinner. I am in need of saving from judgment. I need redemption and salvation through the way God has provided in Christ Jesus. Even if the OTHER guy seems not to need it I know that I need it.
So two things in closing:
Don't just learn what the Bible says. Learn what the Bible ALSO says.
Allow the Word of God to ascend you and speak to you personally. Pray "Lord Jesus, how do you want me to take this story into account concerning my life?"
Whatever the situation of those who regarded as possibly innocent that is probably not your situation. I think the beginning of wisdom is to seek how the account speaks to you and your need before God.
Now I think you go too far off topic. Back to Noah...
God resolved his problem the same way as Hitler did: "Kill, kill, kill!" Hitler didn't succeed, god did. That makes god more evil than Hitler.
Now, why were there sin in the world, at that time of the great flooding? Answer: Man has free will. Free will was given to the people, and the people used it to do what they wanted with it.
People did some things that wasn't good. Like my son is doing things that is not good. I wouldn't for everything in the world kill my son for that? But god killed nearly eeryone in the world. I am better than god, I find a solution and tell my son why what he is doing isn't good. I educate him. God just kill them. Not good, not good at all.
So I don't think god is terrible smart. Perhaps he's just plain silly. Or evil...
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Now I think you go too far off topic. Back to Noah...
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No, I don't I'm off the topic. I didn't pick up the Bible and assume that Genesis chapters 6,7 was all that I needed to know about the heart and goodness of God.
Are you afraid to consider other evidence about the ways and heart of God?
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God resolved his problem the same way as Hitler did: "Kill, kill, kill!" Hitler didn't succeed, god did. That makes god more evil than Hitler.
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You didn't notice the "Resurrect, resurrect, resurrect" of the gospel of Jesus then?
You didn't notice that One died for all on His cross?
You didn't notice that did you? Your Bible perhaps only contains two chatpers of Genesis. My Bible has 66 books in it.
The ark is a type of Jesus Christ. The ark is an symbol of Jesus Christ. It took thousands of years for God to gradualy unfold His fuller mind and heart. Along the way we need the story of Noah. But we do not stop there.
Well, if you are looking only for a bone to choke on maybe you stop there. Some of us went on to read Jonah and other biblical books about the same God. And we arrived at His incarnation in the man Jesus.
The REAL flood was on Calvary on the cross of the Son of God. That was the judgement that you really should see. That was God judging the sins of the whole world INCLUDING those of Noah's day in the death of the Savior Jesus.
You are impressed with the flood in Genesis. Me too. But I am MORE impressed with the FLOOD on Calvary when God judged the sins of the whole human race in all time and history in ONE substitute Savior- His own Son.
Here I see at work both the righteousness of God and the love of God. I don't believe any human imagination could concoct such a story. Sorry. I don't believe that anyone WOULD envent a character like Jesus even if they were able to do so.
I am impressed more with how the ARK of Noah represents Christ as the worldwide Savior of all sinners.
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Now, why were there sin in the world, at that time of the great flooding? Answer: Man has free will. Free will was given to the people, and the people used it to do what they wanted with it.
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And we have the freedom to respond to the preaching of the gospel to repent and look to God for grace and power to be brought out of such a rebellion.
God left man with an alternative. We could turn back to God.
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People did some things that wasn't good. Like my son is doing things that is not good. I wouldn't for everything in the world kill my son for that? But god killed nearly eeryone in the world. I am better than god, I find a solution and tell my son why what he is doing isn't good. I educate him. God just kill them. Not good, not good at all.
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If you are better than God I think we should check with all the people who are related to you - brothers, sisters, mother, father, cousins. Would they mostly concur that you are better than God?
Now Jesus Christ qualifies to say that there was no sin in Him.
His impact on the world has been a little more noticable than yours.
So I want to see what Jesus says about it and what He taught about it.
I want to see how this Righteous Man educates us concerning the story of Noah.
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So I don't think god is terrible smart. Perhaps he's just plain silly. Or evil...
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IF He knew all the that way going on in the imaginations and thoughts of the people in the whole world, I would say that that is quite a feat.
And why not? He is the Creator of the universe. And He's the one who gave you the ability to argue at all.
Some other interesting facts about the flood of Noah:
Who lived the longest in the Bible? A son of Enoch by the name of Methusaleh lived some 960 years or so - the record long life in the Bible.
Why do you think Methusaleh lived so long? Well, it is because of this "education" that the poster complained about. You see the name Methusaleh means something like "When he dies it will come."
The "it" refers to the flood. You see Methusaleh's dad Enoch realized that divine judgement was coming on the world. And God was giving the world time to repent and be saved from it. So because God was so much wanting people to be educated he let the signal life of Methusaleh live so long, longer than anyone else in the whole Bible.
Now who got educated? Well, Noah and his kids did. But also Enoch the father of "When he dies it will come." Enoch had Methusaleh and "walked with God" for 200 years.
Would you think that a 200 year long class would be enough education?
Enoch saw what was coming and warned the people with the name of his sion Methusaleh - "When he dies it will come". Then Enoch walked with God for 200 years and was raptured. THAT was an education. It was not only an education for the people then but even more for our time.
Anyway, as God promised, He held off for a long long time - 960 years hoping men and women would repent. Finally the same righteous God had to bring in righteous judgment when Methusaleh died. But we are also told tha Noah walked with God like Enoch did. And he found grace in the sight of the Lord.
So Enoch, Methusaleh (who was at least spared the flood) Noah and his family responded to an amply long period of education.
What the poster complains God did not provide He actually did. I wonder if the poster had in mind a 200 year long class in walking with God? Somehow I doubt it.
Originally posted by FabianFnasOkay. There it is. As you said, you have made up you mind. It's up to me to change your mind. I have to come up with a reason why God is justified in killing off everything except 8 people and 2 of every kind of animal so compelling that you would be immediately converted, or I'm waisting our time.
Okay, the reason why I don't want to fall into the questions and counterquestions game is that (and you guessed it) my view has nothing to do with it. My mind is made up, I know the answer, *my* answer. (What is *your* answer?)
My question to you is how you can put the two postulates (1) "God is good" and (2) "God killed nearly all of humanity in one g ...[text shortened]... illed nearly all humanity in one go in the great flooding, because... (your answer here)"