why_didn't_god_eradicate_all_the_sins_and_evils kx21 Why??? given the supreme & limitless power of God... 020323 ... kx21 PCA from Pope / Religious Leader or Preacher:- That is a devilish Question... 020323 ... kx21 The Most Profound Wisdom from lazy or idle Person:- Inaction - That is the final answer!!! And Wise Men, i.e. I & God think & act alike... Copyright 2002 kx21.com 020323 ... kx21 The M_answer from Satan or Devil:- Can God survive or evolve without Sin and Evil? 020323 ... kx21 The M_theory from Scientist, Physicist or Cosmologist:- Sins & Evils are essential Stuffs for God to test, examine and refine the Grand Plans for the Universe(s) or Nature, or more precisely, to beautify the Veil_ of_Cosmos... Copyright 2002 kx21.com 020323 ... kx21 Veil_of_Cosmos... 020323 ... kx21 The M_Model from Mathematician:- That Why_didn't_god_eradicate_all_the_sins_and_evils is as to Why didn't Chicken cross the Road or Why_did_the_chicken_cross_the_road... Proof:- Given one's " didn't " is other's " did " ; God is different things or matters to different people, for instance " God " = " Chicken " ; " eradicate " is a subject matter of X, i.e. " Cross "; and " Sins and Evils " can be found in any where, specifically " the Road "... This implies that Why_didn't_god_eradicate_all_the_sins_and_evils is as to Why didn't Chicken cross the Road or Why_did_the_chicken_cross_the_road... This completes the proof... Copyright 2002 kx21.com 020323 ... -{::EphemeralArcs::}- more a proof that anything can be proven with scientific proof format. If we had no challenge, then would Terra(earth) be fulfilling? Or would a hollow emptiness insue, carved by only white light. Can you see a picture with only tones of white? Or shades of black? No, but if you combine them in varying degree, you can create a gray scale image. Perhaps god didn't create the nature of the universe, and only molded it. Or perhaps his own existance propheted the existance of an antithesis. Or perhaps, evil and sin are challenge, [[to be overcome? understood? synthesized? ordered?]] see, the reasons really are endless. 020323 ... kx21 Refer to the_string_between_man_and_chicken for The_Truth? 020323 ... kx21 **** The Praise & Order from The General:- Why_didn't_god_eradicate_all_the_sins_and_evils is the most amazing question I have ever heard of during my life... The only Sin or Evil in my dictionary is Peace talk... Dear God, This is my ORDER: Please get rid of all the peace_talk, by hood or by crook, with immediate effect... *** Specifically crafted for my lovely strings, dear blatherers... 020323 ... god the palestinians are doin' that for me 020323 ... kx21 **** Genuine Protest from Human Rights Activist:- To stop & eradicate all the Sins & Evils in the Cosmos:- That is the ' Father ' violation of Human_Rights in the ' Mother ' of Terrorist_Acts... Copyright 2002 kx21.com 020325 ... god let me know how good can exist without evil, and i'll get right on it. 020331 ... Dafremen KX I hope this is just an exercise in(deep breath for the new word)futilitismicity. Sin and Evil are subjective terms. Evil is as much an invention as sin is. There is what we do, and what we do not do. There is what we WOULD do, and what we manage. There is no sin there is no evil. Only temporary unpleasantness to make the bad seem a bit better by comparison. 020331 ... god just cheer us up, why dontcha? 020331 ... silentbob he loves to watch us sufffferrrrrrr 020401 ... reitoei because the world is boring enough as it is. pandora made things just a little more interesting 020401 ... Ahmad you must understand,if there was no sin and evil in this world there will not be any good. we gage what is good by evil, and what is evil by good. If there was: no evil (as we think of evil 2day) then we would think that the slightest things, r eivl. more evil in the world, then we would look upon acts that we know 2day as evil to be fairly moderate. so therfor, we could not live in a world without equal amounts of good and bad. we could however live in a world with no evil, if there was no good. 020825 ... Ahmad this argument could be related to the 1 about this world being a world in a tier system, (i think the bauds believe this or sumthin, not sure, any bauds out there??) the argument goes like this: this world could b another worlds heaven, or it could b another worlds hell. and the world below us could be our hell, and the would above could b our heaven, but when ur there, you will notice no difference because u will become accustomed to that worlds amounts of suffering and .. goodness ?!? 020825 ... girl_jane uuurrrmmmm...he gaves us that chance. He just introduced temptation to us. We fucked it up after that. 020825 ... devalis He created us and gave us paradise. It's us who fucked it up. But He even took care of that by sacrificing His son to make us clean again. Now we're just fuckin' it up more. It's not Him. It's us. 020826 ... daxle he gave adam and eve the option of choosing evil. he made them how they were. if he was all knowing than he must have known that the creature he made (eve), given the circumstances he put her in, would take the apple he offered. as i see it, people have been misinterpreting that fairy tale for years. the moral of the story is- the more knowledge you have, the more difficult living is... the realization of what you are is disatisfying. 020826 ... reitoei he has to resolve the issues surrounding his existence before he can attend to that 020907 ... werewolf daxle...what if god only knew everything that was going to happen because god didn't exist in time like we do. perhaps god exists in all dimensions of time like most theologians agree he exists in physical space. in this way, god wouldn't have to give humans no choice, but could know what they'd do by the mere fact that he was already the future. It'd be more like a historian looking back on the events the moment they were created. This brings up interesting thoughts on what it would be like to be god, and how god's own actions would seem to god. If god knew everything about what it was god was doing, but still was forced to feel present in the actions. 020907 ... werewolf damn it...i so didn't mean to give god the he but i did once 020907 ... daxle well, that's a good point. (and I_will_tell_you_how_wonder_you_are ...heh) how I see it is, all occurences are connected in a web of cause and effect, and so such a being as "god" would be able to perceive all past and all future as part of being omniscient. however, where did this "god" come from then? i think "god" is a mechanism we use to stop our brains from hurting. 020907 ... kx21 Is that a genuine flaw in God_Equation? 021129 ... daxle yes, it is 021129 ... kx21 What is the M_Butterfly of this flaw:- Nature or Nurure? 021129 ... faith God did eradicate sin - Every single sin, past, present, and future died along with Christ on the cross. 021129 ... Meister Brau I'm with faith on this one. Jesus is lord. i_have_words. do you fall in love with the Smell of my asshole? 021129 ... p2 because there is no God 021130 ... [.:..The SeeR ..:.] Because!! Adversity_builds_character and... Practice_makes_perfect... especially on a challenging obstacle course 021130 ... kx21 Breaking News from God / Heaven: God_equation has been modified to include ' Sin ' for the sake of Human Beings... 021201 ... kx21 *** * Free Space of Creatvity & Imagination *** Eureka!!! To stretch our TEN_TOE... Or more precisely:- To give some Free Space for our Creatvity & Imagination... Tell one Why_NOT... And_I_will_tell_You_how_wonder_You_are... Copyright 2003 kx21.com 030903 ... megan because then there would be no such thing as free will 030903 ... pipedream because we wouldn't know what good was, or what a making a choice meant. alternatively, evil is created by God's creations. it wasn't God who made evil, it was made by the things He made that went astray. 030904 ... Dafremen Because THEN, instead of blaming God for all of the sins and evils in the world, we'd be blaming him for the fact that the world is so f*cking boring. Apparently, some folks didn't do the math when they contemplated a "perfect, eternal paradise." How old would lying around playing harps and giggling our f-ing brains out get, after say...oh I don't know, 5,000 YEARS?! Perhaps this simple oversight is one of the reasons that man has failed so thoroughly in his attempts to improve on Nature. It is why all attempts to replace God's Creation with human creations must ultimately meet with failure. 030905 ... Lemon_Soda Thats God's perogative but I think its because anything requires two sides to define it. 030905 ... krazykat Okay, let's take away evil. Let's take away hatred. Let's take away all the bad. Then after that we'll just take away the color black. Nothing but white. Sorry, you have to wait till you die till you get that. 030906 ... ferret the reason i've heard quite_a_lot_of is because he wanted to show us everything he is NOT. 030906 ... User24 as usual, I haven't read everything above, but here's my answer to the title question: who's to decide what is a sin and what is evil? surely God would prefer his creation to eradicate sin and evil themselves, rather than have all the hard work done for them? also, without yin, there can be no yang, if there was no darkness, we'd never see the light. 030907 ... Dafremen take_it_back 030907 ... karl the weed i only read the title as well, but ive decided that user24's right, now everyone shut up. 030907 ... karl the weed but i have a better question: whymusteveryoneknowtheanswertoallthesequestions 030907 ... karl the weed whymusteveryoneknowtheanswertoallthesequestions 030907 ... smurfus rex I'd like to go off of what User24 said... good and evil are but one more pair on a long list of opposites encompassed by the idea of yin and yang. cold and hot, wet and dry, dark and light, soft and hard, passive and active. on another hand, what is considered "good" is what is "good for us" and what is considered "evil" is what is "bad for us". for example, let us take the cardinal sin of gluttony. essentially, to be gluttonous is to indulge in too much of something, usually something "bad for you". hence, obesity is tied to gluttony for food (despite other medical reasons) and masochism, in some forms, is tied to gluttony for punishment (you've heard the phrase before). so, if one is to say that to experience too much of something that is bad for you is to experience evil, then would it not follow that getting a sunburn is getting evil treatment from the sun? would the same follow for frostbite? how about heat stroke or freezing? let's continue with freezing. if someone freezes to death, is that person a victim of evil? after all, the experience of extreme cold led to the person's death. however, a t-bone steak (bear with me here) can also experience extreme cold, which leads to the preservation of the steak before it is consumed for nourishment. but in order to be consumed, a steak must first be cooked. extreme heat must be applied to the steak in order for it to be considered edible. and yet, if the same amount of heat were applied to a person, burn damage would inevitably result...an experience that is "bad" for the person. so perhaps it is not inconceivable that the reason "God" did not eradicate all the sins and evils in the world is because "evil" is relative. and that "good" and "evil" are inextricably linked to the actors and actions in any given situation. in other words, you can't take the evil out of life, or else you'd take the good out also. jeez, sorry i went on so long. :) 030908 ... krazy Yea, according to Taosim, if you took away the dark there wouldn't be light. Which is precisely why I said you'd have to be dead to experience such an impossiblity as only white. 030909 ... User24 we all agree; without yin, there is no yang, without cold, there is no hot, and without black, there is no white. 030911 ... misstree god kills kittens. 030911 ... misstree we're not talking about renting a sappy movie and a horror movie here; we're talking about the divine dichotomy of a being that is supposed to be loving, all-knowing, forgiving, and occasionally vengeful and jealous. we're talking about a god who guides lovers to eachother's arms, allows the invalid to walk again and cry out in joy, makes clouds of butterflies decorate the day, is also having daddies rape their little girls, twisting babies to monsters in their mother's wombs, and inflicting lasting, painful diseases on people, good people, trailing agony all throughout their lives and the lives of those that love them. just thought i'd bring that back into perspective. i was beginning to catch the scent of platitudes. 030911 ... User24 perspective is what it's all about, the man who dies tomorrows may long to have a terminal disease instead, the man who has perfect health may long to die tomorrow. 030911 ... krazykat And then there's cause and effect...for instance, babies mangled in wombs as the result of maternal crack smoking. gruesome car accidents as the result of stupid drunk drivers and people driving too fast for their own safety without leaving proper braking distance (as the result of being in a hurry, as the result of waking up to late.) perhaps you get what I'm saying. Terrorism as the result of indifference. Which boils down to the fact that if you believe in God, then you can believe that it all happens for a reason. 030911 ... krazy ..boils down the idea, I should say. I don't want to say "fact". 030911 ... misstree yeah, i can get behind cause and effect to a point, but then things like emoticons come up, and there's nothing there for cause but the horrible nature of a couple of human beings. it's then that i remember why man invented god: so he could have both a being to blame for all the ugliness, and someone to pin his hopes on that everything will be okay in the end. it's all a pack of lies. it's all foma. and foma is all i've got to keep me hanging in the air above countless abysses. i don't even particularly think there's a reason; i just fool myself into believing that the world is not a terrible and crushing place. apologizes for the bitterness today. 030911 ... misstree er, should be things like emoticon. 030911 ... krazykat In an effort to remove your bitterness, (I am not a true believer yet, I was athiest for a long time and as of recent years I have had the concept of God in serious consideration) I ask you to ponder this: Suppose God created us (and I mean God as a universal idea....for all walks of life, for people everywhere on the globe, in different shapes and forms)and God, being the perfect being without form, without description, without definition, is well aware of every nasty bad thing that goes on in the world, and has designed the world in such an incredibly perfect balance so that all good is rewarded with good, and likewise with bad and bad. We as humans can or need never to know the true roots of bad, because all we have to do is avoid evil, and be sorry for evil we have committed. And I'm not talking about emoticons. Is that so bad? Is that the the terrible philosophy that so motivated Anton LaVey to create a satanic religion? I'm talking about having a love for the beauty that is our life, I'm not talking about being immune to evil...evil hurts, pain hurts...and it should. Have you ever met anybody that took to much Ecstascy? They're flatline, their emotions are totally grey as the result of over-use of their happy chemicals. So who wants to eradicate evil, who wants to live at a flatline with no ups or down? I'd rather be dead. 030911 ... misstree and again i agree with you, mostly. i would die in a world without the emotional roller coasters. i've always been a bit prone to mood swings (read: borderline personality disorder, though i disagree with that, especially nowadays), and i wouldn't change it for the world. yes, i agree, fuck grey, give me every color you've got and then some. but i disagree that there is a balance. and outside of foma (getting dangerous here, when i acknowledge the world outside of foma more than once a day), i don't think there is any balancing force. i think that Shit just Happens, and there's no creator being or chaotic being or any sort of anything at all looking out for people and kittens and mountains and things. it's not just that there is no direct link to the amount of good that you do and that you recieve, or evil in the same manner, it's that in the end there is nothing and no one to hold accountable for the way our cards were shuffled. it's all blind chance, and none of it is fair. i'll stay away from debating satanism, if you don't mind, as i know little about it, and most of the practitioners i've met have been just as underinformed (read: 75% were angsty rebel wannabes. the other 25% and i just didn't get along.) i will, however, say that, yes, actually i do think that things like emoticon are Evil. see: evil for an expanded version of my opinoin, but to me, evil is faceless malice, it is impersonal destruction without soil for creation, it is breaking wills and energy without purpose. it is the destruction of beauty. no, i don't think that's what inspired lavey; but i don't think that lavey's purpose was to develop a religion that was based around committing acts of evil. (ya, so i lied; but if i remember correctly, satanism is mostly a kind of blend of hedonism and just doing what you want, and a "you've got the power!" kind of trip. if anyone wants to edjimicate me, feel free to do it over on the satanism blathe.) 030911 ... smurfus rex on the other hand, what if God's version of SimEarth doesn't have the option to remove sins and evils once they're created? or on still another hand, what if His SimEarth DOES have the option to remove sins and evils, but He doesn't want to use it? Often, I get this sense that some people believe God would "fix" everything if he only knew about it. There's this hopeful escapist idealism in these people that convinces them that the "time will come" when God shakes the Etch-a-Sketch and starts over with only the good people. Me, I look at three proposals when I take a stance about God: 1. If evil/sin exists because God allows or ignores it, then God is not omnibenevolent. 2. If evil/sin exists because God is not aware of it, then God is not omniscient. 3. If evil/sin exists because God cannot remove it, then God is not omnipotent. 4. If evil/sin exists because it is part of God, then God is the parent, the teacher, the guide, the leader, and the paradox. People want to believe in an all-good father figure archetype...for the people of the Soviet Union in the 1940's, that figure was Josef Stalin. The people believed that if Stalin knew about the secret police and the tortures and the kidnappings, then Stalin would stop it and save the people. The people also refused to believe that Stalin was the perpetrator of all of that. I'm not saying Stalin is God, I'm just saying there can be a dark side and a light side to every leader...including God. The challenge is deciding whether you can accept a god with a dual nature. 030912 ... smurfus rex p.s. i never claimed i could count. :) 030912 ... misstree you mean, a diety that isn't both comforting and anthropomorphic? impossible!!! ;) seriously though, very good points. 030912 ... Dafremen "it's not just that there is no direct link to the amount of good that you do and that you recieve, or evil in the same manner, it's that in the end there is nothing and no one to hold accountable for the way our cards were shuffled. it's all blind chance, and none of it is fair." Incorrect. There is a DIRECT and logical link between the things you do and the consequences you receive, above and beyond any moral or religious significance. I discussed it in a dissertation on karma. In that piece, I state, less than succinctly, that you get what you give because human beings are social creatures. Our lives are supported by a web of interactions into which we are inextricably bound. How we treat others and how we are PERCEIVED by others, DOES effect US..in VERY real ways that are irrefutably measurable. If we are grumpy assholes all day, we send out that whole GRUMPY vibe to the people we come in contact with, in one way or another. In the end, they may take that bit of negative with them all day, passing it on. In this manner, either the positive or the negative which we give, MUST come around to hit us in the ass. It's an inevitable outcome in the network of human social interaction. And YES, there IS someone or something to hold accountable for the way the MANY of the cards were shuffled. YOU and the people that came before you. If you look at a hand full of jokers and see 2 pair instead of 5 of a kind...YOU are to blame along with anyone that helped to put that yoke around your mind. Make sure your descendants don't have YOU to blame for how their cards got shuffled. Blind chance is for suckers. Probabilities are what it's all about. Probabilities...action and reaction. 030912 ... misstree misses her foma okay, you caught me, to a certain degree. i distinctly agree with the first part of what you said, and have blathed about it somewhere else, using being shitty to the gas station attendant as an example. but there's a difference between being nice to other people and them being nice to you (social karma, so to speak), and having the truckful of oranges tip over on your way to a job interview one day, and then the next day it's that you get a flat tire for another interview, and the day after that you get kidnapped, and the day after that you're eaten by a bear, and you get digested all weekend, even though you're a really really really nice person. that's random chance, and that has nothing fair about it. and again, true, we and others do control a lot of the cards; there's the discard pile you can pick up from and cheating and if you're good you can count cards, but it was chance that shuffled the deck, regardless of what order the last game put the cards in, and unless you're god damn good with probabilities you can't tell me what that next card is, because there isn't just one deck in play. life is full of surprises (like truckloads of oranges), and it doesn't play by vegas rules. 030912 ... Dafremen I will have to disagree AGAIN. The majority of the cards you were dealt were shuffled by the past. That past was SOMEONE'S present and even further back, that past was someone's FUTURE. They certainly had more to do with shuffling the cards that you were dealt than random chance or coincidence. There is no getting around, over, under or through that fact. If you were born with Cerebral Palsy, that's one thing...but the majority of the cards we are dealt in life were shuffled by humans who either did or didn't care enough to set the stage for our participation in the game. 030912 ... misstree really making me work to define things today, eh? i'm up for it, the jobby job is putting me to sleep. when you get right down to it, the way that you define cause and effect, there is no such thing as chance. it's not chance that it's raining; it's inevitable, all the environmental factors on this planet have led up to exactly that. it's not chance that the axle on the truck breaks when it does; it's the exact moment that it needs to, according to how it was built (down to a molecular level) combined with every bump in the road, every particulate that clings, every moment it sits idle, every bit of stress hardening. we are pearls shooting through a constant procession of nows, leaving our traces, and those traces each shift other pearls (and all the other flotsam that comes along for the ride), so that each point past leads seamlessly to the next, and the next, and the next. if you really want to get down to it, there's always someone to blame, a person to point to as the shuffler. let's use a crack baby for example. the baby, having no ability to act out any will it might have, had no power to shuffle or deal. mom, then? well, she was raised in fuct up situation x, which led her to her present position. she helped shuffle, as there were decisions and places that she could have exerted her will, but really, the deck that she was handed was shuffled by the person (or government agency, if your conspiracy theories run that way) who blended coke down to crack, and the one that wouldn't give her a job when she was a teen, and the teacher in fourth grade that failed her because she couldn't quite read well enough... and, of course, there's her mother, and her mother before that, just going back along blood lines and not bothering to glance at the myriad pearls that crossed and bumped them along the way. nor, i may add, the fact that cause and effect would have determined the mother's actions and reactions as well. so, everything causes everything else, once you go back a bit. but i can't dig with blaming five missed job interviews in a row on the big bang, or spreading it out among all the links between. even a roll of dice isn't chance; your neurons will fire in certain patterns to shake certain ways and then release, and then the particulars of the air movements and rolling surface and dice take care of the rest. even if you decide to shake that little bit extra, there's a past reason that you did so. no chance, no luck. you wanna define it that way, if you really want to go with the "everything that has ever happened has led up to this moment," camp, well, i can't stop you, but my oh so humble opinoin is that it still leaves you with a universe where cause and effect not only replaces god, but has already determined everything that has happened and will happen. you can try to worship probability if you like, but to me once probability becomes that out of hand, it *becomes* chance. which of course leaves you with the option of bringing that chance back up the scale to more and more easily figured, until it is mere chance that all of the air in the room is staying pretty evenly distributed and not rushing to the other side. the difference between statistical probability and blind chance is most easily seen in the big things; with an infinite improabability drive, we *could* figure how likely it is for the air to suddenly shift. but unless you've got a really nice hot cup of tea, that probability is unknowable. dice rolls. spend a year poring over the whorls of my finger, how my hand moves when i roll, how long i shake and in what patterns, and you've still got a one in six probability of being right on what i'll throw. chance is where things become unknowable. the only person that doesn't have to worry about blind chance is god, if he exists, and is indeed as omniscient as many would claim; not because he knows the future, but because he knows what all those molecules are up to. and darlin' daf, i love ya, but you're not god. ;) sorry that was a bit long-winded, trying to figure out what i was saying as i was saying it can be difficult; gotta pull stuff out of your butt slowly to avoid tearing tender tissue. 030912 ... krazykat I've been without a computer to drop in my two cents after the post I left, but Dafreman has come a good deal close to things I wanted to say. I will only say two things now: There is balance. Ever read about chaos theory? There is order within chaos. I won't even provide factual information, just google search "fractal" or "chaos" and that will do the explaining. God (whichever one you choose) is aware that the crack mother was brought up by bad parents, and that's why she's on crack. But she's one the lowest of people on Earth for smoking crack while pregnant, because of the one most important thing God gave us: WILLPOWER. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of all of our souls is the ability to say "i'm going to break the chain of amorality, no matter how small the improvement". The crack baby, if it survives outside the womb, can either reign vengence upon the earth for it's involuntary misfortune, or try to shed some light into the hearts of others. No matter how hard it rains on you, willpower will always chime in, even if it's the faintest little note, to make you think twice about dragging others into the rain. It is at that point when you can either perpetuate evil or attempt good. The outcome is almost irrelevant; it's the display of good willpower that brings light to the heart of humanity. However small the impact. 030914 ... ferret everyone blames everyone else, even i do it. most people don't want to admit it. that's the first step 030914 ... harumi it's like yin and yang, one cannot exist without the other.... 031012 ... phil because I had nothing to do with them. 031013 ... User24 I'd like to tangent for a while on what ferret said about blame transfer; why do we blame people? why does blame even exist? do we really need to know who's fault soemthing was, or who is responsible, surely that can't actually get anything done about solving the problem, whatever it is. If it's neccessary to blame people in order to initiate repercussions, then yes, perhaps blame does give us some use, but even that can wait until after the problem has been sorted, and, as the entity responsible for creating the problem is often the best placed for remedying it, given that, do actions and subsequent remedial actions cancel each other out, leaving the blamed parties now blameless? perhaps, and if so, blame remains unneccessary, of course, if the action cannot be undone, then maybe blame does serve a purpose, but not as great a one and solving the problem. Of course, as with much human behaiviour, the actual function of blame is not the main reason it is employed, blame is used to elevate the blamer, and unleash a punishment upon the blamed, blame is used to manipulate people, so I say blame the blamers, for their omission to solve problems, and their penchant for dwelling upon them. end rant, sorry 'bout that :) 031013 ... a "point" Iraqis_say_saddam_guilty_vs_Bush_sin 040817 ... kx21 Tell / show One, specifrically "God" the_Way to "eradicate" all Saddam's "Guilty" / "Evil" and every Bush's past, present and future "Sin" in Iraq , with Zero_margin_of_error... And_I_will_tell_you_how_wonder_you_are... 040817 ... :) Amen. 040817 ... god everybody blames me for this shit, just cause i created it. it's bullshit. one of these days, bear, i'm gonna teach you how to sing. wooooo. 040817 ... 1231 *** * God_at_War - Asian_Tsunami *** Awful tragedy draws countries and peoples together http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/12/30/1104344923239.html?oneclick=true 2004 041230 ... e.g. UN21"s Historic_Mission 041230 ... Toxic_Kisses Ok so maybe this has already been said, reading this whole blath seemed quite daunting and overwhelming so I just skimmed it. Any way I think I may have an answer to this. Any one notice how the older ppl get how their body slowly begins to shut down? And in general just physically feel like shit? I think the reason God (or whatever Supreme Being you like to believe in) makes you feel miserable the older you get/ the closer you get to death is so you seek Him out and thus get vastly religious so you'll hopefully get into Heaven - Witch yes also explains why their is evil and badness in this world, after all if everything were peaceful and happy here on Earth do you think any religion would have any sort of strong following? Heck no! We’re happy and for that matter tend to except things as they are and thus take them for granted, if anything we would attribute Peace on Earth and general happiness to ourselves and our advancement as humans and not even really think to thank some Supreme Being, That’s why it even says in the Bible (yes I did read this somewhere) that God disapproves of the rich/wealthy, after all look at the kind of extravagant life they lead! Heck even their dogs get diamond encrusted collars and massages, the happier some one is in life the less the thought of God crosses their mind -but- if you surround ppl w/ misery pain and evil the more we seek God out to save us and relieve our pain, and then when ever anything even remotely good happens it's him we thank for it, apparently God likes us to be dependent on him, he creates our pain so that when he takes it away we humble ourselves by getting down on our knees and praise/worship him for all the good he's done in our lives, and anyways if you really do believe than how can you resist the promise of a Heaven where their is no evil and pain? It sounds pretty dam good after living here on Earth now doesn’t it? (yes that’s right, God is BriBing us) Regardless of weather or not I’m right those are my thoughts. Oh and real quick just to clarify, God did create Lucifer, full well knowing (God is after all ALL KNOWING) the evil pain and destruction that he would create, God created the Devil purposefully - so that is why I say God created our pain and misery so we would seek him out. 050111 ... missionary Bible Evidence For Prosperity * Jesus Christ "became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8:9) * God has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant. (Psalm 35:27) * "The blessing of the Lord makes one rich." (Proverbs 10:22) * God is not selfish or stingy but "gives us richly all things to enjoy." (1 Timothy 6:17) * "The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord." (Psalm 33:5) Why did God create such abundance and give it to us unless it is His will for us to have it? "The earth He has given to the children of men." (Psalm 115:16) * Christians are joint heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:17) With Him God also freely gave us all things. (Romans 8:32) * We will reign (as kings) in life through Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17) The rich rules over the poor (Proverbs 22:7) so it can not be God's will for His people to be poor. * God "gives (us) power to get wealth." (Deuteronomy 8:18) * "For all the promises of God in (Christ) are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." (2 Corinthians 1:20) * God teaches us to profit. (Isaiah 48:17) * God gave us instructions on how to be prosperous and have good success. (Joshua 1:8 & Psalm 1:1-3) Why would He tell us how if it was not His will for us to prosper? * God desires that we prosper. (3 John 1:2) * You should have "all sufficiency in all things" so you can "have an abundance for every good work." (2 Corinthians 9:8) * Christians have been called to freedom. (Galatians 5:13) Whom the Son of God sets free is free indeed. (John 8:36) If you do not have financial freedom you are not truly free. * Human (and even animal) parents desire the best for their children. Jesus said "how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things." (Matthew 7:11) Do you desire your children to lack anything good? Is God as good as you? * We are to ask the Father and receive that our joy may be full. (John 16:24) Being full equals abundance. * God loves a cheerful giver and most people need more than just what is necessary to really be one. (2 Corinthians 9:7) * He is the God of peace. Peace means "prosperity in every way" in both the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New Testament. "The chastisement for our peace was upon (Jesus Christ)." (Isaiah 53:5) * "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law" (Galatians 3:13) which includes poverty and lack. * The blessing of Abraham is supposed to come upon those who are in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:14) "The Lord blessed Abraham in all things." (Genesis 24:1) "(Abraham) was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold." (Genesis 13:2) * "God shows no partiality" (Acts 10:34) and He made several people in the Bible wealthy. * God says wisdom is the principal thing and commands us to get it. (Proverbs 4:7) Jesus has been made unto us wisdom. (1 Corinthians 1:30) Riches and honor come with wisdom. (Proverbs 3:16 & 8:18) * Instructions are given that you may lack nothing. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12; James 1:4) * God "has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness." (2 Peter 1:3) * Jesus told us to pray that God's "will be done on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) Heaven is a place of abundance. 050111 ... missionary Oh Crap! I meant to put that blathe here: biblical_prosperity Oh well, I'll put the blathe that was supposed to go here... there! 050111 ... missionary And here is the blathe that was supposed to be your reply, TK... sorry! Interesting points! Thank you! I agree with you that suffering does bring us closer to God. The bible even tells us that we are "tested like Gold being purified in fire" to bring us to higher levels of spiritual_maturity. But it is possible to rejoice in the blessings of life that God gives as well! Speaking from personal experience, I would say that God is MORE into blessing us than making us suffer. I think the suffering is usually a result of our OWN decisions throughout life and God lets us reap what we sew. But that goes the other way too. I would like to clear up a common misconception regarding biblical_prosperity, since you mentioned it. Many people think that God despises wealth, I, too once thought that, however, The bible actually says that God makes people wealthy! (Deut 8:18). Plus, there are many Proverbs that provide principles on how to build and keep wealth. One being "Leave an inheritance for your children's children" and "The blessing of the Lord makes one rich." (Proverbs 10:22) Many times the bible instructs us how to gain prosperity, which properly translated is complete abundance, harmony and wholeness in every area of our lives (health, finances, relationships, etc.) not just money. Jesus says in John 10:10 that He came to give us an abundant life. He told us the parable_of_the_10_talents which is about investing principles and multiplication of resources. I could go on and on, maybe I will here: Biblical_Prosperity. So... How did this misconception become doctrine? Simple: A misunderstanding and misquotation of a bible verse became widespread. People inaccurately quote : "Money is the root of all evil." When the actual verse is 1 Timothy 6:10 "The LOVE OF MONEY is the root of all evil." Money is necessary and important, no one can do much without it. Money is not evil. It's when Money is worshipped instead of God that things start getting out of hand. I've done studies on this and this is the conclusion of what the bible says: Money is good, and necessary, but it is meant to be given away and shared, not hoarded. All of everything belongs to God anyway, and the better you use what He gives you, the more He will give you to use. 050112 ... Given *** * Conspiracy_theories *** God_Spot=? Common_Ancestor... Bush_and_Saddam_shared_a_common_ancestor_'w_proof'... 050112 ... Sleepy TK Thank you for replying missionary =) So what your saying is wealth comes in many forms and not just monetarily ones, and as long as your not greedy with the money God gives you then you will be blessed with more wealth (although not nesicirily in money form, some things after all –are- more important than money). God doesn’t despize ppl for having wealth, just those who are greedy with it, I suppose your right I did confuse the two. “ I think the suffering is usually a result of our OWN decisions throughout life and God lets us reap what we sew. But that goes the other way too.” What you say is simaler to what Dafremen says earlier on in the page about Karma, and I agree with the both of you on that, always have, befor I believed in anything elce in my life I believed in Karma, so your preaching to the choir =) as for: “"tested like Gold being purified in fire" to bring us to higher levels of spiritual_maturity” reminds me of something I said in einstein_is_just_a_'student' , so again I seem to agree with you on that as well *L* --- oh and kx21, You know how to properly socialize with others, their is actually evidence of this so please don’t pretend otherwise. 050112 ... POT21k *** * Weapon_of_mass_deception *** WMD around_and_across FADE:- B_e_a_t__around_and_across_the_B_u_s_h_... 050513 ... e.g. the_mother_of_all_smoke_screens 050518 ... Bush *** * Passing_the_blame *** The Heart_and_Mind wired or wireless around_and_across :- the_fault_of_few_'bad_eggs'... 050519 what's it to you? who go blather from