Mandate

If you believe in God, how do you explain war & cruelty?

If you don’t get this one, try reading the Old Testament.

8 comments to Mandate

  • “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye must be put out for an eye. A tooth must be knocked out for a tooth.’ But here is what I tell you. Do not fight against an evil person.” (Matthew 5:38-39) – Any pro-war, pro-cruelty and pro-torture Christian got something wrong there.

  • @Bob: Thanks for the link 🙂 Reminds me of this: http://www.nakedpastor.com/2011/10/11/10-things-about-the-teaching-of-jesus/

    Sad, that most Christians forget about Jesus’ main teaching – unconditional love. It would certainly make the world a better place.

  • Transit

    “‘Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?’ declares the Sovereign Lord. ‘Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?'”

    This is not from the New Testament; it is from Ezekiel 18.

    It is often believed that the Gods of the two testaments are different in character, but one can easily find judgement in the New Testament (in fact, you could argue that the God of the New Testament is even harsher for talking about eternal punishment so much).

    Noah preached to his generation for a century as he was building the ark before the flood. God gave the Amorites and Caananites hundreds of years to repent. When Israel drifted away from Him He would redeem them many, many times, always sending another judge or another profit or delivering them from their enemies. Even after they had exhausted his patience (which took hundreds of years, for the Lord is slow to anger) he accepted Israel back. We can even find examples of God using evil for God (Genesis 38, and Rahab’s story in Joshua).

    Josh McDowell sums this up best: “Therefore, when the two testaments are read together the way they are intended, they reveal the same holy God who is rich in mercy but will not let sin go unpunished.”

  • Draught

    God’s love and justice do not require him to heal everyone. If they did, then no one would ever die, which we all know is bad for the Earth. Your argument is something like:

    * If I were God, I would not allow this pain.
    * God did allow this pain.
    * God could not possibly disagree with me.
    * Therefore there is no God.

    So how much suffering is “too much”? How much suffering disproves God’s existence? There’s no line of suffering that is too much for God to exist. If you say that any amount of suffering is too much, then you are asking for a world with nothing bad in it — and aside from being impossible, a paradise would be a terrible thing and not much of a life.

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