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OK, how does God fit into this?

206 replies

KateandtheElves · 01/01/2005 20:15

Personally I am agnostic (I think that's the right word. I don't believe in God but I can't say for sure that He doesn't exist.). But I have the utmost respect for people who do believe in God and use that belief to help them be better people (as my late husband did).

For those of you who do believe in God, and I know this a question that has been asked many times before, why would God let so many people (children even) be killed last week? I just can't understand how you could reconcile this enormous tragedy with a loving God.

I don't want to start an argument, but I'm genuinely interested in a believer's point of view.

OP posts:
PlainFlum · 11/01/2005 15:51

Its difficult being rubbish, but I mostly like it.

Perhaps she was trying to do something about the overpopulation problems albeit in a rather kak handed way.

bloss · 11/01/2005 22:58

Message withdrawn

huggybear · 11/01/2005 23:10

wow - this thread is really hard going!

ionesmum · 12/01/2005 00:36

Bloss - wow.

First let me say I do not have a better spiritual life that yours. Different, possibly. And you haven't hurt my feelings.

Firstly, with regard to Matt and Luke specifically, it's not the fact that the accounts are different that makes them inaccurate, it's the fact that certain parts of them are historically wrong, which then raises th equestion of what else has been altered. The way in which the stories fit so neatly into the theme of their Gospels them looks suspect. But, to me, that doesn't make them any less valuable.

My view is that to obey God means to love and to forgive. I believe that love cannot exist without God, and he is present wherever it is present. Hence (as you rightly say) I do not take a biblical line on homosexuality or cohabitation. Divorce I regard slightly differently because of the pain it causes, but I think that we - that is, Christians and the church - cannot judge and have to approach the issue with the understanding that we may find ourselves in a similar position one day.

Why I believe what I do isn't because what I feel...it is because of life and the Spirit and the Christ in the people I know...it's so hard to explain. It can't be rationalised because so much of it I just 'know' without even knowing I do. It doesn't come from within me. Which sounds like rubbish but it's the only way I can find to put it. I can't ever remember a time when I wasn't aware of God's existence through the Spirit - although I was in my late twenties before I knew what the presence that I'd grown up with was.

I don't know why this should be. I certainly do not think he singled me out for my holiness .Believe me, my life has been far from blameless - suffice it to say I found it all too easy to ignore God for a while - perhaps it is because God is aware that I always need more help than most!

But at the same time I have looked at my faith rationally, and found that the Bible and the church's teachings are not reliable. Yet I still believe, which to me is the greatest compliment that I can pay God, because his/her majesty, compassion and truth outshines human efforts to distort his/her image, along with the well-meaning ways in which the message has gone wrong.

Bloss, all I can say is that God shows him/herself in different ways, giving us all unique gifts to find him/her and to do his work. That we disagree is inevitable, because (once again!) we are human and this will happen. The one thing we can be certain of is that you and I are both wrong, because the sheer lovliness of God is beyond any of our understanding. I hope that it is to his/her glory that we are having this debate now, and am so glad that you and I are sisters in Christ, as I said before.

God bless you this night,

Ionesmum x

bloss · 12/01/2005 04:10

Message withdrawn

ionesmum · 12/01/2005 20:06

Oh, bloss, none of us is a 'good' Christian, and as soon as we start thinking we are, we are in big trouble! I stick myself in the 'pathetic' bracket too, but all we can do is carry on and hope that in some way our lives can be a witness for God - and you are certainly a good and faithful witness.

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