For anyone who knows anything about Christianity.....

[wobblyknicks]

This is definitely NOT meant to be a thread about the rights and wrongs of a certain religion - I just have some honest questions that I'd like some Christian viewpoints on.

I was raised as a Christian but definitely wouldn't call myself a Christian now, but still have some questions left from my upbringing and am interested to know what Christians on here think about it;

1. Why did God create humans? For company? And why only on one planet?

2. If God, being all-seeing, knew humans would end up 'going wrong' - why bother? If he really loved us, wouldn't it be better to save us the 'heartache'?

3. When humans did 'go wrong' why did God decide to drown us all (the flood) BEFORE deciding he was loving enough to let us all have a chance at going to heaven?

As I said before, I'm not a Christian and am not trying to undermine Christianity by asking these questions, I'm just purely curious on how Christians see these 'issues' and my curiosity has got the better of me!!!

I think it's because bits of the OT are written at such very different times, with different influences and different concepts of the deity. So at some stages, the idea of God will be influenced by the Canaanite god, at other stages by the phoenician concept of god, at others by the Greek, etc. etc. All cultures influence each others' concepts of deity. And the Jewish God of the OT was just as influenced by the cultures with whom the Jews had contact, as their concepts of God were influenced by the Jewish concept of Jehovah. Which would explain why he appears in such very different guises depending on which book of the OT you are reading.

1. God created the earth so that people could enjoy life in paradise forever and have children and live in harmony together. Adam and Eve spoiled that by sinning and disobeying God through being deceived by Satan. He didnt have to do it and certainly wasnt lonely as he had the angels and his son Jesus with him in heaven.

2. It all went wrong because of Adam and Eve and because Satan wanted the power and glory for himself. God could easily have destroyed Satan but that would have made the angels fear him and not love him for the loving God that he is. God's purpose for the earth has not changed. He still wants humans to live forever on earth in harmony with one another. We all have free will and can choose how we want to live for ourselves but the Bible tells us to worship with 'spirit and truth' and God is waiting for his time to come which is spoken about in prophecies from the Bible. The scriptures tell us that there will be a time of 'earthquakes, war, violence etc etc in the earth and a cry of peace and security and then the end will come.' Not an end to the world but this system as we know it.

3. With regards to the flood, God felt pity at what he had created. There was so much wickedness in the world and the angels had come down from the heavens and had sex with humans and the offspring of that were the Nephilim (giants) He told Noah to build an ark and to preach that a flood would come and destroy all those who were not worshiping God in the right way. The Bible tells us that Noah did all that he was commanded, preached, built an ark and took in all the animals but only 8 people survived.....Noah, his wife and 3 sons and their wives.

Any other questions?? HTH

The angry vs loving thing. They're not mutually exclusive. I get angry with my dd but I still love her at the same time. Also anger does not have to be a "bad" emotion. e.g. being angry when you hear about child abuse is ok. Being angry doesn't have to mean being out of control.

People like to think of God as this wishy-washy live-and-let-live wimp and are put out when they find he's not like that!

Lets complicate the bit about sacrificing your own child. This is the Trinity we're talking about. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all the same person. So actually God sacrificed himself on the cross. He wanted a baby, and knew he was going to have to go through some pain to get it. But he thought it would be worth it. Sound familiar?

And Isaac - don't forget, Isaac follows the same God as his dad. He's trusting his God just like Abraham is. Isaac isn't blaming his Dad, he is willing to give his life back to God if that's what God wants. Isaac could have run away, just like Jesus could have got off the cross - they chose to be sacrificed.

God's not fallible, he's just bigger than my mind. Yeah, I take it on faith, on my daily experience of his love for me, on the smile that thinking about him brings to my face .

there is a lot I don't understand, but my grasp of Abraham and Isaac is that Abraham believed God when he said that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky, he knew that even if Isaac had died God would resurrect him to fulfill that prophecy.God was looking at Abrahams heart, was it obedient? After all he wanted a nation to come from one man, a nation that would be a role model for nations.
What I have learnt from my faith is that God is always faithful, people will let you down but God is always there.

Exactly as collision says - and I'm sure she can back it all up with scriptures too, can't you? That's the point - we are not left to wonder about the answers to any of these things as all the answers are given directly and clearly in the bible. God does not leave us in the dark regarding our future, if you want the answers they are there.

oh and just to add it wasn't only Isaac at risk, there was far more at stake, it was all the peoples that God had created and wanted to draw to himself to share in his love and his kingdom.This could only happen through Abrahams act of obedience.