Can God only do GOOD works?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unlike belief in god, there is no reward or punishment associated with belief or disbelief in the easter bunny.

But how do you know this to be true?

There is Church doctrine on reward and punishment relating to belief in God. There is no doctrine associated with the Easter bunny -- only baskets filled with goodies. The easter bunny is a one day a year thing during childhood. In contrast, God lasts a lifetime and beyond.

And these "doctrines" were written by men (humans).

stories, folks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unlike belief in god, there is no reward or punishment associated with belief or disbelief in the easter bunny.

But how do you know this to be true?

There is Church doctrine on reward and punishment relating to belief in God. There is no doctrine associated with the Easter bunny -- only baskets filled with goodies. The easter bunny is a one day a year thing during childhood. In contrast, God lasts a lifetime and beyond.

And these "doctrines" were written by men (humans).

stories, folks

Some stories are true and some are not. Sometimes this is obvious, especially to adults (Children can be fooled for a while). What is the likelihood of a bunny delivering candy? Where and how would the bunny get the candy? How would it get into your house? When kids are little they don't think about these things -- they are happy to get the candy and they trust what their parents say.

As for God and Jesus - what is the likelihood that a super-being outside of nature could create the world and then send his son, who he loves, to become a human for the express purpose of being tortured and killed in order to save the rest of the people that God creates?

If you're taught this as a child by trusted adults and most of the rest of society seems to agree, it's easy to believe. For some, it becomes more difficult as they get older and learn more about history and science. Others continue to believe because the society encourages continued belief and because they find the idea of eternal life that goes along with believing and are fearful of the threat of eternal suffering if they don't believe. Aside from beliefs about life after death, Some people find great comfort in knowing there is someone looking out for them - some greater being they can appeal to when things in life don't go well and someone they can thank when things do go their way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Do you really believe that believing in a God and believing in the Easter Bunny are equivalent?

Believing is believing, isn't it? Why would the belief itself be different? Now if you are asking is God and the Easter Bunny equivalent, then the answer is obviously no. But that doesn't make believing different.

Correct -- God rules the universe and sent his son Jesus to die for our sins and then rise from the dead as God's way of offering us eternal life. If we choose not to believe in him or not to accept the story of his son's necessary sacrifice, then we do not get eternal life.

And the people who have never heard of god and jesus before they die? Are those folks getting eternal life and if not, is that just a mistake that god made? or did he purposefully withhold the knowledge of god/jesus before they died?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Do you really believe that believing in a God and believing in the Easter Bunny are equivalent?

Believing is believing, isn't it? Why would the belief itself be different? Now if you are asking is God and the Easter Bunny equivalent, then the answer is obviously no. But that doesn't make believing different.

Correct -- God rules the universe and sent his son Jesus to die for our sins and then rise from the dead as God's way of offering us eternal life. If we choose not to believe in him or not to accept the story of his son's necessary sacrifice, then we do not get eternal life.

And the people who have never heard of god and jesus before they die? Are those folks getting eternal life and if not, is that just a mistake that god made? or did he purposefully withhold the knowledge of god/jesus before they died?

God doesn't make mistakes. He IS cruel sometimes, as indicated in some old testament Bible stories, but only when he thought it was the best thing for his chosen people, the Jews. As mere mortals, there is much we can't understand about God's ways, but if we have faith, we will be with him after we die where everything will be explained.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The deserved consequences is what bothers me most about that religious view. I don't see how anyone deserves cancer, having a child die etc. it's an awful thing to believe.

This is NOT a standard belief in most forms of Christianity of Judaism. In fact, this notion has been debated, and largely rejected, since Job in the Old Testament. As you might recall, awful things happened to Job: he was plagued with oozing sores, his family members died and his businesses ran aground. His friends came around and many tried to blame Job himself, telling him that while he looked like the perfect Jew, father and businessman, there must be some bad deed he was hiding for all these bad things to happen to him. The Book of Job ultimately rejects the idea that it was somehow Job's fault. That was the beginning, or the recorded beginning at least, of asking why bad things happen to good people.

Christians take this further and say that your reward, good or bad, is not on earth--your reward instead is in heaven or hell.

Yes, you'll get the occasional whack job who says that gay marriage is the cause of an earthquake or something. But that's outside the mainstream religion. Worse, that's such a cynical thing to say it seems like money, not religion, is often the motive.

To get back to the first post, I've never heard anybody say "God is punishing her with cancer" or "that child deserved to die." Never heard this ever, and I sort of doubt that poster has heard anything besides the "God is smiting us" whack-job interpretation of natural disasters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unlike belief in god, there is no reward or punishment associated with belief or disbelief in the easter bunny.

But how do you know this to be true?

There is Church doctrine on reward and punishment relating to belief in God. There is no doctrine associated with the Easter bunny -- only baskets filled with goodies. The easter bunny is a one day a year thing during childhood. In contrast, God lasts a lifetime and beyond.

And these "doctrines" were written by men (humans).

stories, folks

Some stories are true and some are not. Sometimes this is obvious, especially to adults (Children can be fooled for a while). What is the likelihood of a bunny delivering candy? Where and how would the bunny get the candy? How would it get into your house?

The answer to your questions is easy, you simply believe. Human logical proof is not required. This holds true for God's stories as well, like creating the earth, the resurrection, parting the red sea, talking donkey, ......

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unlike belief in god, there is no reward or punishment associated with belief or disbelief in the easter bunny.

But how do you know this to be true?

There is Church doctrine on reward and punishment relating to belief in God. There is no doctrine associated with the Easter bunny -- only baskets filled with goodies. The easter bunny is a one day a year thing during childhood. In contrast, God lasts a lifetime and beyond.

And these "doctrines" were written by men (humans).

stories, folks

Some stories are true and some are not. Sometimes this is obvious, especially to adults (Children can be fooled for a while). What is the likelihood of a bunny delivering candy? Where and how would the bunny get the candy? How would it get into your house? When kids are little they don't think about these things -- they are happy to get the candy and they trust what their parents say.

As for God and Jesus - what is the likelihood that a super-being outside of nature could create the world and then send his son, who he loves, to become a human for the express purpose of being tortured and killed in order to save the rest of the people that God creates?

If you're taught this as a child by trusted adults and most of the rest of society seems to agree, it's easy to believe. For some, it becomes more difficult as they get older and learn more about history and science. Others continue to believe because the society encourages continued belief and because they find the idea of eternal life that goes along with believing and are fearful of the threat of eternal suffering if they don't believe. Aside from beliefs about life after death, Some people find great comfort in knowing there is someone looking out for them - some greater being they can appeal to when things in life don't go well and someone they can thank when things do go their way.

There is no explaination for the shroud of Turin . It is unexplainable just like if we found a UFO . It is the image of crucified Jesus , a photographic negative with 3d properties an unknown image process and completely impossible to replicate.


Nothing like that for any Easter bunny, global warming or Flying Spaghetti Monster . .

There are plenty of explanations for the shroud of Turin - evidential proof of the existence of God it is not.

At a basic level, it is an apparent burial cloth of unsubstantiated origin, with the image of a person on it.

Even if we grant that it was indeed a genuine burial cloth, and not a forgery as some have argued, then you still have to show that it was the burial cloth for Jesus. Bear in mind that death by crucifixion was fairly common, including being punished by whipping.

Even if you somehow was able to establish that this was indeed the burial cloth for a person named Jesus, and also that you were somehow able to establish that it matched the time of death as described in the bible, etc, etc, you *STILL* have no basis on making the claim that Jesus was the son of God and that his existence as an actual historical person proves the existence of God.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unlike belief in god, there is no reward or punishment associated with belief or disbelief in the easter bunny.

But how do you know this to be true?

There is Church doctrine on reward and punishment relating to belief in God. There is no doctrine associated with the Easter bunny -- only baskets filled with goodies. The easter bunny is a one day a year thing during childhood. In contrast, God lasts a lifetime and beyond.

And these "doctrines" were written by men (humans).

stories, folks

Some stories are true and some are not. Sometimes this is obvious, especially to adults (Children can be fooled for a while). What is the likelihood of a bunny delivering candy? Where and how would the bunny get the candy? How would it get into your house?

The answer to your questions is easy, you simply believe. Human logical proof is not required. This holds true for God's stories as well, like creating the earth, the resurrection, parting the red sea, talking donkey, ......

And believing ultimately gets you into heaven, so it's worth the effort if you also believe in heaven. Some people just can bring themselves to do it, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The deserved consequences is what bothers me most about that religious view. I don't see how anyone deserves cancer, having a child die etc. it's an awful thing to believe.

This is NOT a standard belief in most forms of Christianity of Judaism. In fact, this notion has been debated, and largely rejected, since Job in the Old Testament. As you might recall, awful things happened to Job: he was plagued with oozing sores, his family members died and his businesses ran aground. His friends came around and many tried to blame Job himself, telling him that while he looked like the perfect Jew, father and businessman, there must be some bad deed he was hiding for all these bad things to happen to him. The Book of Job ultimately rejects the idea that it was somehow Job's fault. That was the beginning, or the recorded beginning at least, of asking why bad things happen to good people.

Christians take this further and say that your reward, good or bad, is not on earth--your reward instead is in heaven or hell.

Yes, you'll get the occasional whack job who says that gay marriage is the cause of an earthquake or something. But that's outside the mainstream religion. Worse, that's such a cynical thing to say it seems like money, not religion, is often the motive.

To get back to the first post, I've never heard anybody say "God is punishing her with cancer" or "that child deserved to die." Never heard this ever, and I sort of doubt that poster has heard anything besides the "God is smiting us" whack-job interpretation of natural disasters.

That's a good point. God's name only comes up when someone is cured of cancer or a child survives a horrible disease. God gets the credit when good things happen, which makes sense because he's God and he loves us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And believing ultimately gets you into heaven, so it's worth the effort if you also believe in heaven. Some people just can bring themselves to do it, though.

There is no effort involved in believing, it comes naturally. The effort comes from trying to justify your believe.

[Anonymous]

And believing ultimately gets you into heaven, so it's worth the effort if you also believe in heaven. Some people just can bring themselves to do it, though.

So it's fear-based.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And believing ultimately gets you into heaven, so it's worth the effort if you also believe in heaven. Some people just can bring themselves to do it, though.

There is no effort involved in believing, it comes naturally. The effort comes from trying to justify your believe.

Belief comes naturally for some people, but not for others. Others have a terrible time trying to believe the various tenets of the Christian faith. Many good Christian people have suffered terrible bouts of doubt and unbelief.

Some people, raised Christian, just couldn't accept it no matter how hard they tried. Some gave up and became atheists. Some of them feel much better now -- not believing seemed more natural to them.

[Anonymous]

God CAN do whatever he wants. I believe that he chooses to do what is ultimately good though we humans may not understand it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:God CAN do whatever he wants. I believe that he chooses to do what is ultimately good though we humans may not understand it.

Tsunamis and hurricanes and starving babies are hard to understand as being a part of the plan of a loving God. But there is a devil and apparently God doesn't have control over him.

The "ultimate good" is heaven - for those who believe in god.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:God CAN do whatever he wants. I believe that he chooses to do what is ultimately good though we humans may not understand it.

Tsunamis and hurricanes and starving babies are hard to understand as being a part of the plan of a loving God. But there is a devil and apparently God doesn't have control over him.

The "ultimate good" is heaven - for those who believe in god.

And what is the ultimate good for atheists who have improved humanity? saved babies from dying, helped depressed people heal, ignited an academic spark in a kid who tried to drop out

hell?