No test that mankind makes is perfect. I will give you an example. Twenty-five years ago I was having severe headaches and my doctor, Leonard Davis, sent me to a neuroscientist to determine if I had a cancerous tumor. All the doctors concurred that I had such a tumor and wanted to operate immediately. One other doctor wanted to do an additional MRI and asked a group of other doctors if I had a tumor or was it simply part of my brain? Just guess. Even though the several blood tests said I had brain cancer, it was proven that I did not. I had no cancer or tumors, and I am still in my body after nearly thirty years? If your tests are so correct, why am I still alive on planet earth today. What does that show? Scientific tests do not always give the right results. Of course, you do not believe in miracles; however, you really should reconsider if you believe that scientific tests are always correct. Why do we get second opinions? Also, doctors in 1963 told people that cigarettes were good for us. That is what Dr. Ward told my daddy, and I can thank him for daddyâs death. Daddy stopped smoking in 1964, but it was too late. Science is good, but it is not perfect since we are not perfect.
Charles,
One thing is very clear: I rather have a disease in 2016 than in AD16, 1016, 1916, or 2006. Medical knowledge and treatments continues to advance giving great benefits to more and more people. A few years ago getting âsavedâ from certain diseases would be considered miracles. Now it is just called best practices medicine. No I donât believe in miracles but I do believe in proactively getting the best medical care available. For myself, a family member, or a friend, I wonât waste time praying for a miracle, preparing for an afterlife, nor putting âit in Godâs handsâ but instead go after the best treatment from the best facilities with all the energy and reasoning I can muster. Science, reasoning, and action over superstition, myth and inaction (prayer).
I actually agree with you, Patrick, at least in part. Praise God for science and medicine. It is an answer to the prayer of many. No need to place medicine and prayer against each other. Godâs healing can now be expressed through medicine.
How about instead we acknowledge and thank the doctors, research scientists, nurses, and health care professionals who work hard every day to advance medical science including that evolutionary geneticist who unlocks a protein that cures a disease.
Your wife is amazing for being a great nurse and mother. That is my definition of a good person and hero. I thank her for her contributions that helps all of us.
Obsess? No. I wont follow modern societyâs strange obsession with acknowledging only the positive things in life while pushing the negative under the rug because it makes them feel uncomfortable.
You make the mistake of assuming I despise all suffering. I do not. Some suffering is acceptable as it is required for teaching and growing. But NOTHING can ever be gained, no good can EVER come from the kinds of senseless, purposeless, needless tragedies that occur in the World every day.
God is ultimately responsible for everything, as He is the creator of everything. And regardless of His plans for us, and what He has done in the past, there can be no denying that He DOES allow this suffering to go on. If He didnât allow it, it would not occur.
I have seen, experienced, read and heard things that would cause anyone to spit in the face of any being that stood by and allowed them to happen. I am truly astonished that anyone would defend such cruelty. Sitting by and watching a child get beaten and raped is NOT good and to view that childâs intense fear and pain as a âsmall blip in the face of eternityâ is abhorrent, evil and plain disgusting.
God sees everything and has the power to do anything. But He does not save or protect the innocent. Therefore, God cannot be good. If He can suspend the laws of the Universe in order to turn water into wine then He can â â â â well suspend free will to save the innocent! As it is, such a God certainly is not one that I will bend to. Who knows what the afterlife holds for someone like me then? Hell? For refusing to accept the horrible things that happen here? For holding God accountable for them? Ha! That would fit His character perfectly it seems⌠Iâd gladly go to Hell rather than let the tragedies that have unfolded needlessly here slip away and be forgotten or viewed as irrelevant when compared to some supposed blissful Heaven. God must have to take our memories here away as I fail to see how a person tortured, raped and mutilated on Earth would be of sound mind and okay with it even in the afterlife.
At the end of the day the fact remains⌠Your prayers are NOT answered. You can assume they are all you want but the incredible army of the prematurely dead in their graves throughout the World are a great testament to how terribly wrong you are. If you survived fighting in WW2 it is because you got lucky.
Am I afraid for feeling this way? YES. But I cannot simply let it go just because God may send me to Hell or I may stop feeling comfortable and happy. This is the single greatest evidence against the Judeo-Christian Godâs existence and an issue above all others that I cannot seem to reconcile.
If I had listened to the brain doctor, I would be an idiot now. I never had cancer or there was a miracle. Canât you at least admit that scientists are not perfect? What about Piltdown Man? Do you accept that joke?
Of course scientists are not perfect. Nobody claims they are. You however, are claiming that God is perfectly good, yet He sits idly by while tragedies occur all around Him. How can you believe that your life was worth saving from cancer yet an innocent childâs isnât? I assume you are calling your lack of brain cancer a miracle, yes?
I can only pray that you see the truth. Also, what caused you to become as you now believe? Did something happen in your life? Yes, I trust God. I did not have cancer, and I am glad you admit that scientists are not perfect.
Ah, of course, the old âItâs a shame you canât see the truthâ response that is given when a solid refuting argument cannot be proffered.
Never mind my valid points to which you have no effective rebuttal for.
I have come to this position after 10 years of studying the argument for Godâs existence. I have realized that there are issues that cannot be explained without understanding the mind of God Himself. I have realized that after all my effort to find God over the years, I am really only left with faith in the end, and faith is unacceptable to this critical mind that the argument and struggle has created. I have discovered that the World does NOT reflect a loving, personal God that cares for each of us individually. Any attempts to say otherwise are flawed and do not fit with the evidence. I have advanced beyond simply finding God and becoming a Christian. It isnât enough for me. I am not satisfied with the results of my journey. I cannot simply accept there are things I do not understand. I want to fit it all together. To reconcile the Bible with reality. Or prove it to be a lie in the process.
Doesnât it bother you that the Bible is SO easy to discredit, yet attempting to reconcile it with reality is such a long and incredibly difficult struggle? For a God that desires all to come to Him and be saved, He sure makes it incredibly hard. Only the most avid biblical students can make sense of and defend it. Everyone else ends up throwing it aside and surrounding themselves with the ways of the World which they can KNOW to be real without effort.
I donât doubt your heart is in the right place but you donât seem to have reached the level I am playing at yet.
Itâs simply the logical conclusion for anyone involved in the argument. Sooner or later youâre going to hit a wall and nothing will be able to be said for it that cannot be said against it.
I cannot accept your arguments. You have a right to believe what you wish; however, I believe you are taking the wrong road. They are just not logical to me. Good luck.
I agree with you; however, this is becoming a circular argument. If our Lord Jesus gives him the right to reject him, he has that right; however, I feel sorry for him. I am leaving this topic. Take care.