Is God To Blame? Who is to blame for the pain around us?

[The_Angel 0]

I'm a Christian. I've had many reasons in life to believe God exists. I don't blame Him for anything. I take charge of situations instead of looking for someone/something to blame.

 

Just an off topic comment: I believe in predestination.

 

4just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him In love.

 

  5He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,

 

  6to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

[Joshua 0]

I'm a Christian. I've had many reasons in life to believe God exists. I don't blame Him for anything. I take charge of situations instead of looking for someone/something to blame.

 

Just an off topic comment: I believe in predestination.

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Good outlook at least

 

As far as predestination:

 

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

I guess the question is whether God has already determined who will be saved or whether it means simply as a group, God determined/ordained that He should save sinners before the beginning of the world and they should do good works and be holy and blameless before Him in love.

 

Again however, the promise is to "whosoever" and it isn't God's will that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). Regardless, my old pastor once asked what God would do if someone got saved who wasn't supposed to. "He'd probably forgive them"

 

Interesting side topic though

 

Oh, and I like the signature about the positive attitude

 

*thumbs up*

 

Nice meeting you

[biscuitrat 0]

The devil is to blame and its the 100% truth.
Right now if you noticed or not there is a war between good and evil.The devil put all those thoughts and denys in your mind so he can win your soul.

Yeah, it may be true for you, but not for me. My culture doesn't have a devil - all our sins are our own. We're the only ones who can prevent them. If you guys keep blaming another for the sins that you perform, how's that going to make you a better person? The devil is just a figure of speech, as I look at it - a mental manifestation of your sins. The more you commit, the more it grows inside of you. There is no actual evil force - it's all you, no matter what you think. Don't think that you can be good all the time because you're Christian and you love your God - if you keep refusing to accept the fact that you do do bad things with your own prescence of mind and no one inside you telling things to do, it's saddening because it makes you weak through denial.

There's always been a figurative war between good and evil but the heavens of most religions are at peace. That's all I can say :/

[Joshua 0]

Yeah, it may be true for you, but not for me. My culture doesn't have a devil - all our sins are our own. We're the only ones who can prevent them. If you guys keep blaming another for the sins that you perform, how's that going to make you a better person? The devil is just a figure of speech, as I look at it - a mental manifestation of your sins. The more you commit, the more it grows inside of you. There is no actual evil force - it's all you, no matter what you think. Don't think that you can be good all the time because you're Christian and you love your God - if you keep refusing to accept the fact that you do do bad things with your own prescence of mind and no one inside you telling things to do, it's saddening because it makes you weak through denial.

 

There's always been a figurative war between good and evil but the heavens of most religions are at peace. That's all I can say :/

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The devil may tempt us but the Bible does make it quite clear that we are all responsible for our actions. Adam and Eve might have been tempted into sinning, but still were responsible for their actions.

 

While we can struggle and strive to prevent our sins eventually we all fall short of God's ultimate standard of perfection. If you know anyone who doesn't sin, let me know, I'm sure we can find something. Christ made it clear that the key is not becoming "a better person" but rather admitting we can't become good enough and just trusting in Him to pay for our sins so we can be forgiven, and just trust in Him to save us.

 

The Bible not only says there is a devil, but that he is in active opposition to God and that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil.

 

1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

 

Satan was an extremely powerful, blessed, and influential angel who was cast out of Heaven for his rebellion. He seems to have had the authority over the dead which Christ took from him by dying and rising again. Satan also is the behind-the-scenes guy for much of the world governments it seems.

 

One of Satan's greatest deceptions may lie in either convincing us he doesn't exist or that he appears evil and hideous. Satan is a liar and the father of all liars. (John 8:44)

 

2 Corinthians 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

 

 

Satan's final deception will involve one known as "the Beast" sitting in the Temple calling himself God:

 

2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

 

And all those who have not trusted in Christ and thus are in His Book of Life will fall for that deception, and worship the Beast:

 

Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

[wakelim 0]

Has anyone here seen/read The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis? It's about a senior fallen angel and his letters to his graduate of evil. Here's an except:

 

The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below. By the very act of arguing you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result! Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by "real."

 

Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (oh, that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument, I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control, and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line, for when I said, "Quite. In fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning," the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added "Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind," he was already halfway to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of "real life" (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all "that sort of thing" just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape, and in later years was fond of talking about "that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safe guard against the aberrations of mere logic." He is now safe in Our Father's house.

 

You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can't touch and see. There have been sad cases among the modern physicists. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don't let him get away from that invaluable "real life." But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is "the results of modern investigation." Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!

So, taking the example of the man above, you can see that, although it was the man himself who was going against God, it was Satan who provided the reasoning. This means that the blame could either be directed at the man or at Satan, but certainly not at God, who only had the man's best interests at heart. Lewis' most famous quote from this book is "Satan's greatest achievement is convincing people that he doesn't exist", as his existance would signify that God also exists. With this theory you can work out that a) Satan doesn't exist anyway and that this whole theory is based on rubbish, or Satan had successfully convinced people that he doesn't exist and therefore is the result of thinking along the lines of a). An a) thinker thinks that all of this is rubbish and so is more likely to settle down with "worldly possessions" and start thinking about the number 73 bus instead. They believe that this is "real life". Ironically, this kind of thinking is perfectly explainable by thinkers and it all goes round in a big circle.

 

My culture doesn't have a devil - all our sins are our own.

So, your sins are your own, but where does the enphasis for sin come from? You could argue that that is just humanity, but surely it makes more sense that some being founded that element of humanity and encourages it's growth?

 

Of course, neither party can prove their case and so we may have to agree to disagree, but it's interesting to think about it.

[clagnol 0]

C.S. Lewis: what a doof.All this passage does is express the idea that humans are easily-manipulated and oblivious, with Manichean spirits inhabiting our heads; the difference between a sinner and a saint is that the good spirit is more manipulative than the bad spirit within the saint.

[AbstracT 0]

God is not to blame, because God gave humans free will to do what they decide to do. He hopes they will do the right thing, but not all people want to. If people decide to do evil, its what they will do...So humans have the choice to so good or evil...when bad things happen its because people choose to do those bad things

[Darker333 0]

We are to blame, usually. Not god. God made us in his image, and hopes we are good. Of course, last time we had a screw-up record like this, look what happened Moses had to repopulate the earth :lol:Almost everything is to be blamed on the dim reality that god isnt going to keep a building from falling or the sun from exploding. All we can do is live life as long as possible and to the fullest. It's a sad reality but it's o-so-true.

[wild20 0]

One person said how can Jesus win a war in heaven when He was not born. The simple answer. He was born. If you read in the bible, it says that Michael and His angels fought angainst the devil. Michael is another name for Jesus. So I think some of you are a little mixed up. Wakelim:You have a good point, humans do cause a little bit of the suffering around us, but the problem lies deeper when people say that God could say, "No more suffering" and wipe sin off the face of the earth. Sin cannot be gone if God is to be proven just. It plays into a bigger picture that a lot of people have a hard time seeing. One of best examples for a Christian is this.When I look at myself, I wonder how I can ever be saved, When I look at Jesus, I wonder how I can ever be lost. The problem is that too many people are trying to justify themselves. I think this is where it starts. But another person said that God and satan have nothing to do with this. But we can't just leave them out of it because then we put our focus off the thing that really matters. So lets start with a basis:Can God be prove just?Evidence for a just god: He let Satan live. I know it sounds really weird but it is true. He actually started proving Himself just even before the main point began. When Satan was thrown out of heaven, God's first just act was that He let satan live to give him a chance to prove his point. And as satan does, he shows that he cannot be fair or just. Now, have you ever thought that since God LETS the calamities around us happen, that God is unfair. I mean, it is like punishing us for our existence. What do you think? But remember, it was adam and eve that first sinned in the garden. It was the human race that caused the first sin. Even when God warned them not to they still had to take that bite. Some say that God is unfair by letting the temptation into the Garden of Eden. But again, God proved Himself fair. Here is why. Satan said that God is unfair. God could have taken away the temptation, but with it, our freedom would have gone too. You see, God, in all His love, gave us the freedom of choice. Which again shows His love and justice. Had He taken away that choice, we would be no more than pawns, doing His bidding. And with that, God is fair. There is no way to prove Him unfair, and in the end, the universe will know His justice.

[clagnol 0]

One person said how can Jesus win a war in heaven when He was not born.  The simple answer.  He was born.  If you read in the bible, it says that Michael and His angels fought angainst the devil.  Michael is another name for Jesus.  So I think some of you are a little mixed up. 

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Michael the archangel/prince is referenced in Daniel, Jude, and Revelation: before AND after Jesus' life. I've never seen Jesus referred to as an angel of any kind. He was present in Revelation performing circus tricks with a flaming sword and newly-bleached hair, but I don't believe they called him an angel.

 

And why give him two names and never explain this discrepency? I expect that sort of confusion in classic Russian literature, not in the Bible.

 

Daniel writes of a prince named Michael who will defeat the king of Persia in his future (our past). You might choose to believe that they got the timing all wrong, and that in the future, Christ, himself, will fly over to Iran and punch the ayatollah in the throat. But I think you'll be waiting a while.

 

I find this whole notion of Michael being Jesus to be a tad convenient. It seems that people, looking back at the biblical corpus, have projected a meaning which was not originally there, connecting all the wrong dots.

 

Unless there's some bit of evidence I'm missing?

[wild20 0]

Can you then, explain to me, why Jesus is also called, the Prince of Peace, The Jucdge, The annointed one, The Chosen, and many others too numerous to name. In the bible, if you remember, Jesus is in the Trinity. You also said that before and after Jesus' life, there was a person called Michael. It could be that this is another name for Jesus, used BEFORE and AFTER His life on earth. So you may have actually provided the evidence. Besides God has always existed, His Son did too.

[clagnol 0]

Can you then, explain to me, why Jesus is also called, the Prince of Peace, The Jucdge, The annointed one, The Chosen, and many others too numerous to name.  In the bible, if you remember, Jesus is in the Trinity.  You also said that before and after Jesus' life, there was a person called Michael.  It could be that this is another name for Jesus, used BEFORE and AFTER His life on earth.  So you may have actually provided the evidence.  Besides God has always existed, His Son did too.

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Jesus' other aliases are irrelevent. Michael was called a prince, yes, but other princes were being referenced in the same verse. He is called a prince, not the prince. Do a text search at Bible Gateway of Michael to see where he is referenced.

 

Your theory is possible, but so far you have provided no actual evidence to suggest that any of Jesus' contemporaries believed he and Michael to be the same being.

[wild20 0]

Okay, here is some evidence. You said that He will defeat Persia in His future. You said "Our Past". Persia overtooking babylon during the book of Daniel. If you remember, in Revelation, one of the three angels says, babylon has fallen has fallen. Babylon, in prophecy, is a end time power, not literal. Daniel is prophecy. The Dragon, is the devil, in prophecy. The Dragon (satan) in prophecy, is the king of the coity of babylon. Remember this is not literal. Babylon represents the wicked power and people. When "Michael" defeats the King, He is defeating the devil. When you add it all up, Daniel is actually talking about our FUTURE. Prophecy. When Babylon has fallen, satan will be defeated by Michael, (Jesus). So I believe I have actually provided the actual evidence to help prove my theory. Now, it is your turn to provide evidence that backs your theory. And remember that Jesus' other names are actually not irrelevent, because they provide the vital piece of evidence that Jesus is refered to with several different names in the bible. There is also a lot of proof. Check it out: http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/michael.htm

Admin/ moderators:
I hope it is okay if I put this link here. If I am not supposed to, please remove it at your discretion. I just read that if it helps than you can put it in. Thanks.

Now anyway, back to my point. This webpage describes great detail about how Jesus is refered to as the Archangel and is in fact Michael. You can check it out and see. Also remember that Michael means, "Who is like unto God".

[Joshua 0]

Hmm... Some people think Christ was "born" in the sense we think of? Christ said He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. (Revelation 1:8)He claimed to exist before Abraham did. (John 8:58)David knew Him before He ever entered our world in human as flesh as Jesus Christ and even recognized that blessedness comes from trusting Him and that to anger Him is to perish. (Psalms 2:12) In Hebrews 1:10 it says He laid the foundation of the earth. In John 1 it gives an account of how He is God, made everything, and that everything was made by Him.In Philippians 2:6-8 we see that Him coming to earth and using Mary as a doorway for Him, the eternal God by whom all things are made, to step into earth as a man, was something He consciously CHOSE to do. In Hebrews 7:3 we see that Christ has "no father, no mother, neither beginning of days, nor end of life" in the sense that we think of. Jesus Christ was never created. He always existed.Now, I could go on and explain this mystery to you but I've done it so many times on Xisto that frankly I think it might be more interesting to see you give your opinions on this before I throw some more at you to ponder over I want to see what some of the people on the site think just about this so far.

[biscuitrat 0]

But see, the whole aspect of throwing your blame into a figure that may or may not exist is lame to me. Why wouldn't you believe that it's your fault that you...say...lied, cheated, and stole from/to other people? Technically, regardless of who put you up to it, it was you that did the act. Therefore you should be held for punishment, not God or Satan, Babe Ruth, or a yeti. You always have some limited control over yourself in the form of common sense and morals - not only Christian morals. And for all of you guys: This post isn't about where Jesus came from (and the whole "he is always here watching us" thing is kind of creepy) or what he did on earth. It isn't even about Jesus. It's about God, and not only a Christian God, although all our debates seem to lean that way. So ease up on that aspect of it. I'd like to hear more about it from other religions - I know that Hinduism preaches for you to do your dharma (duty) from birth to death, to be a good person to others, and to devote your life to good deeds. It'd be interesting for once to have more than an atheist/Christian P.O.V on this.