Comments | kisc: Life Sucks And Then You Die

kisc

Life Sucks And Then You Die

Feb 26, 2008 08:01

One of the questions I was asked during the mission - in Pennsylvania, for those keeping score at home - and one of the questions that apparently bothers a lot of people about God, goes something like this: How could a loving God allow X ( Read more... )

faith

Comments 6

ruthanolis February 26 2008, 15:30:51 UTC

One I always liked, but shouldn't really be used on a mission, was the reply, "The real question is, if you don't believe in a God at all/who loves us/etc, how can YOU allow X?"

That usually either shut them up, or they raised the "freedom to choose" option without any prompting at all. It's good fun having them ruin their own arguments. ;)

I should mention, that most of the people who asked me that on my mission were being deliberately antagonistic. I even had some people come up to me on the street to ask that. I so wish I had been allowed to respond that way.

kisc March 2 2008, 01:43:32 UTC

Ruth Ruth FTW!

(The comment has been removed)

kisc March 2 2008, 01:40:31 UTC

Epic Fail!

ty_ping February 28 2008, 07:14:45 UTC

Personally, I've always told people that X has little to do with God and a hell of a lot to do with humanity being an all around douchbag.

The only exception to the rule is getting hit by lightning on a cloudless day while in a spot where lightning isn't likely to hit.

Then God probably has something to do with it.

God is Loving and therefore gave us free will. We're the one's who've been buggering it all up from there.

ty_ping February 28 2008, 07:24:39 UTC

Sorry to add ( ... )

kisc March 2 2008, 01:39:03 UTC

Test is probably an oversimplification. I expect that everything we use to try to understand God is an oversimplification; including the concept of "god".

I'm pretty well convinced that he doesn't allow us to be tempted beyond what we're able to bear, but with each temptation he prepares a way that we may resist that temptation. See 1 Ne 3:7 in the Book of Mormon if you care to. It seems like there is another more specific statement on this topic, but I'll be boondoggled if I can find it just now. However, we've been commanded to be good, so this is close enough.

The story of when Abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son seems like one of the ultimate tests, to me. See Gen 22 if you like. Abraham was perhaps testing at a higher level than me, but, again, it wasn't about what God needed to know, it was about Abraham knowing that the Lord had confidence in him, but, AGAIN, I think this is an oversimplification. I'm a gamer of course, and I see the whole thing as Abraham gaining another level of High Priest or whatever. It was more ( ... )