The only people who can tell us about these amazing mysteries of the world are the Jehovah Witnesses. The JWs are Gods chosen people, they are the spiritual teachers of the world, the Jews, chosen by God. They have the truth.
So please tell us and get out us out of this spiritual darkness ... O great teacher.
Originally posted by Rajk999 The only people who can tell us about these amazing mysteries of the world are the Jehovah Witnesses. The JWs are Gods chosen people, they are the spiritual teachers of the world, the Jews, chosen by God. They have the truth.
So please tell us and get out us out of this spiritual darkness ... O great teacher.
Originally posted by SwissGambit Noah's flood, the earth swallowing the sons of Korah, fire from heaven killing Job's family and servants, etc.
But perhaps these are [b]supernatural disasters. 😵[/b]
Your right. Those were diffenently caused by God. But are ones like the world has been having the last few years like the earthquakes and tsunamis caused by God as in "An Act of God".
Originally posted by galveston75 Your right. Those were diffenently caused by God. But are ones like the world has been having the last few years like the earthquakes and tsunamis caused by God as in "An Act of God".
I suppose if you accept the Cosmological Argument [God is First Cause of the universe], then yes, he at least indirectly causes them.
If you believe God is omniscient, and the designer of the universe, then he must have known in advance that his design of the earth would allow earthquakes to happen. By going ahead with it and making the universe as it is, he would be deliberately causing quakes to happen.
The real issue is in the word 'disaster'. The thing that makes almost all 'natural disasters' into 'disasters' is the fact that the humans who suffer are ill prepared for the event. In many (though not all) cases the disaster can be prevented if we prepare better.
For example, good building standards significantly reduces the damage due to earth quakes. Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans because they hadn't built the levees high enough.
So, is God responsible for helping us prepare? Is nature?
Every time you hear about a natural disaster, listen carefully and you will hear something like this:
"This was the worst ..... in the last ..... years."
That means it has happened before!
In many parts of the world, there are seasonal changes that we know about and adapt to. Even many animal species migrate because if they didn't it would be a 'natural disaster'.
If people didn't turn on their central heating in the UK in winter, it would be a 'natural disaster' every year. Should we blame God or nature for the winter cold?
Our problem is that we cant seem to plan well more than a few years ahead. It is partly due to most political systems being built around a relatively short cycle, and partly simply humans habit of only making short term plans.
In our defense, we do sometimes get it right, and most places do have building codes to cater for earthquakes, flood walls to protect against floods etc and most disasters become disasters because those plans that were put in place were not followed.
I am not so much trying to defend God or nature but rather pointing out that we should stop trying to absolve ourselves from the blame. We shouldn't just send money to Haiti, we should as ourselves which other parts of the world are subject to earthquakes and do not have buildings up to scratch and try some preventative medicine for a change.
The difficult questions regarding God is, if you jump off a cliff, can God prevent you from hitting the rocks below, will he and should he? And if you fall off the cliff due to stupidity, carelessness or mere freak accident, can God prevent you from hitting the rocks below, will he and should he?
History in the Bible does show that God has used natural elements of the earth to accomplish his will.
It's something that is fortold in the Bible for the future when "his day" or Armageddon or Harmagedon happens on the earth.
And as is described in the Bible, he will not doubt be using many of the earth's resources to accomplish this cleansing of the wickedness off the earth.
Rev 7:1 speaks of this.
One interesting thing he will use will be birds which are mentioned at Rev 19:11-21.
I thought God was done teaching us lessons through natural disasters with Jesus Christ?
Or perhaps that plan failed, everyone fighting over little discrepancies of him and nitpicking scriptures to promote their own biases and water down the actual message, so he went back to Plan A.
Claiming natural disasters are caused by God (or perhaps a disbelief in him) is an indoctrination of fear. Doesn't really make sense to me either, I mean do you really imagine a deity being frustrated with his creation because they don't believe in him and thus kills more of them to make survivors follow his way? I'd say that's cause to have a vendetta against him.
Does God cause natural disasters?
24 Feb '10 16:57
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