How can a loving God allow cancer to exist

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
If God can be eternal, why not the universe? Why are you so willing to believe one has no beginning, but not the other?

Please lay out your reasoning.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
Apples and Oranges, one being eternal doesn't mean the other is.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
Do you have any other evidence besides blind faith? The bible? That's it? A book written thousands of years ago when they know nothing of science, astronomy, genetics, math, biology and the like? You have to insist the bible was written by god but in fact was written by men, creative men and no god was needed for that.
Besides that, the books of the bibl ...[text shortened]... aybe hundreds of millions.

All gullible people who gave up their right to critical thinking.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
Do you have any other evidence besides blind faith? The bible? That's it? A book written thousands of years ago when they know nothing of science, astronomy, genetics, math, biology and the like? You have to insist the bible was written by god but in fact was written by men, creative men and no god was needed for that.
Besides that, the books of the bibl ...[text shortened]... aybe hundreds of millions.

All gullible people who gave up their right to critical thinking.

You have to insist the bible was written by god but in fact was written by men, creative men and no god was needed for that.
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I said above that the central kernal of the Bible - its "nucleus" so to speak is a Person Who is the union and mingling of God and humanity - Jesus Christ.

I believe that this climax is arrived at through a cooperation of God and man in the writing of the Bible. It was not dictated. It bears the marks of style of human writers. Men moved by the Spirit of God wrote the Bible in a process of inspiration.

But by inspiration I mean something special. I do not mean in the same sense in which the Mona Lisa or Beethoven's 9th is "inspiring." Art, plays, sculptures, even math formulas may be inspiring. But in saying the bible was written under inspiration involves something more a co-operation between God and man harmonizing and moving together to produce such a unique book.

The "oldness" of its having been completed doesn't bother me because its relevancy never looses its power. And also it having stood the test of time further evidences that it is a divine product.

Besides that, the books of the bible that ended up there was the result of the council of Nicea around the year 400 and there were literally hundreds of books which are now mostly lost that would have painted a different picture but did not satisfy the political games of the times so it is ONLY that council that made the bible what it is today, yet now is taken literally by millions, maybe hundreds of millions.
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The canon of the NT was completed for the most part before Nicea.
Politics was involved in that council for sure.
How far skeptics want to take that is very often too far.

It is true that there was a plethora of religious writing in the world.
I have never felt that that fact was a good rationale to argue that no inspired book from God to us exists.

In fact, if God produced a book in cooperation with holy men of God, it is quite predictable that there would be much copycat imitation.

If God was not smart enough to foresee this problem and lead His people through the maze it doesn't say much for His competency.

Two main choices are open to me:

1.) The phenomenon of many other sacred and religion writings so obscured the matter that God was unable to deal with the confusion.

2.) The plethora of other religious, sacred, even spiritual writing was not so great as to defeat God's purpose to communicate with man in a book.

I have decided #2 is the case.

All gullible people who gave up their right to critical thinking.
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Critically thinking, I don't think the human imagination could concoct a character like Jesus of Nazareth. And I don't think human beings WOULD do so even if they could.

I am willing to bear the shame of believing that a Person like Jesus Christ, I think, is too wonderful to NOT be real. Whoever you would submit as a second runner up to Jesus is far off, whether Buddha or Mohamed or Zoroaster or Confucius.

Jesus Christ I think is in a class all His own. He occupies a level of moral splendor and righteous goodness of which He alone has achieved.

Critical thinking and faith (not blind) has led me to this position.
This plus the fact that I find Jesus Christ available to me and a life changing Person, even as the New Testament promised.

Studying the apocryphal literature does have much historical interest.

Originally posted by @dj2becker
What other alternative is more reasonable?

Originally posted by @kellyjay
Books written thousands of years ago, the Bible is 66 different books not just one. I never said it was written by God, those books were written by several different people over a time period of ~1500 years authors coming from diverse backgrounds fishermen, kings, prophets and alike. A remarkable thing unequaled by any other, your dismissing not with standing.

Originally posted by @apathist
Try not to overstate. There are older religions, and yours has borrowed heavily from them.

Originally posted by @apathist
I don't know. Whether reality is eternal or else got started, neither makes complete sense. I draw a blank on a third option.

Originally posted by @apathist
Try not to overstate. There are older religions, and yours has borrowed heavily from them.

Originally posted by @kellyjay
So you say.

Originally posted by @sonhouse
Actually true, the 7 day creation story has its roots in ancient Egypt which makes sense since Jews were living in Egypt and would have had access to such material.

http://www.aldokkan.com/religion/creation.htm

Originally posted by @kellyjay
Or God, and mankind over the years like we do with all stories, change them in the telling.