Creation vs. Evolution

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I've read stories where peoepl say they've died, seen heaven/God, then got revived due to medical technology or what not.

Are these made up? I didn't find much on snopes, except about one case where people thought they heard voices and screams from a hole in the ground or something so they thought they must have found a hole to hell. It was fake.
 
Yes.

Pilots in centrifuges, where their brain is starved of oxygen and they fall unconscious, report similar "near death experiences", despite being at no risk of death.

When the brain is having trouble breathing, it does all sorts of strange things, including auditory and visual hallucinations.
 
sicbeing
I've read stories where peoepl say they've died, seen heaven/God, then got revived due to medical technology or what not.

Are these made up? I didn't find much on snopes, except about one case where people thought they heard voices and screams from a hole in the ground or something so they thought they must have found a hole to hell. It was fake.

As famine pointed out, the brain does strange things. Native Americans go on "vision quests" after having overheated their bodies or eaten (or smoked) hallucinogenic planets. The vision quests are part of their religious experience where they're supposed to be visited by spirits.
 
Zardoz
Hurricane Katrina is a horrendous example of the randomness of our existence. I'm sorry, but a just God wouldn't put into place the mechanisms that would make such thinngs as that happen. Think of the God-fearing true believers that are suffering through no fault of their own.

Scroll down to the 26-minute "Gulf Coast devastation" video. This is unbelievable:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8004316/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9063708/

Please explain how a just God makes this possible. Remember, He created everything, including the conditions that make this happen. How does Christian theology explain this? I've never understood the theological justifications.
Did God make everyone who lives in an inherently hurricane-popular part of the country move there? No. They moved there, on own free will. God did create all of the forces of nature that make such things happen, yes, however have you noticed that the same parts of the country get hammered the same time every year?

If you think about it for five minutes, heck, three, you’ll figure out that region A gets hit by X hurricanes at X time every year. Put them together.

You don’t like hurricanes? Don’t move where they’ve been going for thousands of years.

Just as a side note, God can, and has, punished wicked people via natural events. I am not saying at all that this is what has happened, I believe I already explained that above, however I am saying that it is possible for that to happen.

Edit: One other thing

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven;
for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

(from Jesus' Sermon on The Mount)
 
I literally saw a cow get blown in half from a lightning strike once. Must've been a real evil satanist cow. Very funny to see, it was just standing on the top of a hill!

Looks like God has a black sense of humour!
 
James2097
I literally saw a cow get blown in half from a lightning strike once. Must've been a real evil satanist cow. Very funny to see, it was just standing on the top of a hill!

Looks like God has a black sense of humour!
Everything has a reason.

Presumptuous perhaps, but maybe that cow had Mad Cow Disease?
 
Just as a side note, God can, and has, punished wicked people via natural events. I am not saying at all that this is what has happened, I believe I already explained that above, however I am saying that it is possible for that to happen.

What about all those people in 3rd world counties? Are they wicked? No. Do they have a choice? No.
 
Burnout
Everything has a reason.

Presumptuous perhaps, but maybe that cow had Mad Cow Disease?
There is no mad cow disease in Australia. It was just a normal lookin' cow. I don't think the cow did anything to deserve getting blown apart so violently out of nowhere.

You're basically saying that life is fair and everyone/thing gets what they deserve? Yeah right! You'd have to be crazy to believe this - just look at Africa etc...
 
James2097
There is no mad cow disease in Australia. It was just a normal lookin' cow. I don't think the cow did anything to deserve getting blown apart so violently out of nowhere.

You're basically saying that life is fair and everyone/thing gets what they deserve? Yeah right! You'd have to be crazy to believe this - just look at Africa etc...

Life isn't fair and God never said it would be. Death comes to everyone. So to say that a cow got struck by lighting is mean and a cow that gets butchered for meat is ok doesn't make any sense.
 
code_kev
What about all those people in 3rd world counties? Are they wicked? No. Do they have a choice? No.
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven;
for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.


Besides that, it wasn't God's choice for the world to be like it is. Sin entered the world via Adam's choice. God didn't make that choice for him.

All of these things, diseases, poverty, they're all due to sin. Not God's choice.
 
code_kev
The babies born with aids deserve it obviously.

Odd how God seems to have a preference over who he likes more.


We covered this earlier. We went very far in depth about people born in 3rd world countries and how not everyone has a good life and isn't that proof that God doesn't exist and blah blah...

The conclusion was that God has a plan for everyone and we don't always understand it but that's the deal.

It is an interesting thing to bring up though, because I've read accounts about how people lose faith in God because they see how unfair life can be and decide it's evidence that nobody's at the wheel.
 
I was only pointing out that things are not fair, that's all, I wasn't using it as evidence that God doesn't exist.

Burnout, care to explain what that means please?

Besides that, it wasn't God's choice for the world to be like it is. Sin entered the world via Adam's choice. God didn't make that choice for him.

All of these things, diseases, poverty, they're all due to sin. Not God's choice.

Easy for you to say. Your sat there, in your comfy chair, eating good foods living the good life. I'm sure you attitude would be very different if you lived in a 1 room hut, with no sanitation, health care, food, money, water, etc etc.
 
code_kev
I was only pointing out that things are not fair, that's all, I wasn't using it as evidence that God doesn't exist.

Burnout, care to explain what that means please?

Nope, it means that God (Jesus) inflicts power equally over everyone while still having compassion for all living things (except homosexuals of course, who aren't allowed to marry).
 
danoff
We covered this earlier. We went very far in depth about people born in 3rd world countries and how not everyone has a good life and isn't that proof that God doesn't exist and blah blah...

The conclusion was that God has a plan for everyone and we don't always understand it but that's the deal.

It is an interesting thing to bring up though, because I've read accounts about how people lose faith in God because they see how unfair life can be and decide it's evidence that nobody's at the wheel.

Yes it has been discussed at length.

It's interesting you mention people loosing faith in times of persecution. I have also heard of people loosing their faith, but more so, I have heard of more people having their faith strengthened in times of hopeless persecution.
 
Burnout
Besides that, it wasn't God's choice for the world to be like it is. Sin entered the world via Adam's choice. God didn't make that choice for him.

All of these things, diseases, poverty, they're all due to sin. Not God's choice.

Except that God, being omnipotent, can see all things past, present and future and knows with certainty all that will happen or has happened.

So Adam's "choice" was predetermined by the fact God created him. He had no free choice.
 
Swift
Life isn't fair and God never said it would be. Death comes to everyone. So to say that a cow got struck by lighting is mean and a cow that gets butchered for meat is ok doesn't make any sense.
Erm, I was inferring that life WAS random, and inherently unfair. To think that God has a reason for creating suffering on such a scale that He supposedly does it, really makes God seem equal parts Satan (with the horns etc) and the nice beardy guy.

A much easier and more logical conclusion is that God doesn't exist, there is no grand plan or reason to why certain people die and others don't... and that we should all just try and deal with the realities of life as best we can.

Here's a fact: I will die before nearly all of you guys. I don't blame any silly man in the sky, its just luck. What isn't luck and takes control and makes sense of the chaos is science and medical research. That is what I have entrusted my future life to. You have to take charge of your own destiny with positive action, none of this entrusting life to God or any of that nonsense, I'd be dead long ago for sure, if I were religious.

To my life, God is about as useful as a condom vending machine in the vatican.
 
Famine
Except that God, being omnipotent, can see all things past, present and future and knows with certainty all that will happen or has happened.

So Adam's "choice" was predetermined by the fact God created him. He had no free choice.

Adam had free will as do all of us.

Let me walk you through this example. Lets say I can see into the future, that I know what what events will take place. I ask you to chose between a blue card and a red card. You pick the red card. I know you were going to pick the red card but it was still your choice to pick that card. You could have picked either card, there was no force making you pick the red card, it was completely up to your freewill and ability to make your own choice as to which card you were going to pick regardless of what my prior knowledge of the events that were going to take place.
 
Pako
Adam had free will as do all of us.

Let me walk you through this example. Lets say I can see into the future, that I know what what events will take place. I ask you to chose between a blue card and a red card. You pick the red card. I know you were going to pick the red card but it was still your choice to pick that card. You could have picked either card, there was no force making you pick the red card, it was completely up to your freewill and ability to make your own choice as to which card you were going to pick regardless of what my prior knowledge of the events that were going to take place.

If the future is set, there is no such thing as free will, as every choice you make is inevitable.

If the future is not set then no-one can know the future, belying omniscience and thus one of the defining factors of God.

So, if God exists, there is no free will. Every choice is preset and predetermined. If there is free will, there is no God.
 
Burnout
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven;
for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.


Besides that, it wasn't God's choice for the world to be like it is. Sin entered the world via Adam's choice. God didn't make that choice for him.

All of these things, diseases, poverty, they're all due to sin. Not God's choice.

God could have prevented Adam's sin, though.


[edit]


Uh...didn't refresh quick enough. :indiff:
 
Swift
Free Will. You can do whatever you want. But you reap what you sew.


But if God sees and knows all, and he knew that Adam would have made that hugeass sin, why would he place them in the Garden at all?

Seems kinda sadistic.
 
PS
But if God sees and knows all, and he knew that Adam would have made that hugeass sin, why would he place them in the Garden at all?

Seems kinda sadistic.

Nope, not at all. God already had the angels. He wanted something that would love an appreciate him of their own free will.

To be honest, who would appreciate God if you lived in a paradise in which you had to do no work of any type? Everything was given to you everyday. It would be easy to grow to not appreciate what you have.
 
Swift
To be honest, who would appreciate God if you lived in a paradise in which you had to do no work of any type? Everything was given to you everyday. It would be easy to grow to not appreciate what you have.


Sounds like heaven.
 
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