Alright is there anyone out there with some depth of knowledge b/c of this question: why does God let good people die? Meaning if you look back over the history of humankind, from the apostles to the saints, to religious preachers, to well-meaning leaders or icons, they’re always gunned down. This makes it hard to poke the darkness with rays of light. It appears to me that Satan is winning. Just listened to this query on Utube given by an atheist & of course the comeback line is there is no God. We see the big loss not only that the voice is shut down & a family is left with burdens now but this was a source of hope against the evil in this world.
This is a fallen world.
If good people lived and only bad people died, it would not be a fallen world, it would be a naturally just world.
But because it is a fallen world, it is not a just world by nature.
Isn’t God in control then?
Plus, if God really did extinguish all of the bad people in the world, using his moral standard, we’d all be gone.
I think we’d all like the worst of this world’s people to be gone, but drawing the line would be tough to do for mere, biased humans
All living things die, because this is how the universe stays in a constant state of renewal. Imagine a static universe where nothing ever changes. Its like a photograph that just sits there. Compare the photo to a movie. Which do you prefer for your universe?Alright is there anyone out there with some depth of knowledge b/c of this question: why does God let good people die?
Have you ever noticed that there is a certain subset of people who hate goodness? They LIKE being mediocre and selfish. When they meet someone who is altruistic, they are driven to bring that person down. Why? Because the existence of a loving person reveals their lie that everyone is mediocre and they are just fine. Their excuse has always been, “Hey, everyone does it. Why should I be any different?” You can see how someone who “doesn’t do it” would threaten that.Meaning if you look back over the history of humankind, from the apostles to the saints, to religious preachers, to well-meaning leaders or icons, they’re always gunned down.
It only takes a small candle to shine enough light to walk the room.This makes it hard to poke the darkness with rays of light.
There is a book you may be interested in called, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker. The light IS winning. The change is happening at glacial pace. It’s like watching a clock and you don’t see it move. But come back later, and it is changed. If the only thing you examine is the last century, you aren’t going to see a change. But if you compare the world today to the way it was a thousand years ago, hey, yeah, there is less violence.It appears to me that Satan is winning. Just listened to this query on Utube given by an atheist & of course the comeback line is there is no God. We see the big loss not only that the voice is shut down & a family is left with burdens now but this was a source of hope against the evil in this world.
From Peter, Paul, and Mary’s Chanukah classic, “Don’t Let the Light Go Out”
… Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suff’ring
Pain we learned so long ago
… Light one candle for all we believe in
Let anger not tear us apart!
Light one candle to bind us together
With peace as the song in our heart
… Don’t let the light go out!
It’s lasted for so many years!
Don’t let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears
I totally reject this all or nothing thinking. While none of us is perfect, there ARE a few extremely good people, so good that you sit up and take notice, a few really evil people who do an enormous amount of evil, and a whole awful lot of mediocre people in the middle.Plus, if God really did extinguish all of the bad people in the world, using his moral standard, we’d all be gone.
According to Proverbs, it’s not perfection that makes us righteous, but our willingness to repent. Repentance restores us to righteousness:
Proverbs 24:16 For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again
I do believe that there’s a certain subset of people for whom the cry for help gets misinterpreted as hatred. Just as God works in mysterious ways, pain expresses itself in mysterious ways as well. So reserve judgment against those who would seem to deserve it most, because as they say… there but for the grace of God.Have you ever noticed that there is a certain subset of people who hate goodness?Meaning if you look back over the history of humankind, from the apostles to the saints, to religious preachers, to well-meaning leaders or icons, they’re always gunned down.
@purge187 I agree with all you just said. The problem is, it has no relationship to what *I* said. People “crying for help” don’t try to destroy what’s good. If that’s what someone is doing, a LOT more is going on there than “crying for help.”
One of my very favorite songs.Have you ever noticed that there is a certain subset of people who hate goodness? They LIKE being mediocre and selfish. When they meet someone who is altruistic, they are driven to bring that person down. Why? Because the existence of a loving person reveals their lie that everyone is mediocre and they are just fine. Their excuse has always been, “Hey, everyone does it. Why should I be any different?” You can see how someone who “doesn’t do it” would threaten that.Meaning if you look back over the history of humankind, from the apostles to the saints, to religious preachers, to well-meaning leaders or icons, they’re always gunned down.
Generally speaking, people who are “crying for help” are trying to destroy what is evil. However, what they think is evil may actually be good – they may be delusional.
Trauma can quickly distort good and evil into a self-centered “pain versus not pain” morality. Good is “whatever stops my abuse and relieves my trauma symptoms” and evil is “whatever is abuse and makes my trauma symptoms worse”. If you don’t have biblical morality to push back against that and force the realization that there are immoral and moral ways to deal with trauma, it can persuade you to do some really dumb things. You could drink some chamomile tea to deal with your intense anger towards your abuser, or you could take out a gun and shoot your abuser in the head, permanently ending the abuse forever. It has an appeal, doesn’t it?
I could be wrong about this, but I’ve been getting a vibe from liberal woke ideology that they are viewing government institutions as abusive, Christianity as abusive, conservatives as abusive, etc. It’s persuasive if you grew up in an abusive home, broken home with divorces and absent parents, etc. I was reading Dan B. Allender’s book To Be Told and he was describing the government’s role in people’s lives as a substitute father figure, and if Daddy was abusive to begin with, thinking that Father Government is also abusive is the next logical step, especially if you’re using illegal drugs to manage your trauma symptoms instead of safer and more natural interventions. I’m not saying that all liberals believe that, because many of them don’t, including me. But I suspect some do. What they do that, they are traumatizing themselves.
So we get “Father government is abusing me like old dad did so I want relief and I want to kill my abuser.” That pattern really seems to explain the recent spate of shootings, from the Trump one to the United Healthcare one to the Charlie Kirk one. Ironically, it’s actually a problem that the liberals need to solve: they need to shut down this thinking and take better care of their people. The government is not an abuser, and neither are conservative politicians. The government gives out EBT so you can go play video games for another day, and allows for work so you can feel important. Stop killing people. We’re on your side.
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