Although most of the Old Testament was written in hebrew and Aramaic, the "new" was written in Greek; that being the language of most of the enlightened scholars of the day. It was very "in" to speak Greek.

(01-06-2019 10:18 AM)My Name Is Kate Wrote:  Given that the vast majority, if not the whole of humanity, has an innate need to appeal to a higher power for help at some point in our lives, when God is taken out of our lives, it leaves a vacuum that must be replaced with something else. Elitists who promote communism/fascism/socialism/totalitarianism/liberalism substitute big government (with themselves at the apex of power and wealth) for God. They control the masses by supplying their basic needs while taking away their inalienable rights and liberties (which the elitists do not believe in, and most definitely do not believe come from God.)

So the question comes down to this: Who will each of us choose to serve? God or man? God or (fill in the blank)?

The world is proof that there is a God. You cannot get something (the world) from nothing. Something had to have always existed. You can call it energy, or you can call it spirit, but it is all-encompassing (except for evil, which is the result of free will.) I've always thought that the more legitimate question is: Does God take an interest in his creation?

It is abundantly obvious to me that what happens to our bodies is not a top priority with God. We all must die sometime, and we owe God a death. I think it is safe to say that God's interest is not in anything in the material world, but in the spiritual only. Everything is on loan to us, including our bodies and our lives. We may not like that fact, but all evidence points to it being the truth.

The day will never come when human beings will fully understand God. Science does its best to understand this fallen world, but it cannot explain the First Cause. Rather than acknowledging that fact, some choose to ridicule those who believe in a "God of the gaps." To them, as scientific knowledge increases, God decreases, until finally, some day, God will be eliminated altogether and human beings will at last have progressed beyond their silly superstitious religious beliefs. That is the goal of the globalists who are trying to seize control of this world from the peoples of all countries.

Wow! What a good post! I am Roman Catholic, but another way to understand why bad things happen to good people is to view God the way the Eighteenth Century deists saw him, a supreme being, the Creator, who is good and who chooses not to intervene, for his own reasons, which we are not privy to. He sees no need to explain his actions.

(01-06-2019 04:31 PM)Rsmyth Wrote:  Although most of the Old Testament was written in hebrew and Aramaic, the "new" was written in Greek; that being the language of most of the enlightened scholars of the day. It was very "in" to speak Greek.

Thanks - found it...

(01-06-2019 05:03 PM)davg2000 Wrote:  

(01-06-2019 10:18 AM)My Name Is Kate Wrote:  Given that the vast majority, if not the whole of humanity, has an innate need to appeal to a higher power for help at some point in our lives, when God is taken out of our lives, it leaves a vacuum that must be replaced with something else. Elitists who promote communism/fascism/socialism/totalitarianism/liberalism substitute big government (with themselves at the apex of power and wealth) for God. They control the masses by supplying their basic needs while taking away their inalienable rights and liberties (which the elitists do not believe in, and most definitely do not believe come from God.)

So the question comes down to this: Who will each of us choose to serve? God or man? God or (fill in the blank)?

The world is proof that there is a God. You cannot get something (the world) from nothing. Something had to have always existed. You can call it energy, or you can call it spirit, but it is all-encompassing (except for evil, which is the result of free will.) I've always thought that the more legitimate question is: Does God take an interest in his creation?

It is abundantly obvious to me that what happens to our bodies is not a top priority with God. We all must die sometime, and we owe God a death. I think it is safe to say that God's interest is not in anything in the material world, but in the spiritual only. Everything is on loan to us, including our bodies and our lives. We may not like that fact, but all evidence points to it being the truth.

The day will never come when human beings will fully understand God. Science does its best to understand this fallen world, but it cannot explain the First Cause. Rather than acknowledging that fact, some choose to ridicule those who believe in a "God of the gaps." To them, as scientific knowledge increases, God decreases, until finally, some day, God will be eliminated altogether and human beings will at last have progressed beyond their silly superstitious religious beliefs. That is the goal of the globalists who are trying to seize control of this world from the peoples of all countries.

Wow! What a good post! I am Roman Catholic, but another way to understand why bad things happen to good people is to view God the way the Eighteenth Century deists saw him, a supreme being, the Creator, who is good and who chooses not to intervene, for his own reasons, which we are not privy to. He sees no need to explain his actions.

I very much appreciate these two answers and I agree with them. There are many issues in the material, spiritual, and religious world/universe which we humans cannot understand because our understanding is limited to that which is only human. The rest of what we choose to believe, we accept on "faith". Irrespective of one's faith or religious background each of us possesses free will. We are free to choose our actions, reactions, and beliefs. When my then 14-year-old daughter said she did not believe in creation but in the "big bang" theory, I said, "Fine, but think about this for a moment. Whatever matter came together to create that big bang; from where did it originate?" Hmmmmm. The supreme being in whom I choose to believe allows me to use my own free will for whatever purpose I desire and for whatever I wish to believe. Lincoln, to whom this site is devoted, was not religious but he was spiritual and he probably believed that there is something different and better beyond the physical being of our mortal bodies. I choose to believe so because if this life is the best there is, God help us (pun intended).

Eva, here is a link that I hope will be helpful in explaining God's immortality and timelessness (at least to some degree). There are several responses, some conflicting with others. (Yes, I know Yahoo is not the most reputable site, but I thought the first response was probably as good a response as any available (or possible).

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index...921AA66xgS

I personally do not believe that all religions except Christianity are "wrong." The main difference between Christianity and other religions, afaik, is that Christianity has a Messiah and other religions do not. I also do not believe that anyone who does not believe in or is ignorant of Christianity is automatically condemned by God.

God is what God is regardless of what we believe. It is our duty to understand and worship God to the best of our ability. If someone chooses not to believe in God, I am not the one who is going to try to convince them otherwise (nor will I allow anyone to force their beliefs or lack of beliefs on me). You asked some questions and I am trying to answer them, that is all. My post above is a profession (of sorts) of my faith. Everyone is free to accept it, reject it, or ignore it as they choose.

(01-07-2019 12:47 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  There's a difference between there might be some kind of divinity/creator and there is the Christian God. (Why are the other religions/beliefs all "wrong"?) And who created the creator? Or how did he/she/it come into existence? (Yes, you will tell me humans are too limited to understand. That's always the answer when there is no, or not yet.) Like Laurie, I have no answer for myself respectively don't know what to believe. Which is probably the point. You cannot attempt nor convince by knowing/reason, either you do believe or come to from within, or not.

In the final stanza of Keats's "Ode on a Grecian Urn," the speaker knows that while he can describe the scenes on the urn, he can't fully understand it--the urn "teases him out of thought as doth eternity." So with God. With His properties of omniscience and omnipotence, He is without limit. We are finite creatures who may grasp some sense of God, but like the speaker in the poem, as humans we'll never fully understand Him. But we keep trying.

This is an amazing thread! I have especially been impressed with the compassion and respect that I feel from those with differing beliefs towards each other. If only everyone in the world could treat differences of opinion and belief with respect and not condemnation.

I am a life long Christian, with deep faith in Jesus Christ, and have been confronted with the question how I can have faith in God when there seems to be so much bad that happens in this world, and I can only answer with my own feelings based on life experiences.

Two years ago this March our new born granddaughter died just a few minutes after her birth. To say it was heartbreaking is a tremendous understatement. At my daughter-in-law's 20 week ultrasound we discovered that Alyssa had CDH - a congenital diaphramic hernia, and after weeks of visits and scans and tests we learned that she would not live after her birth. So we had twenty weeks to grieve all that we would lose, while still trying to feel joy as she grew and we prepared to say hello and goodbye all at once. After her birth and death I found a website for grieving parents/grandparents, and one young grieving mother posted a question about how she could hold on to her faith with the death of her own baby. Most of the others posted that they lost their faith because they could not reconcile their tragedy with a kind loving God. I felt the need to respond honestly, and sincerely, and this thread here reminded me what I wrote then. I hope it is okay to post my response:

"Your sincere question about how I make spiritual peace with a fatal diagnosis, how I fit God into that has really caused me to think deeply. I understand the shock, horror, grief that is attached to that day the doctors say there is really nothing they can do for our babies, that their condition is incompatible with life outside the womb. How is it possible that this infant, who seems so strong and kicks so powerfully and consistently, who makes her presence known so often, will die when the connecting link between mom and baby is lost at birth? There are no words for that grief. My son and daughter-in-law decided early that if the only time they had with Alyssa was these few months they would try to frame each experience, each kick, each hiccup with the lense of faith and love. But of course even with their and our faith we cried every day. Every night was long and painful and dark, filled with tears and little sleep. And that was even with our deep faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and their love for us and our baby. I cannot even begin to understand the depth of pain for those who do not have that faith. My heart hurts.

To even begin to explain how I make spiritual peace with God in this I have to first explain a little bit about our faith. We believe that our life did not begin with our conception or birth - that we lived as a spirit child of God in heaven before we received a physical body, and that our life does not end after death, that our spiritual body will return to God and our family who have passed away to wait for a future day when our spirit and body will be reunited as a resurrected being and we will live together in eternity with our family. That faith sustains us in the partings, with the hope that it will be for a brief time, and that our baby is with her great grandparents, her uncle and aunt, and others who know her and love her. We believe that every life, however long or short, however imperfect the body, is sacred. We believe that families can be united forever because of and through Jesus Christ.

We believe in a Heavenly Father who loves all of his children. Who created the earth as a place where we could come to receive bodies, live together in families, and hopefully choose righteousness, and bless the lives of those around us. While some see God as the source of their pain and hurt - as the reason for wars, and disease, storms and hate, I see God as the source of love, strength in the disease, peace, and hope. I believe that wars and hate are when we choose not to follow God. And that disease and death is a natural part of life in this imperfect world, not as a punishment for sin. One of the stories in the New Testament that teaches me that God is a God of love and compassion is when Lazarus died, and Jesus Christ, knowing he had the power to raise him from the dead, seeing the pain of Martha and Mary - Lazarus' sisters, wept. Imagine that - the God of the heavens and earth wept for their pain! His compassion and his love for their loss has spiritually strengthened me. I know he wept for our family. I know he wept for your family.

I do not know the reason some babies are saved. I do not know the reason some babies are not. I do not know the reason some miracles come and some do not. The experience of her birth and death is a hard hard hard thing for us, even with our faith, but our peace is in the little miracles we witnessed during the pregnancy and after, and the hope we will see her again. In fact, her middle name is Ki' i mana, which is Tongan for little miracle. I make peace with Heavenly Father when I acknowledge those little miracles in our life with Alyssa. The greatest miracle is that she was born alive at full term so that her mom and dad could hold her and kiss her and tell her how much they loved her as she quietly and peacefully slipped away. I saw God in the people who enveloped our son and daughter-in-law with love in those dark dark days: the nurse at the doctor's office who, every single appointment, would wrap my daughter-in-law in a deep hug and whisper in her ear that she was an amazing mom and was carrying an amazing baby. The dear friend who handcrafted a beautiful hand carved little casket - with the initials of each of the children and the words that families are forever to hold our baby until that day of resurrection. The doctors who cried with them. The neighbors who brought meals, and hugs, and tears, and love. The unknown person (perhaps the woodworker friend?) who anonymously left a hand carved Noah's ark and animals, with the reminder of what the rainbow stands for. The college students in their town, who, upon learning about their baby tried to brighten their Christmas by donating gifts for the other children. I saw God in the funeral home workers who lovingly cared for her sweet body who do not ever charge for baby funerals, and in dozens of other people and their love and light and compassion.

But even with those reminders I have had some honest hard talks with Him. I have ranted, I have raged, I have cried, I have pleaded, I have begged, and I have sometimes ignored and given Him the silent treatment. Because I learned in my experience that faith and doubt can sometimes live together. What I found is that He is strong enough for my grief, and that in my sorrow and in my grief, in my hurt and in my sadness, even when I do not always feel His presence, I know that because I felt it before I will feel it again. And in that I find spiritual peace and hope. Even in a fatal diagnosis. Fatal, but not hopeless."

Christine,

Yours is a very moving and powerful testament to the love you felt for your grandchild. I was deeply moved. While we look at things differently, I admire someone who can emerge from unspeakable tragedy with a positive worldview.

Best
Rob

Most people who are upset with God do so because they put human emotion and intellect into God. God is not human and never was. When Moses wanted to build a temple to him, the burning bush warned him not to make graven images - he wasn't that kind of God. Michaelangelo's fresco of the creation is beautiful art but his portrayal of God as an old man with white whiskers in the clouds has given many a false perception.

Christine, thank you for sharing.

I would like to share your comments with my minister and a good friend who is a grief counselor.
Rob is right, yours is a moving and powerful testament.

Am I the only one who has the feeling that Mr. Lincoln would love to take part in this discussion? His life experiences certainly touched on most of these issues, from losing family to having the responsibility of sending hundreds of thousands onto hideous battlefields -- all while struggling with his own concepts of religion.

I was thinking the same ... or similar. I would have loved to know his true thoughts on religion and God and free will. For a man that was so sure of what needed to be done and who (IMO) was such a great judge of character, could he really be so uncertain as to whether he believed in God?

I'm not sure how much revered, if at all, Carl Sandburg is on this forum, but I believe he gives a good summary of Lincon's views on religion in Chapter 56 of Abraham Lincoln, "Lincoln's Laughter - and His Religion".

(01-08-2019 05:27 AM)AussieMick Wrote:  I was thinking the same ... or similar. I would have loved to know his true thoughts on religion and God and free will. For a man that was so sure of what needed to be done and who (IMO) was such a great judge of character, could he really be so uncertain as to whether he believed in God?

I have sometimes wondered if, being the ultimate politician that he was, he used the tactic of pleading ignorance on his true beliefs. After all, he was rising to the top and trying to stay perched there during a very "religious" period of diverging faiths and interpretations of Christianity (and other world religions). Was it safer to stay a safe distance from discussing his personal views? Can't afford to lose votes...

Even Junius Brutus Booth the Elder studied a variety of cultures and religious tenets to try and understand what made the world tick.

(01-08-2019 07:41 PM)L Verge Wrote:  Was it safer to stay a safe distance from discussing his personal views? Can't afford to lose votes...

The following story has no footnote, and it may well be apocryphal. In 1846 Lincoln was running for Congress against a frontier preacher named Peter Cartwright. The story is from a book entitled Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents by Franklin Steiner:

"A story is told of Mr. Cartwright's holding a revival meeting while the campaign was in progress, during which Lincoln stepped into one of his meetings. When Cartwright asked the audience, "Will all who want to go to heaven stand up?" all arose except Lincoln. When he asked, "Now, will all who want to go to hell stand up?" Lincoln still remained in his seat. Mr. Cartwright then said, "All have stood up for one place or the other except Mr. Lincoln, and we would like to know where he expects to go." Lincoln arose and quietly said, "I am going to Congress," and there he went."

This was the campaign in which Cartwright attempted to make Lincoln's religion or lack of it an issue in the campaign. Lincoln responded by issuing his "Handbill Replying to Charges of Infidelity." The text of this is here:

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/libra...nfidelity/