Dear Oly.... 'quite right' :) Romans 9:14

I trust and hope that you, yours, and everyone's enjoy a time of refreshment.. physically, emotionally..and of course spiritually.

Perhaps this time of historic remembrance will in time bring a greater closeness to Him who came

"and the Word became flesh..and dwelt among us...We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." John 1:14

Felicitations Earthlings

This interstellar wish is to hope that you care for your small world as it is the only one you have.

The rest belong to others.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/147004main_image_feature_550_ys_4.jpg

In reply to; Gibo, Sunday, 14 December 2008 8:27:22 PM

The Nazi era was not a pick against the Jews. Stop watching all the Jewish run movies and their books and you might learn that not only Jews were picked on. Other groups include; homosexuals, Masons, Jehova Witnesses, Lutherans, Gypsies, etc. Or, are Jews the only people who matter?

Spider -

Yeah - I just saw on the Teev yesterday that, finally in Germany, a monument is being erected to commemorate the Gypsies who were almost exclusively wiped from the face of Europe in WWII.

It has therefore taken about 60 years for my relatives to get a mention - how long, one wonders, before the homosexuals, mixed race, handicapped etc. get a look in. The Holocaust was mind-blowingly terrible, but it seems a some people are unaware or forget that the Final Solution was not exclusively aimed at Jewish people, doesn't it?

Peter -

Your view of history doesn't seem to take into account poor old Charles I losing his head or the Glorious Revolution, either?

Dear Polycarp,

I don’t believe it is arrogant to ask valid questions of a god who would so easily condemn us to an eternity of torture for not believing. Particularly when that god hides his/her/its existence so well. If the penalty for unbelief is so horrendous, then that god has a moral obligation to unquestionably prove their existence.

What I do think is arrogant though, is when religious people believe that their god has performed a special miracle to heal them, when there are millions of starving children around the world - one would think they deserve at least a minute of this apparently loving god’s time.

Dear Adam....

I can identify with your point about my 'arrogance' comment, but I maintain that at the root of such questions to the Almighty "why this..why that" is the issue of "I think I know better than you" otherwise..why question?

The challenge for us is this: We have the powers of reason to ask many such questions...but most of us don't have the humility to accept that God does things which we will never understand because of our human limitations.

On the healing, yes.. that must stand out like a sore thumb to some folks. But again.. you are asking that question from some very definite assumptions about God.

At the root of that question is "God SHOULD do this and that.. and make every one well"

The problem with that is that even during Pauls time..and that of the early church.. God allowed in his own eternal purposes for James the brother of Jesus do be killed during persecution, while he miraculously freed Peter from jail.....

Paul who met the risen Lord, also had a 'thorn in the side'.. some phycial problem which bothered him... it wasn't healed...but Paul was used to heal others....

I offer you the same verse I offered to Oly "Romans 9:14-17"