Christianity

Wolf.J, I am glad to see that you accepted. Full disclosure I have university classes all day, so my responses might not be as timely as you are used to. Please note that I will refer to God as a he as that is how I can best conceptualize God. Why does God allow natural disasters to happen? God does not want bad things to happen, but he does use and allow them to occur. In the Bible there are 3 predominant reasons as to why God allows natural disasters and bad things to happen. I'm not sure what you know about the Bible, so I might be a bit repetitive and overly explain some things. 1.When Lucifer (AKA Satan) and his followers disobeyed against God, Satan and his crew were cast out of Heaven and into Hell, but somehow, he still had access to the earth and could go before God in Heaven. (Don't ask me to explain that one because I have no idea :)) Anyway, after Eve was tempted and Adam and her both ate from the forbidden tree of Good and Evil, the earth, and human kind, fell from perfection in the sight of God and Satan became the ruler of this world (2 Corinth. 4:4) (God is the rightful ruler of the world, but when Eve fell for the temptation Satan was able to hijack the world) and sin/evil entered the world. Since Satan, in the Bible, is referred a thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10) Natural disasters are a form of destruction, and Satan does have the ability to destroy. So, one reason God allows natural disasters to happen is because the world is affected by sin and Satan, and Satan does cause destruction. (One example of Satan causing destruction in the Bible is the Story of Job - I know this story doesn't really have anything to do with weather, but it's just an example) 2.In the Bible there are some instances of God using severe weather phenomenon to judge the nations and to cleanse the land. The most famous of these is probably Noah's flood and the coming judgement of the world mentioned in the book of Revelations, where God will once again destroy the earth with fire to purify it of evil once and for all. (That is a entirely different topic) However, even though in the Bible God does show that he will use the weather as a form of judgement, he more often allows for a bad ruler to rise up and take control of the nation until the people of that nation of their free will return to principles laid out in the Bible and return ultimately to God. (Think of story of King Ahab, or when the Babylonians conquered Israel, or when the Assyrians conquered Israel) Nonetheless, God will forsake a nation and allow judgement to happen in different forms if the people of that nation chose to reject God and his principles, but like in the story of Hosea, even when a nation/people deserves judgement, God more often than not shows mercy towards them out of his love towards the nation and people. 3.Romans 8:20-23 (NKJV) For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation d groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. 23 Not only that, but we also who have e the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. " I put this verse in its entirety so that you can read it with context. When creation (the world, humanity, all of creation) fell from perfection, creation began to groan for redemption. And as it says in verse 22 the groans of creation are like that of labor pains during childbirth. The earth is part of creation, so it groans and goes through pain along with the rest of creation. Like with childbirth the groans of the earth get more intense as time goes by until the earth itself is redeemed (bought back) into perfection (judgement of evil by fire in Revelations). Could not these groans come across in the form of severe weather? Famines? Earthquakes? Floods? I hope this one makes sense. The fantastically good news, though, is that God can and does intervene with weather to save humanity from destruction. I know this because in Mark 4:35-41 and in Mathew 8:23-27 (Same story, different account) Jesus (God in human body form) supernaturally spoke to a terrific storm that was occurring , the weather obeyed him, and the storm stopped. One modern example (I sincerely believe it to be a modern example) is with what happened with Hurricane Irma in the USA this past year. By all accounts Hurricane Irma was supposed to decimate Florida and the southern States, and I strongly believe that when Christians, all around the USA and probably world prayed, God intervened and pushed it so that it would not cause a decimation to Florida. According to Weather.com out of all the possible paths Irma could have taken, in the last days before it made landfall it shifted to the least possible destructive path it could have taken. Did it still cause some destruction, yes, but it didn"t cause as much damage as it was by all accounts supposed to. You might call it luck, but I would call it supernatural providence and interference. Here is the article https://weather.com... I hope this answered your first question. Have a great rest of your day, Caitlyn Stewart