From: brian@lpl.arizona.edu (Brian Ceccarelli 602/621-9615)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: THE MIND OF THE BIBLE BELIEVER
Date: 29 Dec 92 16:33:07 GMT
Distribution: world,public
Organization: Lunar & Planetary Laboratory, Tucson AZ.


Jeff West (jwest@wisc) writes:

:  I just love these kind of rationalizations.  NOT!  Your a real piece
:  of work John.  I have nothing against what you believe. Faith or lack
:  thereof in religion and god is a personal thing.  But your above
:  statement shows an * Incredible * lack of compassion and humanity!!!
:  The statement that finally pushed me over the edge of considering
:  myself a Christian anymore was after watching a beautiful 4 year old
:  little girl go through the terrible torture of chemotherapy for cancer.
:  After a long fight and spending most of her life knowing nothing but
:  fear and pain people actually had (have) the gaul to say;
:  "It was god's will."
:  If this is your god and his idea of; "giving us something that's good
:  for us in the long run."  Then you can KEEP him and all of your assinine
:  beliefs!
:
:  Jeff "you really hit my hot button" West


It grieves me to hear this kind of discussion.  God gets accused of
things that are really not his to begin with.  Both Christians and
non-Christians alike attribute the pain and suffering in the world
to God.   This is not true.

   I'll state my point first then back it up.  The point is this.  
Ultimately, we as humans have chosen death over life.  We had preferred
cancer and old age a long time ago.   The four year old girl gets what
she has inherited from the beginnings of humanity.  Death.  Suffering. 
It is sad.  Truly a pity.  But guess what?  God didn't create it that way. 
He originally created us to live forever.  God doesn't dole out cancer
to 4-year olds.  Such is a sad and major consequence of what we as
humans chose for ourselves a long long time ago.  

   Do you remember that in the Bible, we humans chose to gain access
to the knowledge of good and evil at the price of our lives.   Despite God's
ample and clear warning. we chose to eat from that infamous fruit.  It
reaped death for Adam and Eve then.  It reaps death for us now.  We,
through some sort of spiritual genetics, inherited death from the
originators.  Due to Adam and Eve, humanity had changed ever after. 
We now die.  80 year olds die. 4 year olds die.  There are old age, cancer,
sickness, war, starvation.  All this stuff happens now.  But remember,
this is not the way God created it to begin with.   God's will then is 
still his will now.  For all to come to Him and have everlasting life.  


  Here are some details from the Bible.   They, I hope show that even
though God can work good from evil, that God is not the culprit behind
suffering and death.  

1.   Recall Genesis 1:16

     And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from
     any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree
     of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it,
     you will surely die."

Genesis 3:6

     When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for
     food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
     wisdom, she [Eve] took some and ate it.  She also gave some
     to her husband.

Genesis 5:5

     Adam . . . died.


You may also note that the "serpent" had a major role in enticing
Eve to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  You may
attribute some of the responsibility of man's fall to the serpent,  
but God still held Adam and Eve accountable for the choice they made.
The consequence of eating that fruit reaped death for humanity thereafter,
and yet Adam and Eve knew that consequence behorehand.

2.  Another example from Job.  This example shows that Satan
    can and does instigate and cause suffering and death.  Without
    God's intervention, there is no cork on Satan's evil.

Job, as you may recall, was a properous man.  He was "blameless, 
upright, feared God, shunned evil.  He had 7 sons, 3 daughters, 
7000 sheep, 3000 camels . . . ."  And the hands of Satan, all
material possessions and the lives of Job's family, perished.

Recall the dialog from Job 1:9-12:

    "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied.  "Have
     you [Lord] not put a hedge around him and his household and
     everything he has?  You have blessed the work of his
     hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread 
     throughout the land.  But stretch out your hand
     and strike everything he has, and he will surely
     curse you to your face."

     The Lord said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he
     has is in your hands, but the man himself do not
     lay a finger."

     Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

Now read the next few paragraphs.  The Sabeans attacked
and carried off Job's oxen and donkeys.  They put the servants
to the sword.  The sheep were burnt up.  The Chaldeans swept
down and carried off his camels.  They killed more servants.
Then, a mighty wind swept in and blew down Job's house on top
of his entire family.  They all died.  Satan then afflicted
Job with sores . . . .

     Who would you say caused all this?  God?  NOT!  God merely 
allowed Job to be given "into Satan's hands."  Being in Satan's
hands is not a great place to be.  Job suffered in them.  Satan
caused the deaths of the servants, the death of his family, and 
Job's sores.  These were the results of Satan's will, not
God's will. 

     For some semantic hair splitters out there, some will
note that during all this havoc, one may think along the lines 
of how Job and Job's friends think, that is, that God is the one
who is afflicting Job.  But from verse 1:12, the reader knows it is 
Satan.  It is again confirmed in verse 2:7.  Job and Job's buddies
are basically in the dark.  They do not know what is going on behind 
the curtains like the reader does. The reader is given the
perspective from the heavenly throne room.  Job and his friends
have but a limited view.
      

3.  Consider Jesus' death.  Here was the only sinless man ever
    to exist.  A perfect man.  God incarnate.  Who killed him?
    Pontious Pilate?  Judas Iscariot?  Sure, they had their hands
    in the pie.  Do you know of anyone else?  How about the
    same dastardly being who enticed Eve to eat the fruit
    and killed off Job's family?  What "possessed" Judas
    Iscariot to betray Jesus?
    
    Luke 22:3

    Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve.



From the Bible you will see Satan ruining people's lives and
enjoying it.  On the other hand, from the Bible you will see God
fortifying people's lives, promoting the good, removing the
evil,  loving, and encouraging love.  God wills that no one should
perish but have everlasting life.  

Here is a question you may want to ask yourself.  "Do I have the
same affinity to the tree of knowledge of good and evil as did Eve?"
Eve, remember, was a perfect human being before the fall.  And she
fell into the trap.  We are in a fallen state already.  Are we
better than Eve?  Can we handle the knowledge of good and evil?
What does human history say?  What was Eve's option in the first
place?  She could have eaten from the Tree of Life.

That same stubbornness and self-will that led Eve into 
thinking that she could handle the knowledge of good and evil, is 
the same stubborness and self-will and over the same thing that 
prevents people from eating from the Bread of Life today.  
People are still choosing death over life.  

So people, John 3:16:

    "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only
     Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but
     have eternal life."

And John 6:35:

    Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life."




With sincerity,



Brian Ceccarelli
----------------
brian@gamma1.lpl.arizona.edu