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Does God exist?

Discussion in 'Evangelism, Missions & Witnessing' started by Plavious, Jan 29, 2024.

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  1. Plavious

    Plavious Member

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    Let him show himself to me.
    Does God really exist? If yes, why will he allow cruelty, suffering and injustice?. Why will he allow the wicked to live? Why will God allow the suffering of the innocent? Why will God allow the molestation of the weak and powerless? Why will God give bread to the stone hearted and alliwfamine?

    Does it mean we are already living in the time of the great tribulation? War and famine but no one care.
    How can God give deaf ears to suffering.
    Is what we are going through not enough for him to have mercy on us. If truly God exist, why can't he speak to the hearts of people in situations like mine?

    I feel like cursing the day I was born. This is too much.
     
    • Prayers Prayers x 2
  2. tyndale1946

    tyndale1946 Well-Known Member
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    2 Kings 6:15 And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?

    16 And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

    17 And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

    18 And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the LORD, and said, Smite this people, I pray thee, with blindness. And he smote them with blindness according to the word of Elisha.

    Does God really exist?... Plavious!... Open your eyes!... Brother Glen:)
     
  3. 37818

    37818 Well-Known Member

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    Acts of the Apostles 17:28, . . . For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; . . . .

    God is omnipresent.

    God's Hebrew Name means "Existant" or "Is."

    Romans 8:8-9, . . . So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. . . .

    2 Corinthians 13:5, . . . Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates? . . .

    1 John 5:12-13, . . . He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. . . ."
     
    #3 37818, Jan 30, 2024
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2024
  4. 37818

    37818 Well-Known Member

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  5. Alan Gross

    Alan Gross Well-Known Member

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    Fifty ways to say “there is no God” (riffing on Psalm 14).

    "Psalm 14 (and its doublet, Psalm 53) always fascinate me.

    "I have commented before on Psalm 53, and today I found the following meditation lying around—something I started but never finished or posted.

    "So here it is. First, the text:

    אָ֘מַ֤ר נָבָ֣ל בְּ֭לִבּוֹ אֵ֣ין אֱלֹהִ֑ים

    Psalm 14:1 in Hebrew.

    "Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”
    They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
    there is no one who does good.


    "The LORD looks down from heaven on humankind
    to see if there are any who are wise,
    who seek after God.

    "They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
    there is no one who does good,
    no, not one.

    "Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
    who eat up my people as they eat bread,
    and do not call upon the LORD?

    "There they shall be in great terror,
    for God is with the company of the righteous.

    "You would confound the plans of the poor,
    but the LORD is their refuge.

    "O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!

    "When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,
    Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad."


    Psalm 14, NRSV
    “There is no God”—the prime directive, the defining credo, of The Fool
    —has more alternative forms than Kant’s categorical imperative.

    "First, let us be clear that “there is no God” does not signify
    the contemporary secular atheist. No, contemporary secular atheists
    are mostly conscientious and moral, and more than a little right:
    they reject the God,

    "(i.e., the duplicitous claims to being Christ-followers and God-followers)
    of the real ’en elohim crowd, which consists of people
    who do not call themselves atheists, which includes,
    perhaps primarily, Church People like you and me.

    "How do we know who the real God-deniers are? This Psalm tells us.

    "It is neither the semi-intellectual New Atheist crowd
    (who deserve what the lion David Bentley Hart gives them
    in the den called Atheist Delusions) nor the ordinary moral,

    "nongullible people you and I know who won’t accept BS of any variety,
    including the varieties served up by incompletely integrated
    (the more generous understanding)
    or hypocritical (the harsher diagnosis) Christians.

    "(In connection with which: Has anyone else among my Christian friends
    been feeling what I have been feeling? namely,
    that I have more spiritual kinship with some of my frankly agnostic
    and even atheist friends than with some professing Christians?)

    "Rather, the real God-deniers are people who “eat up”
    (treat abusively, for their own advantage) the poor, aka the righteous,
    who are God’s own people.

    "Alternative forms of credo of The Fools:
    • There is a God, and God has blessed the prosperous,
    which is why they are prospering and why it is OK for them
    not to mind that others are not.
    • There is a God, and God wants me to flourish while you suffer.
    • There is a God, and God wants me to exploit the poor.
    "Those corollaries are derived rather directly from the words of the Psalm.

    "We could go one step further and derive another corollary
    by trying to imagine the reaction of the people
    about whom the Psalmist is praying if they could hear his prayer:

    "There is a God, and God wants me to accuse other people all the time
    but never to accuse myself.

    "God wants me to react angrily, and never just sit quietly and listen
    and pray for insight, when other people accuse me,
    because God knows I’m always right.

    We can go even further and preface “There is a God”
    to any statement that we ourselves or people around us
    take as axioms to guide our thoughts about and conduct in the world
    —as a way of stimulating self-critical reflection:

    -- There is a God, and God has empowered the powers that be,
    so don’t question them.

    --There is a God, and God wants me to vote,
    but wants me to do everything I can to make it hard for you to vote.

    --There is a God, and God wants me to change the channel
    when the news shows suffering in the world,
    not to sit with the suffering and pray and ponder what I can do to help.

    --There is a God, and God created this earth and the seas and skies
    and all the wondrous creatures that inhabit them,
    but God doesn’t mind if I join in trashing the whole thing
    for short-term profit.

    --There is a God, and God created all of humankind,
    and God in the person of Jesus Christ laid aside every advantage
    and came to us in the form of a servant for the salvation of all humankind,

    "but God wants me to shout “[My country] first and greatest!”
    whenever topics pertaining to our coexistence
    with the rest of the world come up for discussion.

    "How many of our commitments and slogans become obviously untenable
    when we set them next to our claim that we believe in the God of the Bible?

    "The list could be extended.

    "We have so many elaborate ways of saying
    ‘en elohim”—there is no God, i.e., no God-as-described-the-Bible,
    as opposed to the god of our own self-serving conceptions.
     
  6. 37818

    37818 Well-Known Member

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    The question, "Does God exist?" This question places existence not needing God, but placing God in need of existence. Which is contrary to His identity. Exodus 3:14.
     
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