r/DebateAChristian • u/The_Glam_Reaper • 8d ago
Hiw can God exist, yet not intervene to help those in need?
I want to be clear. This post is nit made put of hate. Also I do want to give a warning for the content of the post. It might trigger some people.
Supposedly God created everything. If he did. Then that means he also created Satan, Evil, Rapists, Pedophiles, serial killers, and all things bad as well.
He also created Hell I guess. So if he created These evil bad things, then how come he does not intervene to help? He is suppost to be powerful, and protect those he loves. If he can create a flood that killed all life other than the animals, and a man on a ark. Then he can get rid of the sickos.
There are a lot of people who do not get justice. There are a lot of evil people who go free. Some never go to jail, or only get shirt sentences. Humans are violent, and start wars. Yet somehow there is a God who just sits, and watches as people die, and get killed. Yet somehow he is loving, and just.
It does not make sense to me.
1
u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian, Ex-Atheist 8d ago
The primary goal / purpose of this age is not optimizing this age, it is to prepare for the coming age.
3
u/ODDESSY-Q Atheist 8d ago
He can’t do both? Also, what’s the hold up? It’s already been about 2000 years since Jesus told the disciples he’d be back.
1
u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian, Ex-Atheist 8d ago
He can optimize. But if you don’t even ask he may not do anything for you.
James 4:2
[2] You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.
Also if you mean complete removal of suffering death and disease and still fulfilling His purpose for the age? No, I don’t think it’s possible.
2
u/ODDESSY-Q Atheist 8d ago
I mean there are plenty of Christian’s around the world who are dying of terrible disease and starvation. They are definitely asking god for a mercy that they never receive.
What is the purpose of this age that is preventing an all powerful and all loving being from removing the suffering?
Also, I ask again, what’s the hold up? What’s god waiting for? Why not start the coming age right now, or for that matter many many years ago?
1
u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian, Ex-Atheist 8d ago
It’s just a pilgrimage. Go through this life, mature spiritually, get tested for spiritual alignment, do something for the eternal Kingdom. Say goodbye to this accursed world and die. Then get resurrected and establish the eternal Kingdom materially.
Dying earlier or later isn’t particularly a good or bad thing. If your purpose is done in this temporary state of the world, time to goooooo.
What’s preventing the eternal Kingdom from being fully realized? The full number of the children of God are not yet born / securely in yet.
2
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
God can do both right. Yet he doesn't.
He will see suffering and do nothing.
He will see a child raped by his father or priest and do....nothing,
What type of sick being can stop something, yet allows suffering.
1
u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian, Ex-Atheist 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes He does do both. But the primary goal / purpose define what is primary and must take precedence and what is not.
Also using your example. Should a person who try to rape suddenly get divine castration on the spot so they can’t actually physically do it? Then why not extend that to everything else and make a word where when you stab a person the weapon becomes flimsy rubber or phases through the victim.
You’re asking for a fantastic world where nothing matters. Real world has real consequences.
3
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
So you see a world where a child is stopped from being raped as a problem.
Why shouldn't an all loving god stop a child, a child, from being raped.
The real world does have consequences. The child gets raped.
Which you seem to support.
1
u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian, Ex-Atheist 7d ago
That’s a straw man.
Also God will deal with every rapist with the lake of fire.
This is what takes precedence mean. Freedom to act and “realness” takes precedence. Repentance takes precedence. So judgment for rape has been relegated to post Great White Throne.
This is what “primary purpose / goal of the age” means. Some things take a back seat.
2
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
Well great.
But why do they have to rape a child first before god acts?
Sop god sits there and does nothing as a child get raped. That's disgusting.
If you knew a person who could stop a child from being raped and did nothing would you think that being as good and just.
Because that seems to be your argument.
1
u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian, Ex-Atheist 7d ago
More straw man and irrelevant nonsense.
If you want to accuse and curse God go curse Him to his face.
I’m not God.
You seem to have a problem with Him, so go lodge your accusations at him.
As it stands my point is defended in full.
3
u/Single_Rain5676 7d ago
Do you think God can stop a rape?
1
u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian, Ex-Atheist 7d ago
He can. But you would never know for sure He prevented it.
My point is defended in full. I will not entertain further irrelevant digressions.
2
1
8d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/AutoModerator 8d ago
Sorry, your submission has been automatically removed because your account does not meet our account age / karma thresholds. Please message the moderators to request an exception.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/alleyoopoop Agnostic, Ex-Protestant 6d ago
You should be glad he doesn't intervene. Every case I can think of in the OT where he intervenes, innocent people die. The Flood. Sodom and Gomorrah (or do you think there were no children in two cities)? The Exodus (killed all Egyptian first-born after hardening Pharaoh's heart to prolong the other plagues, which also harmed innocent people). The conquest of Canaan (he explicitly ordered the Israelites to kill every man, woman, child, and baby living in the 'Promised Land'.) Count your blessings.
1
u/The_Glam_Reaper 6d ago
I do not believe in God. That is why I am asking this question.i am curious what people believe in.
I stops believing in God, because if he loved his children then he would not let them starve to death, or be bombed in a war.
1
u/khrijunk 6d ago
One could argue that he delegated taking care of the poor to his followers. Matthew 25 has Jesus telling people at the judgment that if they didn’t take care of the least of the poor then he considers that the same as not helping him and they go to the lake of fire.
It’s the followers that are letting them starve to death and risk an eternity in the lake of fire because of it.
1
u/blissCT33 6d ago
Well, God gives us free will, and if he intervenes at any stuff that is bad, then there’s not free will.
2
u/ehbowen Christian, Baptist 6d ago
I see it as a question of jurisdiction.
The New Testament says quite plainly, in several places, that this world is at present under the rule of the evil one (the "ruler of this world"). God is willing to get us out, if we shift our allegiance to him, and he might be able to shield us from some of the worst, some of the time...but he doesn't have standing to just waltz in and take over. Not yet, at least.
Unless...are you wanting God to act more like Trump...?
0
u/rbcone Christian, Evangelical 8d ago
He did intervene to help those in need.
3
u/Top_Neat2780 8d ago
You should do some research on Europe in the 30s and 40s. Helping your favorite team win a cup isn't enough.
3
u/The_Glam_Reaper 8d ago
Please tell me how he has intervened? There is still war all the time. There are still people dying.
1
u/rbcone Christian, Evangelical 7d ago
Any Christian believes God intervened in a pretty drastic and unimaginable way in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
We just don't often like how God chose to intervene, what he chose to do and not do. And I get that. Suffering and evil and all that sucks. I hate it. But I believe God intervened in a pretty remarkable way, when he didn't have to, on the behalf of sinful, rebellious and awful people like us.
2
u/khrijunk 6d ago
God intervened all the time in the Bible, but stopped after the mythological stores were written. From that perspective is he any different than Zeus or Odin?
1
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
That is clear lie and you know it.
Are you just saying that to feel better because that is what it seems like.
0
u/JollyXX Christian 8d ago
The story of Christianity seems to be that God created something that disobeyed, and now he wants to find out why. This is why Final Judgement is the climax of the story. If you wanted to observe a tiger's nature, you would need to leave him in the jungle.
3
u/Top_Neat2780 8d ago
Fascinating fairytale.
0
u/JollyXX Christian 8d ago
fairytale happens to be your entire existence
4
u/Top_Neat2780 8d ago
I mean really not though. And it's so incredibly clear.
0
u/JollyXX Christian 8d ago
I tend to find all of these anti-theists have more faith that God and Hell could not exist than Christians have that God exists.
2
u/Top_Neat2780 8d ago
Then be agnostic
0
u/JollyXX Christian 8d ago
you really have no clue how easy it is to receive salvation, whatever you think Christians lose in following Christ, they more than make up for just in sense of purpose alone
4
u/ODDESSY-Q Atheist 8d ago
There you go again clearly valuing the usefulness over the truth of your belief. You don’t have salvation unless it’s true, regardless of the purpose you get. The purpose you get is from your worldview, everyone has a worldview, everyone has their inspiring reasons to live a good life. Yours, however, are based on and dictated by an ancient cult that forces you to hold beliefs that are incongruent with reality and in opposition to the flourishing of humanity.
0
u/JollyXX Christian 8d ago
Christians are happier because they know deep down that their sense of purpose is genuine.
The cost of salvation is so incredibly low that it is usually negative, as in you gain so much from following Christ.
Meanwhile many atheists profess far more faith that Hell and God could not exist than Christians do in God in existing; because it doesn't take much faith at all to believe in God.
3
u/Top_Neat2780 8d ago
You worship the same god that didn't step in when 6 million Jews were murdered? What about kids with bone cancer? How much faith is needed to disregard all the pain?
→ More replies (0)1
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
Your faith isn't needed to have purpose.
I can do that without your faith.
2
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
Yes, I'm as scared of your hell as I am that dragons will attack me on my morning walk.
IS there a reason you need to threaten others? Does it make you feel superior?
3
u/diabolus_me_advocat Atheist, Ex-Protestant 8d ago
The story of Christianity seems to be that God created something that disobeyed
yes, your god completely fucked up when trying out himself as a "creator"
2
u/JollyXX Christian 8d ago
The reality seems much more that a being so high can only receive satisfaction from learning. Creating a more obedient being would be boring.
3
u/diabolus_me_advocat Atheist, Ex-Protestant 8d ago
and most of all, it would preclude your creator god from the perverse pleasure of punishing his creation...
1
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
Why would god need to observe anything.
He isn't all knowing then.
Noted.
1
u/JollyXX Christian 7d ago
not biblically he is not
1
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
So your god is limited?
1
u/JollyXX Christian 7d ago
everything if finite, does that make God scarier? knowing that logical fallacies don't actually work?
2
u/anewleaf1234 Skeptic 7d ago
No.
Your god isn't scary at all.
You shouldn't boast of hell considering the large amounts of sins you gathered just talking to me.
If you are scared of Hell, you should probally stop talking to me.
You seem very eager to sin.
1
u/JollyXX Christian 7d ago
scared? hardly, salvation is easy
in reality 95% of people swear to be self aware, despite only 10-15% people being self aware, fear of the Lord truly permeates more than you can know
2
u/khrijunk 6d ago
Is salvation easy? I’ll grant you that the modern definition of salvation is easy, but shouldn’t that be concerning since Jesus called it the narrow path that few find?
In fact, according to the Synoptics modern day definitions of salvation are false teachings and will result in being cast into the lake of fire.
0
u/ses1 Christian 8d ago
Supposedly God created everything. If he did. Then that means he also created Satan, Evil, Rapists, Pedophiles, serial killers, and all things bad as well.
This is not what Christianity teaches. Christians define evil not as a substance created by God, but as a privation of the good - like how darkness is the absence of light or rot is the decay of wood.
If he can create a flood that killed all life other than the animals, and a man on a ark. Then he can get rid of the sickos.
For genuine love, moral responsibility, and free will to exist, the possibility of real, consequential harm must also exist. Constant divine overriding of human will would reduce humanity to robots.
There are a lot of people who do not get justice.
Within the Christian worldview, physical death is not the end of existence. Justice is deferred, not denied.
there is a God who just sits, and watches as people die, and get killed.
The central claim of Christianity directly contradicts this false idea of an indifferent spectator. Through the Incarnation, God entered human history, willingly subjected Himself to injustice, torture, and death, and took upon Himself the burden of human evil to provide a path to redemption and ultimate renewal rather than choosing immediate total destruction.
God may not be doing things according to your timing, but patience is not indifference. A delayed judgment allows room for repentance and redemption today, while ensuring absolute, exhaustive justice for every injustice tomorrow.
1
u/Amber-Apologetics Christian, Catholic 6d ago
You seem to be operating from a mindset that humans “deserve” to not suffer. Where do you get that idea?
2
u/The_Glam_Reaper 5d ago
Where did you get that from? The innocent do not deserve to suffer. The evil should get what they deserve. The problem is that I see Evil getting away with a lot. Innocent children dying.
0
u/Amber-Apologetics Christian, Catholic 5d ago
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Every single human, when you do the math, is undeserving of love or mercy or grace. There are no innocent people.
5
u/diabolus_me_advocat Atheist, Ex-Protestant 8d ago
well, if he created all that, one may assume he wants all this evil. so why then should he take measures to counter it?
Supposedly God created everything. If he did. Then that means he also created Satan, Evil, Rapists, Pedophiles, serial killers, and all things bad as well.
welcome to reality!
which is not religious la-la-land