Why doesn't God intervene? A question to the religious among you..

reply to post by piedsniper


No, what I mean is that we as followers of Christ are supposed to be bringing the message of the good news to the world. It is then that God will do His thing by destroying this current world and creating it anew, where He will dwell with us.

The word of salvation through Christ has not been preached to all people (meaning nations).

reply to post by kiwifoot


Creation itself is God. Love is God. We are all God. Creation is unconditionally loving and it supports you in every possible choice, in creation, the source, there is no right and wrong. Everything is valid. It is
only a matter of perception.

Change your perception and you will change your reality. If you want intervention, you have to be the intervention. YOU create your reality.
You cant experience that of which you are not the vibration of. Those who truly believed, believe God will interfier, already experienced and are experiencing an intervention, which could be an infinite amount of things, even a magical hand that picks up wounded and saves them. There is an infinite amount of dimensions, realities, overall: everything.

But that is another alternate reality,and alternate dimension, which in its nature doesnt have the same degree of physicality as this reality and the intervention doesnt happen, it is the counsciousness that creates the situation and persuades itself that it is an outside source.

You cannot perceive that reality, because you have fixed yourself in this reality, that fits your vibration. When you would change the world, you would not change the world, you would be tuning yourself into the reality, where the world has already been like that for eternity. Remember, that everything is a reflection of yourself.

I just realized, that this thread is meant for the religious so i should probrably be going now. Peace

[edit on 15-6-2010 by vunkster]

Only God knows the answer to the OP's question. Personally, I don't think that mankind can understand God's plan completely. I have faith that God does have a plan though. Faith is that which people have, when there is a lack of scientific or other "PROOF". It can't be debated, proven or dis-proven.

No..you are not all God...

you people can't even finish the wars you started or fix the economy you collapsed.

If all humans are God, then God is a bumbling idiot and the universe should have collapsed in on itself long ago.

What people are are malfunctioning creatures that just won't die already.

reply to post by Mykahel

It is then that God will do His thing by destroying this current world and creating it anew,

If this is true then christians shouldn't need to take out pensions or long term mortgages, neither should they need to concern themselves with oil slicks or climate change.

What's the point in saving a rain forest if your god is going to destroy it , why on earth does the(allegedly) most religious nation on earth spend trillions of dollars in space exploration and, such when they know their planet is going to be destroyed.

reply to post by ProfEmeritus

Faith is that which people have, when there is a lack of scientific or other "PROOF". It can't be debated, proven or dis-proven.

Much like fairies and leprechauns the evidence is the same.

reply to post by piedsniper


What are you talking about? The existence of both faieries and leprechuans are well documented in the historical record.

reply to post by Mykahel


God, The Holy Spirit, does dwell here. There would not be life, consciousness, energy, ect....if God was not here. There is no where of existence that God is not. God is not this separate thing from you, you are a vessel of the life of God.

Its not about 'God coming here'...its about awakening to God already being here...and allowing the Spirit to work through these Earthly body complexes, for our souls to sift, weigh, and meassure things over long periods of times....thousands and thousands of years. Ask yourself how far from unity are we. This is your answer, of how very far we have yet to go. Im not trying to get hopes down, Im trying to prepare people for our future, as a planet, as a species. It is time to find that 'second wind'.

Its not supposed to be obvious that God is everywhere, but through understanding, you can find that there would be no consciousness, no life to experience, without Thee.

reply to post by piedsniper


We as Christians should be concerned about the well-being of the planet for 2 very important reasons, even though it will at some point be recreated.

1) Part of God's plan for us was to be stewards of the planet. When God placed Adam and Eve in the garden it was their responsibility to care for it. Humans are supposed to be good stewards of the planet, as it provides what we need for survival.

2) We have no idea when the end will come, so it would be selfish to live like the future state of the planet doesn't matter. God may not complete His plan in my lifetime or that of my daughter, but there is no reason to make my descendants suffer for my poor choices.

The Apostle Paul actually had to warn one of the early churches about acting in that way because they stopped working and just started giving up on everything because they thought Jesus would come back before they would run out of finances to support themselves. Some had already squandered what they had and were living off the generosity of others. It was at this point where he told them "If a man does not work, he shall not eat."



America is very religious, but a very small percentage of Americans are actually Christian. Most are Christian in name only, living a life that in no way resembles Christ and therefor are not really Christians.

Space is a waste of time and money. I wish we didn't study it to the extent that we do. We've got satellites up there that are helpful, but how much money and how many lives have been wasted in providing absolutely nothing of use to people.

Perhaps study into the depths of the oceans would be much more beneficial. But if you are saying that space exploration is completely useless, I completely agree with that at least.

[edit on 15-6-2010 by Mykahel]

God has intervened in thought, weather, action and all around being there. The oil spill caused an alarming rate during the first two weeks. something else happen. during the time of the oil spill and the size of it showing on google map the oil was "some how" being contained within a perimeter and stayed like that for a bit. until He obviously gave up on us to fix it. I'm pretty sure we have the means to fix it. but.............. some reason were not. We can sure build, run and maintain our world, but we can't fix "our" problems. This sounds like the adam and eve time where humans are blaming everything except themselves.

If you don't see it you just don't wanna.

reply to post by LeoVirgo


God's Holy Spirit is here and it dwells within those who have accepted the truth of Christ and desire God to live within them, acting as their counselor.

I don't buy into the "God is in everyone, we are all God" postmodern mindset. Honestly, I think it is blasphemous (both incorrect and an insult to God). There is a big difference with God letting His Spirit reside in us and claiming that we are each god living in physical bodies to experience "life."

God already experienced what it meant to be human. He did so in the God/Man of Jesus Christ (Yeshua). Not that He didn't already understand what it would have been like, but so that we could fully understand that He loved us so much that He would limit himself by becoming man and go through the same trials that we have to. He did it so that we could relate to Him, not so that He could experience His creation. He walked the Earth with Adam and Eve before the fall. There was no need for Him to become man just to experience His creation.

Claiming to be God is blasphemous, and I'll have no part of it.

I won't say more than that because my message would very quickly become disrespectful. Peace.

Originally posted by Mykahel
reply to post by LeoVirgo

 

God's Holy Spirit is here and it dwells within those who have accepted the truth of Christ and desire God to live within them, acting as their counselor.

I don't buy into the "God is in everyone, we are all God" postmodern mindset. Honestly, I think it is blasphemous (both incorrect and an insult to God). There is a big difference with God letting His Spirit reside in us and claiming that we are each god living in physical bodies to experience "life."

God already experienced what it meant to be human. He did so in the God/Man of Jesus Christ (Yeshua). Not that He didn't already understand what it would have been like, but so that we could fully understand that He loved us so much that He would limit himself by becoming man and go through the same trials that we have to. He did it so that we could relate to Him, not so that He could experience His creation. He walked the Earth with Adam and Eve before the fall. There was no need for Him to become man just to experience His creation.

Claiming to be God is blasphemous, and I'll have no part of it.

I won't say more than that because my message would very quickly become disrespectful. Peace.

I never said 'we are God and God is us. I said, without the Holy Spirit's offering of self, for life to emanate forth from Spirit...we would not be here, we could not exists, there would be no life of matter. There is a Divine light in you...but that does not make you God. There is a Divine light within all of us, but that does not make us God. It does make us carriers, of the Divine Light though.

If there is life, then yes, the light of God is dwelling here.

Dont worry about offending me or me taking offense, I am very prepared for he path I am walking in. We are body/soul/spirit complexes....we all do carry a part of the Spirit within us.

All my best
LV

I believe God has intervened many times when I ask for something simple like a change in the weather. I believe God will intervene when large groups of people pray for a change. From what I see, no one on tv, in churches, not even the president or anyone else is praying for God's help to stop the oil spill or any other thing. As an observer, why would God intervene when there seems to be so little faith? That's not to say that some communities may be praying and asking for miracles but in my life, I don't see that. In fact I see the opposite, people seem to think God does not exist or that God and Satan are something that is only something you hear about in church or talk about in threads like this.

I remember hearing a story about a flood. The floodwaters kept rising and the woman who lived in the house being flooded (I'll call her Susan for this story.) said she believed God would save her. Anyway the water kept rising and she went up on the roof. Some guys in a boat came by offering to rescue her but she refused saying God would save her. The water kept rising and she was wondering why she wasn't getting any divine intervention. The guys she saw earlier came back and tried to convince her to get in the boat. She kept refusing saying God would save her. The water kept rising and she was forced up to the tip of the roof. A helicopter came to rescue her but she was so stubborn she refused to be rescued. Then after the helicopter had to leave, she wondered why God did not intervene. It looked like she was going to die.

She died. In heaven she asked why God did not intervene. The response was, I sent help 3 times but you refused all 3 times. I thought I would repeat this story to give a different perspective to those who think there is never any intervention.

reply to post by kiwifoot


Part I

Sorry for my bad English. It's rather difficult for me to express my thoughts in this language, but I'll try, since the question you asked is very important.

It seems that West completely lost understanding of Saint Tradition and Scripture of Church. I mean Christianity. Here I'll try to describe the teaching of Church which remains (yet) intact in the Saint Tradition of Orthodox Church (The East). (If someone doesn't like this, Please do not take this as offence.)


So let’s go to that question. Why doesn't God intervene?

Many people think that God is first of all Justice. Look at this world. What is the main law is driving the world? Not justice, obviously. If God was Just as we understand, then we shouldn't even exist after the first sin (sin of Adam and Eve). So what is the law driving the world?

According to the Saint Tradition of Church we believe that God is Love, and only Love. Not anger, justice or any other human passions (note that word 'passion' means suffering) are His abilities.
Also, note that He doesn't have love, but He IS Love and only HE is Love exactly. By the way, the understanding of Love today is also corrupted.
So He is infinite unlimited Love.

The Love always whishes Good for everyone, especially for it's creation. So what is a REAL GOOD? This is the key question.
Professor of Moscow Spiritual Academy Alexey I. Osipov while speaking on this topic likes to present the following comparision:
"Imagine the following situation. The aliens, who know nothing about the medicine, are observing the doctor receiving patients. What do they see?
The first one has tuberculosis. And doctor friendly tapping his shoulder sends the patient to the health resort - "You should rest, my friend".
The second one has appendicitis. And doctor commands loudly "on the surgical table, immediately!!!", and then starts cutting him with the knife.
Those aliens will obviously think "this guy loves the first one and hates the second". While the truth is that the doctor just applies the proper treatment for that patients because he wishes good for both of them."

Of course this story is a very simplistic case but it helps to understand.

According to teachings of our Saint Fathers (in Orthodox Church such title have only the greatest saint teachers of all time and not every cleric as used in the West), God is not the source of evil. He just sometimes doesn't intervene, as you said. And this is to prevent a greater evil, greater suffering and for the real good of His creation. So, God Loves all His creation and is taking care of it constantly. About every single creature! We and the West as well call this Providence.

So, if God is so great and unlimited Love who constantly cares even of the primitive creature, how can He forget about those children?, will you ask.
He doesn't forget. Even this terrible death is a part of the Great Providence of Love. And we just like those aliens mentioned above cannot understand it, cannot accept with our fallen, secular mind.

While thinking about such things we never or rarely take the eternity into account. Our minds are nailed down to this world. However all know that they are just guests here, and for a short period of time. (20, 30, 100 years - doesn't matter since the death will take all from us). And this is why atheism is the most terrible religion - a belief in the eternal death. A mother who doesn't believe in God and Eternal Life bourns their children just for death of them. And if we take the Eternity into account, all things will have absolute (different) meaning to us. Always take the Eternity into account. And that's the Christian way of living - to look on all things from the point of Eternity. Think about that.

Part II

Regarding those poor children.
We do not know what future of those children will be. And we must confess to ourselves – actually we do not know what is the REAL GOOD for them. We’re even not sure what is REAL GOOD for us.
But the unlimited Love, our Heavenly Father, our Savior knows this and provides us the best conditions ACCORDING TO OUR SPIRITUAL STATE. That’s why He said “ But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (I was afraid to translate this words myself, so I took them from one of the West bibles. It seems the meaning is not corrupted.). This also means that He would instantly take us from this world (from ‘life’) if it was the best thing for us. We do believe that those children will receive infinitely much more then if they continue to live this world longer.
I hope I answered your question.
Please, excuse me if I translated some words incorrectly.



[edit on 16-6-2010 by forcecoder]

We Human have not understand the real love of God. We have not understood that this planet is a living being and everything on it has a cycle. The whole cycle is born and die. One tree born and die. An animal, an insect, a cell. Everything born and die. It looks to us horrible when someone die in a accident, when is killed at war or die of famine. As long as we don't understand the word and promises of Jesus Christ, it looks to us that God is watching to other side and not to earth. We have to understand that Jesus, in the name of his Father, promise us the life forever. Not the limited life as on Earth. We have not understand the meaning of resurrection. Resurrection is born in the real life. Jesus told us in the easiest way how trespass from "this life" to the real life:just having faith. Just believing in His words. Just believing in resurrection. He showed us that resurrection is true, That ascension is true. And He knew that mankind is going to have a precious opportunity to ascend all and forever thanks to the events that are happening right now.

This is not a religious matter. Religious was invented by few to dominate the mind of others. Read Jesus Christ life. Read Paul's letters. Prey to God thru his son to give us the understanding to accept his word.

God the creator does not intervene, because human beings were given a Certain period of time 6000 years ? to prove whether or not humans could rule themselves, evidently Lucifer posed this question that human beings were ''better off ruling themselves'' so the question arose ,and humans were given this opportunity .People WANT to decide for themselves everything ,just listen to music how it is constantly saying ''do what you want to do ,be what you wanted to be etc .Thats why no matter how bad it gets ,God does not intervene not yet .It does state in the Bible ''Unless those days were cut short no flesh would survive ''.God will step in and stop the lunacy ,war ,corruption ,monetary system ,and set up a Government over humans which will rule in justice, peace ,harmony with the earth ,those who refuse to adhere to the rules for everyones own good, will be removed permanently .After that people will be able to look back and see that it has been conclusively proven that humans cannot rule themselves and need a higher supreme intelligence to rule them .We cannot rule ourselves anymore than cattle can manage themselves ,we need a higher authority that cannot be bribed ,overthrown ,corrupted ,destroyed, and acts Purely for the Good of humanity ,Only the True Creator can do that for us

I suspect this explanation will not satisfy you, but according to the law of karma (even Jesus mentioned it when he said, "As ye sow, so shall ye reap"), each soul must get back whatever it has done to others.

A corollary to the law of karma is the law of reincarnation.

That means a baby that gets scalded to death might've been a person, most likely in his last lifetime, who did something similar, such as scalding a baby to death.

Eventually a soul evolves enough to learn from its errors to act with wisdom and not make such terrible mistakes, such as harming others (which will lead also to harming oneself).

In mass karma, in which many persons are swept up in a huge event, there are some "innocents." God makes it up to them later in a future existence, perhaps by giving them an extra blissful astral heaven after death; or some reward in the next lifetime.

Paramahansa Yogananda addresses such questions. If you study his teachings you can get understanding; but Yoganada does even scold God and say it wasn't fair what He did to us. God made this world terrible in many ways.

God sees the truth, but waits. - Leo Tolstoy
I am just a human constrained in my views by so many factors that go along with being human. I could no more begin to understand the breadth and depth of God, than I could pigeon hole you based on a single instance in which I might witness you not doing something, when perhaps you should have. Instead, I've always found it more productive to look inside and decide what I can do here and now, instead of waiting for God to swoop down take care of business, and when he doesn't, continue to do nothing but question his competence. If you were truly moved by the stories you've related here....then besides posting on ATS, what decisions have you made to get involved and mitigate the suffering of others, or help them avoid the circumstances that bring about the suffering? We can't possibly know why God waits, but the real question...is why are you?

The ONE TRUE GOD is not responsible for acts of great injustice, but if not then who or what is?

I try to incorporate Christian and Buddist priciple's when struck with these impending questions.

The Multiverse is all about BALANCE, reincarnation plays a role in our plane of existence (I believe) and these terrible acts are just lessons for the rest of us to be happy and appreciate the life that was given to us.

In the end, only GOD can answer your question, try to formulate your own hypotheseis and theory, and also try to incorporate what you have learned through out your life's experiences...

[edit on 17-6-2010 by chemical_chameleon]