A certain topic sprung up in the thread on homosexuality that I thought merited its own thread, so I've decided to paste some key comments here. It deals with discussions relating to sin and punishment. Are we punished for our "sins"? Are natural disasters a form of divine justice? Is God responsible, or nature? Please contribute. ^_^

Feel free to continue the discussion. ^_^

I think people are very confused. They think God is an evil dictator ready to strike them down. A lot of christians think this too. 85% of the world is blind. They only see what they are told to see, someone has been hurt and blames God, then they tell someone. That person believes it and tells someone else, and it goes on and on like that. Yes people die, that's because it's what happens in life. And I do think everything happens for a reason, but I don't see disasters like hurricanes as punishment. I think that if we look at it from the long run we'll see that it happened for good. I think... there is no such thing as something that is bad. Life can be complicated and some people don't know how to deal or interpret that complication, God never told us, "Here's life, deal with it." We don't have to do anything. We should just let him guide us. People need to see the world is a very wonderful place.

A major obstacle needs to be overcome in these kind of discussions...it's part of the necessary implication of an after-life and justice being meted out then.

It's like this. Even though they may not explicitly state it, some Atheists and others work on the implicit assumption that the loss of a human life is the greatest evil or tragedy. It is so great, in fact, that it may only be excused if it is to save another or more human lives.

This is in contrast to the Christian position that the loss of a human soul is the greatest tragedy. Christians have a high value of human life, but our greater focus on the human soul makes it look like we value the human life less than people who disbelieve in afterlives like ours. That may actually be true...but then if it is, it'd be because we value the human person - life, soul and all - more than any of his/her individual aspects, life included.

With that being said, we may move from the idea of the only possible justice being the fate people receive here on earth, to justice being here on earth as well as after we die. This will, inevitably, lead to a discussion on eternal torment.

But let's not jump the gun. :)

I agree with what Nevi said about the issue. :D My belief is that God doesn't exist to punish us. It's more like keeping things in the balance. I believe that God's justice is very different from how man views justice, so I don't think we'd understand His reasons just yet.

Seeker - I like what you said man. :D I didn't think of it that way before.

Yes, I agree with you both.
It's a well known fact that the average human only uses 10% of their full brain capacity. That being said I think that It may be hard for people to understand the whole "sin and punishment" thing because it's beyond their capacity. Things like that can only be shown in a "revelation."
And I don't mean the book of the bible.

God didn't screw NO over.

Natural disasters did.

Sorry for being short, but I dont like saying God much.

That 10% of brains thing isn't true Nevi, We just don't use it all at once, differet parts at different times for different things

*reads own post again* Okay, I didn't write that write. What I was trying to say was that most humans can only use %10 of their brains at once. That's because we're human. We can't do everything but I think we should make good of what we can use.
And can you imagine what life would be like if we could use all of it at once? It'd be amazing!

Would it be? What would happen? How differently would human beings function?

Your question is mainly left open to imagination. But I think that human's could be a lot more powerful. But hey, you never know.

Or maybe peoples heads would explode, like in scanners, fleshy brain meats everywhere!

All I can say is...when I look at New Orleans, and the fact that the new levies are being broken by ANOTHER hurricane...remember Noah's flood? God's cleansing the world because it had become too wicked?

I don't believe he's some malevolent being set on destroying us all, but it's like a mother killing a rodent to protect her children from disease.
Or, he could simply be cleansing the city. Washing out all the people so they could start anew, hopefully better.

I'm a little...erm...emotional at the moment, so I'm afraid I can't debate my points very well(like I ever can!), I just wanted to toss in my two cents

:puke:
*Removes Resident Evil from your memory* Yeeech

I don't see why people would say God would have anything to do with NO, it was a ticking time-bomb, it was going to happen eventually.
If, say, a giant foot had come down from the clouds and crushed the city, then you might have more of an argument

I think it is UNFAIR to point your fingers at those hit by natural disasters and say nyah-nyah it's all your fault, God's mad at YOU! <_<
I don't like it when people judge like that. Leave God to His own judgements

The only people who's fault it is are the ones that decided to build the city there, long long ago

Usually sin would involve retribution - which I would take as a punishment. Sin would be doing something wrong, and punishment is more like a disciplinary measurement. But of course, what happened to New Orleans was not punishment. Like what DQ said, it was a ticking time bomb - those who lived there knew the dangers.

What happened to New Orleans was just a natural disaster. I wouldn't think that God was doing it for fun - no way! - but more like a realization that calamities like that can happen anytime.

Punishment? No way. More like something that was bound to happen.

It really depends on you if you think that God played a part on the disaster's occurence. Speaking as somebody who believes in a God, I think that He did play a part in it, as much as He plays a part in everything that happens in the world every second of the world's existence.

And I don't think you could blame anyone for natural disasters happening. Unless you could pinpoint somebody "believable" who really caused the disaster, you can't point fingers. That's why it's called "natural".

I dunno.... the idea that New Orleans got flooded because God was punishing the citizens for their sins makes God look very unfair because people's homes were destroyed whether or not they were sinful.

If ONLY the houses of sinful people had been zapped with a lightning bolt, I could see the correlation between sin and punishment. But you can't tell me that every single person who suffered in the New Orleans flood was sinful, and that ONLY sinful people suffered. Ministers, social service workers, nurses, doctors, residents of nursing homes, crippled people, hospitalized people, mothers, children, and other innocent people suffered, too. I don't think God is so cruel.

Why would God let innocent people suffer because He wants to punish sinful people? I credit God with more wisdom than to cause widespread destruction that would harm innocent as well as sinful people indiscriminately.

Your vocabulary is much better than mine, Hopeful! :lol: "Retribution" is much more accurate than "punishment"!

*changes thread title appropriately*

I agree with Aly!
You know, we're looking over some VERY important scripture. I don't remember where it's located in the Bible but it says that if we repent God immediately forgets our sins and if we bring them up he's like, "What are you talking about?" Not in those words but, hey! I'm paraphrasing!

As with Nevi, I completely agree on that. God would never be so cruel to do that all and to place harm on so many people because they committed sins. Its evil to every person on the planet saying that if they did anything wrong, something like that would be coming to punish them for it.

Natural disaters are all done for the planet can retain its natural environment.

Yeah, Leon, I agree! ^_^
People make mistakes, that's life. But its okay if we make mistakes. Just like learning to walk, if you fall, get up and try again.