(April 5, 2014 at 7:48 pm)RobbyPants Wrote: So, Christians: how can you trust God?I think that for many Christians, god is initially defined as the epitome of positive traits. God doesn't just love, god IS love. He is merciful and just, he only wants what is good for us, he would do anything if we only asked, he is a kind and generous father.
When you get to the parts that counter that image, you automatically reject it and seek out explanations. If those won't do, then it's on to the rationalizations, even though the end result of those is to create a being who has every right to treat you however he so wishes, and displays the willingness to turn your life into a nightmare because he damn well wanted to. I wonder if Job, after his family and fortune had been restored (well, with the exception of his first ten children and all of his servants and helpers who had been brutally slaughtered) ever had a good night's sleep after what he went through, knowing that god had allowed his life to be ripped apart and was angry with Job for just wanting to know why.
I bet Job trusted Yahweh... before.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
