{"id":54,"date":"2006-06-08T17:17:18","date_gmt":"2006-06-08T22:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weeklyrob.dreamhosters.com\/?p=54"},"modified":"2006-06-08T17:17:18","modified_gmt":"2006-06-08T22:17:18","slug":"dear-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/?p=54","title":{"rendered":"Dear God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coincidentally, while I was in the middle of my <\/span>Bible vs. Law rant<\/a> yesterday, a friend asked me to help her church with a series they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dear God.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/span><\/p>\n

Her pastor had asked them to come up with questions they would ask God, and to get friends to ask as well. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I came up with, in no particular order, knowing that her church believes in the literal Bible, Hell, and the New Testament. I would have asked different questions if this were for a different church:<\/p>\n

How do we know which rules from the Bible should we follow today and which are ok to ignore? Can we ignore all the rules from the Old Testament? If not, do we just trust religious scholars as to which are important? For example, the Bible says that slavery is ok, but homosexuality is not. It also recommends death for cursing your mother.<\/p>\n

Are there some things that are unforgivable? For example, dying without ever accepting Jesus? If not unforgivable, then how can people go to hell to be mercilessly tortured, screaming and crying, forever? How will you (God) be happy knowing that there are people down there like that? Even if they’ve led good lives and did everything right except believe in Jesus?<\/p>\n

Why all the mystery? You could answer every question everyone has without even lifting a finger. You USED to answer questions by speaking directly; why don’t you do that anymore?<\/p>\n

Who goes to heaven and who goes to hell? Is there any way for us to change your mind, or is it all decided?<\/p>\n

Why allow so many terrible things? Some scholars say that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re all about free will, but hurricanes and stuff aren’t even free will. For that matter, why allow people who are bad to hurt other people? You could at least keep them away from the rest of us. You USED to take a direct hand and get rid of wicked people, and you told us when you did it; why don’t you do that any more?<\/p>\n

Is global warming caused by humans?<\/p>\n

How can we cure all the diseases? Why keep this a secret?<\/p>\n

One of the Ten Commandments says that you’ll punish the children of sinners to three or four generations. Is that fair? Should we emulate that system in our own laws?<\/p>\n

Speaking of that, you have visited the crimes of people upon their children, all the way to today. You threw us all out of the garden just because of one mistake my great-great-great-great (etc.) grandparents made. Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we ever go back? Am I guilty for that act?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coincidentally, while I was in the middle of my Bible vs. Law rant yesterday, a friend asked me to help her church with a series they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dear God.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Her pastor had asked them to come up with questions they would ask God, and to get friends to ask as well. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}