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Stipulated.

There is still the matter of the ostensibly Faithful pleading for God to alter His plans.

Grant me strength, how shall I handle this challenge, how shall I proceed...these prayers are quite different than Please, Lord, may it be Your will that I get that job I really want, even though it appears to be going to someone else who, while not a bad person, is not a Christian like me, Your devoted servant.

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Environment Man

And God often answers NO or NOT RIGHT NOW. His love for his children is very strong and he takes no pleasure in their suffering. But they made the choice and so tough love must be meted.

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Presupposing an omniscient God, God DOES often answer No and this IS often perceived as a failure to answer.

Presupposing an All Loving God, he takes no pleasure in the suffering of his children? So far, so good. We're on The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways and More Will be Revealed turf.

But "they made their choice and so tough love must be meted"?

What, say, of a traditionally married Christian couple who, after waiting and waiting for the blessing and joy of a baby, has their apparently ungrateful or unwilling baby come down with leukemia.

They pray and they pray as they painstakingly administer chemotherapy to a confused and crabby toddler. Please God, heal our baby girl. Almost to the five-year remission mark then, pow, back into the hospital with a "recurrence." Please please God, in your great mercy and love, in your endless compassion and benevolence, please heal our only baby girl. Almost to the five-year remission mark then, pow, down she goes for the count.

What of these people?

Surely, they are not wrong to pray for healing, rather than just for acceptance. Surely, God is not practicing Tough Love.

THEN, presupposing an All Knowing God, why on earth would he mete out Tough Love punishment for poor choices that He already knew man would make, indeed designed man to make, at the same time that He is lauded as All Merciful?

The Truth is, we don't know.

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Environment Man

It is God's choice. And whatever choice he makes IS the perfect choice. Many question WHY God permits suffering. But dont forget, WE told God that WE could manage things better without him. He did not initiate the withdrawal, we did. So he must allow things to work themselves out and make it good after the Resurrection when it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that we cannot manage our affairs without God.

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Then we shall not speculate as to punishment, or tough love, or answered prayers.

In this view, the eternity and divinity of I AM translates, in mortaleze, to IT IS WHAT IT IS. Does it not?

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mentor

Placebo effect

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Now the hard work begins...

Environment Man

Evolution is the placebo and creation is the real deal.

mentor

Your theories almost make sense when you turn reality exactly upside down. You accept unprovable hypotheses and then you cannot reason yourself out of your corner.

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Now the hard work begins...

Environment Man

That reads well Mentor but does not advance the voodoo that is evolution faith. Mine are facts. Scientifically and logically deduced and repeatable science and facts. There is overwhelming proof of the existence of God and his many systems are the "constants" that make life possible.

mentor

You keep saying that. I don't think "facts" means what you think it means...

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Now the hard work begins...