What's the hurry for God

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

I owe the title of this thread to Chester. Thanks.

What is the hurry for God? He’s doing fine in heaven, and living in eternity. What does He care for our sorrows and sufferings? Sufferings that go on daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, for centuries, and millennium.

With all the talking in the New Testament of the Kingdom of God being near and at hand, why has it taken so far 2000 yrs and counting , and no Kingdom of God has arrived?

Jesus expected the kingdom to come within His generation :
Luk_9:27 But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.

And Paul expected the resurrection within his lifetime :

1Co 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1Co 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

The members of early primitive church began to question. Some doubt that God’s Kingdom was coming. Some doubted the resurrection.

So Peter stepped in and said that to God a thousand years is as a day. And said, “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise…But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

So here we are 2000 yrs later, and none of that/this has happened. The Kingdom of God was expected with Jesus, and then with Paul, and because of these verses, by every generation since, believers certain theirs is the last generation.

Meanwhile, it’s only been 2 days to God. Who must be thinking : “Two days of suffering isn’t bad.”

Innolan said , on another thread, that God became human to identify with us. Well how can he identify with us if he dismisses the suffering of multi-billions over 2 millennium, just because it’s just 2 days to Him. I wouldn’t call that identification at all.

Since God could set up His Kingdom on the earth any time He wants, for the sake of suffering people, why doesn’t He get down to it already?

2

The Roman Catholic Church already replaced the New Testament eschatology with its own. it can be done again. Eliminating suffering is another matter. Suffering is defined as such with respect to a human POV and it will take humans to change it. It doesn’t look like God is going to intervene. If there is going to be a Kingdom of God on earth, we may have to create it. God is calling us to do it.

3 
   The kingdom of God has arrived! But it has to be understood to be seen, and not seen to be understood.  Since the days of God are two days, how long a span of time is the life of a man?  In the here and now can the Kingdom be found.
4

Jesus according to the Gospel of Thomas :

  1. His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?”
    “It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look, there!’ Rather, the Father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and people don’t see it.”

That would mean God’s kingdom is not coming, but is already here, and has always been here.

It also means that God’s kingdom contains and allows suffering.

And I see the kingdom. It’s the laws of nature and the universe. Gods’ word written in His own hand.

But that’s not the kingdom of God spoken of in the New Testament canon.

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The Gospels seem to present the Kingdom of God from two different and possibly distinct and discontinuous angles. One is the eschatological, objective observable kingdom that was predicted. The other is a subjective kingdom as in “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Christians have understandably emphasized one or the other of these kingdoms at different times. In the early 20th century there was a powerful social gospel movement that sought to being about the Kingdom of God on earth without the advent of supernatural divine intervention. That was a leftist Christian movement. That movement has died out and in its place the salient movement is eschatological one popularized by people like Tim LaHaye which appeals to those on the Right. Whether the two concepts of the kingdom can be successfully integrated is a question. The Gospels don’t seem to work the problem out. Paul’s viewpoint in the epistles is suggestive of a solution but it isn’t thoroughly worked out. So the problem has been left to the Church and its theologians to wrestle with.

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Good point bro Felix. The one was “coming,” and the other ever present. Two different kingdoms.

The kingdom within has to be Gods’ kingdom laws, such as the laws of nature and of the universe. We have those laws within us. If not our bodies wouldn’t hold together … we’d come apart, into smithereens of atoms, that also would be coming apart. Thank God for the kingdom within. It keeps us breathing.

But in this thread, basically asking why God is waiting to end suffering, we’re talking about this kingdom of God, spoken of in Isaiah, 2 Peter, and Revelation :

Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
Rev 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

So why is God waiting thousands of years to end suffering?

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Pain and pleasure seems to be a basic parts of the process of reality for conscious beings. The idea that God has the power to prevent that or change it is unsupported by evidence. Still, given the vastness of space-time, it isn’t impossible that the situation might change in the future. Apocalyptic visions are one way of expressing that hope.

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And perhaps Jesus and the apostle Paul were wrong in their apocalyptic visions, and apocalyptic visions provide a false hope. Otherwise God wants us to suffer for thousands of years. That’s pretty cold-hearted of God …

9

I must say I agree.

10

So you are saying that all conceptions of God are unsupported by evidence? Are you familiar with all conceptions of God? That would include for example Paul Tillich’s conception, Alfred North Whitehead’s conception, Spinoza’s conception, Hegel’s and Richard Swinburne’s and Wittgenstein’s, just to name a few. No evidence for any of those is what your claiming, right? Cuz’ you have studied all the theologies and after careful examination of all of them you concluded that they don’t supply any valid evidence to support their claims, right?

11

Boy, that was a heavy shoe to drop on captaincrunk … especially since he agreed with you.

And the answer to the reliability of evidence lies in the question : Was Paul Tillich, Alfred North Whitehead, Spinoza, Hegel, Richard Swinburne, Wittgenstein, et al. human? That is the underlying weak link of them all, sorry to say. They’re all fleas arguing over who owns the dog.

And yes they are all interesting. And conceptions of God is interesting. But who says who carries the authoritative word on evidence?

Everyone is throwing evidence at me, of their God conceptions. They’re a dime a dozen. It’s hay-wire out there. And then there’s conceptions of God that I create. Just fer fun! Everyone loves a good story. I’m no exception. But authoritative conceptions of God? That’s another matter. I’m kinda over the shaman ways/order of things … and I’m no fan of the Priestcraft either.

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V–I’m just asking captaincrunk questions. Questioning assumptions is important to critical thinking. Definitions must be specified in order for us to to know what we are discussing. Before captaincrunk posted, I was questioning the application of the orthodox Christian conception of God to the Bible. They are not necessarily the same. Besides, he redacted a large portion of what i said, so he didn’t really agree. captaincrunk seems to have leapt to the rejection of all conceptions of God. Personally, I don’t claim to know all such conceptions, so I’m not in a position to make that leap. Among the concepts that I am aware of there are some that still have merit. Concept formation is a human ability, so I don’t see how humans are prohibited from doing that in any area. I don’t see why we can’t speculate on whatever subject we sees fit as long as we avoid claiming dogmatic certainty that exceeds our grasp. It seems to me that there is a lot of tenable middle ground between absolutist theism and absolutist atheism.

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The jehovah’s witnesses response to that question would be that God wants everyone to have a chance to learn ‘the truth’/JW religion before he kills everyone who is part of the present nations and religions.

An all powerful God would do things quickly not slowly. The slower he was, the less all-powerful he’d be, because it would be harder for him to act.
If I was God I’d end suffering or reduce it asap. There’s no real reason to wait.

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Perhaps it is also a consideration that the suffering be asked whether they absolutely want their suffering to be ended. It might in fact remain that this be something in need of greater clarification. Some of the kids on Worldvision seem to be smiling…

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What did the sadist say when the masochist said hurt me? He said “No.”

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I like the two kingdoms idea. The kingdom within would address the problem of the kingdom happening within one’s lifetime. The kingdom not of this world is probaby the hope that the kingdom within may become humanly universal.

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“If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) kingdom is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father’s) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.”
~Jesus, according to the gospel of Thomas

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So I need to get my insides on my outside to go to the Kingdom of Heaven?

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That depends on what’s in your insides. Read the book of James for further clarification about what inner tumoil turned outward will do. In short, mind wars enlarge into global wars.
Holy means to be whole,not perfect. Thomas was just agreeing with James.

20

Agreed.

However, critical thinking is not an aid to a better understanding of religion, but an obstacle. I sense this is true for both theists and atheists.

Theists who rely heavily on critical thinking will analyze their holy book, come up with some interpretation, and then typically argue with somebody else’s interpretation. And thus the Christian faith, which was one faith 2,000 years ago, is now chopped up in to hundreds of arguing factions. Is this religion? Which spiritual leader said, “Go forth and create hundreds of arguing factions!”

Atheists typically limit their investigation of religion to an intellectual analysis of ideological assertions (created by the ideological theists above) thus willfully missing the emotional experience which lies at the heart of religion, and rendering their analysis shallow, incomplete and not all that interesting.

In both cases, ideological theists and atheists, the underlying problem is tool bias.

Tool Bias: We like critical thinking, so we’ll use it for our inquiry, whether it’s useful or relevant or not, cause we don’t really care.