Lets say for a moment that someone enjoys an interest/hobby. This person participates in various communities events for the sake of this hobby, and is very busy as a result. Very busy indeed, with a lot of stress. This person views the resulting scheduled and stress as a "punishment of god" for being "prideful" (something that I very seriously doubt). Is this a reasonable (*strictly* Biblically speaking) outlook? Does god actually punish people for pursuing their interests? Or is it simply over tasking oneself? I remember in my high school curriculum is clearly stated that that the Christian god does not punish people in this life, would anyone by any chance have a verse to substantiate or contradict that statement? Thread started at Forum 4 Politics on 04-05-2012 10:56 AM
Not a question that can be answered objectively. Subjectively I believe that God lets us punish ourselves. We are given a life and we fail at being the best we can be, we do things we regret and feel immense guilt and shame for it. God opens doors for us to achieve forgiveness and we can walk through them or slam them shut, that is free will. Once a person abandons all hope of redemption for their mistakes and weaknesses they open a door to hell.
in the OT he killed 17,000 people because one man brought a prostitute into camp. Maybe the OT God is different from the NT God.
The Catholic Church used to preach that anything bad that happened to a person was the result of their sins... The stole food from the common people, in the name of god, and let them starve, and then blamed their starvation on their sins..... The executed doctors, and preached that all sickness is punishment from god and that medicine was evil and that only prayer can cure disease.
The scriptures are clear that God is to be seen like a parent and, as such, chastens whom he loves. So the question begs, when something "bad" happens, is it from God? As we see from the story of Job, many sat in judgement over him stating he had sinned a great sin when it could not be further from the truth. Conversly, we look at what Israel went through via invasions Assyria and Babylon and they were judged to be "punishment" from the Almighty Biblically. We also can look at the story of David when he commited adultry and had her husband murdered. God told David he was going to pay a price even though he had "repented". A very humbling proposition to say the least in which his sons later turned against him and he had to have the killed. I would think it was a fate worse than death itself.
God doesn't punish, universal law does, Karma. God didn't destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, evil did. You reap what you sow. If you jump off a cliff, God doesn't kill you, your own action did.
And what's about destroying of Sodom & Gomorrah, the Great Deluge etc. etc. etc. Sure God punish all those who do not follow his Commandments.
The devil makes you "BELIEVE" that, because he wants to make God look mean, petty, and hateful. Those are all negatives. God is all about the positive. God has better things to do.
Then Satan must've written the Old Testament because it is the Old Testament that makes God look mean, petty, and hateful.
