If God is not responsible for the disasters, who or what is?
Answers (3)
God’s judgments as described in the Bible are quite different from natural disasters. For one thing, God is selective; he reads the hearts of individuals and destroys only those he deems wicked. (Genesis 18:23-32) Furthermore, God sends warnings first, thereby giving the righteous opportunity to escape.
Natural disasters, on the other hand, strike with little or no warning, and they kill and maim indiscriminately. To some extent, mankind has made such disasters worse by damaging the natural environment and by building in areas prone to earthquakes, floods, and extreme weather.
Yet calamities, including earthquakes with great loss of life, were foretold in the Bible for our time. While not personally causing these things, God foresaw their coming. The small Bible book of Amos provides insight into God’s ability to foresee coming disasters and offers us some timely warnings that we should consider.
For more information on this subject and others, please go to jw.org "Online Library." Also for free downloads, publications or read online.
The book of Job records that Satan uses three methods to attack God's people: diseases, natural disasters, and other people. It is not reliable to let people tell you what the bible says. Many people will make up stuff because they don't know what it says, and many will make up stuff because they wish it would not say what it says. You just have to read it for yourself. Read a chapter of Proverbs every day. Proverbs has 31 chapters so you can keep your place by just looking at a calendar. There is no religion or nothing in Proverbs and you don't have to believe anything. Just read to find wisdom. When you are comfortable with that, then read the bible from Romans to 2 Thessalonians over and over until you start to remember what it says. That is the part that applies to Christians. Here is a book to help you to understand the bible. It's a free download and you can get a hard copy at any bible book store.
www.philologos.org/__eb-htetb/ "How To Enjoy The Bible"
"Do you think these are true statements, from God or made up by someones thinking?"
The bible was not written in English, and we do not have a translation. A translation is when you take each word of the original and replace it with an exact equivalent in the target language. It is possible to translate between Hebrew and Greek, but not to English. English requires capitalization and punctuation. For instance the Greek "pneuma hagion" can mean God, which is capitalized, or God's gift to believers, which is not capitalized. So every time that phrase appears, an interpreter must inject his opinion of what the original text meant, and that turns it into a version instead of a translation. So yes, the bible is God's word, but you have to study the translations to be sure it was rendered correctly into English.
Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
This passage is immediately suspect because people quote it to support their contention that Jesus is God. Well, the bible uses many names for God, but it never uses one name when it means another. Elohim created all things, not Jesus. YHVH gave the law, not Lord Of Hosts. Adonai is my shepherd, not YHVH.
So we look up that verse in the Interlinear Greek-English New Testament and find that it actually says "consistED". That makes even less sense. So we look up the word in a concordance. It is used in twelve verses. The root meaning is "place together". In one verse it is translated "standing with" and the context makes that seem like a reasonable translation. In ten verses it is rendered "approve" or "commend". There is no apparent justification to translate that word differently in this verse. If it is translated "by him all things are approved," then that agrees with the other translations and with all other verses in the bible.
And that is how you separate what is God's word and what is man's opinion.
Thank you for your input, Jewels.
Feel free to send me a private message if you have any more questions.
God is ultimately responsible for everything on earth, but God is not sitting and controlling it like a chief operating officer of a company. God has created universal laws. The Law of Gravity that keeps everything pulled to the earth, the Law of Cycles that makes the earth rotate, the Law of Action and Reaction, or the Law of Karma that rewards or punishes us. God manages the universe through universal laws and therefore these universal laws control everything. Even natural disasters that are happening are as per the universal laws. It is not that God wishes a Tsunami, a typhoon or a virus to destroy the world... No, but that is Karma, cumulative Karma, global Karma which is beyond human understanding. Man cannot define how this law works but God has created laws that run the universe.
Thank you for your input, but reasoning on this, you said, "the book of Job records that Satan used these methods not God".
You are correct, It is not reliable to let people tell you what the bible says. I read this at James 1:13 "When under trial, let no one say: “I am being tried by God.” For with evil things God cannot be tried, nor does he himself try anyone".
I also read this at 1 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for setting things straight, for disciplining in righteousness".
Do you think these are true statements, from God or made up by someones thinking?
Again thank you for your thoughts.