Pakistan- A judgment from God?

mindlight said:

Pakistan has had its share of problems recently and seems to be a nation that is being shaken in a myriad of ways. Ones heart goes out to those fellow human beings who are suffering all this. There are also a myriad of natural explanations as to why floods happen and heatwaves in Russia and the like.

But since God is sovereign over all these things and so much wickedness has been coming from this country recently my question is this.

Is Pakistan being shaken by God? Are the physical signs that have been occurring recently symptomatic of a deeper spiritual disturbance?

Note the North West provinces where many of those most sympathetic to the Taliban are located is amongst the worst effected areas

BBC News - Pakistan floods 'kill 800' people and affect a million

Click to expand...

As you might imagine there are huge difficulties with correlating terrestrial events with Divine action. The crux of the problem is epistemic: how would we know? Unless God himself made clear, in no ambiguous signification, that this or that terrestrial occurrence is a 'message' from himself, we cannot know, we can only speculate. But there is something that is even more troubling about these sorts of speculations. Namely, if God causes these disasters as 'punishments' for infractions, then why would a good God punish the innocent for the crimes of the guilty? I'm sure that even if terrestrial events could be pinned down to a penalty for some human act, that there would be some individuals who were innocent of said act and yet still suffered the supposed consequences. Also, how would we identify precisely which acts God was punishing if he had not made it unambiguously clear? The answer to that question would be left entirely open to the theological biases of those who interpret divine intervention. Of course, for those who are religiously inclined, the answer is theological and depends on whether one believes that God is actively involved in the human narrative, or whether he is passive (to some unspecified degree). Personally, to keep the notion of a good God intact, I think we should err on the side of latter, rather than the former.

For example, Clirus claims, more-or-less, that HIV/AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. This begs the question of why a good God would also punish innocent heterosexuals for a crime (or sin) they never committed, or why a competent God, who seeks to punish homosexuality with AIDS, would also ensure that HIV transmission frequencies are the lowest among female homosexuals? This simply goes against the hypothesis.

Likewise, I think it was Fred Phelps who claimed that Victoria's devastating bush-fire disaster was God's punishment for the legislature's decriminalisation of abortion. How would Phelps know that? The decriminalisation and the fires were months apart. What's more, we ought to ask, did the fires devastate the areas, or electorates, of only those MPs' who voted for the decriminalisation, leaving the areas of those who voted against untouched? Or did the fires behave indiscriminately, regardless of who voted for or against? Keep in mind also that some the fires were deliberately lit by arsonists. Would a good God cause even the innocent to suffer for the crimes of only those who are guilty? And would a competent God cause this suffering to be indiscriminate, thereby making the apparent message, whatever it is (e.g. homosexuality is bad) so vague that the common man fails to grasp it, and only the mad Fundamentalist sees its deeper esoteric meaning?

No.

There are no innocents is one simple answer to that question but there are those that more guilty than others. I have posed the speculation in the form of a question cause it is something I am testing rather than something I am sure of. But Gods involvement in the human narrative is not in question by me. The floods happened by Gods will. The question is what this means in my view. It is a judgment as all bad things in essence are judgments but what does it say?

Click to expand...

Think for a moment about what that entails. Why would a good God (and I hear that he is good) punish both the innocent (who never did X) equally, and in some cases more severely, than those who are guilty of X?

I know that abortion is wrong and its decriminalisation has spiritual consequences so Fred Phelps is not a nutcase for saying that in my view.

Click to expand...

Spiritual consequences, yes. But material consequences along such vast and devastating lines? That's a more difficult conclusion to reach.

HIV and Aids ( as with all sexually transmitted diseases) are not going to be passed on by strict Christian living where virgins marry virgins and stay faithful to each other. Homosexuals and those who live promiscously without using contraception will be most vulnerable to it. Accidents can happen even with contraception but not with righteous living. So yes Aids is a judgment that will 99% of the time be a judgment on unrighteous living.

The only issues with saying that would be that with cases like haemophiliacs getting Aids from blood transfusions and children born with Aids, and women raped by unfaithful husbands who caught Aids off prostitutes for example. So in the end only God can say but that does not mean I cannot say anything at all!

Click to expand...

First, we must tackle your assumption that homosexuals are the most vulnerable to it. As I pointed out earlier, transmission frequencies are lowest among female homosexuals. What's more, everyone is vulnerable to it, and that vulnerability increases exponentially with the number of sexual encounters one has (regardless of whether they are homosexual or heterosexual) and the quality of those encounters (i.e. whether adequate safeguards are used or not).
Second, if God was saying that HIV/AIDS is clearly and distinctly a punishment for homosexuality then, presumably, he wouldn't be ambiguous about it. That is, he would ensure that only homosexuals were capable of contracting the disease. The fact that this is not the case makes the apparent message ('homosexuality is bad') vague and inaccessible to the ordinary person. Thus, there is a failure of communication, and this does not reflect the receiver's competence to interpret the message, but the messenger's incompetence for transmitting a vague and unclear message that only mad Fundamentalists seem capable of grasping.

Sigh. Another Islam is evil so God is putting his wrath on these Satan worshippers thread.

mindlight said:

So speak up and say what you have to say but please spare me the spin. I get enough of that rubbish from Liberals on these boards.

Click to expand...

I see no point in arguing with people like you who see Muslims as less than you.

Maybe Katrina was punishment from Allah? Or maybe natural disasters can be explained with reference solely to the natural world, without needing to invoke the supernatural?

Why didn't God destroy Makkah instead?

Eazy E said:

I see no point in arguing with people like you who see Muslims as less than you.

Click to expand...

So you honestly see no sin in what the Taliban and their ilk are doing?

To settle this WHOLE argument... all one needs to do is read Duet. 28.

1“Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the LORD your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 2“All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the LORD your God: 3“Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.
4“Blessed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground and the offspring of your beasts, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.
5“Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6“Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7“The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you; they will come out against you one way and will flee before you seven ways. 8“The LORD will command the blessing upon you in your barns and in all that you put your hand to, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you. 9“The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, as He swore to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. 10“So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you. 11“The LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. 12“The LORD will open for you His good storehouse, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13“The LORD will make you the head and not the tail, and you only will be above, and you will not be underneath, if you listen to the commandments of the LORD your God, which I charge you today, to observe them carefully, 14and do not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.”

Causes and Consequences


15“But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16“Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.
17“Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
18“Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock.
19“Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
20“The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me. 21“The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land where you are entering to possess it. 22“The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they will pursue you until you perish. 23“The heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24“The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
25“The LORD shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways before them, and you will be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26“Your carcasses will be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
27“The LORD will smite you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scab and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28“The LORD will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart; 29and you will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you. 30“You shall betroth a wife, but another man will violate her; you shall build a house, but you will not live in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit. 31“Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat of it; your donkey shall be torn away from you, and will not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you will have none to save you. 32“Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and yearn for them continually; but there will be nothing you can do. 33“A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and crushed continually. 34“You shall be driven mad by the sight of what you see. 35“The LORD will strike you on the knees and legs with sore boils, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. 36“The LORD will bring you and your king, whom you set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone. 37“You shall become a horror, a proverb, and a taunt among all the people where the LORD drives you.
38“You shall bring out much seed to the field but you will gather in little, for the locust will consume it. 39“You shall plant and cultivate vineyards, but you will neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm will devour them. 40“You shall have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off. 41“You shall have sons and daughters but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity. 42“The cricket shall possess all your trees and the produce of your ground. 43“The alien who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower. 44“He shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you will be the tail.
45“So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46“They shall become a sign and a wonder on you and your descendants forever.
47“Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; 48therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
49“The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down, a nation whose language you shall not understand, 50a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young. 51“Moreover, it shall eat the offspring of your herd and the produce of your ground until you are destroyed, who also leaves you no grain, new wine, or oil, nor the increase of your herd or the young of your flock until they have caused you to perish. 52“It shall besiege you in all your towns until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout your land, and it shall besiege you in all your towns throughout your land which the LORD your God has given you. 53“Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you. 54“The man who is refined and very delicate among you shall be hostile toward his brother and toward the wife he cherishes and toward the rest of his children who remain, 55so that he will not give even one of them any of the flesh of his children which he will eat, since he has nothing else left, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you in all your towns. 56“The refined and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and refinement, shall be hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, 57and toward her afterbirth which issues from between her legs and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you in your towns.
58“If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the LORD your God, 59then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses. 60“He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt of which you were afraid, and they will cling to you. 61“Also every sickness and every plague which, not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring on you until you are destroyed. 62“Then you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not obey the LORD your God. 63“It shall come about that as the LORD delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the LORD will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it. 64“Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known. 65“Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. 66“So your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. 67“In the morning you shall say, ‘Would that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Would that it were morning!’ because of the dread of your heart which you dread, and for the sight of your eyes which you will see. 68“The LORD will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I spoke to you, ‘You will never see it again!’ And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer."

Just look at Hurricane Katrina, Haiti, ...and now Pakistan.

Preach the Gospel of Repentance, saints.

butterflyring09 said:

Just look at Hurricane Katrina, Haiti, ...and now Pakistan.

Preach the Gospel of Repentance, saints.

Click to expand...

What about 9/11?