Think God might be camera-shy?

bass_prayer

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This might be entirely un-knowable, but can be interesting to think about.

The Bible tells us about plenty of times God has intervened in supernatural ways. But all that was before there were cameras and computers everywhere recording so much. Can you imagine what NASA would say if the sun stood still today? Or if Elija was live-streaming the showdown on Mt. Carmel? Or if Jesus's DNA got sequenced?

Do you think that...
  1. God might try to avoid getting caught in the act. Maybe so that we're still walking by faith not by sight.
  2. Maybe God just does whatever He wants and would modify records and memories as He sees fit if there was more proof lying around than He wanted.
  3. Maybe God has always done plenty from behind the scenes. Behind the scenes might mean different things as science and technology change. But no matter how big our telescopes and particle colliders get, there seem to be some limits to what we could ever observe (Heisenberg, dark energy, etc.).
  4. Maybe God's in a kind of stealth mode for a while - giving more people a chance to decide to have faith before being overt and obvious in the end times.
 

SavedByGrace3

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I believe 2 principles about faith
1. faith is evidence of things not seen, that is invisible things or things that cannot be known via by the senses. This includes things that occurred before we were here, like creation and the resurrection of Jesus. Faith says these things happened, even tho nobody alive witnessed them.
2. faith is not the denial of things that are.
So if we see fossils that are millions of years old, God did not plant them to trick us into thinking that a young earth is actually very old. No. The earth is very old. We do not have to look at the universe and worry if we are going to get into trouble with God by acknowledging that fact.
So stars and galaxies that are billions of light-years away really were created billions of years ago. It has taken that long for the light from these objects to reach us here on earth. We are not in danger of apostasy or heresy by stating these facts. The light traveling from these stars and galaxies is a recording and a streaming history of those objects. The light from a star is a biography of that star. It is not a fictional account written by God to deceive us. God did not lie 6000 years ago by creating a stream of light billions of years long with a fictional account of that star's existence.
Got did not create vestigial organs in our bodies to trick us into believing in a false concept of evolution. God created the earth in a way that it would generate life and that life possessed the ability to change with time to become more successful. The myriad of scientific observations that point to an evolutionary process is not a myriad of lies planted to God to test the faithful. What we see is most certainly the truth.
To be clear, God did create Eden, Adam, and Eve. The events of Gen 2-3 most certainly did occur, probably less than 10000 years ago. Their children merged with the earthmen that had evolved from chapter 1 of Genesis. This we accept by faith since nobody alive was there to see it.
The greatest intervention and I like that you used that word because the vast majority of God's dealings with man since Adam have been interventions, is the intervention that sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins and then be resurrected.
This a just a very short and non-detailed explanation of what I, as a Christian who believes in theistic evolution, believe.
Peace.
 
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Richard.20.12

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I think you hit the reason yourself. God can't make His existence too obvious otherwise everyone would believe without faith. We need faith. He requires it. So His existence will never be so obvious. That's the whole challenge of our existence. It equalizes everyone, rich or poor, famous or unknown, respected by most or not. Its just us and Him. Very simple. Very encompassing. Very fair.
 
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SavedByGrace3

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I think you hit the reason yourself. God can't make His existence too obvious otherwise everyone would believe without faith. We need faith. He requires it. So His existence will never be so obvious. That's the whole challenge of our existence. It equalizes everyone, rich or poor, famous or unknown, respected by most or not. Its just us and Him. Very simple. Very encompassing. Very fair.
Romans 1:19-20 KJV
19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
 
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Richard.20.12

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Romans 1:19-20 KJV
19. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

I'm not getting the relevance of this scripture to the question. It probably needs more context. Maybe you could explain.
 
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Neogaia777

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This might be entirely un-knowable, but can be interesting to think about.

The Bible tells us about plenty of times God has intervened in supernatural ways. But all that was before there were cameras and computers everywhere recording so much. Can you imagine what NASA would say if the sun stood still today? Or if Elija was live-streaming the showdown on Mt. Carmel? Or if Jesus's DNA got sequenced?

Do you think that...
  1. God might try to avoid getting caught in the act. Maybe so that we're still walking by faith not by sight.
  2. Maybe God just does whatever He wants and would modify records and memories as He sees fit if there was more proof lying around than He wanted.
  3. Maybe God has always done plenty from behind the scenes. Behind the scenes might mean different things as science and technology change. But no matter how big our telescopes and particle colliders get, there seem to be some limits to what we could ever observe (Heisenberg, dark energy, etc.).
  4. Maybe God's in a kind of stealth mode for a while - giving more people a chance to decide to have faith before being overt and obvious in the end times.
To completely show himself and prove himself undeniably or beyond any one of mankind's doubts to the entire world, would/does bring the judgement, and would completely cancel out or negate having to have any kind of faith after it, etc...

Or man being able to do things by faith that go beyond logic and/or reason, in which way he is/was made like God to begin with, etc...

God Bless!
 
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Bob Crowley

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I don't know how He does it, but God hides Himself very well, yet He is everywhere.

I became a Christian in late 1982. Around Christmas 1983, I got talked into going as a volunteer to a Scripture Union (SU) "Beach Mission". SU is a mainly Protestant non-denominational outfit that runs "beach missions" amongst other things. They also put a lot of chaplains in the school system over here.

"Beach Missions" are a method of trying to evangelise kids when they're on holidays with their parents, most likely at the beach. This one wasn't but was at a place called Forest Glen Caravan Park, a bit south of a town called Nambour behind the Sunshine Coast.

Anyway I was feeling out my depth as a new Christian, without any prior experience in the field. I was also in a narky mood for other reasons - I'd not long before gone through a divorce, had been chewed out by the boss at work before I left for the "beach mission" and I was getting negative vibes from some of the other volunteers.

I was also wondering "How do I know this is all true, and not just a psychological prop?!" (Christianity).

Anyway each afternoon around 3pm we'd have a Bible study led by the camp leader. One afternoon, precisely as he read a specific verse about King David from Samuel or Acts (not sure which), I got hit with a "double whammy". It's like a breath going through you in waves and there's no mistake where it came from. It happened twice more the following year, again to highlight specific phrases that the pastor was saying, and it hasn't happened since.

I still remember what was said on each of those three occasions for that reason, word for word, yet I've forgotten most of the other hundreds of sermons and homilies I've heard.

I just about fell off the chair the first time as i got such a shock. I'd been "contacted"!

From that time on I've never been able to doubt God exists, even if His methods can be very frustrating at times.

The relative bit in regard to the OP's post is that nobody else even knew about it, unless I said something. it was invisible. I remember looking around at everybody else to see what they were making of it. Nothing! For the simple reason that it hadn't happened to them. They showed no sign of having been startled in any way, and were just listening to the camp leader as he continued with his Bible study.

Personally I think God and the spiritual world hide behind the space-time continuum somehow, this strange phenomena that keeps entire galaxies in place. On those rare occasions when angels make a personal appearance eg. Gabriel to Mary, I think they somehow pull it aside like a curtain.

God's there all right, and He does a brilliant job of staying hidden. The devil is there too, and he also does a pretty effective job of remaining unseen. What we see though is his works - the evil that runs like a curse through human history.

If God wants to, He can contact us. But even if He does, He remains hidden. Nobody else will be aware of it.
 
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coffee4u

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I don't know how He does it, but God hides Himself very well, yet He is everywhere.

I became a Christian in late 1982. Around Christmas 1983, I got talked into going as a volunteer to a Scripture Union (SU) "Beach Mission". SU is a mainly Protestant non-denominational outfit that runs "beach missions" amongst other things. They also put a lot of chaplains in the school system over here.

"Beach Missions" are a method of trying to evangelise kids when they're on holidays with their parents, most likely at the beach. This one wasn't but was at a place called Forest Glen Caravan Park, a bit south of a town called Nambour behind the Sunshine Coast.

Anyway I was feeling out my depth as a new Christian, without any prior experience in the field. I was also in a narky mood for other reasons - I'd not long before gone through a divorce, had been chewed out by the boss at work before I left for the "beach mission" and I was getting negative vibes from some of the other volunteers.

I was also wondering "How do I know this is all true, and not just a psychological prop?!" (Christianity).

Anyway each afternoon around 3pm we'd have a Bible study led by the camp leader. One afternoon, precisely as he read a specific verse about King David from Samuel or Acts (not sure which), I got hit with a "double whammy". It's like a breath going through you in waves and there's no mistake where it came from. It happened twice more the following year, again to highlight specific phrases that the pastor was saying, and it hasn't happened since.

I still remember what was said on each of those three occasions for that reason, word for word, yet I've forgotten most of the other hundreds of sermons and homilies I've heard.

I just about fell off the chair the first time as i got such a shock. I'd been "contacted"!

From that time on I've never been able to doubt God exists, even if His methods can be very frustrating at times.

The relative bit in regard to the OP's post is that nobody else even knew about it, unless I said something. it was invisible. I remember looking around at everybody else to see what they were making of it. Nothing! For the simple reason that it hadn't happened to them. They showed no sign of having been startled in any way, and were just listening to the camp leader as he continued with his Bible study.

Personally I think God and the spiritual world hide behind the space-time continuum somehow, this strange phenomena that keeps entire galaxies in place. On those rare occasions when angels make a personal appearance eg. Gabriel to Mary, I think they somehow pull it aside like a curtain.

God's there all right, and He does a brilliant job of staying hidden. The devil is there too, and he also does a pretty effective job of remaining unseen. What we see though is his works - the evil that runs like a curse through human history.

If God wants to, He can contact us. But even if He does, He remains hidden. Nobody else will be aware of it.

God used scripture to contact me as well, so I understand the feeling.

Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
 
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Job 33:6

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I'm not getting the relevance of this scripture to the question. It probably needs more context. Maybe you could explain.

The passages in Romans are simply stating that God has made himself known through observations of General revelation. Which means that for those who do not see the hand of God at work every day and all around us, it's more of a heart issue than it is an issue of observable evidence.

I tend to take the archaic historical approach, where many miracles of the OT may have been epic prose where real life people were "clothed" in legendary figurative speech. Samson is said to have killed 1,000 philistines with the jaw bone of a donkey. Some could say this was a miracle, but we could also look at it as a historical epic in which a hero, a mere man, put his faith in the Lord and the Lord was able to accomplish astonishing things in that man. And this story or miracle doesn't need to be literally true to convey a powerful message about who God is or about mankind's divine connection to Him.

And so rather than looking for satellite imagery of the sun stopping, we should be examining our hearts, embracing God's work as it can be seen, having faith and simply living out life as loved and saved individuals.
 
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Wilderness Cry

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This might be entirely un-knowable, but can be interesting to think about.

The Bible tells us about plenty of times God has intervened in supernatural ways. But all that was before there were cameras and computers everywhere recording so much. Can you imagine what NASA would say if the sun stood still today? Or if Elija was live-streaming the showdown on Mt. Carmel? Or if Jesus's DNA got sequenced?

Do you think that...
  1. God might try to avoid getting caught in the act. Maybe so that we're still walking by faith not by sight.
  2. Maybe God just does whatever He wants and would modify records and memories as He sees fit if there was more proof lying around than He wanted.
  3. Maybe God has always done plenty from behind the scenes. Behind the scenes might mean different things as science and technology change. But no matter how big our telescopes and particle colliders get, there seem to be some limits to what we could ever observe (Heisenberg, dark energy, etc.).
  4. Maybe God's in a kind of stealth mode for a while - giving more people a chance to decide to have faith before being overt and obvious in the end times.
Well, there is the faith part, which you addressed well, but then there is the part you didn't, and that is mercy. To look upon God would mean certain death. I prefer knowing He exists as I do a squid in the depths of an ocean, though I've seen neither.
 
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