Evidence for God from Science

Hello to all,

If you were the President of the United States and a Christian and Osama bin Laden set off a nuke in NYC killing 100's of thousands people. What would you do? How would you respond in this situation?

Jesus said to love your enemies and turn the other cheek. Would you look for responses other than responding in kind? If so, what would they be?

Thanks

That's a good question.

Loving God and our Neighbours as our highest command would surely mean that I am not to wage war, being responsible for many deaths. How can the value of even one soul be measured? Does ANY Christian man ever have the right in the eyes of God to end a life, and possibly send an unprepared soul to eternal damnation? Our concern is Jesus' heavenly kindgom on Earth, and that's the reason that Jesus' disciples didn't try to save Him or each other when it came right down to it.

Now, having said that, we also know that God brings rulers up and causes them to fall. So keeping that in mind, were I a Christian and in power should something like that happen, I would seek the will of the Lord and then do what I felt was right. Right now I would think that to be full retaliation but without experiencing it who knows what I would think for sure. But nevertheless, I would have to trust that God had put me in power to react how I would react. If I wasn't supposed to fight then God could have brought someone else to power.

for a very good answer.

When I asked this question of a Christian friend of mine he said the following:

"The response of the USA to a terrorist attack such as this should be a public acknowledgement by our government that we have failed to acknowledge God and our failure to seek God as a nation."

I didn't know quite know how to respond to that comment. What would you have said?

Thanks.

Christian2 wrote:for a very good answer.

When I asked this question of a Christian friend of mine he said the following:

"The response of the USA to a terrorist attack such as this should be a public acknowledgement by our government that we have failed to acknowledge God and our failure to seek God as a nation."

I didn't know quite know how to respond to that comment. What would you have said?

Thanks.

I would ask him this: "Where in the Bible are Christian believers promised peace, prosperity, wealth, and physical protection if we believe in God?"

Actually quite the opposite... The Bible warns us that we will be persecuted. We are told that so few rich will be saved. We are told that the nations of men will always be in turmoil. And we are told that Satan is price of the Earth and that he would seek to destroy us... Let me give you some background on where I'm coming in the first post and this:

I was in a similar debate with someone along the same lines and I asked, "Has God not blessed America for it's Christian foundation? Does He not prefer His children to live in freedom?" His response was much like I just asked about not having a guarantee of freedom and peace. He followed with a question for me: "Which has the stronger church and which saves more souls: The church in America or the persecuted church in China?" "Well, ok the church in China." "So why then, would God seek to preserve a land of rich people who are so confident that they turn from God and adopt atheism or a new Age philosophy that they are in fact, God?"

From there we both agreed though, that the leader of a nation has a duty to protect his people. In the case of an attack like 911 or Iraq the President is compelled to fight because of his position in office. Now the guy I was talking to had concluded that no Christian could ever hold such a position, because it would force him to choose between following God and being the President. I basically countered that with what I told you in the first post: "I believe Bush is a Christian and that God put him in power to lead the nation in such a time. I hope Bush is truly seeking the will of God in his actions, and at this point I have no reason to believe that he isn't doing that."

So that's the background to where my first post came from. Really this ties in with the whole question of whether Christians should fight on Earth or not. Truly, I'm still undecided. Regardless, when something like 911 happens we can only turn to our Faith, and our our hope is in this:

1 John 4:4
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

We know who will win in the end. We know that no matter what happens in our lives we will be face to face with the glory of God and welcomed into His arms.

On the balance with that though, is that we know that God will favour and bless nations that call out to Him. And that is honestly why I think the Western Democracies have become so great. So that's why I'm torn about the whole issue.

One has to ask himself if the turn the other cheek quote actually represents all kinds of attack. I believe Jesus actually meant not to retaliate to petty attack that do not really cause you any harm. If you are the leader of a nation, and the enemy seeks to destroy those you have sworn to protect, should you do nothing? By inaction you damn the innocent. By action you damn the guilty. Of the two choices, the second one seems the least evil.

I'm gonna have to say even as a President of the United States i wouldn't go to war at all. Jesus said "Happy are those who strive for peace - they shall be called the sons of God". It is a sin to have the blood of the innocent on your hands(all wars result in some innocent civilians dying) and we are judged based on the sins we commit, not our good deeds. Jesus said to LOVE your enemies and pray for them!
Its important that even though our immediate response to such an act would be one of immediate need for revenge, we must suppress these types of emotions as they can lead to sin. When i save your body, i'm not really saving your life because only Jesus Christ can save you and so as a President i would continue to preach the Gospel of the Lord, even if it's not what the people would immediately want to hear.

There also ways of trying to capture Osama covertly, but as i stated i feel war reallly shouldn't be an option.

About Osama, there are ways for them to capture him covertly, but look at who's in charge of covert ops... *kicks CIA*

yeah i know the whole intelligence thing is a mess!

Negotiation? What is this "negotiation" you speak of?

Seriously though, you will have difficulty negotiating anything nowadays. Especially with the US's downright pathetic diplomatic skills.

Negotiation generally happens so that two sides can compromise, and give up something in order to receive something.

Now if Usuma Bin Laden and many muslim extremists want all of the US wiped out because they are Satan, but the US wants peace, then I'm not sure US should compromise by saying, "Well, we'll allow you to destroy New York, California, and Florida, and in exchange you must leave the other states alone."

Although I think things could have perhaps been accomplished differently, and especially in a more honest manner on Iraq, some things will remain more of an ideal rather than real, that is, until Christ returns—although that shouldn't stop us trying.

Kurieuo.

Beena wrote:There is also a third choice my dear, it's called negotiation and compromise.

In an ideal world that would work, however, you are dealing with a religious group which believes you do anything and everything to trick the enemy (non-Muslims). That includes agreeing to things they really have no intention of keeping in order to lure you into a state of comfort before they show up in the middle of the night and behead you. Their "holy" book instructs them to lie, cheat, steal, kill, murder, deceive, etc., and it is all good as long as it is done to the benefit of Islam.

To be honest, I have no idea what I would do militarily. I guess the first thing I would do is close the borders. Reserves on both land borders and naval units on the coasts. Nobody comes in. If it got bad enough I would "round up" muslims in the United States and place them in isolation like we did the Japanese in WWII. Beyond that, I am not sure what I would do. I find it hard to believe I would ever use nukes but if it came down to me and my people and them and their people......and I do not see anything wrong with that.

BTW, Satan rebelled against God. Did God turn the other cheek, so to speak? When there is war in Heaven (Revelation), do the angels turn the other cheek? Nope. There is a time to turn the other cheek and then there is a time to respond (when your life is threatened).

Bin Laden is an atheist who hates the US because it constantly interferes with his plans for kicking ass and getting rich. I highly doubt it has anything to do with religion, even though he seems to be pretty good at using it for the purpose of manipulation.

Mastermind wrote:Bin Laden is an atheist who hates the US because it constantly interferes with his plans for kicking ass and getting rich. I highly doubt it has anything to do with religion, even though he seems to be pretty good at using it for the purpose of manipulation.

He was rich and had everything he could want before he got involved with terrorism. I also doubt he is a devout muslim, however, does it matter? He is helping to carry out the purpose of Islam which is to rid the planet of non-muslims. Yes, he uses religion to manipulate, but what does it say when your religion falls perfectly in line with an evil man's agenda?