The world has more knowledge but spiritually its very wicked. There has been over 60 mass shootings in USA monthly 2021. A child is murdered daily. [Spirituality & Religion]

@CopperCicada Grace does not stop people doing evil..

Grace is the Atonement of the LORD Jesus which ensures the forgiveness of those who believe and trust in it.. Grace covers transgressions against the will of God it does not cause us to become perfect sinless beings in this world..

And i think your view of the world is overly rosy..

I suggest you read the Book of Revelation that predict how bad the world is going to get just prior to the return of Jesus.. It's not a fantasy.. It is a very brutal reality..

@Adstar Historians and economists study social violence of different sorts. Quite analytically. The rise of parliamentary and representiational democratic governments, together with free markets, education, the spread of non-worldly religious traditions, technology, modern medicine, diplomacy, military deterrance-- have all made the world a safer and better place.

It's not me being rosy. These are quantifiable things. They are even demonstrably clear in my lifetime.

No. Grace does not stop people from being evil. It may not be the proper term to describe what I'm getting at. I'm thinking of Martin Luther King Jr.'s meditations on Niebuhr's theology in Moral Man and Immoral Society. It is a balance to over emphasize the evil of man, as we end up underestimating the power of God's good in the world as it acts through man. I see that as a form of grace. Though indirect.

I am not denying the reality of an end of times. Eschatological or our selfish material anihillation. But I'm with MLK. I refuse to deny man's transformational power of good. Which, if you like, is less a statement of the innate good of man, but a statement of God's power through man.

@CopperCicada So 125,000 abortions per day in this world is not violence to you CopperCicada..

I bet a lot of those Historians and economists analytical statistics formulators don't recognize abortion as bloody murder.. You trust in statistics when you do not seem to understand that statistics are subject to the bias of those commissioning the statistics..

As for Good.. Yeah people can do Good and can be motivated to do more good.. But in no way will that cause a world wide state of goodness to overcome the rising evil people who understand the scriptures are observing..

Also remember evil is not just about violence.. Evil comes in the form of sexual deviancy and other immoralities not related to violence..

@Adstar I've never suggested that there weren't substantial forms of violence in the world today, have I? In a different comment in this same thread I referenced the disturbing rate of sexual violence to both sexes as an example of how damaged society is. ANd I don't think I've ever suggested abortion is anything other than murder, have I? I likely disagree with many as to how to deal with it, how to end it-- but I've never spoken in euphemisms about it.

My claim was that [i]as a whole[/i] the world is a safer and healthier place. It seems to me the narrative of the gospels themselves speak to this. Really any knowlege of the history of European antiquity. Any knowledge of European or world history. Even in the course of a few generations in my country it seems to be true. Today is the anniversay or a black community burnt to the ground with hundreds massacred, hundreds injured, when a lynching was prevented. That is a thing of the past. I live on the grounds of a slave plantation. That is a thing of the past. And so on.

And of course I make no assertion of the world being wholly good. That is not an assertion of any spiritual tenet system. Certainly not of MLK and his social gospel which I mentioned earlier.

Yes. Different forms of evil. No doubt. Not just violence.

You mention sexual deviancy. It's interesting. I've heard from the most faithful of the faithful that I am a sexual deviant for some years. From some of the self-acclaimed SW pastors as well. No different than a pederast, necrophile, beastiphile. Why? Having non-procreative sex with a wife of 20+ years who couldn't have children.

Maybe we can be gentler with each other?

I think it goes back to our cynicism towards humanity versus our faith in God's influence and power.

@CopperCicada [quote]You mention sexual deviancy. It's interesting. I've heard from the most faithful of the faithful that I am a sexual deviant for some years. From some of the self-acclaimed SW pastors as well. No different than a pederast, necrophile, beastiphile. Why? Having non-procreative sex with a wife of 20+ years who couldn't have children. [/quote]

My definition of sexual deviancy is based on the Bible definitions of sexual deviancy.. Not on what some religious person says.. There is No teaching in the Bible that engaging in sex with a wife who is barren is sexually deviant..

I wish more people who claimed to be Christian would base their beliefs upon what the Bible actually preaches then listen to preacher pastors popes and other religious people who expose their personal opinion of what seems right and good to them.. If Christians based their beliefs on the Bible then a huge amount of deception and false teachings would fall flat on their faces and would suffer a still birth.. But no people listen to preachers way way way too often and neglect actually reading the word of God direct..

Also some of the statements i made should have had a Question mark at the end of them.. The objective was to get people to think about things that the media does not highlight.. Like the deaths of millions in abortions..

As for humanity.. I know for a fact NO human is perfect/Without sin therefore where it comes to the standards of God ALL people fail to live up to the standards of God.. We can see the world as being better or worse then it was before..

Like seeing people being murdered by being shot in the head is better then a person being murdered by being shot in the guts.. But in the end both situations are evil and both situations fall short of the standard of God, Do to murder..

@Adstar [quote]There is No teaching in the Bible that engaging in sex with a wife who is barren is sexually deviant..[/quote]

It is said to be implicitly in the teaching of creation in Genesis.

God created a natural order. Male and female animals come together to procreate and create new animals.

And anything that goes against the will of God is sin.

So going against the natural order of God's creation is sin.

And thus having any non-procreative sex is sin. More than "sin" in that it explicitly mocks god's natural order.

This would include any sexual act that is non-procreative. Which is one argument as to why homosexuality is sinful. But it's also an argument as to why any number of forms of heterosexual contact is sinful, even among married couples. Any sexual act that isn't explicity procreative. And sex with a woman who can't conceive is certainly that.

@CopperCicada [quote]It is said to be implicitly in the teaching of creation in Genesis.[/quote] Where? I have read the Bible and never seen it..

[quote]God created a natural order. Male and female animals come together to procreate and create new animals.

And anything that goes against the will of God is sin.

So going against the natural order of God's creation is sin.

And thus having any non-procreative sex is sin. More than "sin" in that it explicitly mocks god's natural order.[/quote]

3 points correct conclusion derived from those points is wrong.. If it was so then God would have told Abraham that He was sinning by having sex with his barren wife Sarah.. But God later caused Sarah to concieve in her old age.. If it was sin for Abraham to engage in sexual relations with His barren wife and he stopped doing so then he would never have had his son Issac and thus his grandsom Jacob who became Israel..

@Adstar The answer is that Abraham and Sarah are a different case. They were part of God’s plan of revelation. They don’t apply to regular men and women.

I agree with the interpretation given. That is the most literal meaning. But It is also why I am not a literalist.

@CopperCicada Every day a child and woman are murdered and there is a mass murder in the USA every day and most marriages break up leaving children without Dads and they turn to drugs, video games, sex and porn. We are living in a tech world with increased knowledge but SPIRITUALLY a very wicked world and God will stop this generation from growing up because of its wickedness I believe. God will intervene and burn this world up and make a new one when it is like the days of Sodom, and Noah he says.