The Answerer

Good question thank you. I do know a little about Egypt. There is plenty of water and land. The Nile River is 6,500km long and has a huge dammed lake 500km long in the hills. Look up Aswan High Dam on the www to read and decide for yourself: What is the matter? While there, look at Water Supply and Sanitation in Egypt too. There are many real problems and they seem slow in fixing them.

But, many countries are hurting badly because of lack of rain, especially my home in Western Australia! From 1949 when I took notice of these things, up to 1980, Western Australia had good reliable rains and farmers had money to spare. Not so now; 30% less rain, with poor crops and no real soaking rains. Soaking rains are so important.

These changing rainfall patterns are everywhere – some have drought, some have floods with cars being washed down the street. There are record floods in the eastern side of Australia, and record fires too. Something is very wrong and I believe engine exhausts cause much of it. Burning coal is a bad one too but I don’t like nuclear power either. The poisonous nuclear waste must be stored for around 25,000 years!! We (my generation) started it but we are reluctant to find solutions because we love our cars.

Five scientists would give five different answers but ‘WE’ (humanity) burn 80,000,000,000 barrels of oil a day. That must make a difference somehow! I think we must burn less oil and not expect God to ‘Fix it’, while we buy more cars and build more roads for them. (This climate change/global warming is a huge subject of discussion and controversy in the news and on TV almost every day).

Quite simple really. God gave Adam and Eve a whole garden to eat from except for one tree. “Don’t eat of it,” He said, “Or you will die.” Spiritually they would die, not like being poisoned by the tree's fruit, but they chose to do wrong by disobeying God.

God did not post armed guards and force them not to do wrong, He gave them the choice to do right or wrong. They did do wrong and humans have been exercising that choice (to do right or wrong) ever since. It does make those who do right shake their heads in despair pretty often (I think TV causes some of it).

The Bible says: “No man can see God and live.” Christianity is a religion of faith in the unseen God. That unseen God sent Jesus to earth to teach us about God and really, that is enough. His creation of the stars, the universe and this beautiful planet tells us a bit about Him. Studying them tells us much about God.

Many, many people have a strong need to see and touch the thing they ‘worship’, be it a gold statue, an expensive motor car, a motorbike, and even TV and movie stars.

Idols were/are condemned by God. They cannot see, hear, or help and can burn, decay, be stolen and so on. Not so God. “From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” (King David in psalms)

If God was visible His face, somehow, would be on cool drink bottles, and breakfast cereals, and roadside signs. ”YUK!”

Well thank you for a very important question. The answer is “Yes” and “No.” Confused? well, keep reading.

In The Ten Commandments one of them is “You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13) That is very plain, but people do kill others, but sometimes they do not mean to. Meaning it was an accident, an animal caused the death or maybe in a fight (this is 3,500 years ago). In the Old Testament, God, who is merciful, made five ‘Cities of Refuge’ where a person who had accidently killed someone could get to quickly before relatives came and took angry revenge. In the Cities of Refuge the person was safe and later on, would have a proper trial. 

In the Ten Commandments ‘murder’ meant that you deliberately planned to kill someone and did it. That is called ‘wilful murder’. In some countries like the USA and China you can be put to death for that.

In the Old Testament (3,500 years ago) God killed thousands of his own people because He would not tolerate deliberate and wilful disobedience of His laws and instructions again and again. Some people treated God with distain, lied about things, and mocked his laws. There are many references to it in the Bible. On one occasion God had Joshua assemble all the family of Achan. He admitted his guilt and he and all his family and the animals he had, were stoned to death and stones heaped over them and ‘God's anger was abated’.  That’s in Joshua Chapter 7. (That punishment made the rest more inclined to obey strict instructions I would think.)

Stoning to death by the town’s people was in God’s law…but God is merciful. On one occasion (see John Chapter 8 verses 3 to 11) the religious politicians tried to trap Jesus into giving a wrong answer about a woman caught in the act of adultery (the bloke must have run away). Jesus refused to answer. But under pressure Jesus said: “Alright, stone her to death but only he who has never sinned may cast the first stone.” That put them on the spot. Slowly they all left, having remembered their own sins, and Jesus said to the woman: “Where are they all, are there none left to accuse you?” She replied: “None, Sir.” And Jesus said to her: “Neither do I accuse you; off you go and leave your life of sin.” Compassion – that’s Jesus. Even today people still use the expression: “Are you going to ‘cast the first stone’?” meaning that person could be hiding his/her own guilt over some matter in the past but wanting to punish someone else.

Because they like to and it makes them feel better, even though they must know that it may one day ‘bite them on the bum’ by having a smoking disease. Did you know that smoking sends some people blind? I only found out about that last year…and I am 81 years old (moking narrows the tiny blood vessels at the back of the eye).

The need to ‘feel better’ is at the core of the problem. If most people do without smoking then why do the smokers need to ‘burn good money’ to feel better? I guess it is because they don’t know how to be happy – how to be at peace with themselves and so they like to smoke.

Here in my town, Perth, there are ‘super cheap’ non-grocery shops. One of them is ‘Target’ and some of their advertisements have a slogan that says “100% Happy!” I say that is a lie. ‘Things’ (like toys, iPads, bikes, clothes, grog, and smoking etc.) cannot make you happy. Things wear out and you get older and your needs change. Only God can give full peace of heart and mind.

“Why do people smoke?” is one I cannot fully answer because I don’t smoke. You may have to ask a smoker that one, and I hope you don’t get a punch up the nose for asking. Some may be a bit ‘agro’ at you asking them. 

One boy in a school told me his aunty told his family that: ”I could have bought a house with all the money I have spent on ‘ciggies’ over 30 years.” Phew! Yes, a heavy smoker can easily spend the cost of a house over that time at $30.00 a week...in 1960 when houses were cheap. Ciggies are: ”A fire at one end – a fool at the other.” is true I guess.