religion

[Ahyoka]

When you ask somebody who is religious 'Why won't god heal amputees" they give you some response like "that's too big of a prayer" or something like that. Gee, since when was god so weak that he was un-able to make a limb grow.

So if he can't even do that, then it explains why he lets tens of thousands of people die of starvation and let's all these crack-pot extremists in the middle east kill in his name.

So if god exists, I believe there are two possibilities:
1. He is too weak to do anything about all the terrible things happening. Or
2: He is so cruel and sadistic that he does not care.

If either are true, then I would choose not to worship, as he does not fit the bill for whom I would think of as an all loving creator.

Don't feed me that 'god works in mysterious ways' bullshit. That's just an excuse for him. He's god, he doesn't need an excuse. He needs to get his act together, otherwise.. people might... start.. doubting his existence.

Tell me honestly, those of you who choose to follow a religion, you say that everyday of your lives, god is there, he helps you, he answers your prayer.. etc etc.. if that's the case, why is it that he has no problem helping middle aged people living in developed countries with their problems, yet couldn't care less about all the people dying of starvation and AIDS? I don't want to hear an answer at all if it's just more mind-numblingly stupid quotes from the bible and more 'god works in mysterious ways' bullshit.


A guy I knew, used to be my neighbor, was once in a car accident. He was in the back driver side of the car the entire time. He never moved to another seat, he never did anything weird, he just sat there in that seat. An accident occurs, with another car hitting the back passenger side of the car, crushing the area where somebody would normally be sitting. Remember, nobody sat there, at all, the entire time, this was confirmed by other passengers and the witness of when they got in the car.

After he gets out of the hospital, he claims that god told him to move out of the passenger side seat of the car. wait, what? He was never in the seat. He had always claimed and stood by it, that he had gotten in on the passenger side, and that god told him to move roughly a minute before the accident. 3 other people (The driver, the passenger, and somebody who saw them get in the car) justify that he did NOT sit in the passenger side seat, yet he insists that god just saved his life. He refuses to believe that maybe the anesthetics he was given when having stitched put in may have something to do with him thinking that.

As you can see, his belief in god took priority over any form of logic. He would rather sound like a complete dumbass than face the possibility that it wasn't god.

Mike I see where your coming from and I honestly wish I knew all the answers to your questions, sometimes I've struggled with those very same questions. But to best put it, God gives us free will. That free will extends to choices we make everyday, and the choices others make & nowhere in the bible does it say that life is in anyway fair to people. God just lets things happen because God won't "control" people (believers and non-believers alike) so if a person decides to drive drunk God probably isn't going to hide his keys, if your gonna be a dumbass and make horrible choices then he'll let you, but you have to answer for them.

That doesn't mean that God kicks a believer or non-believer to the curb though, God hears the prayers of the saved and unsaved alike. But if a person never prays then things can happen but if you ask God to give me safe trip then I believe he will, you just have to ask. And Mike how do we know that God doesn't answer prayers in 3rd World countries? just because things like AIDS exist don't mean that God never answers prayers. I could pray 24/7 for the rest of my life that people would magically stop dying but that wouldn't happen because death is a part of a process, or I could pray that God would stop country's from going to war but that wouldn't happen either because leaders have free will and God can't stop that.

But now, as to your neighbor who was in the car wreck. Sometimes people want to apply divine intervention to incidents in their life, when really they were just lucky. But as a Firefighter myself I have been on wrecks that have been really bad, ones where people honestly should have died but didn't. And I can't explain it, yeah seat belts save lives but seat belts can only protect you from so much and I have seen cars that have literally had entire front ends ripped off, I was on one wreck where two cars collied so hard it knocked the rear axle off one car & the car kept going for another 15 feet, leaving a 1 inch deep channel in asphalt as it went 2 of the 3 people walked away without injury, the 3rd woman lost alot of blood internally and had we been 5 more minutes in getting her out of the car she would have bled to death internally, she came within inches of severing the artery in her hip and had she done that there would have been nothing we could have done. I have also been on a wreck where a new born infant was in the drivers side backseat in her car seat when her mother ran off the road and over compensated to correct herself and drove thru a guard rail into a shallow creek, thru a fence where the car CLIMBED a tree ass end first, the backseat of the drivers side hit that metal guard rail at 60mph+, absolutly destroyed the door but didn't hurt that baby one bit...she slept thru it all. But when I first saw that car I knew whoose car it was and when I saw that baby seat where a door should be I thought holy f*** that baby has got to be dead but thankfully it wasn't so.

I still don't know how some of these folks lived but they did.

 

[Cabbs]

I don't know what to believe, I really don't. I guess I won't know 'till I die.

Same here. Until then, I'm just not gonna care.

 

[Kage]

They say god gave you a brain so you could reason. See whats right and wrong, and ultimately believe or not beleive.
If that is the case, yet he wants everyone to believe, but has given us a choice to or not, then I decide to do neither. I do, and do not believe. I am inbetween and always will be.
At least then when I die, I can say

"Well... I didn't make a decision, because I didn't have proof, but now I see its real, I have my proof, therefore I believe"

 

[setishock]

Where did God come from? And please don't hand me all that He's alway been here BS. I just don't buy that.

 

[StratosP]

Sorry for my late response, been with relatives.

Well no one knows the truth but there is an equal chance that there is and isn't a god. I was born and raised as an Orthodox Christian my whole life, but after doing lots and lots of research, putting it before my school homework, I cannot make up my mind. %25 of me is saying there is a god, %25 of me is saying that we evolved from the apes. And the other %50 doesn't care. I believe there is some sort of life out there, but I don't believe there is an overall god.

Because that piece doesn't fit in the puzzle. It's out of shape; I read a page out of the bible (i dont read the bible just turned a page because i was bored so i might as well read a couple pages)
and it said something like
"God is the only god and you shall believe no other as your god is a jealous god".
But jealousy is a sin, right?
Didn't the dinosaurs come first?
What about the apes? Did we evolve from them?
Why is there a heaven? If god loves us so much wouldn't he just put us in heaven automanically?
Why is there a hell? I though god loves all?
Why doesn't god just stop bad things happening?
Why is god %100 good? Everyone has to have a bad side, why not him?
Why do we believe in Christianity instead of all the other religions that have god/gods?

And so on, can't think straight now, going to play games =P

 

[Rubber314Chicken]

So if we cut off your arm, since you have so much faith it's going to grow back?

remember that girl who died because the parents only prayed?

 

[MikeReiner]

remember that girl who died because the parents only prayed?

Yep, their faith in god was so strong they had believed god would heal their daughter. Looks like god didn't think it was strong enough.

 

[J03]

When I read the title of this thread, I thought "Oh Dear".

Im an atheist.

 

[Ahyoka]

Sorry for my late response, been with relatives.

Well no one knows the truth but there is an equal chance that there is and isn't a god. I was born and raised as an Orthodox Christian my whole life, but after doing lots and lots of research, putting it before my school homework, I cannot make up my mind. %25 of me is saying there is a god, %25 of me is saying that we evolved from the apes. And the other %50 doesn't care. I believe there is some sort of life out there, but I don't believe there is an overall god.

Because that piece doesn't fit in the puzzle. It's out of shape; I read a page out of the bible (i dont read the bible just turned a page because i was bored so i might as well read a couple pages)
and it said something like
"God is the only god and you shall believe no other as your god is a jealous god".
But jealousy is a sin, right?
Didn't the dinosaurs come first?
What about the apes? Did we evolve from them?
Why is there a heaven? If god loves us so much wouldn't he just put us in heaven automanically?
Why is there a hell? I though god loves all?
Why doesn't god just stop bad things happening?
Why is god %100 good? Everyone has to have a bad side, why not him?
Why do we believe in Christianity instead of all the other religions that have god/gods?

And so on, can't think straight now, going to play games =P

1:As to loving only one God it means that you can't claim to be a Christian simply to "make sure" that you would go to heaven, when in reality you really don't believe in it, that you really believe in something else more than God. God is jealous of our love, he is alot like people in a way, he wants to be loved, and to love others. Love is something He can't force people to do. Because it wouldn't be love then...if a parent forced their child to say "i love you", it wouldn't be true love.

2: As to the dinosaurs the bible has a verse that relates to dinosaurs walking the earth, I can't think of the verse off the top of my head but I can find it.

3: The bible never hints at humans evolving from apes, if in Genesis it says that God spoke to angels saying "let us make man in our image" (biblically speaking) we look alot like we did then, because every time that angels are mentioned talking to humans they look like men, as in they eat food and dress as every day people...some people didn't even know that they were with angels. The common idea that angels have wings and fly around is bs, nowhere in the bible does it speak of that, because the word angel means messenger and everytime angels are mentioned they are fulfilling that job description.

4: Biblically we were all in heaven at one time, but angels (like men) have free will, and according to Scripture Satan (who, is not a red, horned demon carrying a pitch fork and is actually described as being beautiful and a favorite among Gods angels) chose to rebel, believing he was better than God and should be worshiped himself. Satan is also described as being a smooth talker, a deceiver, in the bible it says that he drew (or lead away) 1/3rd of all the souls. Which is why we exist, that by being born as a human we could have a clean slate and make our own choice as to who to follow, of course we all had the choice not to be born and I think somewhere in the bible it says like 3,000 chose not to be born and still follow Satan. Again, this is a very paraphrased version and there is much more to it but I am simply paraphrasing. But to answer your question, we have the choice to go to heaven. If a person lives their whole life as an Atheist then dies to find a heaven why should he let a person who chose not to believe in the flesh into a place he didn't want to go to?

5: God does love everyone, and God doesn't "send" people to hell. People send themselves, again it's like the heaven example above you have a choice how to live your life, deal with your choice...simple as that. But people typically think that people have already died have gone to heaven or hell, that hasn't happened yet. In the parable of the rich man and lazarus the bible speaks of there being a great gulf, with the good on one side and the bad on the other, the bad side is what people think of as "hell" and biblically hell just refers to being separated from God. While, the people on the good side are comforted, they are "safe" so to speak. Those on the bad sad can still have a chance.

Let's say a Mongolian man died after Christ walked the earth, in lets say the 1500s, and he had no way of ever coming into contact with Christianity, never knew about it or who Jesus was and dies, does he go to hell? not really, they are on the bad side of the gulf but they have a second chance before judgment. People who never had a chance to know the truth or those we were mislead by teachers and had no way of knowing anything else have a second chance...not a free pass, but they have a chance to hear the truth and decide for themselves. But that doesn't mean that everyone gets a second chance, if a person has a chance to go to church and has a chance of believing but choose not to, they don't have a second chance. They had easy access to it all their whole lives and chose not to believe, again. You make the choice, live with it.

6: God gives everyone free will and generally He dosen't interfere with people's lives, he dosen't give a saved person a easy ride through life. Saved people and Unsaved alike have to live their lives, God dosen't put a christians life on auto pilot and we get to kick back and coast through life. Sometimes people's choices screw other people over. You may think, well why does God allow hurricanes to happen? because the earth has seasons and hurricanes are merely a natural thing, it's not like God is raining down fire and brimstone on modern city's and towns just for s***s and giggles.

7: I can't answer that, but obviously God knows of good and evil. While God may not have created evil, I think it exists because of our free will. That you can always do good things, but you can always just as easily choose to do bad things. Yin and Yang if you will.

8: You could just as easily say why do Muslims believe in Allah and Mohammad? or why do Druids worship trees? or why do people choose not belive in a God? the answer is because they choose to, it's a person's choice and his alone to decide what he believes.

Yep, their faith in god was so strong they had believed god would heal their daughter. Looks like god didn't think it was strong enough.

I remember that story, this is where I get mad. I don't believe that God looks kindly upon parent's who abuse their children like that. It's one thing if a person doesn't want medical care, their choice but a kid doesn't make a decision like that. But as to people who don't go to doctors and refuse medical treatment, to me that's stupid. God gives you a brain, use it.

God isn't going to be pissed if you go to a doctor, that's what they are there...to help the sick. If God created everything, then he created plants that have medicinal properties, so that makes me think he wants people to learn how to use medicines to help each other. I hate when people blaim God not healing a person who could go to a doctor, but wouldn't go, if a person has cancer then yeah I believe you pray for God's healing hand but you also seek out help from doctors, most people think that God heals instantaneously and if they aren't cured right then, that God doesn't care. People never think that maybe God created the driving forces behind chemo to heal people, that everyone that overcomes cancer is healed.

 

[StratosP]

You have good points, but in the end, what's the point fighting for a religion. I just say "Enjoy life now and find out what happens when you die later".