For example, if you believe God has a hand in everything, you have to therefore believe the earthquake was caused by Him and to believe that, you’d have to believe he did it for a reason. You would also have to suspend disbelief that God would harm innocent people for no reason, and trod upon the already-suffering masses in a country that’s had more sadness than most others in the world. You’d essentially have to believe that your God, for no apparent reason, decided to smite a country with a natural disaster. What’s that, you say? I don’t understand.
Well, actually I do, because on top of believing that, if you believe God has a hand in everything, you’d also have to believe that God didn’t save thousands of people from torturous deaths in Haiti, but helped you graduate college, get a job promotion, or helped P. Diddy win a Grammy. In fact, we know he helped the Yankees win the World Series, and he helped numerous R&B singers win AMA’s, Grammy’s, and MTV VMA’s because, as they remind us when they win, they’d like to “thank God.”
That this leaves us in, at the very least, a contradictory position, is obvious. In order to believe God tinkers with our daily lives, we have to accept the fact that He destroyed a tropical nation of impoverished people, while at the same time gave Soulja Boy mad stacks on deck, lotsa hunnys, and so on. Does that even make sense to anyone?
A great essay by Vincent Ferrari about the contradictions of religion:
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Actually I stopped believing, when it came down to believe in me I am a peaceful loving god, or else you burn forever in hell.
Lame, as usual. If God doesn’t create the planet with earthquakes and plate tectonics… it explodes. It’s that simple.
Wow what an arsewipe douchebag Pat Robertson beleiving in the closet Jesus hating bald mofo…read the bible fool
….oh…. and what about the human responsibility to build proper buildings (that would be partly their fault and partly our fault for sucking all the money out of Haiti and propping up lame-o governments).
Rectagon are you for real? That notion is nothing more than a theodicie stemming from the Argument from Evil which very effectively kills the idea of a god for an rational person.
While God may be all powerful and capable of changing the course of a earthquake it may not fit his plan. The failure of buildings to withstand the earthquake is the fault of man not God. If you believe in God you must also believe in evil and devils. May they not be responsible for the suffering? There are many lessons that will be learned from the tragedy in Haiti. The lessons taught may end up saving millions of other lives. To claim there is no God because He is responsible for everything is just as easy as to claim there is a God for the same reason.
Just change to a religion that includes the fallen angel Satan and then it all makes sense again.
Except:
“I believe God sets us down on Earth, lets us do our thing, then comes and gets us after a few years when He’s ready…
Also the animals who die exactly like us? And what a drag it’s going to be to hang around your 90 year old children and their 3 successive spouses in heaven.
RBG
Those who believe in god make up all kinds of excuses for what happens in the world, and when it doesn’t make sense (which it often doesn’t) they just say he “works in mysterious ways” or other BS excuses. Grow up, people, and stop believing in your invisible friend in the sky.
Bob are you for real. Are you trying to attack my position without understanding it? I grew up a Christian but the childhood indoctrination did not take. This would be a difficult forum to fully express the Argument from Evil but I will sum it up.
If there is a God he is a 3-0 God.
If God is omniscient he know evil is happening.
If God is omnipotent he can stop evil.
If god is omnibenevolent he would stop evil.
There is evil.
God is not omnipotent, or omniscient, or omnibenevolent.
There is no 3-0 God.
Do not use a theodicie as they are well known and have already been effectively defeated.
Theodicies are: (Excuses for the extra evil)
Free Will/ Soul Building
Plan / Unknowability
Necessity of Evil
If your argument fits into one of these categories it can be defeated.
Actually, God has nothing to do with anything bad going on in this world. 1 John 5:19 says the the entire world is in the lying in the power of the wicked one, Satan. Remember Matthew 4:8-10 where Satan took Jesus to an unusually high mountain and told him he would give him all the kingdoms of the world if he would just worship him once? How could he offer that if they were not his? Just think about it, and don’t blame God. God is letting man try to rule himself and he’s given him plenty of time to try every form of government. None work. You don’t have to believe this. Most won’t. But if you believe in the Bible, believe it all, not just parts. At least read it.
10 fpp2002
…And start believing in invisible Big Bangs, quarks, strings, aliens, and multiple universes.
RBG
lambo that idea falls into the theodicie of Free Will. Try again.
#13, all those things make a helluva lot more sense than a big guy in the sky, don’t they!
The logical mistake that jdwusami, the writer of the original post, and most American Christians make is that (to paraphrase jd) God is “omnibenevolent.”
In fact, nowhere in the Bible is it said (outside of, perhaps, poetry, though I cannot actually remember any.) Instead, what the Bible does contain, a quote attributed to the Lord himself, is that he is a WRATHFUL and VENGEFUL God – attributes that we can all agree are not for the omnibenevolent.
And the problem of attacking the “God works in mysterious ways” argument is that the statement is both meaningless (empirically, it’s the theological “I don’t know”) and tautologically true (for the truth of God’s mind is not to be known by man, and therefore, inherently mysterious.) You might disagree with the philosophy, but you can’t argue with the logical simplicity of it.
Religion makes complete sense. At least it does if you separate the promotional materials from the structural and practical forms that organized religion takes. Once you understand that there is no actual connection between the two you’ll be fine.
“You would also have to suspend disbelief that God would harm innocent people for no reason, …”
And what makes the author assume that the “people” are innocent? No-one is innocent.
I don’t believe that a supernatural entity caused the earthquake as punishment by the way.
The problem with religious people is they still think the burden of proof is not on them when it clearly is. I should not need to make an argument showing the existence of God does not make sense they should prove to me God does exist and without a valid Deductive or Inductively strong Inductive argument.
Not free will. It’s a question of sovereignty. Can man rule himself? It’s a question that has to be answered. He’s had thousands of years to try every form of government and all have failed. Man cannot direct his own step, and as each year goes by, we see bigger and bigger failures. Has man conquered problems like starvation? War? Crime? Disease? Terrorism? Man can’t even run late night television! God will reclaim his creation, but until that time, he is letting man run it under the current god, Satan, who is steering man with the root of all evil, greed.
#20, wow, your god must be pretty lame if he can’t beat Satan. That sucks to be worshiping someone so powerless.
God,
The person to talk to,
Complain to,
BITCH at/about,
ASK for favors that have NOTHINg to do with him..
When GOD put us here, he gave his truths, he then took his time and Showed us and taught us. And as any father, he let us Venture into the world.
But, as any father.
you DONT cry in your soup over LITTLE things.
YOU DECIDE if its YOUR PROBLEM/FAULT or if its another of his tests, and you need help.
He doesnt want a CALL in the middle of the night SAYING you lost your car and are in jail for DRUNK driving.
If you Throw up IN BED, its not his concern, as ITS YOUR HOME, and you have to LIVE THERE.
He dont care if you DONT throw your trash out WEEKLY, as its YOUR HOME, you DEAL with it.
He has left the world with his truths, and TAUGHT us for MOST of our lives..NOW LIVE WITH IT.
If you cant find or see it, its because he has left it around the world in many places. and with many people.
Other wise he is the BEST joker in the world.
He put us on this planet to LIVE a good life and has been LAUGHING AT US ever since..
It’s not about beating Satan. Satan raised the issue that creation should be allow to rule themselves, and that we don’t need God. God could have destroyed Satan right then, but all creation would have wondered if he was right. So, how do you prove that creation can’t rule itself? You let it try, without your help. There is, of course, a LOT more to it than that, but that’s it in a nutshell. Satan WILL be destroyed, along with all disobedient mankind. And, after that, no one will look back and say, yeah, we don’t need God. We could do it ourselves. Um, no. It’s a pretty depressing world, and I, for one, am ready for God’s government! No more death and taxes!
#23, yes, it’s not about beating Satan, because your god can’t. Too bad.
If you want to worship an evil god that is fine by me #16.
Also there is no problem with attacking “God works in mysterious ways” as this falls into the idea of you can’t understand God’s plan which is a bad argument.
To say you can’t understand God’s plan is just to fall into the logical fallacy of special pleading.
To move beyond this point and give an example I think we could all agree that the Holocaust is evil. When you say it is God’s plan you are really saying you think it is evil but your mind is too small to understand god’s great plan. Thus if God’s great plan is not understandable by us then nothing about God is understandable by us. Therefor if nothing about God is understandable to us then why are we even talking about God. You can’t argue for or even against God because he is unknowable. Thus if the plan response works why are you making a response. The problem is I know a good plan for my life which means I can understand good plans and bad plans. This is bad for god.
In Ezekiel, the God of the Bible says more or less “I cant take this anymore” regarding the infanticide, giving the new born up and sacrificing them alive in the arms of the golden statues that where heated in the fires and red hot…sick, sick… gave them lost of warnings and time, very patient.. then he turned Israel over to her enemies. that was judgment. Is this the case with Haiti or New Orleans for vodou? we dont know.
But the bible is clear, His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. HE is boss and we are not.
One thing they all miss is, there is a devil. how come he doesn’t get any blame? Dugh!
see, it aint that simple, neither is believing we evolved from rocks, now THAT takes more faith then I have and that is why im a christian.
anyways, enough said!
Lambo, there is a flaw. Satan says god’s creations can rule themselves but god says “no, they need me”. So satan is down here with all of god’s creations to making the creations do bad things to prove god is wrong? Logic fails. Satan should be stopping everything bad from happening to make sure none of god’s creations needs a god.
For humanities sake, satan should be a good guy. God just wants to be idolized.
#27, who said we evolved from rocks?
fpp2002, if you dont believe in a creator, you probably believe in evolution.. If you believe in evolution, you believe in the beginning there was nothing then nothing exploded and then —
from the goo to the zoo to you..
speaking of silliness
Pat Robertson aint all there, a heretic.
Pat is a reconstructionist, and a major proponent of Kingdom Now theology / latter rain.
http://apologeticsindex.org/r00.html
#30, evolution has nothing to do with the creation of the earth. These are two separate, distinct areas of study. Of course, if you had any basic scientific knowledge you would be aware of that.
You haven’t answered my question, by the way. Who said we evolved from rocks?
#31, I suppose only YOU have the right idea about god?
WHAT GOD???
Why all this bullshit about something that does NOT exist, other than in Dick Heads imagination?