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:
2
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@#29 At certain point there was no life, just rocks. Something live came out of it, evolved, eventually producing us…
But, there we come to a incompatibility point. Scientific method is not part of belief system. Spiritual belief is not part of scientifically measurable system. Even similar terms those cover like creation and beginning of life have incompatible aspects and definition in those two systems.
Now to Haiti. Thinking that God somehow punishes people is indeed primitive even in religious belief system. What is however sadly true is that societies not based on some strong moral principles be it religious or materialistic simply can’t have structure needed to survive catastrophic situations. Religious systems are the oldest such underpinnings of the society. Hence, suffering and disorder would be much lesser from this same disaster if the Haiti society have had strong moral structure.
Life without God leads to suffering, not because God punishes but because such life leads to conditions in which suffering is both more likely and has greater impact. God may be “overthrown” by working materialistic moral system in the future, but no such working system yet exists. It is best what we have so far.
Wait a minute! You can’t argue about religion using historical religious promotional materials and get anything substantive.
There are some decent religious philosophers, St. Francis of Assisi comes to mind in Christendom, but the large majority of religion is just sales BS.
I fully recognize and appreciate the community aspect of religion(unless you’re different). I’m also aware of the way religion made distance business relationships possible before a proper state existed to enforce contract law. Good stuff.
The downside of religion is that when you use it to make logical arguments or determine social policy really bad things(read: intractable wars) tend to happen.
So I would tend to think Pat Robertson is a degenerate hack for announcing Haiti somehow deserved the quake. But when you start arguing the moral obligations of god to act\cause in crisis situations all content is absent.
One exception to argument is the use of RANDOM capitalization. I have it on good authority, and I mean on REALLY good authority, that god is not a supporter of excessive capitalization. That is, of course, unless capitalization is used to make a recognizable POINT.
#35,
“What is however sadly true is that societies not based on some strong moral principles be it religious or materialistic simply can’t have structure needed to survive catastrophic situations”
Yes, moral princicples are important. However, they do not come from religion. They are built into our DNA.
“Religious systems are the oldest such underpinnings of the society. Hence, suffering and disorder would be much lesser from this same disaster if the Haiti society have had strong moral structure.”
WTF? You’re saying the people of Haiti have no morals, and they are suffering as a result?
“Life without God leads to suffering, not because God punishes but because such life leads to conditions in which suffering is both more likely and has greater impact.”
No, life WITH god leads to suffering. Religion is one of the most damaging constructs in the history of mankind.
“It is best what we have so far.”
Huh? A moral system based on god is the best we have so far? If that’s the case, please explain the morality of all the religious conflicts in the history of the world.
As Edi Murphy once said, “Bleep happens.”
As another said, “You can’t control the situation you find yourself in whether free born or slave but no matter what your situation you still have the option of doing the right thing.”
“Do the right thing whether you feel like it or not.”
Take care and may God bless and keep you.
Hold up! Isn’t this the Comcast guy?
#31
The single greatest source of material for showing the hypocrisy of Christians is in fact the Bible. Indeed, it is worth reading just to show how much is in it that Christians ignore or dismiss with faulty logic.
#35
> Hence, suffering
> and disorder would be
> much lesser from this
> same disaster if the
> Haiti society have
> had strong moral structure.
Of course you have evidence to support such a statement. You couldn’t possibly be pulling such a thesis out of your tokhes?
Take two societies: one highly scientific but mostly atheist and another that is mostly religious and shuns science. Add in a natural disaster and let’s see which one responds better. My money is on the one that encourages its people to understand how the world actually works instead of believing in a fairy tale.
Free Will.
Hate to say it, but the level of analysis on this “God” topic is just mediocre. Why don’t we read some serious philosophy or Critical Theory and actually realize most of these arguments are just plain childish? (Rand doesn’t count)
I thought the whole point was that Haiti sold its redemption in Christ to the Devil in order to be free from the French.
This then is a PERFECT example of God retributions for our grandfathers making the wrong choices. God wanted the blacks to stay in slavery and they denied him. An all just and loving god had little other choice.
And that kiddies is how Jefferson was able to buy the Louisiana Purchase fulfilling Manifest Destiny JUST AS GOD DIVINED low those trillions of years ago.
It all does make perfect sense. I’m still working on the value of prayer though.
This reminds me of a song!
Posted also at Ferrari’s site:
I must admit that my view is biased, since I’m a preacher. But that being said, the god being presented here – the god of the prosperity gospel – is a contradiction. As part of a denomination that has active ministries in Haiti, some of those people who died are people I know and related to people I know. But I also believe in a fallen and broken world. Satan is just as active in the world as the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.
Satan and God at war. Satan was active in the natural disaster which lead to the death of so many people. But God is at work now. While the US government has pledged a trifling amount in percent of our budget to aid the rescue and reconstruction caused by the disaster, the denomination of which I am a part and many others are sacrificing time, people, and treasures in response to what has happened. We’re not doing this to proselytize a people who have experienced tremendous grief and challenges. Instead, we’re responding because its the right thing to do – giving of ourselves to help those in need.
While I will agree that the prosperity gospel has far to great a hold in the US and is far too prominent, I would rather that we pull together regardless of creed and help those in need. So “in the morning,” despite the fact that I have “No Agenda,” I’ll give at least my normal weekly tithe for my denominations work in helping the people of Haiti recover from this tragedy.
If some Christian believes that God punishes those who deserve it and helps those who are worthy, then they’ve forgotten the very witness of Jesus and his first followers who all gave their life proclaiming a life of sacrifice to those in need wherever they may be. So please continue to bash those who follow the prosperity gospel – I’ll even join in. But for us Christians who are moved to help following disasters, who give what we can, who do the work, who don’t get the press, please hear that there’s another type of gospel – one that in the face of tragedy moved people to generously give without thought of repayment.
Well, let’s see: we have the predictable “ad hominem” attacks — “this guy’s an idiot and doesn’t know his butt from a bass fiddle”. The usual Christian apologists (free will/ mind of God, etc.) and finally the blame crazies — “Satan did it!”. If you step back a bit and look at them, all those arguments are sad and simple-minded. You can really boil it down to two questions: Is God “good” or “not good”? and is God powerful or not? Assuming you agree crushing children’s skulls under tons of concrete is not good (if you DON’T agree,you need professional help) then why would you worship a God who is not “good” or impotent or both?
You can’t make this “go away” by saying “better minds have already thought about this!” — that is just another attack on my intellect. Indeed they have, and many of the most educated and committed religious scholars have abandoned the idea of God for just this reason: they look at the world around them and conclude that with all this suffering by innocents, there simply cannot be a good and powerful God. Don’t call me names, give us a clear and cogent argument for the existence of a good and powerful God that isn’t chock full of weasel-words and threats. It can’t be done.
If the universe is perfect, who needs a god? Tiny little humans, with their tiny little lives. They judge their world with their tiny little minds. Of course they don’t see the glory, or perfection, or symmetry, they’re not equipped to. So to patch the holes in their perceptions they conceive gods and devils to give meaning to that which they do not understand.
All you defenders of the existence of God — why won’t God heal amputees? Go consider the whole argument at
I can’t describe it as well as the site given, but if thousands and thousands of people prayed to God to heal the amputated arm of an innocent child, why won’t God do it? It’s not that hard — some lizards can grow back a tail. Surely you can get lots of people praying who absolutely believe in the power of prayer and yet … nothing. Why not? BTW – “It doesn’t work that way!” as an answer is just lame. How does it work then? If you can’t pull this off, what is the point praying solo?
Yeah. I know. You got nothing to say, so just attack me. Or worse — offer to pray for me.
#47 In the same way that the existence of God cannot be disproven.
Again, these arguments have been recycled over and over and over again, and modern “academic” discussions on the existence of God has been going beyond these petty argumentation.
For a starter, why not check out a modern Ontological Argument for the existence of God (If you don’t know what ontological means by this point, then it proves that you have greatly over simplified the topic)
Fun thread
watching these summer surfers
curl to reasoned shallows
OTOH, how can we discuss the existence of something we can’t even define. If we look to the past our ancestors left us the image of a big bearded guy in heaven, creator of the universe, watching and judging us, making sinners suffer and rewarding the righteous. Not a very useful definition. A symbol doesn’t need to be real to exist or to be useful, but this god symbol could use an overhaul. If it’s to be spiritually useful, it should be spiritually revealing. Unfortunately the social structures that sprung up around this god thing ended up basing their authority on dogma, and so the god symbol was not allowed to be perfected into something useful or enlightening. The way things are ‘god’ is something each one of us has to decide what to do with and what it means.
29 fpp2002
You do believe humans evolved from rocks, you just don’t realize it yet. Now there’s a belief system.
RBG
#49 Dr. Wally
So by that reasoning god should behave like a superhero and magically save man from his destiny? Other’s may interpret the loss of a limb a tragedy, for the person that lost the limb it’s just something to adapt to. In my mind if humans have a purpose it’s to learn and grow. We do this by learning from our experiences good and bad. Maybe this is as ‘god’ intended. Thinking that god is punishing you for the evils you’ve done won’t help anyone. Learning to accept such a loss and adapt to it without it hurting your psyche, that would make for a stronger happier individual. I’ve seen what happens to those poor fools who have been lucky enough, or cowardly enough, to have suffered very little. Perhaps god is most generous to those that suffer and struggle. Poor Haiti, my heart goes out to them. Hopefully they’ll come out of this a stronger and more just society, but I doubt it. But where’s the sense in blaming that on god?
I think this Jehovah of yours is a minor deity at best if I can shake things so up by just poking around in my cave and he has not had any thing to say to anyone sense around 90AD. Face it your god has left the building.
Pat Robertson believes in Satan and Pat has sinned in thought word and deed so much his will devil will have special hot place ready for him to spend eternity. Yo Pat “do to others what you would like to be done to you” if you need to think this idea is divine in order to act you go girl. Now get out there and donate and help and tell others to do the same. Get an ethical spine jerk
Yes Robertson reads dvorak.org/blog. Doesn’t every one>
Loki still here still immortal (you guys made me that way) glad I’ve got wifi in my cave now sorry about that quake my bad.
RBG there is no “belief” in evolution, there is only acceptance, of provable scientific theory. A belief in god and creationism is not theory, it can neither be proved nor disproved, as your god can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants.
Belief in god always gives you a justification for your actions, the old “god made me do it” defense. The belief that an omnipotent being who could create a universe, is in any way interested in your actions, is the height of arrogance.
We are not evolved from rocks, but are made of the stuff of stars.
Wow, I always thought that christianity was a monotheistic religion, yet so many of you seem to be worshipping two deities; God and Satan.
Just as religions of past had created different personalities for for all of earths forces, christianity has personified what they deem as good and evil forces. The only problem here is that good and evil are both subjective, so as you can see different people are crediting god or blaming satan for the same events.
As Lavey once wrote, “Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as He has kept it in business all these years.”
RGB said “You do believe humans evolved from rocks, you just don’t realize it yet. Now there’s a belief system.”
How small is your God that He could not create humans through evolution? And if God created the heaven and Earth in 7 days, where are the new stars and new mountains he’s creating out of nothing?
#54,
Both evolution and god are theories. Neither are provable or falsifiable. The only difference is that one comes from a series of stories that have been passed on from generations as a means of explaining the unexplainable and the other was created by observering what we see around us and trying to figure out how it all happened.
And yes, we did evolve from rocks, according to some. If you read Genesis it clearly states that Adam was created from the dirt. What I dont understand is how beleivers will beleive that but refute any notion that we could have evolved from lesser life forms
#57,
I’m not going to argue with you, as you obviously believe you are correct, your a “believer”, that’s what you do. You don’t need evidence to prove that you are right, you just believe you are, and that’s good enough for you.
God didn’t punish them for making a deal with the devil. He punished them for violating California building codes with regards to earthquake proofing the buildings. The people of Missouri will also suffer the same fate.
Peeper,
I don’t beleive that I stated any of my beleifs in my previous post.
I accept science to provide the best model of the world that we live in but in no way do I beleive in all of the the theories that it provides. Theories are just the best guesses of groups of individuals based on the evidence at hand. If new evidence comes along, these theories will adapt to support the new evidence. If you put your beleifs in these theories than you must be prepared to have everything that you beleive be completely destroyed.
That being said I also do not put my beleifs in the mythologies presented by religions. I do however accept many of the morals and philosophies presented in those stories.
Not to change this into an evolution debate, but there is a meme that scientific theories are actually beliefs or require faith. Not, religion requires belief and faith. A scientific theory describes the world around and makes predictions about the future.
If creationism is truly a theory, then why don’t I find a new mountain in my backyard? Or why doesn’t my dog suddenly become a giraffe? God, according to creationism, created the world in seven days, so obviously he can make changes on a whim. Why doesn’t he? An actual theory of Creationism would have to explain why he doesn’t.
Faith IS the cornerstone of religion. I think you soil it when you wrap it up into pseudo-scienfitic garbage. You reduce it to a late nite diet pill infomercial. Science is science. Religion is religion. You don’t have to beleive in just one.
I have to chuckle whenever I hear some TV interview of someone who claims that god saved them from a tornado or whatever. OK, then who SENT the tornado or whatever? Looks like god was trying to kill you but missed. But since an omnipotent god wouldn’t miss, it looks like it was a random event and you simply got lucky.
Wacked Out Theory Number 333:
God wanted to clear off that part of the island to make room for a million dollar TV evangelist to build a multimillion dollar glass church.
Please show your love and donate lots of money.