realize what they are indirectly saying about those that weren't so fortunate?

Thanks.

should be enough to make them at least stop and reconsider. I, too, hate it when people thank God for saving them while others suffer. It's horribly insensitive.

At this point it's dysfunctional.

would not have allowed the disaster to happen in the first place.

Why should God intervene?

...and what loving god would want to allow human beings to be killed?

I am a Chrisitan, but I believe God created a universe subject to natural laws, and is pretty much allowing things to play out in accordance with those laws. I don't think we get much divine intervention in this life, except maybe for the kind things we choose to do for each other.

That is a misreading of Christianity usually by non-Christians. Any reading of the Old Testament would show God to be very unloving depending on the circumstances. I don't believe God intervenes in people' daily lives one way or the other.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
~Epicurus

Seriously? Who has the problem with "god"? You or them?

these beliefs enable. Remember: all are equal, but some are more equal than others. People that espouse a deity smiled upon them, but shunned others are displaying their ignorance and selfishness for all.

It is a caste system.

And if we are going to change society where people aren't running their life and politics based on mythology, we have to start clamping down.



So from now on, whenever somebody sneezes say "gazuntite"- not "bless you"

It will take many generations of humans but we all have to start somewhere!

The First Amendment guarantees folks with religious beliefs the right to have those beliefs, the right to the free practice of those beliefs, and the right to freely speak about them.

I am aware of nothing in the Constitution or anywhere that guarantees you some sort of right not to be annoyed by what others say now and again. Guess that means you'll just need to get over it.

I'm doing what I can to make mankind better in the future...

But I'm working on the long term plans. Our budget isn't nearly as big as the folks working to make a change next quater

Although it has nothing to do with "God".

It has to do with people who use "God" to make themselves special.

The Chosen Ones.

"God saved my family because we're special! God didn't save your family because...well... he just didn't care all that much."

Even if it's not said outright, that's the way it's heard.

Not very kind.

must be derided under all circumstances by their betters here.

but no answers. What's your problem?

A hitchhiker get's picked up by a fanatical evangelical extremist

A few miles down the road The hitchhiker looks at the speedometer
and it reads 90mph. He suggests the driver slow down only to have
the driver tell him, " Don't worry the Lord is with us."

A few minutes later he glances at the speedometer again and it
reads 100mph. The Hitchhiker is now terrified and tells the driver
"your gonna get us killed, slow down!" The driver once again tells
the hitchhiker, "no need to worry, the Lord is with us."

A couple more minutes pass and the hitchhiker once again looks at
the speedometer which now reads 120mph. At this point he turns to
the driver and says, "stop this fucking car, the Lord and I are getting out!"


I'm sure they wouldn't find this one bit funny, but yeah they're a tough crowd
to rationalise with.

(Imagine a cross between Santa Claus and a bear telling this story)

He had some very religious friends who went out to the mountains for a hike. While they were near the trail's high point, the weather turned and a lightning storm came on. While they were retreating down the mountain, a bolt hit a tree only a few feet away from them, close enough to hurt their ears and make their hair stand on end. After they got back, they told my sensei over a meal and said that God must have been looking out for them, since it was such a close call.

Sensei asked them, "How do you know He didn't miss?"

the answer broadcast on TC is all about "god/religion/prayer". I see it as free advertising and should be subject to taxation.

picking winners and losers

it implies that he must have wanted others dead

The thanks elsewhere, they are denying that the person standing next to them or far away who provides them with food, health care, keeps their air and water clean, picks them up and takes them to the hospital, etc. have a very important role to play.

Then they turn around, some of them, certainly not all, and vote against those people as public workers, migrants, nurses, firemen, regulators and the like, after listening to right wing pastors and radio, and vote for a GOP psychopath hellbent to destroy the ability of this society to protect them and help them daily.

Not well expressed, but I'm just a little ticked off the GOP today. No, in the interest of disclosure, most days.

personal vote of disgust goes to people who use whole teams of medical professionals to help them have children...fertility, IVF, etc.

Because God, in his "infinite wisdom" decided that they should not have children of their own bodies.

So they go against "God's will", then when they have a basketload of babies all at the same time, what's the first thing they do?

They thank God.

Last edited Wed Apr 4, 2012, 07:42 PM - Edit history (1)

What I determined was to figure out actions and excuses. I'd see people who had used conventional methods of arranging things in their lives. They didn't pick their jobs, their neighborhoods, or their spouses along some religious method.

No, they went for what was going to pay and feel the best and maintain status. They picked the best deal in marriage as if it was an auction. Then when all of those matters of the flesh were safely settled just like any godless heathen, they got into religion to justify all that they did. Got very pious, played the narrative of 'God has blessed me because I followed His Word.'

To which I'd say, 'Doofus, you didn't follow his word when you shopped for any of the things making up 99% of your existance and associations. You went for a nice deal like a good capitalist, the best looking wife, the highest paying job no matter who got screwed, etc. This religion thing is what you added on top, to keep on with your 'feel good' philosophy of life. If you believed in Christ you'd give that up. No, you're going to have your cake and eat it too, so don't preach.'

When they dress their lives up like pearls on a pig and act better than those below them on the social scale, they find plenty of hypocritical allies. Their belief is still secondary to their economic standing. The reason it's no use talking to them, is that since they're lying to themselves, they'd lie to you if you said anything.

Religion is a human right, but it's also a choice. That idea is very threatening to some people, as if the fabric of life and realtity would be shredded to say that it's voluntary. So many voices echo that one's punishment and reward come from being in a certain group.

That is true to an extent, but religion is just the most dressed of the teams here on planet Earth. And it is a thing that is sold everywhere, or the hatred of it is, and people sell themselves on it, too. I read somewhere that if one needs belief to survive this life, those who don't believe the same should not take it from them, as it would be unjust, unkind.

We're not living their lives for them, so let it be. A sage warned about the danger of taking away other people's dreams and illusions. If you wake people up from their fantasy, their dreams, take their illusions, they will kill you. Life is just that hard. People have to have a plan, and the different paterns are useful to humans, myself included.

And there are places where the mind gives up, can't figure it out any more and leaves it to the infinite, god, time or whatever. None of us can get it all. There is a lot we don't get, which sparks our curiousity and provides the will to learn and make changes.

Because we don't really want all the answers, we don't want the curtain pulled off of lot of mysteries, since the game would be over. Life would be pointless. Having no mystery to solve would be death. Not to mention that we all seem to love drama.

If it's meaningful to them to give credit to God for their good fortune, then more power to them I say.

What I do mind is when people knowingly or unknowingly use their faith to hurt others.

She's angry and i agree with her.

I've always wondered how they can say God saved me for some reason and then think about the others who have been devastated, child abuse, starving children. I think it is pure luck (or no luck at all.)

It's a natural reaction I think. If you say something like, "Do you mean, as opposed to God deliberately not saving some of your neighbors?". Sometimes they'll actually think about what they're saying after that.

It's like when someone is lucky enough to be cured of a disease and then claim God did it. Like some poor person who dies of cancer isn't in the good graces of a supreme being. I call folks out on stuff like that b/c it's so insensitive.

random.

I wish it didn't make me so crazy when people do (say) these things, but it really ticks me off. When my son was recovering from a brain tumor people would tell me "Oh God is so good to have healed him"...and I got to the point that I finally said "No, if god were so good, he wouldn't have let the brain tumor happen in the first place."
I'm sorry....shit happens...god's got nothing to do with it.

It's like the people who say God saved them from Cancer. My mother in law died of Lung Cancer. Apparently God found her to be less deserving of being saved from cancer? What makes one person more deserving of a miracle? REALLY makes God seem like an asshole, actually.

Yeah, "God" saved their house but killed the kid down the street, for example?

I agree with what you're saying. If god saved your friends' homes, great. But I'm pretty sure some children starved to death yesterday, and a lot of other innocent people died of various causes. If god is omnipotent enough to save someone's house, he ought not let innocents be slaughtered anymore.

Somewhere in the preceding statement is my main rationale for not believing in a westernized, personal god who is concerned with everyone's well-being. It's never made any sense to me.

For example, if it's reported that someone like Ari Fleischer or Robert Novak has cancer, you can count on someone here jumping in and cackling about "karma" or the like.

Well, if cancer is caused by God or karma or some such force... and if Elizabeth Edwards and Ted Kennedy got cancer but Ann Coulter and Jim DeMint didn't... then what does that tell us?

Of course, like your neighbors with the spared houses, people don't think through the logical implications. They're just happy to interpret random events in a way that supports their preconceived beliefs.

like he/she gives a shit...

If a god did exist, it would be a tremendous murdering asshole.

so i guess they expect it .

i'm an atheist but say there is a God that makes these type of decisions. i wouldn't want to worship such a god.

Where a woman was praying loudly to God to send the tornado away. She survived - the tornado narrowly missing her (though she was outside and quite close) and undoubtedly gave credit to God for it. I cannot say with any certainty whether God spared her for her prayers, but I imagine a number of the wounded or dead or devastated also prayed. Frankly, a God that would be so cruel as to pick and choose - is not one I'd much care for anyway.

I also remember thinking out loud... "Why the hell does she stand there praying? Shouldn't she be taking shelter somewhere?" I don't really know whether or not there's a God, but if there is one, I suspect that such a being wouldn't be a total asshole.

The US stopped the eugenics program only when the holocaust was revealed. Many of us would not be here otherwise. If I believed in any kind of supernatural- only the devil could have been responsible for such a thing.

20% of "human lives" get aborted by God.
I guess he just doesn't think much of THOSE human lives.

And I hear ya wrestling with your interconnected sensibilities. Keep the faith, Sister, and speak your truth to power with wit and wisdom.

people would give me that I'm crazy look. But I do believe in Faerys, so since your friends have been through a very frightening experience, cut them some slack. I think all of us who have had a near death experience (not the dying kind but the I escaped death in an accident kind) sometimes feel we got help from the beyond somewhere.

Why are so many people who believe in an omnipotent invisible sky deity so quick to give it praise and yet never blame it for any misfortune that befalls other humans and other lifeforms?

Who else can we blame for things that go wrong in our lives? Ourselves?!?!?

Below that you have a better idea about who these people are to say whether they think god saved them and 'punished' the other people.

To them when they say that the initial thought is about them and theirs, ie they aren't thinking about the other people they essentially "don't care" because they themselves are dealing with this firsthand even if they made it through it okay. After that they can look at the other people and either care, volunteer to help, etc or just 'meh' think 'they shouldn't lived more christian/catholic/godly lives' or 'god's testing them' or whatever they think when they see suffering in the world.

Who always seems to be broke and pissed off.

It commands that you give the best part of the meat, the nicest goodies, to the priests. It even specifies how those goodies must be prepared. If you don't do this, you get cast out and god turns his back against you.

They do not abstract their beliefs to concern things outside their daily circle of experience, if it does not effect their local life then it does not really exist to them at a deep level.

Didnt pray hard enough.

just told me that God saved me from total destruction. I asked her why God would send these tornadoes here, or anywhere. Shut.her.the.fuck.up...

I don't know how often I've seen someone pulled back from the brink and then go on to thank God rather than the devoted medical staff who worked so hard to save them.

There should be a law which limits us to only three or four non-offensive expressions of gratitude.

I imagine the corollary would also apply to the expression of derision, "God damn" so as not to put off those who are feeling positive about their lives, yet also do no not attribute that to a religion, a philosophy, a political party, or any other human construct which appears no where but our own imaginations.

Nothing wrong with that. I agree with them that this isn't a random, chaotic Universe!

ALLAH AKBAR: GOD IS GREAT!

Because it's like they're saying that people who suffer from natural or unnatural disasters don't have God on their side.

http://borderlessnewsandviews.com/2012/03/believe-it-or-not/

There. I said it.