That seems illogical. I’d make the distinction that with God, as with the sponsoring team, the idea is that they allow you to be able to take part; whereas effort on your part during a race and training are things that allow you to actually win. Thanking God or the sponsor for the chance makes sense, in those terms, but thanking for the win doesn’t unless you’re also willing to blame them for the loss. It’s actually two different parts of the event you’ve conflated, I think.
Thank you. Had a rough day, needed a laugh.
And now you ignore my question about God running short of time.
No they didn’t, the bible explicitly says they will live on:
There’s not the slightest implication that they die then, even metaphorically.
I think you are mistaking hindsight with belief. To me there are no coincidences, just God instances. I understand why you can’t understand it because people of faith think, Thy will be done, not mine.
If I pray for someone to get better and they die how is that self centered? If you look at everything with faith then you know God is responsible for the outcome. When you have no faith you believe you are responsible for the outcome. People that pray for the most part pray for others and not themselves. I do pray for wisdom when I have to make a decision and then in time the answer comes.
When a person says God is testing my faith it means something different to me. It means that I need to rise to the occasion and be strong. We are being tested all day long and everyday. As for the friend that died his faith was not tested because he died. We all have to die. It is hard on the people left behind but with faith you can get through the loss.
I would look in the bible under purification.
Because it presumes that you can change the will of god.
While for godless me, an answer comes, having thought about a decision to be made.
Potentially dangerous magical thinking to imagine that God provides, or even assists you in finding, ‘the’ answer.
God had Butler in his bracket, at least until the Final, then he put it all on Duke (with Butler to cover).
And hell-o Problem of Evil. Been a long time, at least three or four minutes, since you cropped up.
You are correct about one thing…It is just Faith, not fact and if faith helps a person that is a good thing for them, but for some people it is not enough, for them truth is more important. The Bible may have some truth but it also has contradictions so it cannot be used as proof of anything, truth is not contradictory.
The Bible is what humans say, and think that a God said, or inspired, but there is nothing to back it up.
Even if I was killed by a tornado tomorrow, there would still be ample reason to praise God for the 28 good years of life that I have had. Without God I would never have existed at all, so regardless of when my life terminates or what I have to endure during that life it’s still the case that all the good things in my life are a gift from God. If somebody survives a tornado, that’s an example of a good thing in life, so then they praise God for it. As for your claim that “no one curses god”, I think there are plenty of people who curse God, they just don’t get any benefit from doing so.
The basis for thanking God after winning an athletic event is that without God there would be neither any athletic events to win nor any athletes to win them. The reason why an athlete praises God after winning is most likely that they’re aware that after a victory when people are heaping praise on them is exactly when they’re most susceptible to the sin of pride, so that’s when it’s most important to remind themselves to be humble before God. After a loss there’s no such susceptibility. (But I don’t doubt that many athletes do give thanks after a loss as well.)
Personally I don’t like it at all when a natural disaster devastates a city, but I guess we all have our own opinions.
That’s very sweet if they do. ;)
When a tornado plows through a neighborhood and kills all but one person, you don’t hear people saying ‘Well those other people had X good years, lets thank god for that.’ They say ‘God protected that one guy! Praise god!’
You’ve had plenty of opportunity to show that this assertion is more than empty words, and have failed to every single time. I don’t hold out much hope that this time will be different, but you must be allowed to defend your statement, so again I’ll ask for evidence that this is true.
But god caused the bad things too, not just the good things. Even if god did actually protect that guy from the tornado, god sent the tornado to kill all those other people. Those people died at god’s hands, he is responsible, he did it, etc. Praising god for the good things, and ignoring that fact that he also caused the bad things isn’t faith, it’s Stockholm syndrome.
And the people who praise god benefit from this how?
Gratitude increases happiness.
If a doctor works for hours on end to save a person’s life, and the family gives the credit to, and praises, God, how might that effect the doctor’s happiness?
The biggest problem with “ends justify the means” defense of God (which is really just an iteration of the “Mysterious Ways” defense) is that it is ligically impossible for God to require a means to an end. God can instantly achieve any end simply by willing it. If he wants an omelet, boom there’s an omelet. No eggs need be broken.
Why bother to pray at all if your request doesn’t matter to God? God’s mind is already made up as to what will happen, right? It was made up before he created the universe. He’s locked into his set list. He doesn’t do requests. So qhy are you making requests that he logically can’t grant?
Why does God need to test people’s faith if he already knows exactly how strong it is. It is not possible for God to acquire more information about you, so why would he do experiments on you?
Why does God care about faith anyway? How is it of any moral value, and if it really IS that important, then why doesn’t he prove his own existence?
Irrelevent to the point I was trying to make (admittedly, not entirely clearly), which was that people who are grateful for the good things in their lives tend to be happier than people who aren’t. (Studies bear this out: here’s the first of several that Google turned up.)
You do raise an interesting question regarding gratitude towards God vs. gratitude towards people: Are people who are thankful toward God for the good things they experience less likely, or more likely, to also be thankful towards the human beings who share the credit for allowing them to have those good things? I don’t know.
We don’t understand what death is, the prodigal son was dead, though he had a life. Adam and Eve certainly died that day, and certainly lived on in a much harsher world, much like the prodigal son.
I think it’s cool how you have your own individual theology, that bears little resemblance to anyone else’s. That way, you KNOW that you’re right.
What I’ve been told: think for yourself, question authority.