If you were to look at the statistical mean of this wounded little planet, it might not look half bad. The starving and the obese would cancel each other out. The countries at war would average out those at peace. The prosperous would blend with the destitute.
Perhaps we are under the guidance of a Pointy Haired Deity™ that is looking at this mess on an Excel spreadsheet. Boy am I dreading what the downsizing will look like.
Love and Rage,
Binarydrone
So…if the Peter Principle is at work here, and God was promoted just past His level of competence…who promoted Him?
So…who is the Pointy-Haired Boss’s…boss?
I always thought God (the Judeo-Christian one, right?) always let each individual decide what was to be done. In that case, you’d probably be better off asking why isn’t eternal salvation the carrot-on-the-stick that it’s meant to be.
I like the concept of this thread a lot. Unfortunately I am not witty enough to contribute anything meaningful. For this I blame God, with His cutbacks on brain development in His favored species and subsequent declarations that all brains & souls shall be recycled in the name of cost-management. My brain & soul were evidently heavily abused before being pushed through the 3 part reconditioning & reassimilation process by low-level angelic functionaries.
What, exactly, are you trying to say? Your OP seems to make the assumption that one of God’s purposes is to improve the physical living conditions of humans. Do you believe that, and you’re genuinely angry at God, or are you trying to make a “witty” comment about how preposterous religious belief is? If the latter, I don’t think “one of God’s purposes is to improve the physical living conditions of humans” is a widely held belief, even among conservative theologians…
Looks like God cut the training budget again.
That was until He started his TQM/ISO 9001 certification program. Unfortunately, the price of recall work does not justify the benefits, so you’re screwed.
Dunno about that. There are plenty of passages in the Old Testament describing the Lord as the source of prosperity. Here’s a representative example - Genesis 39:1-3 (KJV)
Check Deuteronomy 29, too. Good description of the covenant Moses brought from the Lord for the Children of Israel. Especially verse 9: “Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.”
Oh, tell me about it! I was getting so many mental “hunter-gatherer” & “Egyptian slave” images that I thought I was losing my mind–turns out it wasn’t correctly refurbished to begin with and these are residual memories. After consulting with my guardian angel for no less than 6 hours he finally admitted that there might posibly have been an “abuse-related defect” caused by a previous incarnation that impaired the reconditioning process, but that the damage and its effects would not be covered by warranty! :mad: I asked to speak to his manager but, well, guess Who that is!
Well, I can see how you would be confused. I don’t think that I am trying to make any hugely profound or witty point here. Basically, I am suffering from spiritual malaise and sadness over the human condition.
As an added bonus, I work for a software company that makes statistical analysis software. I talk to managers everyday that are making terrible decisions because the overview of things looks good. It just sort of struck me that the world is a lot like that.
And there are other passages in the Old Testament about the Lord being a total asshole, even to believers. The Bible contradicts itself a lot. It’s a complex set of documents written over a very long period of time by many different authors. How the Bible is understood and interpreted, even among people who claim to take the Bible literally (especially among those people), is an even more complex topic. Making claims as to what people believe by isolating a set of passages and assuming that people believe them prima facie isn’t reasonable: there are too many other factors that influence belief (not the least of which is other passages from the Bible!).
Are there people who believe that a belief in the Lord will bring them earthly riches? No doubt. Is it widely held? I don’t think so. I can only base that on my personal experiences with the religious people I know, which includes a few fundies (although it is weighted towards the liberal Christianity side, given that I go to a liberal church…).
I suppose nothing short of a survey could conclusively prove this.
I thought it was ISO 1.
I think you’re taking this waaaaaay too seriously.
But did He submit his TPS reports?, didn’t He get the memo?
just make sure you don’t take His stapler… 
I was going to say “what about unhappiness” but I suppose if you average them with people on heroin…
It’s interesting to note that many of these countries which endure serious suffering are also the ones which experience great Christian revivals or conversion rates. If suffering has a way of prompting people to seek God, and if God is more concerned about eternal matters than temporary earthly prosperity, then I think it’s entirely reasonable that God may have reasons for allowing such temporary suffering – even intense suffering – to continue.
Of course, there are those who would scoff at such a notion. I daresay that such ridicule is rooted in the notion that our earthly prosperity should be God’s ultimate concern. Personally, I don’t think that’s a reasonable assumption to make. Suffering is tragic – indeed, often heartbreaking – but I cannot rule out the possibility that it is allowed for some ultimate purpose which transcends this temporary earthly existence.
On the contrary – he’s correctly identified the opportunity. Clearly, God has to leverage his core competencies to synergistically re-engineer His mission statement for the new paradigm and the situation will rightsize.
Times change.
I have taken it slightly different. The story of Adam and Eve was the time where God was active in His support of man(kind). He pruned the garden, tamed the amainals and just made things vey nice for us. Then Adam and Eve though that they could do fine on their own and didn’t need God’s help. Bascially told God thanks by no thanks.
God, with a tear in His eye, said OK, I love you my children, but if you desire to make it on your own, I will let you. So God hopped on His hydrogen powered riding mover and left us to our own devices. I hear a rumer He is still peaking in on us, and when nobodys looking might lend a hand from time to time, but basically honers our request.
All and all we are getting back to the garden by our own hard work. Husbands all over this world hop on their gas powered riding mower and keep the garders nice. We have tamed some animals, but have a long way to go.
Then we have some who have turned their back on God, and even created false gods, and use them to attack other people.
So why did God just let things go wild? - Because we asked Him to.
Memo
Date: Eternity
To: God
From: Management Consultants, Inc
Re: Motivational Analysis
It has come to our attention that the thinking behind the marketing of the ‘salvation’ product appears to be unfocused. Instead of ‘eternal life’ and ‘God’s blessings’ being a motivating force for the international buy-in of the ‘God’ product line it appears to be ignored by the market space.
Examination of the thought and decision processes that led to ‘salvation’ as the brand focus will begin within two weeks. Please have all appropriate documentation available to our reviewer in a single file folder marked ‘marketing review’ by Tuesday. Also, gather your thoughts as we’ll be interviewing all mid and senior level personnel in the marketing and communication divisions. We’re particularly interested in the thinking behind the obscurity in the statement ‘I am that I am’. While the zen-like message may have worked for the Infiniti line of automobiles it seems to not have the desired effect on those to whom you are trying to get to buy into ‘salvation’.
As the current benefits are not motivating the market we suggest a conference call within a month to determine other factors that might motivate the buyers. Initial thoughts here at MC, Inc are:
[ul]
[li]Free movie tickets[/li][li]A ‘saved’ of the week recognition program[/li][li]Extra points towards salvation for community works[/li][/ul]
Note: our initial thinking of a free toaster appears to be non-viable due to some other marketing group having locked up the free toaster market. Further research is needed.