I might burn in hell for this ...

The BBQ Pit
1

Being an Agnostic Theist I might get my pasty white ass flash fried for saying this but god is an impotent fuck. (insert your own deity if you want).

If he is so fucking omnipotent and all powerful explain yesterdays tornado here. What did all those nice families camping out at the lake do to deserve that kind of wrath? Were they out there worshipping idols or something? Was there some goat felching going on? I don’t think so. Just a bunch of nice citizens enjoying a weekend at the lake with their kids. Sure there must have been some adulterers, liars, and theives among the bunch but what did the little kids do to deserve this?

While I am at it, why would god inflict punishment on so many innocents? I saw a little girl this morning using a walker, her little legs were braced and still so twisted that she was having trouble even with the walker. She was on her way into church. What do her parents tell her? “God loves you”? It doesn’t wash. If he loved everyone so much maybe he could wipe out poverty and famine for starters. Then he could heal all the sick and crippled. I would really be impressed and the first to pucker up to kiss his almighty ass.

Forget all these signs and wonders people talk about. If he wanted to impress me he could just pop into my house and explain what the fuck he thinks he is doing. I would be more inclined to smack the shit out of him before I would listen.

I fully expect some fundies to come in here and try to toast me for saying what I just said. I’ll pre-empt by saying shut the fuck up. I’ve heard it all before ad nauseum.

god works in mysterious ways… I agree. It’s a fucking mystery to me why people would continue to pray to a god that kills them for no apparent reason.

2

It was weather that happened, only weather. Weather happens all the time, just go outside and look. I am not a bible thumper, agnostic, atheist, pagan or satanist but I do know weather when I see it.

3

Well, this will probably sound pretty weak, especially since I’m hardly a theologist. But I read “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Rabbi Harold Kushner once, and I like his explanation. Basically, God doesn’t make anything happen to anyone. The tornado wasn’t a punishment, it was a weather phenomenon. Being disabled isn’t a punishment, it’s a faulty genetic code.* The rain falls on the just and the unjust. In other words, shit happens.

But God is there for you to turn to for comfort, though, when something bad does happen to you. He’s a shoulder for you to cry on. A pillar for you to derive strength from.

If you’re strong and don’t need a God, a fair god mother, or an invisible pink unicorn to make you feel better, then more power to you. But God didn’t kill anyone.

*This is one I’ve struggled with many years, myself, and I’ve found that raging against God doesn’t accomplish a whole lot. Instead of wasting energy being mad at him, I’m holding out hope that genetic science will catch up with me.

4

So God isn’t really involved in our daily lives. Why is it then that when things go well, we thank God for “blessing” us, but if things go wrong, we blame ourselves?

5

No, I’m just saying he’s not sitting at his computer with his finger hovering over the “smite” button (with apologies to Gary Larson).

<shrug> Can’t hurt. Maybe he helped, maybe he didn’t, maybe you just got lucky (hey, I said I’m no theologian, let alone a “good Christian”–I usually only remember to say grace at Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Well, if you screwed up and got burned, you only have yourself to blame. (Suddenly recalling Homer Simpson ranting about suffering the consequences of one of his hair brained schemes, “God is teasing me just like he teased Moses in the desert!”)

If you believe that God is supposed to be a loving father, then you have to believe that he doesn’t set out to test you, hurt you, or just jerk you around for his own amusement. Like I said, shit happens. He’s there to help you clean up the mess, if you want him to.

6

It scares me Feynn that you expect a God who could fuck with you like that. And you are disappointed that you don’t have one.
Like Gr8Kat says, shit happens. You see, we all have thing called Agency. When we want God to intervene, we ask for it. If we do it in good faith, He intervenes the best He can to bless us, comfort us, whatever. But He doesn’t control us, animals, or the weather in anyway.

7

Weather, everybody talks about it, no one can do anything about it.

Feynn, tornados strike anywhere, anytime. The exception to this rule of randomness is of course, mobile home parks.

I indeed feel for the families,I don’t think anyone would have wished this disaster upon them. But, if we could have wished the disaster upon someone else, then who and why?

8

What would be the point of a universe of laws if God were to circumvent them every time something bad was going to happen?

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And what is the point of a God in a Universe of Laws?

I do not see it.

That’s part of why I am an athiest.

10

Either God knows people are suffering, or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, then what’s the point of “worshipping” a being who doesn’t pay any attention?

We’ll assume he’s aware. Now, either God has the power to protect good, innocent people from bad things, or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t have the power, he ain’t much of a god, but that’ll exempt him from blame.

If he DOES have the power, but instead he’s CHOOSING not to protect people, he’s an evil sadistic bastard. It’s evil to allow suffering that you can prevent.

Or maybe there just ain’t no God out there. Ya think?

11

What the hell is an “Agnostic Theist?”

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The question is why would God create a universe of laws? So that all of our actions have consequences, which really is the only way you learn. What kind of person would you be if you knew that you could, say, drive down the road, crash into whatever and whomever you wanted to, and everything would be all right? A heartless bastard, that’s what you’d be.

Those laws have to extend to the natural world, too, otherwise it makes no sense. Hence natural disasters.

Really? How so?

13

How the hell has the gone from a mere weather phenomenon to a religious debate? There are posters using the weather as an excuse for being atheist, agnostic or an agnostic theist (whatever that is).

If you choose to be christian, jewish, atheist, agnostic, buddist, islamic or whatever that is your choice. If you want to base your choice of religion or none religion on the weather that is fine, it is your choice.

I don’t care what religion you follow or if you don’t follow a religion. The disaster was just a weather happening, nothing more, nothing less. To use the weather as justification for religion of lack of religion lacks credibility.

To expect a god, your god, their god someone elses god or any god to intervene and then being critical when it doesn’t happen is asinine.

It is weather!

14

Without pain and suffering, we’d all end up being cocky sons of bitches. Suffering keeps us humble. Pain lets us know and appreciate joy.

As far as the campers go, tragedies remind us how precious life is. One thing is certain: If life were eternal, we wouldn’t appreciate it.

Carpe diem.

15

MrEcks - Agnostic:“One who believes that there can be no proof of the existence of God but does not deny the possibility that God exists”.
theist - "one who believes in the existence of a
god or gods "

This means I usually lean toward there being some superior being. I haven’t figured out just what this being is like yet except that he/she/it is either impotent or just a mean sadistic bastard.

Pepperlandgirl - I seriously question the existance of God / Allah or whatever you call your deity. I am not disappointed in the least to not have one. The invisible pink unicorn makes just as much sense to me as does believing in anything else. I have no idea what you are scared of.

I don’t want this to turn into some religious discussion just because I just had to vent some steam. I got so many messages from people today asking me to pray for the victims of this tragedy I just lost it. Just why would I pray to a god I don’t believe in? Maybe it makes people feel better thinking that someone hears them.

I feel so badly for the people involved in this tragedy that is looking like it may turn out to be the worst tornado to ever hit Canada. There are 9 dead, many people in critical condition, and 20 people they haven’t even found yet.

This is a terrible thing to have happened, that’s all.

16

First off, let me say that religion is either benign or good, I can’t tell which. (Except for Scientology. Sorry guys, even I’m not that open-minded.) I think it’s basically like this, religion makes good people better. It makes stupid people stupider. And it makes bad people worse. So, I guess whether it’s good or bad depends on how many people are good or bad. And since we can’t exactly take an “evil-survey”, the jury’s still out. But I like to think that religion is basically good. I just wish we had some better religions.

That said, God probably doesn’t exist, at least not in the most commonly believed form. And if it does, it’s indifferent. Because if it’s omnipotent, and loves us, it must be pretty fucking inept. Or just really, really weird. A level of weirdness that would surpass any known weird. An all-encompassing weird. A weird that defies the laws of space and time. But I digress…

[WARNING: UNLIKELY BUT FUN THEORY FOLLOWS]

The gods did exist and were powerful, at one time. See, there’s reason to believe, shaky though this reason might be, that in the beginning of the Judeo-Christian religion, which is to say the early jews, thet believed that there were other gods. But God was the one true god. But after awhile, it changed to the premise that there was only one god, and that was God, or Jehova, or whatever.

So let’s say there’s more than one god. It would make more sense, wouldn’t it? I mean, it would explain why it so often needs to go through people. So God’s not omnipotent, but fairly powerful. Or at least, was at one time.

Okay, this is where I get kinda freaky. God exists when you believe in him, kinda like faeries. Now we believe in science. So much that, while we have faith in God, science takes precedence. Because science is reliable (or at least it seems to be), whereas gods tend to be temperamental. When we need to smite our enemies, we don’t need to rely on faith, we can just use bombs. We only turn to God when we need money, or want to win the big game. We never turn to God for day-to-day shit. Some people do, but they’re in the minority, thus not giving God much to work on.

The last real big-time miracle happened to the mormons in Utah (Props to peppergirl! Woop, woop!), with those locusts and seagulls. That’s a fully documented, virtually undeniable miracle. So I definitely think there’s something going on. The only question is, what?

17

Why would God allow a bunch of innocent people to die? I dunno, maybe because they could go to heaven? (not meant to sound sarcastic)

Maybe in the grand scheme of things, being torn up by a tornado isn’t all that bad.

18

OK. You get to do it first.

19

Freakly:

I have my own pet theory, in three parts.

First, I am of the opinion that religion is based on the need of us herd animals to feel togetherness against a harsh cold world. It also started out as a way to explain the world, sort of stone age physics if you like. But now I think it’s the herd instinct that people are sensing when they feel the power. It’s real all right, but it’s located between the ears not in the sky. I have read scholarly conjecture that this group thinking is the essential difference between us homo sapiens and the other intelligent species of hominids we wiped off the face of the planet.

Second and more difficult to explain, there are several things that happen between an event and the story about it. Your eyes receive the image, the brain processes it and transfers to memory, and you tell about it later. The story you tell about it becomes your version of reality. Your convictions and ideas about the world act as a filter in that chain. Two different people can go through identical physical events yet have very different experiences and stories.

Part three is just that meditation has been shown to be good for you. Praying is actually a very effective form of meditation. The fact that you pray to the sky rather than chewing over your problems apparently does not negate the good effects.

I have no disrespect for my ancestors who I am sure drew witching symbols on the barn. They didn’t have the work of 1000 years of geniuses to stand on, and the night gets pretty damn big and dark when you’re away from the city lights. My version of reality is based on current scientific info but that turns out pretty harsh. Even I have a hard time dealing with the fact that I’m going to be picking potatoes from a step ladder all too soon, and for no particular reason.

Maybe we just aren’t cut out to face hard cold reality. Sometimes I wish I did have some diety to pray to. But every time I get in a situation where I could use a sky hook, I realize it’s up to me and then I get busy. I’ll be alone at the end though. And it won’t be a gateway to eternal happiness, it will just be lights out. And that really sucks. In the meantime I hear there’s a party down a Chuckies house tonite…

20

Agnostics are wimps …

…

Devout Athiest