# Just curious how drowning a bunch of kids can be considered God's will **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 15, 2025, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860 "2025-07-15T01:00:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/201 "2025-07-16T01:55:19Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Most Jews believe that almost all the religious commandments were given specifically to the Jews, and aren’t binding on anybody else. I’m aware of that; it’s not at all responsive to the argument I was making. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/202 "2025-07-16T02:02:57Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I don’t think you are even trying to understand Christian beliefs. I don’t think the overwhelming majority of Christians would understand, or agree with, your version of ‘’‘Christianity’‘’. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/203 "2025-07-16T02:04:37Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Why would a person be a part of something they didn’t ascribe to, or think the _right_ way? > > Nonsense. It’s quite possible to believe that there’s more than one right way to live. It is therefore quite possible to believe that one’s living the right way for oneself, and somebody else is living the right way for them. No nonsense about it. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/204 "2025-07-16T02:05:43Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Why would a person be a part of something they didn’t ascribe to, or think the _right_ way? > > Nonsense. Well, speaking personally, I find that my religion is the right one _for me_. Whether it is for anyone else is not my business. I know plenty of people who feel the same way about their own religion. I have no idea if the tenets of my religion are “right” or “correct”. I actually don’t pay them much mind. My concern is to do what I believe God is asking of me. So far, God has not asked me to believe that Christianity is the one true way. God is not a Christian, to my knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/205 "2025-07-16T02:08:05Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > I don’t think the overwhelming majority of Christians would understand, or agree with, your version of ‘’‘Christianity’‘’. You’d be surprised what Christians believe or don’t believe. It is not nearly as orthodox as you might imagine. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/206 "2025-07-16T02:13:56Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > You’d be surprised what Christians believe or don’t believe. No, I wouldn’t. That there is no singular ‘Christianity’ is one of the evidences that Christianity can not be true, because it is not coherent. They can’t all be right but they can all be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/207 "2025-07-16T02:16:43Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > No, I wouldn’t. That there is no singular ‘Christianity’ is one of the evidences that Christianity can not be true, because it is not coherent. That’s not how belief works. That’s how _ **science** _ works. They are _ **different.** _ Religion is not just shitty science. It is wholly different way to encounter the world. But you know what? I’m going to bed. And I’m not coming back to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/208 "2025-07-16T02:20:59Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > And I’m not coming back to this thread. Promises, promises… ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/209 "2025-07-16T02:21:03Z")
“If God is all-powerful, he cannot be all good. And if he is all good, then he cannot be all-powerful.” An observation made in the 4th century BCE, long before children were considered little sunbeams for Jesus who could be bounced back into space via flood, famine, Gilles de Rais, etc. If Spinoza, Liebniz and Hegel weren’t atheists and never addressed the topic, I won’t attempt it. I don’t adequately understand Hegel because I’m not that smart; and also because Hegel was a shitty writer. Perhaps both these are true vis-a-vis me and God as well. The Church infamously suppressed Galileo, but they couldn’t deny his 1610 discovery of the Rings of Saturn. There they were: visible through his lens. So they made them useful. The Church had long endured an embarrassment of foreskins. It needed an answer: had Jesus’ ascended to Heaven right then at his bris? Had it floated up from wherever it had been left at the same time as the rest of his corporeal body? Numerous little forsekins dotted the pilgrimage map, causing trouble. So _De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba_ (_Discourse on the Prepuse of Our Lord Jesus Christ_ ) was written, claiming that Jesus’ foreskin was placed into the heavens in the form of the Rings of Saturn. Religion is good like that at solving its own problems. If the problems of the religious are solved to their satisfaction by it, who am I to question? Better to focus on the actual problems it causes than the specious solutions it offers. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/210 "2025-07-16T03:36:52Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > God is not a Christian, to my knowledge. So, would you say that the Christian sects that do believe that God is a Christian are… incorrect? > [@Ulfreida](#): > > That’s not how belief works. That’s how _ **science** _ works. They are _ **different.** _ Religion is not just shitty science. It is wholly different way to encounter the world. But you know what? I’m going to bed. And I’m not coming back to this thread. I wonder when this idea that science and religion are two fundamentally different things was first conceived. Like, did the Greeks have this idea that there were two different systems for discerning truth, one spiritual and one material? Would Isaac Newton have held this viewpoint? How’d the Popes of his day feel about it? Obviously, I personally reject it. The scientific method is the best tool humans have ever come up with to tell if something is true or not. If the scientific method is regularly telling you a thing isn’t true, it seems like the mostly likely explanation is that the thing is not, in fact, true. “Actually, this thing is different from ‘science’” just comes across as post-hoc rationalization. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/211 "2025-07-16T04:14:03Z")
How about “Religion is not _even_ shitty science”? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/212 "2025-07-16T07:00:05Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > You are confusing faith and science. With science there is a provable right answer and provable wrong answers, at least theoretically, and you should be on the team with the right answers. With faith, there is no need to prove anything, and there is no requirement to be ‘right’. Which is why faith is the enemy of humanity. It demands we treat falsehood as truth, regardless of the cost to people or the world. Faith is _insane._ ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/213 "2025-07-16T08:07:44Z")
Simply put, when you can construct a chicken shack with faith alone there _may_ be a reason to discuss a possible equivalence between it and science. One should never confuse responding with words spewed without reason with actual reason itself. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/214 "2025-07-16T14:39:33Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > But but but … they’re religious! It was a religious camp!!! (Does being Christian really matter here?) We don’t need to hear them say it! We can assume it is what these parents and every Christian believer is saying! > > An idiot who was Christian said something similar when their kid died of measles due to their idiocy, so there it is. That’s what all these parents think too! No other conclusion is possible! Perfect opportunity to mock faith! Remember, only _you_ can prevent strawman fires. [![](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/burning-straw-effigy-shrovetide-festival-slavic-holiday-end-winter-large-doll-burns-river-bank-black-smoke-129183764.jpg) ](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/burning-straw-effigy-shrovetide-festival-slavic-holiday-end-winter-large-doll-burns-river-bank-black-smoke-129183764.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/215 "2025-07-16T15:37:21Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > You are confusing faith and science. No, I’m refuting the idea that you can’t look at religious claims with scientific rigor, and rejecting the idea that, if a religious claim fails when looked at with scientific rigor, it’s probably because the claim is false, and not because “faith is different.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/216 "2025-07-16T15:42:42Z")
To see which is more important, just ask yourself: Is it possible to survive without faith in a deity? Is it possible to survive without science? ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/217 "2025-07-16T16:31:20Z")
Tragedies like this aren’t consistent with the God as described in Christianity, but they are consistent with the God as described in Judaism and Islam. Christianity describes God as all loving and wanting His people to be happy, but that’s not really consistent with the real world. The God of Judaism and Islam seems more like a God over the real world. That version of God is spiteful and swift with harsh retribution for non compliance. For instance, when He thought humans had become too evil, he flooded the whole world. I’m sure those people back then were similarly distraught with grief as their loved ones were drowned. Flooding a Christian children’s camp is not out of character for that version of God. So it could certainly be God’s will, but it could also be that the Christian version of God is incorrect. What they think are His motivations may be totally incorrect because they are incorrect about what His desires and motivations are. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/218 "2025-07-16T16:32:43Z")
Nice selfie! Have you lost weight? I completely get, and share, your disgust with idiots who are responsible for their children’s needless deaths and then justify it as God’s will. Or any other excuse making. And you clearly are knee jerk reflexively posting about it having read nothing of the thread. THIS thread had some phantom OP Pit something that to the best of our knowledge NO ONE HAS SAID. (Oh I suspect that there is some fool in Bumfuck that has said it at the kitchen table, but no parent of the children who died in this flood, no one using that as an excuse for any decisions made. This thread used the deaths of little kids “at a Christian camp, clearly a setting with a powerful religious ethic” as an opportunity to gloat with a “Nice God you have there.” Because “how do these oh, so religious people explain such a catastrophe?” And of course the usual militant atheists, really not a-theists, _anti_-theists, a real hatred to those who have faith beliefs, especially Christians, knee jerk chime in on what “right bastard” god is, because god doesn’t prevent bad things from happening. Because little Christian kids dying is the exact right time to gets your rocks off “ “jeering at all people that believe that everything happens according to God’s plan” (again no examples given of anyone saying that about this, but some here DO remember idiots from their childhood saying stuff like that, and you have your _completely on point_ example!) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/219 "2025-07-16T16:36:32Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > And of course the usual militant atheists Who didn’t see _this_ phrase coming? 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2025, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860/220 "2025-07-16T16:39:40Z")
Why does this thread have so many sermons? I feel like I was forced to go to church. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-curious-how-drowning-a-bunch-of-kids-can-be-considered-gods-will/1020860.md?page=12)