I’m going through some deep faith questions as of late, as I wonder what it’s all about.
All my life I have heard this tired phrase thrown at me, meant in something I guess of a complimentary way, as in, God thinks I’m so strong and healthy and great, that He’ll just go ahead and heap a load of trials on me just for…the heck of it? As near as I can tell, this phrase seems like a pretty dumbed down summation of the book of Job, but I was wondering if there was a more Biblical basis. Because it seems to me that when we boil it down, if we were to take this phrase to heart, it would say “God sez: the frail and weak get the smooth sailing”. How does my hard work, strength, strong family support system, ‘smarts’ end in a reward of trial?
As Mother Theresa once said “The Lord only gives you as much as you can handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”
Well, I found a quote at this website, but of course the notion that God always provides a way out of any situation is questionable given personal experience and observation of life in general. It’s also kind of insulting to me, because it seems to be saying we only get our personal strength from God, not from ourselves.
Yeah, and that quote also seems to focus quite a bit on the ‘temptations’ and sort of ‘immediate bad situations’ thing. What was my “way out” of having a miscarriage. What was my grandma’s “way out” of losing her husband?
I always heard it as “God never gives you more than you can handle until he kills you.”
And frankly I always interpreted the saying as “if you survived the situation, no matter how terrible, there’s probably some useful lesson in it somewhere.” Not that the lesson was worth the ordeal, necessarily.
For people who claim not to believe in God, He sure seems to piss a lot of you off. I’ve never understood this. I don’t believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn, and so whatever the IPU might be alledged to have said would not disturb me in the least.
This may have been specific to the situation of the Corinthians rather than a general law. Jesus taught that “save us from the time of trial” was a good thing to pray for.
You may well have heard many people say that. In this case, however, all I see is people being pissed off with Christian doctrine, not the guy himself. If you really think any annoyance so far is just a case of being pissed off by God, then I guess you must think a lot of atheists are lying to themselves.
No its the silly explanations that Christians use to try and justify the unjustifiable thats annoying, and not really annoying but comical, as they’re so easily ripped apart. I don’t think any athiest would ever have a problem with any Christian if they didn’t have to hear such silliness like the quote in the OP.
Well, I am a christian, but I get a little oogy when other Christians misinterpret the Bible or flat out make things up like “God helps those who help themselves” which is pretty much exactly the opposite of what God wants which is to “bring everything to God in prayer.”
It does sort of boil down to “why do bad things happen to good people”, but the answer I usually get is “to make you a stronger person”. For what? So when I’m ninety on my deathbed I can say “man, I got real strong.” You don’t need, according to Christianity, to pass a series of trials to get into heaven or be loved by God, so what’s the point?
And I wanted desperately to beg people not to come in and just say “THIS IS WHY I HATE RELIGION GUYS”, because it’s obvious that that wasn’t my point. Or so i thought.
I don’t know anyone, outside of the “wealth and prosperity” preachers, who teaches that God always provides a way out. Indeed, most preachers that I know emphasize that you might not be healed from a disease, or that you might have to endure great suffering.
Indeed, the website which you cited says “So, anything that comes our way, anything that tempts us, any tragedy that befalls us – we are capable of overcoming it and achieving spiritual victory.” It doesn’t claim that God will always provide you with a means of escape. Quite the contrary; it says that tragedy may indeed befall you, regardless of one’s desires.
And I think Shodan found you your answer, at least regarding “temptation”. That doesn’t sound like it applies to all suffering, but then, there has been nearly two thousand years for the cliches to get made and evolve.
To atheists, we don’t hear religious claims as coming from a higher source, we hear them as personal beliefs camouflaged of a supernatural power.
Do I hate the website “http://www.godhatesfags.com”? Well, no. A website never hurt anyone, it’s ultimately nothing more than electricity, copper wire, and scratches on a magnetic disk. I am, however, greatly offended by statements that I read from that website, because those statements reflect beliefs that come from very real people.
Here’s an idea: “Paperclips were invented by gays to further the jew liberal cause.” Like the website, the paperclip idea isn’t anything real or authentic, physical, it’s floating free between us. It’s just an idea–are you in the slightest bit offended by it? Of course not, because no one believes it.
To be brief (and catchy!), a belief is an idea in action. When you hear someone say “I believe paperclips(…)”, it doesn’t matter that godsaidit or they read it in the clouds, the end result is still that a person’s behavior will be guided by that hateful belief.
You would be equally as frustrated with an “I read it in the clouds” response as an atheist would be with “godsaidit”, because neither of you accept the justification for discriminating against gays and jews as sufficient.
Personally, I find the statement “god never gives you more than you can handle” offensive for a number of reasons. Most importantly, it makes a claim that is demonstrably false. People die every few minutes from circumstances far beyond their control. I don’t see “never getting more than you can handle” being construed to be anything less than an out and out lie to placate someone going through rough times. That the person telling me that thinks I will believe it in the face of overwhelming conflicting evidence strikes me a condescending attack on my intelligence.
Those aren’t mutually exclusive, at least not the way I’d enterpret them. I’ve always seen “God helps those who help themselves” as meaning, just because you’ve prayed over it, doesn’t mean you get to throw up your hands. You still have to do your due diligence.
That doesn’t really make any sense, though, in the context of the theology because death is just a doorway. I guess I can empathize with y’all on some level. I do find the aesthetics of Schopenhauer to be pretty offensive. But I’m not all blustery about it or anything, and I really don’t worry much about his influence on, well, anyone frankly.
If any discernable fraction of Christians actually acted and reacted as though they thought of death as a door, I might agree with you. (‘My mom just died? Yay!’ ‘Kids, go ahead! Play with guns! Jump in front of cars! It’s good for you!’ ‘Hand me the axe, maybelle; I’m going to send the kids to heaven!’) As it is, though, I’d say that the evidence is that most religious folks shy away from death like everyone else.
My largest struggle with Christianity as I grow older is how I’m supposed to be friggin EXCITED to die and go to heaven. Look, I just had a baby, I haven’t seen Germany, I like my friends, I love my family, why would I look forward to leaving them?
but anyhoo.
See, that’s my main problem. People say it sort of a compliment like ‘look how strong you are! God gave you cancer to prove it!’ If my life were perfect with no problems would someone say “God must think you’re a weakling”.