I like Homer Simpson’s “perfect life prayer”, complete with an offering of cookies:
“If this is acceptable to you, please give me absolutely no sign. (pause) Ok, deal. (pause) Lord, if you want me to eat these cookies, please give me no sign (pause). Thy will be done (starts gobbling cookies).”
I’ve been interested in this debate, just watching quietly as I sometimes do. I just thought this might be an interesting time to include the following viewpoint on why God does/doesn’t intervene on occasions. It is a viewpoint of one individual, just after the events of last September. The individual had been asked on TV why God had allowed those events to happen. This was her response.
*I believe that God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman that He is, I believe that He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand that He leave us alone?
Let’s see, I think it started when Madeline Murray O’Hare (ironically, she was murdered and her body was found recently) complained she didn’t want any prayer in our schools, and we said OK.
Then, someone said you better not read the Bible in school… the Bible that says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, but you should love your neighbour as yourself. And we said, OK.
Then, Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide) And we said, an expert should know what he’s talking about so we said OK.
Then, someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And the school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don’t want any bad publicity, and we surely don’t want to be sued. (There’s big difference between disciplining and touching, beating, smacking, humiliating, kicking, etc.) And we said, OK.
Then someone said, let’s let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won’t even have to tell their parents. And we said, OK.
Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they’re going to do it anyway, let’s give our sons all the condoms they want, so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won’t have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said, OK.
Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn’t matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. And agreeing with them, we said it doesn’t matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good.
And then someone said let’s print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said, OK.
And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then stepped further still by making them available on the internet. And we said OK, they’re entitled to their free speech.
And then the entertainment industry said, let’s make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. And let’s record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it’s just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.
Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.
Then there was the student who wrote "Dear God, Why didn’t you save the little girl who was killed in her classroom? " Sincerely, Concerned Student…
AND THE REPLY “Dear Concerned Student, I am not allowed in schools”.
Sincerely, God.*
I realise that this world-view is not shared by all… but I throw it in anyway.
pax
I’m under the impression that God just leaves us alone. This is our world, His gift to us. What we do with it and how we handle our lives within it is up to us.
If he had to step in all the time and fix things, it would mean that we were incapable of creating a positive solution by ourselves, and I think that God (like most parents) wants to see his children succeed on their own.
And I don’t mean to be a butt, but idealistic ‘email-style’ inspirational messages annoy me. They’re rarely well thought out, and just as rarely factual.
Walor said,
I haven’t seen much of this ‘calm backing out’ you’re talking about. It seems like the Christians have been fighting tooth and nail at every point. Unless you beleive that what they are doing goes against the will of God?
This seems like a bit of gloating, but maybe that’s just me…
Yes, there were no murders or thefts before this time. :rolleyes:
This just annoys me to no end. If you disagree with condoms being passed out in schools that’s fine and I can understand it. But can you at least admit, to yourself if to nobody else, that the reasoning behind it is to prevent disease as opposed to the equivalent of saying, “Woooo-hooooo boys, go knock ya’selves off a piece!”
Ummm, not if you live in the U.S. Child porn is illegal here, and most people in this county (and in most other countries, I’d hazard to guess) beleive that this is a pretty sick practice. No matter what religion they are.
Ah. I see. So in a time of need, he abandoned a little girl because he was upset about some new legislation? Sounds more like a disenfranchised congressman to me. Is this really how you see him?
Also, just for the sake of curiosity, don’t you think that God would be kinda mad at somebody for putting inflammatory, self-serving words in his mouth like that?
:Looks around, blushes, and slinks back into the lurker cave:
Screeme: Nice job with the S&G story.
According to Jesus, who ought to know what God’s motivations were if anyone did, being as He was one Person in Him, they were destroyed for turning away from God and for lack of hospitality to strangers (especially incognito angels). This is implicit in his few references to the story.
Although it’s probably accurate to say that God frowns on anal gang rape, regardless of the sex of the rapee. But that it was a condemnation of homosexuality is solely the interpretation of the Homophobic Plurality.
Walor, excuse the hijack, but a part of a dear friend of mine’s spirit was killed because she was picked on in church. Tell me God was kicked out of there, and I think you’re going to upset a fair number of Methodists.
robertliguori, this may sound suprising coming from a Christian, but He can’t. I’ve experienced one thing in my life which I acclaim a major miracle and the logician in me can come up with a rational explanation for that, in addition to the good old stand by, coincidence. By my beliefs, you were given free will to believe or not to believe, to follow or not to follow because God does not want mindless slaves. Love that is compelled is meaningless. Faith that is compelled is just words, as meaningful as “In God we trust” being recited by an atheist.
This is probably not the answer you were looking for, but it’s the only one I’ve got.
CJ
And so God, in His wisdom, benevolence and love for His innocent creatures kills them in large numbers and destroys their property in order to punish the few sinners?
Of course it is sometimes claimed that those innocents who die in such disasters are in a much better place, being with Jesus Christ in heaven and all. If that’s true why doesn’t God be kind to all the righteous and take them into heaven right now?
Oh yes, I forgot. Limited minds like ours can’t possibly understand the purposes of … yadda, yadda, yadda.
I really doubt that someone extemporaneously spouted this piece of glurge. Hoe many people can talk like that when a camera is shoved in front of their face? There are numerous not-quite-truths in this, incidentally:
All O’hare did is prevent schools from promoting prayer in their official capacity. You can certainly still pray in school.
No one has banned reading the Bible at school. You are free to read it at a time when you could read any other non-school book.
Neither of Spock’s sons committed suicide. A grandson did.
Parental notification laws have been consistently upheld by the supreme court. At least 22 states that I know of require parental notification.
Child porn is not legal.
We don’t blame God for nightmares, do we? Then we won’t blame Him for life’s horrors if and when we wake up from death. That’s how trivial this little, tiny span of time is compared to an eternity of peace and happiness.
That may explain it better than the usual “God works in mysterious ways” line we often complain about.
So, the most realistic replies I’ve seen say that a god (whichever you’d like to believe in) put things in motion, gave us free will and stepped aside. But, assuming that’s true, at this point, what’s the difference between that and no god at all? I mean, if he/she isn’t going to do anything because we all have free will and he/she won’t intervene, what difference does it make that he/she “exists”?
Oh, I think he most definetely does interfere in his creation every now and then (which might be every second or every thousand years), but we wouldn’t notice many of his sighns and the rest are mostly ignored.
Aside from which, why would he go around saving everyone from every minor msfortune (usually caused by some other human being)? He went to all the trouble of making a world that life mighty stand on it eh? Why do that and then fix it?
This is just another “Why isn’t the world perfect threads?”.
God also intervenes through visions, prophecies, etc. Even warning is intervention. And if DNA dictates genetic paths of life, then we might apply that model to higher systems of God that govern events and everything else existing in our realities. Thus, free will is not eliminated, but limited, just as we are governed by our own genetic paths and all other natural laws.
So, God intervenes, but leaves no record for the scientists? What kind of a god is He, then?
Well, why isn’t it?
Or do you believe the “the snake hoodwinked Eve, who tempted Adam and they broke God’s law” explanation? That the world was perfect up until then and that disobedience brought on all of the bad things that happen? That would certainly account for earthquakes killing God’s innocents - blame it on Eve. Somehow that seems unsatisfactory.
I think that Genesis doesn’t say anything about Adam, or certainly Eve, having “free will” so that was invented later, apparently out of whole cloth. And mankind’s possession of “free will” still doesn’t account for evil. So man can choose good or evil, why choose evil?
robertliguori: This is cool…
You’re assuming that God never leaves any record. Frankly, I disagree. I’ve known physicians who have marveled at seemingly miraculous healings that defy medical explanations, for example.
It takes a rather large leap of logic to go from “God’s miracles aren’t always obvious” to saying “God leaves no record for the scientists.” It’s the fallacy of hasty generalization at work.
So what’s the fallacy where you jump from a “seemingly miraculous” remission to implying that that remission is a “record from God” called?
I think it’s what JThunder said, a hasty generalization. It is a long step from doctors’ not being able to explain a recovery to saying, “This is a miracle!”
It might be hasty to conclude that it IS a miracle, depending on the circumstances. However, please remember that we’re talking about evidence, not proof. If a seemingly miraculous remission occurs, then one can treat this as evidence without treating it as absolute, incontrovertible proof.
Unfortunately, many of the arguments against the existence of God fail to distinguish between those two terms.
Or, to put it a different way, if God wants me to beleive in Him, why hasen’t He said so? Surely he knows my e-mail adress.
To: KnightNavro
From: God
Subject: You may be a winner!
Congratulations!
This is God. You have already won salvation. Click the following link for eternal bliss.