I’ve had a lot of flack since writing about Atheism . It odd because it seems that Theist wouldn’t mind if i was announcing converting from say Judaism to Scientology or becoming a Mormon or Amish ; but to openly announce that you have faith in the belief that there is NO GOD at all becomes an outrage to which they respond very badly. They tend to take the offensive position.
If you are likely to be personally offended because I am asking difficult questions in relation to any faith or ‘God’, please don’t read on. I am not seeking to offend. I am requesting a Theists insight.
Often you see,whilst browsing on FB or the internet, little posts offering a prayer or anecdotes to explain why ‘God’ has seemingly ignored a prayer. Here’s one I’ve seen before but happened to appear again shortly after my last blog:
Me: Why did You let so much stuff happen to me today?
God: What do u mean?
Me: Well, I woke up late. : My car took forever to start. At lunch they made my sandwich wrong & I had to wait. On the way home, my phone went DEAD, just as I picked up a call. : And on top of it all off, when I got home ~I just want to soak my feet in my new foot spa & relax. BUT it wouldn’t work!!! Nothing went right today! Why did You do that?
God: Let me see, the death angel was at your bed this morning & I had to send one of My Angels to battle him for your life. I let you sleep through that. : I didn’t let your car start because there was a drunk driver on your route that would have hit you if you were on the road. The first person who made your sandwich today was sick & I didn’t want you to catch what they have, I knew you couldn’t afford to miss work. Your phone went dead because the person that was calling was going to give false witness about what you said on that call, I didn’t even let you talk to them so you would be covered. Oh and that foot spa, it had a shortage that was going to throw out all of the power in your house tonight. I didn’t think you wanted to be in the dark.
Me: I’m Sorry God
God: Don’t be sorry, just learn to Trust Me…. in All things , the Good & the bad.
Me: I will trust You.
God:
Me: I won’t God. And let me just tell you God, Thank You for Everything today.
God: You’re welcome child. It was just another day being your God and I Love looking after My Children…
REPOST if you Believe in HIM
Harmless enough – if not a little contrived. So I thought this time instead of just ignoring it as foolish and far-fetched, I would present different scenarios in the hope that the Theists might provide some insight using, perhaps, the same tools to explain. I wanted to know what the answer from God would be to the following scenarios. surely not “And don’t doubt that My plan for your day is Always Better than your plan”:
Scenario 1 “God can I ask you a question, yesterday a tsunami hit and all my family were killed including my wife who was pregnant with our 4th child”.
Scenario 2 “God can I ask you a question for four years now our crops have failed , we pray for rain, our children die of dysentery and starvation, slow painful deaths, why did you not answer the payers of all our village”
Scenario 3: “God tell me – we are a loving family we go to church, pray , lead a christian life, yet my wife is struck down with ME, my son has ADHD and my mother has just been diagnosed with bowel cancer, can you not hear me am I not a faithful follower”
I didn’t get the response I expected , or rather I did but I’d hoped for more. I got accused of not respecting other people’s beliefs as I’d declared I did in my previous blog. So I reread it and I don’t see that my question is offensive. Unless the doctrines of the various religions cannot account for them and the followers feel threatened by having such anomalies to their practice of prayer, raised.
These scenarios and many others like it are of genuine concern, sadly things like these happen all the time to countries, communities or individuals; both theists of various faiths and atheists irrespective of faith, prayer, church attendance etc. So I hoped someone from any religion would offer me a religious view of the lack of ‘Gods’ intervention in the various situations. The benefits of having faith, belief, prayer in such scenarios.
When bad things happen to good people, it is , as far as I can tell, either passed over (the blind eye enabling the blind faith) or dismissed as “free will”, or “God works in mysterious ways”. Mostly side lined.
If a good Christian is killed by an Atheist – why didn’t God protect the Theist? If a good Christian is killed by another Christian, and the second Christian repented his sins – would he still go to the Kingdom of Heaven? What about the poor dead Christian, what about the poor innocent family and friends of the poor dead Christian. How will the dead Christian feel in the Kingdom of Heaven when the murder struts in some years later because although he was evil all his life he had repented his sins and was genuinely sorry before the Day of Judgement
I’d be happy to be enlightened, offered insight . But no Theist seems to be prepared to discuss such scenarios.
What about the 6 million dead Jews during the holocaust – why weren’t they protected by their God? Why weren’t they saved the suffering and pain. Why did God not ‘Cast down his wrath” on the ‘bad guys’? Was theirs (the Jews) the wrong God, or the wrong set of doctrines in line with the God?
I try to understand how Theists don’t see the irony and juxtaposition of their comments. Say, for example, 999 people die in the train wreck, 1 child is found alive. God is thanked for saving the one. what about the other 999??? What about the pain and trauma to the poor child to have live through the crash and lost his parents – what did he do to deserve that?
Any Theists out there want to have a crack at explaining any of the scenarios I’ve presented? I’d be grateful. I’d really like to understand more. This is not an attack on any individual faith, or any faith; it is merely a request for clarity. It is not a sign of disrespect. It’s a question that I feel it’s reasonable to ask. Surely?
To presume to know the answers God (I’m talking about the Christian God here) would give to any given question would be to claim to have the attributes of God yourself. Your assumptions, although amicable, are limited and impossible to conclude justice from.
Further, as an atheist, your own world view militates against you making any moral judgement, as you cannot make claim to moral absolutes, but instead are subjective morally. You do make moral judgements however, borrowing from the Christian tradition. You live in truth, yet deny it with your atheism.
Scenario 1. A. Continental drift, according to scientists, facilitated life on this planet. Without such a natural force we wouldn’t exist at all. B. God is the posthumous judge. Justice, as you’d no doubt agree, doesn’t pan out in our early lives. Sans God, life is unfair.
Scenario 2. Why do you assume that an answer to prayer has to be in the affirmative? Do you know the mind of God? On what grounds do you question his judgement? What knowledge do you possess that would surpass his?
Scenario 3. Your efforts are as filthy rags. The gift freely given is for you to accept. There is no “good Christian”. We’re all sinners in the sight of God, fallen creatures.
God is necessarily love and truth. He has implanted in every heart the desire for him. We all know him already, we just deny him.
It is a reasonable set of questions to ask. God provides a reasonable explanation. Atheism provides an absurd explanation. How can you be satisfied with that? Your world is full of pain and suffering and has no explanation for any of it. Who cares… is your logical response. Your actual response?
how sad to live life believing you are born of sin and have to spend your life repenting and that God on a whim can elect to care or not, have you suffer or not, irrespective of how much you pray or how moral and ‘christian’ a life you lead. Children born with horrific diseases, whole countries watching their families and friends and chidren die of famine. Thousands suffer from a cancer , the one of the thousand that ‘has his prayers answered’ praises god, yet what of the others. The one survivor of 9/11 praising Lord for his salvation, what about the other good Christians he left to perish and the good Christian families he left parentless, husbandless, wifeless
we will never agree. I will always view the worshipping of words written by man and changed by man when they no longer suit, in the name of a prophet, to be absurd and you will always think the opposite.. thank goodnes we live in a democratic and free country where Christians no longer feel the need to kill anyone they can’t convert. And lets hope that your Christian prophet is the true one and you are not making a terrible mistake offending the real one.
Thank you for taking the time to post your response.
“how sad to live life believing you are born of sin and have to spend your life repenting and that God on a whim can elect to care or not, have you suffer or not, irrespective of how much you pray or how moral and ‘christian’ a life you lead.”
Do you think we are born perfect or imperfect RTR? If you think that you’re not perfect, then you are acknowledging the Christian premise, that were are all imperfect. Not a problem for the atheist, because this is an unjust world.
Thankfully I don’t have to spend my life repenting, out trying to make up for the injustice, because in the Christian tradition, God paid our price for us so we are completely forgiven. You are forgiven too, as it’s a few gift to everyone. So the answer to the question seems to be on the other foot… how do you bear the never ending injustice that you witness in this world. My heart goes out to you.
Love to you
haha, bless you. I don’t need forgiving for my sins. Because I take responsibility for them myself. If I do something bad i deserve to be punished for it and i don’t want to go to jail or be unhappy so i try and lead a good life. .
How do you bear the never ending injustices of the world – war, famine, disease, crime… more importantly how about the innocent victims of rapist, peadophilees, bullies, …. Are they all equal in the eyes of god and will seek their punishmet in hell but are free to torment the good and innocent in life. Those victims of crime – should we accept that its as it is but will be OK because in Heaven they will be rewarded…. and the families and friends of the innocent who suffer….
I look forward to when we next find a spot of common ground on which to stand together…. maybe our love of writing
I cope with the suffering in the world because in my reality, with a loving and just God, justice is always served in this world and the next.
Your world without God is unjust. Simple as that.
“haha, bless you. I don’t need forgiving for my sins. Because I take responsibility for them myself. If I do something bad i deserve to be punished for it and i don’t want to go to jail or be unhappy so i try and lead a good life. .”
Your imperfection is not correctable though is it? What God says is that you can be forgiven/ ie not punished for that.
Living above the law is a poor substitute for living blame free. Your sins condemn you to self inflicted misery.
We all try to live above the law because it is our in our self interest. You can’t buy your lost innocence by your own efforts.
I get the feeling that you’re denying what I’m saying because of some preconceived ideas about religion. I’ve answered all of your questions and you’re ignoring them. Preferring instead to repeat the statements.
You can lead a horse to water… 🙂
I don’t know why you don’t want to discuss what you asked to discuss a few times here, but I respect your wish not to discuss.
Apologies for going on. This will be my last comment unless you invite further discussion.
Love to you
check out some of my writing if your interested in philosophy, input would be much appreciated 🙂
i will do – thanks
as a Theist, The presence of the words I and god near each other displays a neurotic and self centered view on spirituality. I’m not a theist in the strictest sense of the word but at some level I believe that consciousness is IT and that something Other exists and holds all Being at its core. The universe needing to observe itself through eyes ears etc… So when i see an internal dialect such as the ones above, I see someone not so much interested in theology, or spirituality, or even religion at the shallowest level, but actually interested in self preservation and self fulfillment, one wallowed in self pity and fear.
Then again I don’t believe in the old bearded god who obsessed with humans- a speck on an infinite plane.
thank you so much for taking the time to both read and reply to this blog. I am particularly interested in your last line and agree wholeheartedly than its inconceivable to have one beardy ‘human’ looking being overseeing every action of man and obsessing about what they say and think. The universe is too large ! I’m going to check out your blog and read more from you about consciousness.
Any time, always a pleasure to contribute