The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday (page 174)

cofty

But Humbled even if the resurrection hope was true, how does that justify treating death and suffering in this life as inconsequential?

suavojr

Don’t forget Cofty, he will wipe away all of our tears...

Once we are in front of our maker, we will understand. YEAH RIGHT! What guarantee do we have that God will not make us go through another set of trials and agony in order to fulfill his heart's desire.

cofty

Can we add number 9 to the summary - the Pat Robertson answer?

Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed 220 000 people, he proposed that it was a direct judgement from god for the past sins of the people of Haiti.

Pre-exile worshippers of Yahweh would not have flinched at Robertson's response.

Odd as it may seem I applaud Robertson's answer as the most honest and consistent.

Here was Richard Dawkin's reaction as quoted in the Washigton Post in 2010.

Loathsome as Robertson's views undoubtedly are, he is the Christian who stands squarely in the Christian tradition. The agonized theodiceans who see suffering as an intractable 'mystery', or who 'see God' in the help, money and goodwill that is now flooding into Haiti , or (most nauseating of all) who claim to see God 'suffering on the cross' in the ruins of Port-au-Prince, those faux-anguished hypocrites are denying the centrepiece of their own theology. It is the obnoxious Pat Robertson who is the true Christian here....

Simon

The 'god can make everything Ok, so any amount of suffering in this life is no big deal' argument is really insideous. I know why theists apply it in this case - it's simply convenient. But apply it to other scenarios and see if it still seems acceptable:

"Child abuse is no big deal, god will make it OK when he wants to and he simply allows it to happen for a good you don't know about and are incapable of understanding".

Hell, even the Catholic Church wouldn't try to make that lead zeppelin fly!

You know why? It is a fundamentally sick and disgusting argument and shame on anyone for making it. Whatever the manner of the suffering its simply not justifiable or excusable and if it's compatible with your fairy stories then that is where the problem lies.

humbled

It doesn't justify it.

Paul's comment is a man's desperate acknowledgment that throughout the scriptures--which he knew so well--the problem of suffering and death had only grown. mankind, jews too, got more sophisticated AND TIRED of oppression and--- rules--and where was God? resurrection had gained in rabbinical discussions, there were the two sects Sadds and Pharisees. Paul was a Pharisee. the Jews had been more or less a step-child inthe palestine since the Babylonian exile. Not glorious times for the Jews.

Paul latched onto the resurrection like nobody's business. God just didn't come through with anything like consistency--that's the big take-away on the Job story in the OT. Of course, for public consumption there were the stories of heroics in the scriptures or god coming through for some--but, hey, we know all the stories that never made the cut in JW "experiences"(eeckkk!). Hell no, god didn't act for the common man. It is a measure of how" blame the victim" still persisted that the bystanders stood by when Jesus is fixing to heal the blind man"Did this man sin or did his parents?" People had sore eyes longing to see God do something about random suffering. (Actually, I think they only allowed the Job story because he was an Arab--not a Jew. they didn't want to seem like THEY had any complaint--O NO!)

I've said it before--Jesus taught love, and died as well as he could for it. If there is God, his only excuse after all, imho, is that he isa god of love and NOT POWER. At least no more power than love can muster. I don't believe love can resurrect the dead. Therefore, I can't believe it can restore.

It looks like Jesus bet on God's love first, his power second. The christian/jews really wanted to believe that god was going to come through... someday. because the deck really was stacked against them. They had all the rules to follow and god? What were his exactly?

A god without power is not for christian theists--Chrstians have to depend on a god of absolute power to raise the slaughtered, the drowned the miserable ones who had to eat shit to follow the rules. that god of christian theism, btw, doesn't raise the "unsaved".

Hogwash. Paul said what he did(1 cOR.15:19-20) because the prayers they got to say were so often answered "My strength is made perfect in weakness."

I think God is love. and would have stopped that tsunami but couldn not.

thanks for asking, thanks for listening.

Maeve

Simon

Basically an improvised belief system wobbling like a bad game of jenga.

humbled

It's not a system, simon. It's a struggle.

I can't know the past--the god stories-- any more than you. I know we want fair play. We try to figure out how to act with only half knowledge.

Cofty asked a while back: what's the point of an impotent god?

As though someone knew what a god was--I don't. And if I knew, I sure don't get to pick what kind I want.

If there were such a thing as god, could it be something that draws us to care about suffering and injustice? I wonder. I cannot in any way believe there is a god who has both love AND power. The suffering and death I've seen and heard of has had no help.

I do believe mankind gets swept up in trying to explain things--My post above shows that. I did write a thought that has only recently crossed my mind. I'm exploring. I have said often enough on this thread how valuable this conversation could be. You are the one who opened this forum for us to recover and support one another. And, thank you, I think I have what I need. This thread has done good for me and I gave really all I had.

It is not a belief "system"

I can never know the past any more than you can. But I can take the best and most loving things I hear from whatever flawed sources there are to help me live and give to others.

I know there is no Big "G" god. People might find a name for a thing we cannt see that holds us to hate certain hurts and wrongs to others. And maybe there's nothing there at all.

Maybe we people actually have the power ourselves to make love prevail.

If so we've wasted a long time waiting on god to do it.

So thanks for the forum. But take care that the climate doesn't get so fierce that people aren't able to explore, to share their true thoughts.

Good night.

doofdaddy

Hey Humbled great to hear your thoughts but it may get a better response if you started a new thread.

cofty

Humbled - Would it not be more parimonious to dispense with the concept of god rather than reinvent weak god?

flamegrilled

So why did he drown a quarter of a million innocent people?

The god of christian theism knew about the earthquake in advance

He observed the wave rise from 19 miles below the Indian Ocean.

He watched it for another hour as it rushed towards the countries around the pacific Rim

He knew for a certainty what the death toll would be.

He knew that the lives of a further 5 million would be devastated

He only had to say the word to stop it in its tracks

He did not.

For an omniscient, omnipotent god, to send the tsunami or passively observe the tsuanmi is morally equivalent.

If the tsunami is an act of love how do we determine what love is? This is not a non sequitur or a trivial question and you don't get to dismiss it so easily.

Cofty

As I already stated, you are making no allowance for the information you may be missing. Yes, He only had to say the word to stop it in its tracks. No, we do not know what the consequence of that would have been except to prevent one "natural" disaster.

I accept that you are not obliged to make allowance for the information you may be missing. Obviously if you've predetermined an atheistic position and you are just looking for a club to bash theists, then the missing information is just a convenience for now.

But one thing is for certain. If there is a Christian God then He DOES have information that we do not have. Therefore there is no reason to conclude with certainly that his apparent inaction must be contradictory to a loving nature.

The Pastor of my Old Church Tried to Re-Convert Me Yesterday

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