To all the other atheists/agnostics out there

by robhic 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  robhic

  After you got from behind the barrier that was keeping you from thinking logically and had removed the blinders that prevented you from processing information using common sense rather than the 2000+ year old superstitions of some nomadic goat-herders, did you start to find that religious-centric or god-related statements made you shake your head in incredulity?

  Case in point: just yesterday as I watched the 5:00 news, a story came on about a young man who had moved from here to California. While in California he died but the family was so poor they could not afford to have the body shipped back to New Orleans. They interviewed the distraught family members and friends who said that since they couldn't find the money to pay for shipping the body home they'd just have to pray and ask god to intervene. (Pretty standard religious-centric stuff...)

  This caught my new, more sensitive attention (the talk about god) so I paid closer attention. Yep, as luck would have it god intervened! The New Orleans Saints football team gathered the required money and not only paid for the body to be returned but for funeral expenses too. Pan to the overjoyed family group squealing with excitement and tearfully expressing how their god had not let them down.

  Say what? It was the Saints football team who footed the bill. If they were so close with god why hasn't he seen fit to give them a little more luck on the playing field and/or to have possibly made a playoff contention at least once in over 35 years?!?! Why does god allow them to suck so much? And the family. If god was doing such a bang-up job of watching their backs why did he allow the young man to die in the first place? I know this opens up a whole new springboard for argument but that wasn't my intention here.

  I find myself listening to the everyday stories that have a god component with such a different perspective nowadays. It is so illogical (Like Mr. Spock on Star Trek would undoubtedly feel.) and counter-intuitive. Ask god for help and he magically motivates a football team to pony up the bucks. Why hasn't he answered a few prayers along the way to improve their less-than-stellar performance on the field? Why so damn selective? And why not just give credit to the team for being nice guys?

  Yeah, I know "god answers prayers but sometimes his answer is 'no!'" or we can't know the mind of god or that he works in mysterious ways. But how about a playoff? And why didn't he pay just a little closer attention to the guy who died? Why wait this long to tend to his needs? Day late and a dollar short to my way of thinking.

  Guy dies. Family can't afford to retrieve the body. Professional football team comes to the rescue. God gets the credit. But the Saints paid the money and the guy is still dead. This kinda stinks...

  Do others find they are processing these type stories completely in a new light (no pun intended) now? Just curious because every mention of the word god these days causes my mind to spasm.

  Robert
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  kls

  I feel the same as you do . It can't just be actual human kindness that help others but God ,yes why can't we mere mortals get any credit .
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  garybuss

  
  At the Sioux Falls South Dakota district assembly in 1971 the food service was in danger of being shut down by the health services due to improper (read lack of) refrigeration of the food. It was announced by the convention sponsors that there had been a miraculous intervention from Jehovah and the assembly finances were saved.
  Somebody made a phone call and rented a semi trailer with a Thermo King on it. In Sioux Falls, that'd be like finding a phone booth downtown. There's one on every corner. This is a meat packer and canner town with the HUGE John Morrell plant here. There are at least 3,000 Thermo King trailers here any one day. The village idiot could have rented a Thermo King trailer here, no problem.
  If Jehovah provided the Thermo King trailer in 1971, then he must have provided the John Morrell plant where it came from. And If he provided the John Morrell plant he MUST have provided the Sioux Falls Stock Yards across the street that provides the animals to be slaughtered. And if he provided the Sioux Falls Stock Yards, then he's responsible for the 3,000 tons of hog manure piled in the yard stinking up the town.
  
  
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  robhic

  If Jehovah provided the Thermo King trailer in 1971, then he must have provided the John Morrell plant where it came from. And If he provided the John Morrell plant he MUST have provided the Sioux Falls Stock Yards across the street that provides the animals to be slaughtered. And if he provided the Sioux Falls Stock Yards, then he's responsible for the 3,000 tons of hog manure piled in the yard stinking up the town.

  Gary, why so skeptical? Of course that's the correct progression of events. He created all the livestock -- he had to provide some means of administering to it! And you forgot his loving provision of the renderers, too...
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  seattleniceguy

  LOL @ robhic. Yeah, it's really crazy. That kind of thinking basically treats God like a gigantic lucky charm, like a huge rabbit's foot or something. People become convinced that it's helping them, even when it doesn't. They see the supposed aid, but don't see all the places where nothing happened. In time, they forget the how silly it is that they're actually carrying around a dead animal's leg for protection.

  SNG (of the "no charms, no amulets, no imaginary friends, just me and the universe" class)
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  Cygnus

  I gave up on theism several years ago. Quit the JWs at 25 and Christianity went with the bath water at 27. I'm 33 now (Jesus... I remember JanH turning 30 and thinking he was old). Speaking of Jan, he's probably the man most responsible for my ungodliness.
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  scotsman

  In honesty it makes me uncomfortable too.

  People praying for the submariners to be saved... what's that all about when there's countless (unreported) lives in peril. And it seems these submariners were more worthy than those on the Kursk.
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  Elsewhere

  This caught my new, more sensitive attention (the talk about god) so I paid closer attention. Yep, as luck would have it god intervened! The New Orleans Saints football team gathered the required money and not only paid for the body to be returned but for funeral expenses too. Pan to the overjoyed family group squealing with excitement and tearfully expressing how their god had not let them down.

  Thank you Jesus New Orleans Saints!!!
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  hmike

  Sorry about your N. O. Saints, and sorry that have a problem with the way God works.
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  Terry

  
  Let me repeat here my usual cynical opinion of prayer.

  Prayer is really just DANCING THE HOKEY-POKEY.

  It has exactly the same merit and content as prayer.

  However, prayer sounds like you are actually DOING SOMETHING for somebody.

  Yet, you aren't doing a blasted thing! This is lazy and fraudulent; but entirely acceptable socially!

  If people are trapped in a submarine and dying of lack of fresh air and you respond by saying:

  "Oh, that is terrible. I'm going to dance the hokey-pokey for them", you'd be scorned and regarded as a sarcastic lunatic. But, if you say you will pray for them, well----you get the point.

  Prayer is what people do when they are too lazy or stupid to get up off their bum and actually DO SOMETHING to change a situation which will otherwise deteriorate from the (lack of) intervention of a hand's on assist.

  My advice?

  DO SOMETHING. Don't pray.

  Or, be honest and dance the hokey pokey.

  Terry