So, people can ask God for help through prayer, but I cannot question why God would kill so many people in the first place? What is wrong with religious people that they are so blind? :shrug:
God can only help, not hurt - Japan Earthquake, and the religious response.
- Thread starter spidergoat
- Start date
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
How would an atheist react to these events?
Japan is only about 1% Christian, so I suspect that most Japanese aren't 'asking God'.
But many of them probably are doing things that are traditional in their culture to center themselves and give themselves psychological strength. People try to pull themselves together and prevent themselves from going to pieces.
That's why people are more apt to pray to God for help than blame God for tragedies. People want to concentrate on the positive, they want to strengthen themselves for the tasks that they are going to have to perform.
And perhaps, deep down, in their moment of extremity, they are recalling their childhoods and crying for once-omnipotent mommy and daddy to come back from the grave and shelter them in their arms once again. A little of that.
Blaming God would be kind of disfunctional, throwing up one's hands and saying, 'screw it, we're just a madman's puppets, there's nothing that we can possibly do'.
It's psychology.
That wont work. If a branch fall from tree hits you on head would that mean god did it? Believe me, i am agnostic but that kind of argument is weak.
My Japanese friend has just posted a load of childhood photos on facebook. Go figure.
Why talk of earthquakes?
Even if Japan didn't have one, in a hundred years they (along with a whole lot of other people I might add) would all be dead anyway.
If the material world kills everyone at the rate of 100% and has been doing so since time immemorial, the real question is what is the point of deeming continued existence (although everyone gets that anyway in terms of samsara for as long as they are not sharp enough to cut the grade - perhaps unbroken continued existence is a more apt term) as the topmost consequence of successful submissions to god?
Its not so much what is wrong with the religious that they are so blind, its whats wrong with atheists that they insist on running with poorly thought out critiques of caricatures of arguments ....
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Thoreau
Valued Senior Member
If you don't mind my input, here's what I've got to say...
God being, in the eyes of most theists, an omniscient, onmipotent and omnipresent being would be able to see and have knowledge of all that is going on in his creation. If the God is really as loving and caring as most theologians make him out to be, why then would he even allow the branch to fall from the tree? After all, he does have the full power to prevent that branch from ever falling.
answer : its only a virtual branch.
IOW all the players, including god, are eternal.
Its merely a question of why some of the players are relegated to the virtual world
Thoreau
Valued Senior Member
Sometimes I wonder if there is as much activity going on in your mind as there is in your avatar. I sincerely don't mean that as an insult. But good lord, you lost me with that last post.
I have no idea where you got this idea from.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
No emotional answers are allowed. Nine examples of emotional answers:
God dosen't exist because my prayers aren't answered.
http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?p=2708284#post2708284
Thoreau
Valued Senior Member
My own observations. Most fundamentalist theists believe that god is all-knowing, all-powerful etc. If that is the case, it begs the question of the morality of their deity. If God loves us all, and God is the epitome of love and compassion, why then do harmful things happen to not only Japan in this instance, but to all of life continuously?
Nonsense, those aren't emotional answers. If God is said to answer prayers, it's only logical to evaluate if there is any statistical difference between the results of prayer vs. not praying.
The problem of evil is also a logical one, given the assumption that god is both good and omnipotent.
I wasn't talking about the Japanese people, but about other people that feel prayer is a worthwhile response to this tragedy. I understand it's a psychological phenomenon of selective attention. I'm just wondering why they can still get away with it.
Check this out. Japanese earthquake was an answer to her prayers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UmotTE-VlY&feature=player_embedded
Evidently, God murdered thousands of Japanese people in order to get us to believe in him.
EDIT: Turns out this is a joke.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UmotTE-VlY&feature=player_embedded
Evidently, God murdered thousands of Japanese people in order to get us to believe in him.
EDIT: Turns out this is a joke.
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Lets try again.Sometimes I wonder if there is as much activity going on in your mind as there is in your avatar. I sincerely don't mean that as an insult. But good lord, you lost me with that last post.
You are saying that the basis for suffering in this world is that what we value will soon cease to exist, yes?
Indeed. The pertinent question would be why believers in afterlife are fearful of death, or bothered by the deaths of their loved ones, in the first place.
One can be comfortable with death at the end of a long happy life, but why would a God cause unnecessary suffering through premature death from something like a natural disaster? But mostly, why do we love that God can help us when asked, but not hate him for not helping us when he could have?
Thoreau
Valued Senior Member
Ummm. No...? I still am not clear what you are referring to here. Is there anyone here that can clarify lg's posts for me? Maybe they really do make sense and I'm just not understanding.
I'm simply inquiring how theists justify bad things happening when they believe in an all powerful, all knowing, all loving God who could easily intervene and prevent those bad things (suffering) from happening if he so chooses. Gods will? If so, why would an all loving God ever wish suffering? What is the purpose of a deity allowing the painful deaths or suffering of his own creation?