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So, God apparently didn't seem to hear the prayers of 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, so why does anyone think that God will really grant you the new job you were hoping to get? REALLY? Shouldn't people just say that they were hoping to get the new job rather than try and use God to grant their requests?
Pray for god to help you do your best at the interview and tailoring your resume for this job. Pray for acceptance of gods will.
How do you know this job is going to make you a better as a Christian?
Life on earth is not the goal, it’s to be the best Christian you can and to let others see Christian in you so they follow and worship him too. The goal is life in heaven not a better job on earth.
Psychologically speaking, the bold is not possible. You may not have any awareness of the factors affecting your decision, but they exist. If you doubt this, you might ask yourself how you can know you used to know something but cannot recall it versus something you never knew. Your current awareness cannot account for that distinction nor the feelings, wants, or needs that affect your current positions on any issue either.
Murky waters I'll have to admit, but it's time for me to get on with other things now, so I'll have to leave it at that for now. Thanks and a good day to you and yours!
Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 12 days ago)
35,639 posts, read 17,994,810 times
Reputation: 50680
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Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801
Yes. Other people say the same as you. They pray, and they get help/comfort or what they sought.
Others do not. At Ieast you are honest that you don't care that others don't get what you do. Most of the time the people who claim to get prayers answered enjoy telling us that it's our own fault.
Enjoy your specialness. I would, if I were you.
I'm not saying it's your own fault. I'm saying, this is what works for me, and it doesn't change my truth and my belief if you say it doesn't work for you. So, in that sense, I don't care what you say, don't care about your demands for proof, this is what works for me and I don't owe you a convincing debate.
Similar, to me saying when I get a tickle or cough in my throat, I pop in a Fisherman's Friend lozenge, and it's GONE, immediately. Someone telling me that doesn't work for them doesn't make me stop buying Fisherman's Friend, or even make me feel compelled to tell you why FF works for me. Or even discover what the ingredients are, and why they work.
Mink, instead of asking all these "How do you know bla bla...." questions which get us nowhere why don't you instead start putting up some studies and polls that refute what I say?
For example I can give a fact like this: "1390 people died in Katrina. If 70% of the nation is Christian, then that's 970 Christians that God let die without helping them." Are you then going to pose the ridiculous question, "How do you know God didn't help them?"
Why is it a 'ridiculous' question? You seem too focused on the HERE and NOW to understand that God's plan for us isn't about the HERE and NOW.
How do you know what any of those 1390 people were thinking as they perished? SOME were probably thinking, "Thank you GOD for taking me HOME!" You could probably learn a LOT from reading some NDE experiences...and how MOST of them didn't want to come back to earth...because it was too beautiful in Heaven.
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Instead of that why not explain to us why God permitted 970 of his children to die a miserable horrible death getting all bloated and rotted laying in the water for several days instead of sending a boat to rescue them?
Of course you won't get it because again, you're paying too much attention to our physical lives HERE.
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Shall I answer for you? Because if there really was a God watching out for his children they would have been rescued.
If Heaven is better than earth, what makes you think they weren't 'rescued'?
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But the fact God let them die out there at best proves he's a God who doesn't give a damn about his children and at worst simply doesn't exist.
Or, God let them live, in HIS Kingdom, which, according to you, is certainly better than HERE on earth.
Those 1390 people had their lives taken without their consent. The fact that some of them may have been fine with it / ready to go, or may have later decided in the afterlife that it was the best thing that ever happened to them, doesn't change that it was a ghastly thing and I don't think it's remotely a stretch that most of them wanted very much to live.
Aside from what they thought about it personally, they all had loved ones they were responsible for, and all sorts of unfinished business in this life. And those left behind were left to deal with the sorrow and horror of their losses and the terror the event produced (which is the whole point of terrorism).
There were also countless first responders and bystanders and survivors who ended up disabled or dead later from inhaled toxins, etc.
So yes we can stipulate that this was potentially not 110% terrible, maybe just 99%, but I'm not sure why we are even wasting time on that, it's like buffing and waxing a car without wheels.
At the end of the day even most apologists don't have an answer for all the suffering, only some deflection about Mysterious Ways or some ineffable Higher Purpose ... in other words they deploy religious faith to be okay with it, the same as they deploy it for anything else.
Those 1390 people had their lives taken without their consent.
So? God said in the bible that a man's life would compromise of 120 years. He never said that EVERYONE would reach 120 years. Look what happened in Genesis, when the lifespan of men was MORE than 120 years.
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The fact that some of them may have been fine with it / ready to go, or may have later decided in the afterlife that it was the best thing that ever happened to them, doesn't change that it was a ghastly thing and I don't think it's remotely a stretch that most of them wanted very much to live.
Maybe...guess it would depend on what awaited them...
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Aside from what they thought about it personally, they all had loved ones they were responsible for, and all sorts of unfinished business in this life. And those left behind were left to deal with the sorrow and horror of their losses and the terror the event produced (which is the whole point of terrorism).
Time out. You don't know that they ALL had "loved ones they were responsible for." The NDE'S show that YES, SOME had loved ones, and that they wanted to go back to earth for THAT reason. AND, if that was part of God's plan, God allowed them to make the free decision to go back. Much of NDE'S gives those a choice to either go back...or stay.
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There were also countless first responders and bystanders and survivors who ended up disabled or dead later from inhaled toxins, etc.
I get it as far as that goes. My late husband was on the HazMat team in our county. Lots of death and destruction then...
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So yes we can stipulate that this was potentially not 110% terrible, maybe just 99%, but I'm not sure why we are even wasting time on that, it's like buffing and waxing a car without wheels.
At the end of the day even most apologists don't have an answer for all the suffering, only some deflection about Mysterious Ways or some ineffable Higher Purpose ... in other words they deploy religious faith to be okay with it, the same as they deploy it for anything else.
And survivors are still left with their losses.
You say "most" apologists. Yet SOME apologists DO.
Again, you're paying too much attention to what happens on planet earth, to get that earth is NOT our 'destiny'.
Lemme ask you a question (or two...), Mordant. If you were so much of a 'believer' before, what did you think that meant? Did you believe that THIS life wasn't better than the NEXT life?
So? God said in the bible that a man's life would compromise of 120 years. He never said that EVERYONE would reach 120 years. Look what happened in Genesis, when the lifespan of men was MORE than 120 years.
Maybe...guess it would depend on what awaited them...
Time out. You don't know that they ALL had "loved ones they were responsible for." The NDE'S show that YES, SOME had loved ones, and that they wanted to go back to earth for THAT reason. AND, if that was part of God's plan, God allowed them to make the free decision to go back. Much of NDE'S gives those a choice to either go back...or stay.
I get it as far as that goes. My late husband was on the HazMat team in our county. Lots of death and destruction then...
You say "most" apologists. Yet SOME apologists DO.
Again, you're paying too much attention to what happens on planet earth, to get that earth is NOT our 'destiny'.
Lemme ask you a question (or two...), Mordant. If you were so much of a 'believer' before, what did you think that meant? Did you believe that THIS life wasn't better than the NEXT life?
Alright you're really minimizing here, and frankly to me, there's a good whiff of "I got mine" to this. And now you sound skeptical that I was as much of a believer as I claim.
Also you're misrepresenting my position. Where did I say everyone should live to be 120, for example? Nowhere at all.
I just was taught to take the lavish and explicit promises of god at face value. I didn't expect this life to be better than the afterlife, just to be coherent and comprehensible, and to accurately set my expectations and explain my lived experience. As a fundamentalist though I think it put my expectations way too high. But even adjusting for that, I've known too many people who cried out to god in extremis and terrible things still happened. So? you say ... well ... I don't expect you to care about the people I care about but given these dismissive remarks, you're a pretty stone cold representative of your god.
As for the stuff that happened to me, that's well behind me and I no longer expect answered prayer, protection, refuge or guidance. But I am certainly empathetic to MQ and others who really needed quite reasonable things at times, that represented the yearning of their hearts (in MQ's case, just a sense of god's presence and love, which strikes me as in no way unrealistic or selfish). You, I guess, not so much.
Sometimes when I lose something and can't find it, I "love" when my wife asks me where I last put it...
Asking for divine help to find something is probably something we all do in one form or another. Especially since everyone now owns a smart phone, but to think something like a god is involved in helping us find things makes me wonder. Can you be serious?
Well, I never ask God to find me something. That’s St. Anthony’s job.
Person Number One prays that an approaching cyclone spares them from what might be a life-threatening and destructive situation. The cyclone misses them but makes landfall further north creating a life-threatening and destructive situation in that area. A similar prayer had previously gone heavenward from Person Number Two in the destruction area. Person Number One's prayer appears to have been answered while the prayer of Person Number Two was ignored. Person Number One rejoices and praises God for having been spared. Person Number Two is devastated and is left to despair and to count his losses.
THIS ^ is an actual regular scenario in the area of Nth QLD where I live during Cyclone Season.
Touted as the largest this side of the Mississippi. I have visited this one many times and like you, I highly recommend the visit to anyone. Not only of all faiths but atheists like me too. Some people of faith, however, consider the appreciation of a Buddhist Temple somewhat contrary to their religious "loyalties."
That’s very nice, too. Since there is no church building for my beliefs, there have been times when my friends and I will visit churches in various places. The last spiritual retreat that I attended was the Christian Laurelleviille Retreat Center in Pennsylvania. Another nice place.
Even though my belief is different from the Christian bands, I have been to several concerts. I’ve seen the popular group “For King and Country” four times.
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