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But former Christians who are now atheists are atheists specifically because they opened their hearts to be filled by God/Jesus only to be left high and dry when nothing happened. If that happens often enough people just get tired of waiting around. If this is a God who isn't even aware people are looking for something from him then it's an expected response on their part.
The only thing that matters to me personally is that the few things I asked god for back in the day that I REALLY needed action on -- things that involved people I loved not suffering or dying, etc -- went unanswered and that told me all I needed to know regardless of how you interpret that experience -- that god does not exist, or doesn't give a fig, or it's all my fault somehow, doesn't really matter. It is a waste of time. "I'll never be worthy" or "god will never get around to me" both end up with the same result.
So yes I'm tired of "waiting around". And the irony is that I understood all the nuance, e.g., "they who wait on the Lord will be borne up on wings like eagles", etc. I waited. And waited. And WAITED. But at some point you just realize you're being a chump. The person has now suffered and died so it's a moot point. [shrug]
The irony is that now I have zero expectation that some invisible benefactor has me in their back pocket and will ride in like the cavalry and save the day. I understand that the vicissitudes of live are not personal or directed. And while some frustrations or lack of intervention might have been part of the initial impetus for me to question my faith, they aren't even in play now. Now it is purely an epistemological question.
The only thing that matters to me personally is that the few things I asked god for back in the day that I REALLY needed action on -- things that involved people I loved not suffering or dying, etc -- went unanswered and that told me all I needed to know regardless of how you interpret that experience -- that god does not exist, or doesn't give a fig, or it's all my fault somehow, doesn't really matter. It is a waste of time. "I'll never be worthy" or "god will never get around to me" both end up with the same result.
So yes I'm tired of "waiting around". And the irony is that I understood all the nuance, e.g., "they who wait on the Lord will be borne up on wings like eagles", etc. I waited. And waited. And WAITED. But at some point you just realize you're being a chump. The person has now suffered and died so it's a moot point. [shrug]
The irony is that now I have zero expectation that some invisible benefactor has me in their back pocket and will ride in like the cavalry and save the day. I understand that the vicissitudes of live are not personal or directed. And while some frustrations or lack of intervention might have been part of the initial impetus for me to question my faith, they aren't even in play now. Now it is purely an epistemological question.
bold: Yes, yes--and that's always Reason No. 73 on a chart of "The Top 250 Reasons Why God Isn't Answering Your Prayers" : you are not waiting patiently on the Lord. He WILL answer your prayers but in HIS time, not yours. Well, that's not so cool when I'm 6 feet under and God finally says, "Okay, Thrill, I've been mulling your request for a few hundred years and I've finally decided to address it. Thrill? Thrill? Now where in the hell did that guy go? Must've taken a powder. Oh well...."
Interestingly, we skeptics see this absence of any action on the Christian god's part so clearly and yet Christians are completely oblivious to it. This to me is one of the most glaring dichotomies between Christians and atheists: completely obliviousness on their part.
The issue of whether this higher power has a duty to care in the case of prayer becomes secondary to the larger issue of whether or not this higher power has a duty of at least concern for all the suffering going on in the world.
From where I sit in this vast and unfathomable universe, this supposed higher power either a) doesn't exist or b) doesn't care.
If, however, you're a Christian, then you should hold God accountable for all the suffering going on in the world. Why? Because God created it. ALL of it.
If, however, you're a Christian, then you should hold God accountable for all the suffering going on in the world. Why? Because God created it. ALL of it.
That's not how we see it. We believe that God created the world and mankind "good". It was man who by his own free choice disobeyed God's command and brought suffering into the world.
The only thing that matters to me personally is that the few things I asked god for back in the day that I REALLY needed action on --
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
So yes I'm tired of "waiting around". And the irony is that I understood all the nuance, e.g., "they who wait on the Lord will be borne up on wings like eagles", etc. I waited. And waited. And WAITED. But at some point you just realize you're being a chump. The person has now suffered and died so it's a moot point. [shrug]
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
The irony is that now I have zero expectation that some invisible benefactor has me in their back pocket and will ride in like the cavalry and save the day.
You and I are very much kindred spirits when it comes to waiting on God. Yes, there was a time when I was a Christian, back when I lived in Chicago. I went to a mega-church. I went through the whole baptism thing. I prayed constantly. You would've thought I was living in a convent.
I needed help - a lot of help - my life was, well, let's just say it was complicated back in those days. Did God help? Of course not. In fact, he made things worse. A lot worse. Until here I stand before you now literally bereft of anything and everything people usually live for. Even my health wasn't spared, preventing me from making my situation any better.
But I came to realize how stupid I was to think that some godly power was behind everything. Oh it would've been so much easier if I had someone to call out to. But how could I beg and plead for help from the very god who is causing all the problems in the first place? One may as well ask your torturer if you could have a supreme pizza and a sixpack of Coke while chained to a brick wall in some seepy wet dungeon. Why on earth would you ever expect such a torturer to do anything for you except hurt you?
It was on this search for the reason for God's silence when I read the story of Job - and I realized that God was not above torturing people for something as frivolous as a juvenile bet with Satan. I realized that all suffering doesn't necessarily have some noble purpose, that all pain and anguish isn't to make you stronger. To see Job's family and servants wiped out - and for what? How did it make THEM better people?
Of course the answer was always, "But they were taken into Heaven." That horrible answer justifies all killing. Literally - ALL - killing. But nothing justifies the torture of Job. And when Job wanted to know what he had done to displease God, good ol' Yahweh simply threw a fit and ranted about how he, not Job, had created the stars and the earth and whatever else - covering up the fact that God was being a Grade-A Putz, and God knew it. So God merely hid behind his divnity and his power over life and death. "Where were you when I created the heavens!" Not only was God cruel and vicious to Job for no good reason, God couldn't even be honest with Job, couldn't look a mere human in the eye and admit to Job, "Yeah, sorry, I killed your family, your servants, your livestock - then gave you horrible diseases - to win a bet with Satan."
I understood then that God was a comic character - a being too ridiculous, too beyond the pale, too over the top to be believed. Not even seeing it metaphorically could get the bad taste out of my mouth. And I just kept discovering more things - the horrible treatment of women, the condoning of slavery, the neverending series of genocides against other cities, sending bears to tear apart little children, the obsession with sex, the laughably wrong science, Jesus blaming disease on demon possession, I could go on all night.
I really wanted to believe there was something to Christianity. But there's not. At least not in my world. I found it a lot easier to simply "let go" rather than "let go and let God." Because God wasn't going to do anything for me. And to this day, never has. Even while an atheist, i've occasionally prayed out of sheer desperation. Nothing. If God exists, he certainly couldn't give a rat's butt whether my soul is saved or not.
That's not how we see it. We believe that God created the world and mankind "good". It was man who by his own free choice disobeyed God's command and brought suffering into the world.
Tell me something, Mike: when we talk about "free will" what is the difference between these two scenarios:
1. you can choose to follow my commands or not. If you choose not to there are no repercussions.
2. you can choose to follow my commands or not. If you choose not to there are repercussions, namely an eternity suffering hell.
Do both reflect EQUALLY the exercise of free will?
From where I sit in this vast and unfathomable universe, this supposed higher power either a) doesn't exist or b) doesn't care.
If, however, you're a Christian, then you should hold God accountable for all the suffering going on in the world. Why? Because God created it. ALL of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shirina
You and I are very much kindred spirits when it comes to waiting on God. Yes, there was a time when I was a Christian, back when I lived in Chicago. I went to a mega-church. I went through the whole baptism thing. I prayed constantly. You would've thought I was living in a convent.
I needed help - a lot of help - my life was, well, let's just say it was complicated back in those days. Did God help? Of course not. In fact, he made things worse. A lot worse. Until here I stand before you now literally bereft of anything and everything people usually live for. Even my health wasn't spared, preventing me from making my situation any better.
But I came to realize how stupid I was to think that some godly power was behind everything. Oh it would've been so much easier if I had someone to call out to. But how could I beg and plead for help from the very god who is causing all the problems in the first place? One may as well ask your torturer if you could have a supreme pizza and a sixpack of Coke while chained to a brick wall in some seepy wet dungeon. Why on earth would you ever expect such a torturer to do anything for you except hurt you?
It was on this search for the reason for God's silence when I read the story of Job - and I realized that God was not above torturing people for something as frivolous as a juvenile bet with Satan. I realized that all suffering doesn't necessarily have some noble purpose, that all pain and anguish isn't to make you stronger. To see Job's family and servants wiped out - and for what? How did it make THEM better people?
Of course the answer was always, "But they were taken into Heaven." That horrible answer justifies all killing. Literally - ALL - killing. But nothing justifies the torture of Job. And when Job wanted to know what he had done to displease God, good ol' Yahweh simply threw a fit and ranted about how he, not Job, had created the stars and the earth and whatever else - covering up the fact that God was being a Grade-A Putz, and God knew it. So God merely hid behind his divnity and his power over life and death. "Where were you when I created the heavens!" Not only was God cruel and vicious to Job for no good reason, God couldn't even be honest with Job, couldn't look a mere human in the eye and admit to Job, "Yeah, sorry, I killed your family, your servants, your livestock - then gave you horrible diseases - to win a bet with Satan."
I understood then that God was a comic character - a being too ridiculous, too beyond the pale, too over the top to be believed. Not even seeing it metaphorically could get the bad taste out of my mouth. And I just kept discovering more things - the horrible treatment of women, the condoning of slavery, the neverending series of genocides against other cities, sending bears to tear apart little children, the obsession with sex, the laughably wrong science, Jesus blaming disease on demon possession, I could go on all night.
I really wanted to believe there was something to Christianity. But there's not. At least not in my world. I found it a lot easier to simply "let go" rather than "let go and let God." Because God wasn't going to do anything for me. And to this day, never has. Even while an atheist, i've occasionally prayed out of sheer desperation. Nothing. If God exists, he certainly couldn't give a rat's butt whether my soul is saved or not.
These "Problem of Evil/Suffering" arguments have been hashed out here and a gazillion other places for thousands of years now.
And it really comes down to this:
Either one bases the argument on the information that comes from "Ancient Writings" and argues and/or accepts as a given that "God" is really the anthropomorphic being-type Deity that has all these fantastical attributes those writings tell of.
And then...logically...all the rest of the writings must be taken as a given too.
So, then..."The Omnimax Powered God that knows everything and can do anything and has thoughts and ways that are above ours dunnit" and "Do not lean upon your own understanding, just defer to God" is automatically the all-purpose answer.
OR
One can admit that those "Ancient Writings" are metaphorical and allegorical works of literary art...and the representative characters in those writings do not actually exist to be blamed or held accountable for anything.
Either way...Problem of Evil/Suffering arguments against that God fail from a logical standpoint...and it is just a angst and depression inducing waste of time to even think on it, let alone go off about it.
The only thing logical is to explain the artistic quality of the writings to those that take it or argue it from a literal basis.
That's not how we see it. We believe that God created the world and mankind "good". It was man who by his own free choice disobeyed God's command and brought suffering into the world.
I know that's how you see it.
And that is, perhaps, the greatest of all brainwashing tricks in the history of Mankind.
How can humanity be responsible when God could have put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil inside the core of a neutron star on the other side of the universe. But no, he put it right in front of Adam and told him not to eat from it. Why? It's akin to putting a loaded gun in a child's playpen and telling it, "Don't play with the gun, dearie." If the child were to shoot itself, whose fault would it be? The child's? For disobeying?
That's just sllly. And as a child species, humanity did not know the difference between right and wrong. The entire concept of "disobedience" was one Adam could not have understood. Because those concepts had yet to enter the world. To make matters worse, Eve hadn't even been created yet when God warned Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit. So how could Eve have known it was forbidden? Was it any wonder, then, why the talking snake chose Eve to badger into eating it? Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Adam ever warned Eve - and even if he did, all Eve did was disobey Adam. She had no idea if God *really* gave the warning.
It's just such a crying shame that so many Christians believe humanity is responsible when it is as clear as a freshly cleaned window that God set up humanity to fail. How could an omniscient god get so ridiculously angry over one act of disobedience? The punishment itself was like a psychopath going psycho. Taking away the serpent's feet? C'mon. Ridiculous.
In fact, even IF you can blame humanity for being disobedient (you can't, but for the sake of argument ...) the punishment was still God's idea ... and God's doing ... and God's alone. There were an infinite number of ways God could have solved that problem and punished Adam and Eve.
But instead God went completely off the rails. I remember when I read how angry God was - I'll tell you a little story from my past.
When I was a little girl, I remember breaking open my piggy bank and taking around 11 dollars to the pet store where I bought a bunch of aquarium fish. Problem was - the aquarium was in my father's room. I wanted the aquarium in my room so I could fall asleep every night watching the fish. So while my father was out, I spent the next hour dragging the aquarium from his room to my room.
Now, what I did was wrong. I should not have moved it without asking first. But ... my father came home drunk, saw that I had moved the fish tank and ... let's just say he blew his temper far out of proportion to what I had done. I could have expected a stern talking to, but he literally screamed and ranted while destroying the house, smashing the dishes, punching holes in the wall ... and that was merely the beginning. And for what? Because one little girl was overzealous in her fascination with fish?
And I remember reading the Adam and Eve story - and how God reminded me so much of my drunken enraged father - sending a punishment that was out of all proportion to the so-called "crime." And to have it affect every human being from then 'till now is not just uncalled for. It's evil.
Unfortunately, Christianity has brainwashed people into believing God is the personification of Good and thus everything he does is also good. Even when it isn't.
Even when God behaves like a drunken father acting like an enraged gorilla - punishing not once, not twice, not three times, not four or five or ten or a dozen. But inflicting upon humanity every single bad act that will ever be perpetrated - from that point until now - from a mugging on a street corner to the Holocaust. From the abduction of one little girl in Nowheresville, Iowa to the shooting in Buffalo. God inflicted ALL of that onto humanity by making humanity capable of such acts, by bringing sin and evil into the world where before, it was absent. Something we were NOT until God unleashed the hounds.
And WHY was there a talking snake in the Garden of Eden in the first place? Specifically, a talking snake that seemed very keen on getting humanity to disobey God. Why? Because it was the Garden of Eden, after all. It was supposed to be paradise. It was supposed to be a safe place where Adam and Eve could just romp around eating fruit and having sex. Why would either of them think that a snake would be there to stear them wrong? Does THAT make sense to you?
The Adam and Eve story is as full of as many holes as the Titanic and floats just as well. But even if you took the entire story literally, God is responsible.
The best analogy is this: It's like a computer programmer who programs his computer to crash on startup. So when it does, the programmer gets angry and blames the computer.
Humans are like god's computer program - he knew without question what humanity would do. So instead of averting the problem by not putting a forbidden tree in the garden - to say nothing of putting a deceptive talking snake in there with them - God simply set up everything for humanity to fail, then sat back and watched the disaster play out. A disaster God *knew* would happen.
Then faked a lot of beyond the pale rage just so he could insert sin, evil, suffering, and death into our lives all the while blaming humanity for it. God is the inventor of victim blaming. Because Adam and Eve, naive as they were, walked right into God's trap. Never mind the complete and total injustice of punishing generation after generation of humans for the petty little crime of one singular person. Nonsense.
But it makes for a good story for why there is suffering in the world. No doubt that is a question that has been asked since time immemorial. I mean - it's a good story if you see it as a mere story. But if you really believe it to be true and really think the God responsible for it is in any least way a GOOD God, then it becomes a horror story.
Either way...Problem of Evil/Suffering arguments against that God fail from a logical standpoint...and it is just a angst and depression inducing waste of time to even think on it, let alone go off about it.
The only thing logical is to explain the artistic quality of the writings to those that take it or argue it from a literal basis.
Philosophically, (it’s logical reasoning to question) why there would be an all-powerful creator who controls/manipulates (and ultimately is responsible for) our world and all people in it? To what purpose?
Philosophically, (it’s logical reasoning to question) why there would be an all-powerful creator who controls/manipulates (and ultimately is responsible for) our world and all people in it? To what purpose?
The place that everyone gets all the info about the Entity you describe, and all about the fantastical attributes this Entity possesses (if argued or taken literally)...also provides all the answers to any questions.
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