I have four half-written posts, but you won’t get them today. Instead you will have to read this rant. For I have to deal with some shit in my life. Shit caused by God. Yes, God the All-Powerful. You must be thinking why blame God. Well, don’t the religious among us credit God for all the good stuff, like a football victory for example? Shouldn’t he get credit for the good and the bad both?
Doesn’t He move in mysterious ways, doing bad stuff to good people and giving everything to the evil ones? Isn’t He the one who decided that Idi Amin could live in peace till he was 80? Hasn’t God saved Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein from the deaths they deserved while letting thousands of innocent Marsh Arabs, Kurds, New Yorkers and others die? Didn’t He make George Bush the US President? Why does God do this? Does He have a sick sense of humor? Or does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Go on, defenders of God and morality, tell me it is because of my weak belief in the existence of God or because of my not fasting or praying to Him? May be it’s not punishment, just His idea of fun! You see Einstein was wrong: God does play dice with the universe.
My apologies if I have offended you. But like I said I have a problem. I don’t know yet if it will be easily solved or will change my life drastically. All I know is that it was not caused by any living being. That leaves only God as the culprit, if He exists. If He doesn’t, well it’s my problem anyway just like it is now.
I’m making a list of articles etc. on Why do people believe in God?”
It’s very far from completion, but it should give you food for thought.
The Quran does say that your fate is written, so it must include the bad and the good. On the other hand it says that it’s up to the individual to strive for the good life.
Hope you solve your problem. As for God playing dice with the universe, most Muslims seems to think that all good things come from God, while bad things come from Man, or the bad things are a test.
In a number of places in the Quran, it repeatedly says that we have free will, so it must be your problem and not gods! oh well…
Zack, I think you’re being too hard on God here. The Marsh Arabs, Kurds, and New Yorkers were all killed by humans. And humans elected Bush, although, admittedly, not as many of them as elected the guy who lost. Government works in mysterious ways, too.
I suppose you could blame him for not stopping these things, or for not killing bad people, but, again, there were a whole lot of people who could have done something, too. God may be thinking that the benefits of constant intervention are outweighed by the hope that maybe, one day, humans will realize that their actions have consequences and clean up their act, so He can get back to doing whatever it was He was doing before He created the universe. Maybe He isn’t infinitely powerful, in the literal sense, so He has to carefully consider how much effort He can expend cleaning up other people’s messes. We don’t know much about God’s private life. He might not even be that powerful at all. He might not even be real. It’s wouldn’t be very fair to hold Him responsible for the real world if He wasn’t even real.
(God is doubly excused from responsibility for Bush by the seperation of church and state. Even if He had a preference, He’s legally forbidden from voting.)
“If it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that He’s evil. The worst that you can say about Him is that basically He’s an underachiever.”
-Woody Allen
But aside from all that, I hope your problem is nothing more than you can handle, and that you come through it all right.
I hope your problem is nothing more than you can handle, and that you come through it all right.
Seconded.
KO, Andrew, Jonathan: Thanks.
KO: Your comments are welcome, but my post was not meant to seriously consider the concepts about God and free will. It was borne out of frustration at the situation I have. Sorry, if that is so ambiguous, I might clarify later.
For the record, I am somewhere between “Somewhat certain that there is a God” and “Not sure whether or not there is a God”, according to this survey and like my free will very much.
Andrew: Your writing improved my mood so much. Thanks. You make all kinds of stuff very funny.
I am not discounting man’s responsibility in those atrocities. I think people were responsible, especially since we don’t even know if God exists.
Hope things work out.
Zack..I believe in God and I also believe that nothing happens against his wish.
But unlike most believers,I don’t think that all good comes from God and all bad is the result of our own bad deeds.
I know why are you saying all what you said.
I hope God has planned good for you and this is just a temporary glitch and I will pray for your pain to go away.
BUT
If God wants to take something from you and God has absolutely made up his mind and no prarayers etc can reverse it, then I offer God to take that from me. Luv ya.
Dear God listen to my prayers OR conside my offer please.
Brian: Thanks.
Amber: You won’t stop bargaining with God, will you? And you are good at it too. 😉
If God doesn’t allow free will then who cares, we can’t do anything about anything. But if God does allow free will God can’t be interventionist (and good.)
I like a benevolent noninterventionist God. Our probelms ain’t God’s fault because God can’t do anything about them, not because God doesn’t have the power but because if God altered affairs on earth God would be messing with people’s free will and thus negating their ability to love him honestly which is what God really wants out of this whole creation thing.
But if God is an interventionist like so many like to believe then God has to take the blame for bad things that happen because God could have stopped them. If God is an interventionist, picking and choosing when to help people or moving in mysterious ways or whatever, he isn’t good.
Dang, I tried to make it gender nuetral but at least one “him” slipped.
good luck man.
i don’t believe in “god”-i think all we have to depend on to protect us from “acts of god” are friends and family. pray to god-but look to man to solve your problems 😉
Isn’t it a bit ungodly to be ‘bargaining’ with god? Also, if God has planned something, then there can’t be a ‘glitch’ in his planning, what with God not making ‘glitches’. So either it’s all planned, or as Wes says, God is a benevolent noninterventionist who lets people live their lives.
Of course, there are a few instances where he has interfered with the world (e.g the famous son for goat episode).
What about natural disasters (“acts of God”). Are those the fault of man? I can tell you about how a tornado took out a churh within 1/8 of a mile from this atheist’s home and their God spared me while I stood in my front yard and watched the devastation. Explain that one, Christians.
omniscient: I usually explain natural disasters using science. Besides, you didn’t even ask me to explain (since I am not a Christian).
It wasn’t so much a challenge to explain meteorological science as an exploration as to why a benevolent god would allow his faithful flock to be injured, when he could have just as easily saved them by directing the destruction of an atheist’s property.
Is God omnipotent and without concern, caring and powerless, malevolent, or just non-existent?
I challenged Christians specifically, because the burden of proof for the existence of God should fall more to them than to us. But I would welcome conjecture from anyone.
One of the many reasons God exists and allows bad things to happen can be demonstrated in the Biblical book of Job.
War broke out in Heaven, The mightiest Angel, Lucifer, rebeled against God and decived 1/3 of all the angels in heaven to rebel against God claiming He (God) was unjust. God could have destroyed all the rebelling angels at that point, but if he did, all who remained would have worshipped Him out of fear instead of love. God wants our love, so, He casts those angels to earth, Lucifer became Satan, the fallen angels became demons to tempt us to do evil and distrust God. This became a cursed world after Adam and Eve choose Satan over God. Because of the curse things that never happened before started to become common such as, earthquakes, toronadoes, death, illness etc. God created a perfect world which we as humans allowed Satan to distroy but, as we go through this madness now the remaining angels can now see that God’s way is the only right and just way and for all those who trust in Him (Jesus Crist), you may suffer now but in the end you will be rewarded. Read the Bible, its all explained in there. For those who wonder if Jesus Crist came here and was God in human flesh think about this: The day Jesus was killed on the cross, 29 prophesies were furfulled. The odds of that happening all on one day has been estimated at 542 to the 10th power to 1.
The bible says that it rains on the just and unjust alike. In otherwords good things and bad things happen to good people and bad people alike. It might seem like a boring read but the overall context of the bible really does explain the spiritual evolution of gods relationship to mankind (and womankind). I.E. how we got from point A(the beginning) to point B (now). I think the primary reason for all the problems and suffering here on planet earth are because of man’s rebellion against god. everbody going their own way and doing their own thing without any consideration for god. Its not gods vengeance, its just that society has drifted farther and farther away from him. Anyway Zack, I’m glad your crvo has gotten better. I’ve got the same thing. It’s pretty scary, the possibility of losing my sight in my right eye. I hope your sight remains good. Good luck to ya…..Bill
Bill: Thanks. Hope you get better.
CRVO
If you were wondering why I ranted about God or why my family is pressuring me to not spend so much time on the computer, you should really get a life. grin. I guess I am going to tell you…