ruby sparks
Contributor
What I meant was that belief in a god that never intervenes would seem to be unusual, as in not the norm.
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Do theists sort of think that belieiving in god makes god real?
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T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
I guess it's semantics.
If a person's divine leader allows something to happen, it isn't like divine leader didn't know and approve, and therefore bestow its blessing. Being in control and having foreknowledge of everything and not changing the course of events - at least according to one of divine leader's followers - hardly counts for non-intervention. Someone's just looking through their customized theistic lens and reading divine leader's mind, doing so for their own personal edification. They're just claiming it's what mysterious divine leader wants, basically just spouting more religious stupidity.
Jason the Rationalist
Member
I sometimes wonder why believers even bother to attempt to explain how/why their god's action or inaction, intervention or non-intervention can be justified since whatever happens can fall into one or the other bucket. ie. said god is just fine in doing or not doing, the problem is apparently not the inability of believers to explain but the intransigence of non-believers who somehow "know" they are in the wrong, are "against" said god. Non-believers don't find their arguments compelling. Without realising it believers may actually be selling their god well short of its own alleged perfection (that's assuming it is perfect). I think they are on a bit of an excitable emotional ego-trip. Just words and wagers don't cut it.
James Brown
Suspended by Member Request
If you begin with the premise that every action of God is good, then logically it follows that every action of God--even if the action is inaction--is by definition good.
Yes, it's a tautology. The thing about tautologies is that they are such an easy position to hold.
Yes, it's a tautology. The thing about tautologies is that they are such an easy position to hold.
Very good insight from the guy of the video.
Claps for his personal opinion. He, as a father will say "no, f*ck with that, I won't sacrifice the child", and he can add, such act of sacrificing is inhuman, lesser than abortion, because abortions are right of women to discard two of her four eyes, the additional mouth, ears, brain, and more discarded in such surgical treatment.
What this gentleman never understood is that God never forced Abraham to do it. You won't read a single word of God saying, "if you vote for Trump I will make your children to be born white with blond hair"... errr.. excuse me... I just got out of topic... lets try again, you don't read that God told Abraham that if didn't sacrifice his child then God will destroy him, destroy both, cause earthquakes, or whatever.
So, the decision of Abraham is as valid as the decision of the gentleman of the video.
Because actually, you are not obligated to obey and neither respect God.
You are not.
This is free will. You can make your own choice.
Do you like that?
See?
You cause problem to yourself when you think that if you don't believe in God then you must go against God.
I, personally, won't give a dime for watching basketball games. I feel zero attraction for that sport. Do you see me here or anywhere "attacking" basketball?
duh?
To me, I never had any inclination to believe "in" God. I consider myself skeptical.
However, one day I was studying a certain Psalm in particular. And giving the correct accent to the Hebrew, I read it a few times trying to find out what the psalmist was pretending with it. It was very interesting.
What happened later was more than interesting. A received a question about a biblical passage and from "nothing" I started to discover other meanings of the events, not the meaning of the words but of the events. It was like having a key to open new interpretations which are, lets say, hidden to the normal reader. Nothing which will require of mysticism and similar superfluous paths, but simple lessons that many readers overpass. Like to say, a miracle is made by Jesus, then in the same miracle you find a message other than the miracle itself.
Giving my discovery to others who were religious, one of them even published it in his religious magazine.
So, I enjoy this kind of studies, which won't lite any "faith" inside me, but surely makes me thing that there is a God. And in order to find Him, is by understanding what the bible describes about Him.
And this is my free will same than Abraham and same than the gentleman of the video.
I do it because I love this kind of research, Abraham did it because faith, the gentleman of the video rejects it because he can't understand it.
And, in your case, it appears that you are in the same position of the gentleman in the video, rejecting and forming your own opinion, which is why God gave us free will... (In bold because I know you will burn in flames anyway, and it's funny...)
A friend of mine told me to go with her at her seamstress house to check about her new dress.
The woman worked at home. While she was doing the correspondent adjustments to the dress, her 5 years son was playing and playing doing funny faces to us, throwing his toys, etc.
At one moment, the boy managed to climb over the wardrobe. The mother gave a look at him and she continued with her work not without saying with very calm voice:
-Get down, be careful, you will fall...
The boy continued playing by himself over the wardrobe rolling from one side to another.
-Get down, be careful, you will fall...
The boy continued with his game, but suddenly he lost balance and pump! fell on the floor and hit his head very badly. He then run to his room and cried hard for a while.
The mother didn't made any gesture, she continued with her work, not without repeating the same with calm voice
-I told you to get down, and be careful because you will fall...
I didn't believe it, I say to myself "what the hell?"...
After we came out of the house we were making jokes of the woman and her son.
But, actually such is what is going on. God already told you... get down, be careful, you will fall... and apparently you won't listen, your thoughts reveal the same thoughts of the son of the dressmaker playing over the wardrobe...
ruby sparks
Contributor
Neat story. Did the little boy suffer eternally?
Hermit
Cantankerous grump
Catastrophes Now! Pie in the sky when you die.
I don't think the pie in the sky thing lets the alleged creator of everything off the hook for having created an environment - earthquakes and tsunamis being but two of its thousands of fatal aspects - that kill humans indiscriminately. What have babes in arms done to that capricious arsewipe to deserve death by drowning, being buried alive or whatever other premature end they might meet through them?
Hermit
Cantankerous grump
The alleged creator of everything commanded Abraham to "take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." It was a test of faith. The god-thingy finished up saying "Naw don't do it. I was only kidding." and yes, assuming the existence of free will, Abraham might have responded to the command with a heartfelt "Fuck you, arsewipe, I'll do no such thing." None of this matters. Unquestioning obedience is not a good thing, except as it applies to really young children and their relation to their parents. Even then it is conditional. "Don't tell mummy about our secret game. She won't believe you anyway."
Hermit
Cantankerous grump
That is an excellent justification for the existence of earthquakes, tsunamis and other shit that kills indiscriminately. How could I have missed it? Verily, anyone with such wisdom must be unconditionally obeyed.
ruby sparks
Contributor
I did ask Learner a while back about kids getting cancer......he is going to reply soon.
I'm guessing that 'we don't understand but it'll be justified in some way' is going to come into it. That's approximately what he would tell the suffering child.
Now, compare that to the alternative, 'there is no good reason, shit happens' and we can see the attraction, even in pragmatic terms, of the comforting effect of belief in a loving and just god. Learner, partly because he believes anyway, would probably prefer that there was something to comfort the suffering.
Learner
Veteran Member
Round and round we go ... what is cancer? How do you get it - when some do and some don't?
ruby sparks
Contributor
Beats me. What's your 'why kids get cancer' theory? Do earthquakes while you're at it.
Hermit
Cantankerous grump
That, or blaming the victim's parents. Funny how someone's allegedly miraculous survival - say a sole survivor of a plane crash - is credited to the agency of some god-thingy while all the others died as his punishment for legalising same sex marriages or whatever. No surprises, though. Theists tend to be immune to the effects of evidence.
ruby sparks
Contributor
God doesn't intervene though, apparently.
Learner
Veteran Member
repeat mode ...Its survival - the best way you can I'm afraid.
(will atempt to answer previous posts)
Hermit
Cantankerous grump
Cancer is the god-thingy's creation, just like the common cold or any other disease. You get it because you, or Adam/Eve, have disobeyed said god-thingy. Even if you have popped out of mum's tummy just a few weeks earlier.
ruby sparks
Contributor
How can a baby, or its parents, stop it from getting cancer? Or dying in an earthquake? Or any one of a number of causes of suffering that aren't within the power of humans to prevent? You keep avoiding this.
Learner
Veteran Member
Well it may improve your chances a little better perhaps if you built a faraday cage thingy against all those microwaves ... stop smoking ... drop the sugar...chemical pop soda.. cut down on this and that ... you know the score ...although be it today in the "modern civilised technological advanced" age.
Eat you greens my parents used to say!
(so to speak)
bilby
Fair dinkum thinkum
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Cancer is a diverse class of diseases characterised by uncontrolled cell growth, and/or the absence of normal cell death.
The cause of cancer is mutation of the DNA in a cell, destroying its ability to die when signalled to do so by the surrounding cells, and/or causing it to multiply faster than is usual. Such mutations can result from exposure to a number of environmental conditions, including reactive chemical species, ionising radiation, viruses and even physical damage on a microscopic scale, as seen in asbestos induced mesothelioma. Some people are more genetically prone to certain kinds of cancer than others.
A cancer causing mutation is a rare event, even in the presence of known carcinogens; each exposure can be likened to buying a lottery ticket, where most cells lose, and either remain (or get repaired back to) normal; or suffer sufficient damage to kill them outright. Only a tiny fraction of cells exposed to carcinogens will become cancerous; only a small fraction of cancers are malignant; and increasingly, very few cancers detected at an early stage will prove fatal.
The rarity of cancers and the ubiquity of possible and known carcinogens make assigning cause to specific cases very difficult; as with all mysterious or difficult to understand phenomena, this tends to lead many gullible people to assume supernatural causes (despite the fact that through all of human history, every single time a cause has been found for a phenomenon, it has been found to not be supernatural. Every time. That horse has run billions of races, and has never placed. Yet the punters still flock to back it as the next winner. People are such fucking idiots).