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Unread 20 Nov 2006, 12:35   #64
Vermillion
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Re: Jesus rejected for Christmas

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travler
Prayer is always good. Speaking it allows you to be certain what you are asking for.
So... prayer has nothing to do with God? Its just a Christian version of a Blackberry?

"Dear Lord: breakfast at 8:15, call mother at 9:00, meeting with the staff at 10:15... Oops, wait, thats supposed to be at 10:30. Thank God I prayed. His will be done."

Quote:
It's human nature for believers to thank God when things go their way. It's also natural to need God more when things don't your way. Good things happen we thank God. Bad things happen we don't feel God in our lives and need him more. Either way it's about his glory.
See, traveller, you were doing so well for a while there. Its not Human nature, its religious nature, but other than that I agree with you.

Until the last bit. 'Bad things happen we don't feel God in our lives and need him any more'.

So, since you didn't explain that, I can see it as being interpreted two ways: Either if you don't believe, God punishes you with bad things, or if you DO believe, God rewards you with good things, and withholds rewards from non-believers.

Either way, by that interprettion, God is a dick. This in the end is the problem I have with this particular view of an interventionist God, that somehow he intervenes for his faithful when the ask for it, and ignores the rest. This view is utterly incompatable with the notion of a 'Good' God. It lays out a structure where God rewards Loyalty and punishes disloyalty, and doesn't care about broader concepts as good or evil. If I am a 'Good' person, in fact if I am an exemplary person, but do not believe, then I am withheld reward, and admittance into heaven. In other words, my lack of belief supercedes any inherent good or evil of my actions.

That God is arrogant, petty and vain by definition.


Oh, and for the record, I have no problem with religion, nor with many religious charities. I spoke the praises of the Salvation Army earlier, who help anyone without prostheletizing or caring who they are or what they believe.

My problem comes with conversionist religions, especially those arrogant SOBs who wander the world free of doubt or critical thought, assured that since THEY are right and EVERYONE else is wrong, their actions can be justified by the rightness.

That goes from the extreme of the abortion clinic bomber (working for God of course), to the congregation whoscream out against the unholiness of homosexuality thanks to the asinine drivel that is Leviticus, to the Statesman who decides he will ONLY fund those third world charity clinics that do not promote abortion.


So when you 'thank God' for allowing these talking Jesus dolls to be distributed to needy children, I ask myself would a loving God have intervened in this case? Would a God have seen the need for 1000 talking Jesus dolls to be of clear and present significance enough to warrant divine intervention? Cause somebody might want to alert him about Darfur. Maybe those people weren't praying hard enough (before they were raped and slaughtered by the Janjaweed).
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