Consider, for a moment, that there is no God. Consider that we are a people arguing over ideologies that come from ancient texts no more factual than a comic book. Imagine, 2000 years from now, nations and new religious sects arguing whether The Batman hates homosexuals or whether The Hulk brings down death and destruction to those who do wrong becuase he is a vengeful Hulk. That probably would not happen, of course, because Comic book characters are black and white - no need to guess their motivation or what they stand for. Religious texts, and argue this if you will but the proof is all around us, are as interpretable as a fortune cookie with people able to bend the words and meanings into what suits there beliefs. I am sickened by many of the things I see and hear that are attributed to religion and religious peoples. I will never say there is no God, but if HE HATES anything or anybody, then he is a God I cannot worship or recognize. I sometimes envy those with a strong faith, but look with disdain at those who believe they know God on a personal level and can tell you HIS motivation and what HE truly feels, especially when it pushes their own agenda.
I'll start with an apology: I haven't read anything in this thread but the first post. It's a busy day and the thread's too long to start on now. I just had a quick thing to mention on the original subject (God knows what the subject has turned to). There seems to be an idea in some Christians circles that tragedies like this are a punishment for sins committed by the country (something which has precedent in the OT). My minister the other day gave a great argument debunking it (within the doctrine). If you don't know, I'm an atheist who attends church regularly. I go to a conservative presbyterian (PCA) church. Anyway, what he pointed out is that, unlike during the destruction of Israel, we don't know for a fact that this is a judgment. In the OT, there were prophets whose job it was to convey the words of God. But, since we don't have prophets now (and there are theological reasons for that), we don't have anyone who can say for certain that it was a judgment. The second point he made is that the Bible has examples of tragedies as punishments and as other things, so there is no way to discern them. Some examples of tragedies that are not punishments are: (1) Tower of Siloam collapses and kills people and Jesus says those people were no more sinful than anybody else; (2) when asked if a blind man is blind because of his sins or the sins of his parents, Jesus responds it is not for sin but for the glory of God; (3) Job is so righteous that God brags about him to Satan and they make a little contest in which Job suffers affliction after affliction -- essentially because he was so righteous and not because of any evil in him; (4) numerous places, especially in the OT, authors reflect on the fairly obvious truth that sinners are often prosperous and that righteous people are afflicted. So, not being able to tell by looking at a misfortune if it was a punishment or not, and not being told by God directly whether it was or not, you cannot doctrinally come to a firm conclusion as to whether it was punishment or not. Of course, he went on to say that it is always a good idea to repent of your sins and that something like this should remind you that you should be ready to go at any moment. Anyway, sorry to interupt with something that may be irrelavent, but I thought it was very (theologically) interesting.
Damn man, if you're going to hell anyway, get some fishing in! BTW, is the BBS askew? There's an empty page after Juan's post...
Juan -- interesting stuff....yeah, it was extremely disturbing that Falwell took on the role of prophet. I assume you guys saw in today's paper that Falwell issued an apology for his statements yesterday?
MadMax: No, I didn't. What did he explain? Emotional upset? These times bring out the tensions in all of us. Still unexcusable, but much more understandable.
Let me play Devil's Advocate for a second. Possibly, these quotes were taken out of context. He was simply trying to state that this was one of Bin Laden's reason for attacking us...that we've become too tolerant on what his religion sees as horrible sins. I don't believe that's what he meant, but just a thought.
Well, you could say that... if he hadn't mentioned that God was personally allowing it to punish us for our tolerance . Sorry, RM95... nice try at playing the DA, though.
lol! It's something that's crossed my mind before (well, not fishing per se), but I like theology and it's just about my last bastion of academic thought since I graduated. Plus, I get to bring all sorts of weird arguments to the bbs and disavow myself of them at the same time.
