God is Punishing Us

Yes, yet another religious controversy.

After reading about The Golden Compass reviews, and basically listening to my dad and things on tv. I keep on hearing that some or the reasons that we're ending up with so many natural disasters, shootings, etc... Is because God is "mad" if you will... In a light context, because we're excluding him from our lives and making movies like The Golden Compass. Banning prayer from school, removing "God" from the pledge of Allegiance, etc...

Thoughts on this?

 

If that was true, God should've been mad for a very long time, long before people even started believing in Him. Christianity is a relatively new religion in comparison to many others, Hinduism for example being arguably the oldest organized religion still in existence today.

Considering that there are a crap load of people in the world that didn't and still don't believe in "God", and that other religions existed way before Christianity poked its nose out of the depths and decided the world was created in seven days, I find it silly that a religion that established itself less than 2000 years ago, which only a fraction of the global population practices, can suddenly claim that "God" is wrecking the world (which is billions of years old) because we're 'excluding Him from our lives' so definitively.

I'd imagine some Hindus would go "We were here first and I'd say you fellas mistook Jesus for Vishnu when you wrote that book of yours."

 

To go with that, Soush...

A short time ago I learned that some of the Christians and probably some other religious beliefs don't actually believe the world was created 4 billion years ago.

It was created at a specific date and time. And that we're going to die in the next ten years or so cause the planet will be destroyed.

All I remember was them saying it was a Thursday morning.

Anyway, going back to it, it is interesting that people's beliefs lead this far. If you look at the news recently, and look at some of the television shows that the churches make, it shows two different sides of a extreme spectrum.

 

Which is a shame because fossils clearly prove otherwise.

 

Pfft. What a load of horse droppings. If God was mad at us, he would've punished us a loooooong time ago.

God has nothing to do with the hurricanes, tsunamies e.t.c., anyone and everyone can see that. All that is the result of makind's ignorance towards nature. If God did have anything to do with it, then the only thing he did was nothing.

People liketo think that there's a reaon for what's going on. Usually, they like to point at the things that they believe they don't understand and just let it be since they don't think they can do anything about it. And that, dear children, is called an excuse.

 

I honestly don't know what Christians YOUR talking about or how your Christian friends thought of all this, because the bible doesn't say anywhere of any of those things you listed in that post.

Spike, I agree with your post 100%. I mean, your right. God seems to be patient, since if he would get mad at us, it would've been a long time ago, probably as soon as the world came into sin. And your right about people blaming all of these natural disasters on God. I mean, I have done it too. I'm not going to lie. We just shouldn't be too quick to blame stuff on God saying he's allowing these things to happen. I mean, stuff just happens. God should be the last person to blame.

 

Easy, VGN...

I said some, not all. It might just be a rumor, anyway. Not everything is categorized to mean all Christians, Catholics and Jews, etc...

I'm sorry if I offended you. *apologetically bows*

Anyway, I think Spike is right, there are different people who different thoughts on why the world it is today.

 

If God does exist, I don't think he would be angry as such. More indifferent =/ If someone as powerful as God would be able to wipe us out if he was angry. All we seem to be experiencing is neglect. Like he created us, got bored and moved on leaving us to fend for ourselves. How else can you explain a 6 year old boy dropping dead in Primary school for no apparant reason, minutes after his mother left him there? Or the 9 year old girl killed on her way to school when a house exploded as she walked by? Random acts of malevolence and destruction =/ (Looking from the point of view of a higher power)

 

You never offended me and I know you meant some and not all. I was just saying that I don't know where they might get those ideas from since the bible doesn't mention any of those things.

Bunterx, while having that all in mind, your forgetting about all the normal things that are happening that you don't take notice of. Such as how you even are still breathing (I hope) or how you have a home and a computer and all the things necissary to live. To some people, that would be a blessing.

And all those bad things you've listed are mostly created by people who are sick in the head, and it's not God's fault.

And also, Sara, like I said, your forgetting about the things God has blessed you with such as a home, food, clothing, computer etc.

 

Please don't go into the blessing thing, VGN... I grew up with a Fundamentalist extremist dad, he thinks it's a blessing to breathe.

And the thing is with me is that I'm borderline agnostic a lot of the times. I am against organized religion and sometimes yes, I do question God. The thing is though with me, is that I grew up in a house where God came first with my dad, before anything else. So yes, I do bring up these debates because I wonder what others POV is about the world around them in a religious POV.

In any case, it's not about even the bible anymore in some cases. It's what the priests say and believe. I do believe in free will. It's your choice on what to do in life, whether or not it's right or wrong is up to you. As for the events, it could be anything, but it's our choice on what we do with life.

 

not all schools follow that rule ya know, my high school sure does not! we always say under God in the pledge. i think that thing for banning the pledge was only in a few schools or somthing

shootings is not a natural disaster, that is somthing man does shooting with a gun.
natural disasters are hurricanes, earthquakes, and so forth. God gives man the right to have self control!

Also many movies include God in them, bruce almighty, even almighty. and some non-religious movies too.
Also Golden Compass the book and movie were created by this person(don't remeber the name of the author) because he thought he could destroy God with it,, Pfff as if.
P.S. sorry if i came across as rude

 

Pullman I think wanted people to think outside of the box, outside of religion. Maybe he did want to kill God, but his story and whatever POV people have of him now is totally different spectrums.

And like I said, it is free will. But a lot of people say that God or our "free will" if you will are causing all these problems. And it is the religious people who are saying it. Just to point that out.

 

Like Sara said it is Free will.

He mearly set it all up and let us choose for ourselfs.

Why would he punish us by killing people? Since aparantly if we die we go to Heaven or Hell depending on how we behaved here. (Which once again if he influenced us to do school shootings or killing us would defy the point of us being judged down here. )

 

all of you guys make very good points alot of i didnt even think of .

in my opinion a god can give people strength and security . some peolpe just cant handle their life without knowing that when they die they will go to heaven. i my self have gotten into fights with people that have tried to stuff "god" down my throat .alot of people are saying that how could a god let a 6 year old drop dead in school one day and all that stuff about the crazy school shootings well did anyone remember the millions of children that die every year in places like africa or does one childs death were any of us live amount to the hundreds of deaths that have amounted in the time it took me to write this.

now what kind of god would alow that.

sorry for any one i have offended

 

Well in my personal opinion there are people who take things as they come and the doomsday people you group together with the nihilists of the world.

I view "God" as merely a concept that helps people sleep at night, because really, the world has existed longer then the idea of "God" has and the world has kept on spinning. I also view people who rush to the forefront of defending any negativity expressed about their "God" to actually be hiding their uncertainty and insecurities in their belief of "God". True faith requires no words, much less a field of people to save it against any 'insults' made against it (especially if it is true).

Anyway, people who are quick on the idea that "God" (an ominpotent, and allmighty being at that) would be harmed by a mere creation of the human mind is being one of two things: Neurotic or Clearly trying to compensate for their lack of personal esteem in their faith.

Also if 'God" was angry he'd be following his rather nifty instructions detailed in Revelations (well according to Christianity anyway.) He probably would have also have done it in one fell swoop too. Nothing says smited like nonexistence (this applies to any god).

 

How were they created by people who are sick in the head? A perfectly healthy child dropping dead (post mortem results were inconclusive =/) and the house exploding was an accident (the people living in the house were an elderly couple).

And no God did not bless me with those things, my parents did. I have managed to live my life without going to church every Sunday, and I'm still pretty well off. And anyway, God is supposed to love all. He is not supposed to be hateful or vengeful. He is supposed to care and I don't see that happening very often.

I am also agnostic, I despise organised religion. I believe that if God does in fact exist he would not require us to be told what to do by another human, we would be able to reach him on our own. I believe it's called Spirituality lol. But although I believe the concept of God to be completely illogical and riddled with contradictions, I am still unnerved by the coincidences in my life. Where things happened that although they seemed bad at the time, ended up making my life better. I can't explain it, but I'm not resigned to saying it is some higher power >_>

 

I agree with you, it also says in the bible that "god" will forgive you of your sins, no matter what, or something like that. If "god" was real and is punishing us, he/she would of killed of humans years and years ago.
For the natural disasters, we are causing all of them. Instead of punishing us "god" should be helping, and leading the way.

All this god stuff is just lies.

 

O.o They're taking God out of the Pledge of Alligence? Finally.... I thought that it would never go back to the original pledge. Congress added in the "Under God" part and was not in the original. Religion is myth. We see older, dead religions as myth when in fact the current ones are as well. Religion was created to explain the world as well as give us something to live for. And this was especially true in older societies, when the nobody was truely "free," and although neither are we, these older societies didn't have much other than religion. Everything revolved around religion. In the Middle Ages for example, all the art was religious. It's the way everything worked. The human race started to break free of this mold with the Renaissance. (I know this sounds like a history lesson, but bear with me. I'm almost finished.) We still aren't out of this yet... Religion is still very much alive and vibrant. And it's not for the best of things... We have Evangelicals in America and Muslims in the Middle East and Christianity is still a powerhouse in many European nations. We had the Holocaust, and I have no idea if this was powered by religion or not yet. We are digging our own graves because we see religion as the enlightened path and not what is wiping each other out.

 

There seem to be some Christians here who voice against this but I cannot fathom how they do not watch the news and hear some of their more zealot compatriots spewing this stuff out, let alone people at school, work etc. There are a lot of movies and books written about people suffering because of God's will. In the Bible, there are many points where people are told to prove their faiths by killing others for having different ones or that God himself punishes people. Job, the Egyptians, Sodom and Gamora, and just too many examples all show that if people just believed more, they wouldn't be so darned punished, and in wars, they'd be the victors instead of suffering nasty plagues etc. Also, we can look at the fact that quite a few Christians are taught the end of the world is coming and their faiths are being tested. I've been in some of these classes they've taught -kids- to get them to accept that their only salvation from impending doom that can come at any time is to believe and put absolute faith in Jesus.

Mostly, those I've seen ascribe to this way of thought are Televangelists, Southern Baptists, some Protestants and Methodists. Also, we can toss in Jehovas Witnesses, Mormons and any other radical group that has shown up in the last few hundred years. I don't tend to hear it coming from Catholics usually and I will acknowledge that there are a fair number of Protestants who don't buy into it and it seems to truly be up to the ministers or pastors what is taught. I would surmise really that the uneducated who don't want to bother to look up anything but what's in the pages of the Bible are the ones mostly into these kinds of beliefs. The Puritans were like this and it has a hold especially on American society where we seem to have a lot of people of blind faith. The other Christians that actually research and take any studies of reality seriously can and do find reasons why things work as they do.

Calamities such as weather conditions and environmental changes would occur whether people are plopped down in the territory or not. These things can be scientifically analyzed and explained. Shootings and serial killings, rape, gang activities, mafias etc can also be explained with psychiatry, sociology and anthropology. There are reasons why these things all happen and the physical ones caused by humans are just that...caused by humans. I have failed to ever find a 'supernatural' reason regardless of whether people say God or Satan wanted them to do the acts. Weather conditions or earthquakes, volcanoes etc also just don't pop out of nowhere. We can explain these phenomena. The information is out there and all it takes is people to look for it, examine and learn. The easy way out has always been to blame the causes for these things on something of a bigger sentient being.

As we are moving into an age where more things can be explained, I see now more a dividing force between religion and logical thinking. Some Christians can pull off both well, but there is an alarming number of them that cannot and instead seem to be dividing themselves further away from logical thinking because they believe that anything that goes against the words in the Bible is tremendously evil and a display set up by Satan to steer people away from faith. It does feel though, especially in the U.S. that the divisions are becoming very prominent and there's just this tremendous feeling of passive aggressive hostilities versus four groups.

The first group are those who believe in Christianity and yet also want to move with the age we are in and tend to not take the Bible literally, but adapt. They believe in God and Jesus but aren't going out of their way to 'save' everyone and turn them to their beliefs. They have more tolerance and comprehension of the world around them and don't condemn others who don't feel as they do, while still being connected to their own choice of faith. They see it as a 'choice' and acknowledge the right of others to believe. This doesn't mean they don't try to sway people but if told to back off, generally they will. They also don't go about trying to avoid educating themselves or blaming every act on God or the Devil that happens. They tend to know if they messed up that the Devil didn't make them do it, etc.

The second group is the fundamentalists which try to force others to religion through passive aggressive behavior that sometimes even goes to full out hostility. This number is growing at an alarming rate and they are the strongest pushers for division of people. These people are the ones who go out and burn Harry Potter books, teach children to fear and talk about God and Jesus with every other sentence, they have glassy eyes and smile all the time even while condemning people to Hell, they attack abortion clinics and also bully and abuse others. They also spend a lot of time deciding who is a 'real' Christian and who is not. I'm to the point anymore of just calling these people delusional and it's like they cling to ways that are best left to the path of the dinosaur. These people are fanatical enough to say that everything they do is driven by God or the Devil or Jesus and all calamities are caused by negative things they or others did. All good things that happen are miracles.

The third group are those who don't believe or are Agnostic. They tend to mostly go about being more of mind to be part of things and research to explain events and all. They and group 1 can get along for the most part. There are some activists in these groups too, and some can tend to get sick of Christianity on a whole because of the displays of the 2nd group. This probably would not happen so much if people actually did something about the 2nd group but no one wants to but this group and the fourth. After all, just because they believe in the same thing but in their own way, doesn't mean they can't continue. This lays on more sentiment that Christians should be lumped together because no one is taking care of the fundies and they in fact have a tremendous lot of pull even in our government. Perhaps some Atheists and Agnostics go too far in their thoughts but most would not if this 2nd group was restrained in some fashion or put on medication. All in all, whether 'sure' there is no God or not, they want to live their lives free of the negative connotations of religion and figure they can also live without the positives too, taking responsibility for their actions and dictating that the persons are at fault or there is some other explanation than God and Lucifer.

The fourth group are those not of the Christian faith (though Islamic followers can also be put in groups 1 and 2 if you think about it, as can Jews). They have their own beliefs and as Soush mentioned, some of those religions such as Hinduism have been around a lot longer and yet humanity still endures. They have their own fanatics too but in Europe and America we really don't have to deal with them so much as they are not anywhere near a growing majority. They adapt to the way another society is when outside of their regions for the most part and aren't collectively in numbers able to draw thousands. In their own countries, things happen and the religion issues may be no different than what is set up here except to change around the name of the religion. In other countries not of their origins though, or because the religions were replaced by monotheistic ones or removed utterly but for in solitude, these people are seen in any number of ways. Group 1 and 3 will deal with them far better than group 2 which attacks and tries to force conversion.

This is just a basic outline that seems to be developing at least where I can see in America. I do think though it an apply to various places around the world easily enough and people can apply their own percentages of population that fall into each. I really though cannot see how Christian posters are denying that these people exist who are doom sayers etc. They are real and out there. If you doubt it, just go out as a joke and yell "I'm an Atheist" and see the response you get. Then the divisions between Christians can easily be noted.

Also, a funny thing to comment on last. The original Pledge of Allegiance had no mention of God in it. The person who wrote it was a devout Christian. The thing though he wanted to put in was the word 'Equality' but at the time this was revoked because all men and women were not considered equal and there was slavery going on at the time. In 1954, during the McCarthy era is when the term "Under God" was placed into the Pledge. The Pledge was originally written in 1852 by Francis Bellamy, who was an American Baptist minister. He wrote it to be neutral and accepting for all. In truth, the Pledge of Allegiance was altered by people and has lost its original purpose of uniting us all. I have this wish that the word Equality will one day replace 'under God' and it would be a great step to peace, whether group 2 I mentioned likes it or not. If a Baptist minister can create the Pledge and not be a biased person, how nice it would be if we would all have respect for that.

Thoughts on this?[/QUOTE]

VGN, why does it have to be she's 'blessed' with them? Did you ever stop and think that she -worked- for them or that some of the things were given to her by -people-? Again, this stuff can be explained with a rational thinking mind instead of trying to say everything lies in some being's hands beyond vision. You may believe that you have the things you do by God's intervention, but really, try asking for a change how you have that computer there or the roof over your head. I don't think you give enough credit to the mortal people who provide you with things and that's a disappointment because I'm sure parents, employment and all are a big part of that.

 

I do believe in God, but I don't think he's punishing us. If that was the case, he/she would've dumped us looonnnggg ago. I mean, for the other Christians, he wouldn't have bothered with the whole Eden fiasco. He knew what was going to happen. He knew we were going to Fall and everything after that.
And to respond to an earlier post{don't know who didi it but hey} Philip Pullman wrote His Dark MAterials Trilogy to help show us the darker side of the Roman Catholic Church even though it was called the Magisterium in the books. I love the trilogy becasue it gives us an atheist view and some great moral lessons. Oh, and God isn't God as in who you think he is. He was the first angel created and claimed to be God but dies of old age in the third book.