Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Ok ok so I know I don't have the best rep to being the most religious friendly on these boards , however, when it comes to logic I am very open minded to understanding these things.
A lady where I work ... is.. well, terribly terribly weird looking. We aren't talking "She isn't cliche hot". It's not even a matter of looking SEXY or attractive. She has these bumps/"boils" all over her face -- her bottom half of the face seems.. dead (when she speaks it looks like a muppet)..and her bottom look like cat teeth?!.. They are thin and curly. It's so weird.
About 2 weeks ago, one of the attorneys (for some reason) had their small child with them (as in maybe 4 or 5 years old). He [child] was talking to her and then he said, "Why do you look like that" so she gave him that cliche old line "Well this is how God made me".
I then realized this woman is probablyreligious and she uses this as an excuse to help herself death with her "deformity". I feel bad -- but if there is a God, why would he make her so hard on the eyes? As far as I know she isn't married.
This isn't just about her. Why are people born into parents of abusive parents? I understand we all choose our actions (such as the parents abusing the children), but why would someone be put into these HORRRRIBLE situations when all they were.. is born?
Why are people born into poverty? Not so much "not able to afford an iPhone", but people in countries who have little to no clean water and very little food. What's the point? What is "God" trying to do with these people?
Why do we have some of the crazy illness' that we have? Cancer? Seriously? Why would God give us a disease that ANYone can develope, and causes a slow and painful death. Why? Why should people who have lived good, decent lives... die slowly and painfully?
None of this makes sense to me. I'll ACCEPT the argument that all evil on earth is man made -- fine -- but why are there BAD UNAVOIDABLE things that happen to people?
Moderator cut: Orphaned reference To the O.P., perhaps the woman that you say is ugly has a great life? Maybe she is the sweetest person in the world. I would ask, why has our society moved so far towards materialism that we judge the value and quality of another humanlife based upon appearance?
As far as being born into poverty is concerned, mommy and daddy had sex in Bangladesh, and so naturally, baby was born there. I would leave the possibility of God out of that equation. The reasons that certain areas are overpopulated and impoverished can be very clearly defined in social and economic terms.
However, I do understand the meaning of your question. "Why do bad things happen to people if there is a God"? Well, that depends on what kind of a world any sort of God might want to create. If the God was a good God, as most people would tend to claim, then what reason would it/he/she have to allow that sort of suffering? Perhaps the God wanted to give freedom to creation. Free will, that allows us to do other than the will or nature of God, allows us choice in belief. Why would a God want to create a world in which we did not have that choice? Mindless drones that all bow down on command? Boring. On the other hand, freedom and free will give us the ripe opportunity to destroy ourselves, and we seem to be very good at it.
From there, it is economics, genetics, social issues, and our willingness/ability to help ourselves and each other. Perhaps there is an operation that you could help fund for your "ugly" friend?
Personally, I believe it to be a fallacy to state that "God did it." And then, place al the blame on this God (which is depicted by most religions as to be some kind of "Father-in-the-sky" figure.
It is also a cop-out to simply state that "Well, that's life! Enjoy!" and than also add that whatever has happened to a person's life is meant to be.
Let's look at cause-and-effect.
If we take this woman as an example, to correctly build a case of "why," we need to build a systematic analysis approach.
She did not become disfigured because a "Father-in-the-sky" decided to single her out. We need to look at her DNA and then trace throughout thousands of generations as to why her DNA turned on her.
Let's state that God created the DNA in the first place. DNA is a self-replicating process. It is not perfect, and many times it "goes bad." Is that God's fault? If the DNA were perfect, it would not be able to mutate into other evolutionary forms that are necessary to evolve as the universe changes and evolves.
-----
Let's take the case where some people are born into a less-than-desirable situation.
If the world's population were seven million and not seven billion, there might still be starvation, but seven million people would have a much better chance of eeking out a good life than the current seven billion.
The Earth is a changing environment. As much as people would like to believe that the Earth is a very stable environment where little changes, recent events show that the Earth is a very dangerous place to live. Is God to blame if the world is fractured and its processes lethal, even though if the Earth were not fractured and prone to volcanoes, earthquakes, and the like, it would be as dead as Mars?
Mankind is to blame for a lot of environmental problems. While the natural processes of weather patterns and the like create desertification and global warming, mankind is also irresponsible in the way it treats the Earth. Let's look at the the Dust Bowl of the early 20th century. That was not an act of God: it was repeated mistakes made by farmers.
Our earliest ancestors were able to move around from one fertile area to another. Only a handfull of people today have that luxury, and the fields they are cultivating simply revolve around money.
God did not say to go out and make babies until the barn was full. That was mankind making up some silly rules like that. Look at the current world situation: some countries are willing to pay families to have more children, inspite of the fact that we know that there are too many people running around the Earth now. The reason why to have more babies? Two, actually: more mouths equates to more commercial success, and the more of me against the few of you equates to a better chance of subjugation.
------
Having a sadistic moron for a father and several decades of analysis, I can only conclude that mankind again is to blame for the misery we all have to suffer. Read: education.
We humans have short-changed general education throughout that last four thousand years. First, we made education so secret that we formed secret societies to make sure that the person-in-the-street was kept ignorant.
We replaced real education with psuedo education, building on religious mythology and masquerading it as real knowledge. Mt. Vesuvius was about to blow (79 a.d.), and the scientists/priests announced that it was Vulcan working in his workshop under the mountain. The Middle Ages filled our gullible minds with complete garbage, with a god-in-the-sky, angels, demons, Earth as a flat body orbitted by the sun, planets, and the stars in the sky.
"Obey your Father and Mother" became the rule of the day. So, if they want to beat the crap out of you, it was the Will of God! Too bad, they didn't read the second verse in Timothy that states: "Parent, do not lead your children to anger."
Then we have Romans, where people are in danger of hellfire and spiritual anihilation if they rebel against authority, since all authority has been given by God.
Bottom line: God didn't do anything. God is not mankind's greatest enemy, much less an enemy in the first place. Mankind has been and always will be the enemy of itself. It doesn't need a God to be an enemy; it is quite capable of destroying itself and making life a living hell all by itself.
Agree with most of what you said but by way of example and the crap doctrines of Moderator cut: Christianity , having lived in Africa all my life, in my 53 years I have NEVER once seen a black man or woman whipping a child or applying corporeal punishment. This from seeing them around village campfires to the modern shopping mall.
This alone shows me that the concept of religion is nothing more than man made control concept. The African people are into forefather respect (rather than worship) and their culture pretty natural as far as the hunter gatherer goes, they have taught me to live one day at a time.
Somehow they have managed to hold onto their culture but the white man has corrupted it in a big way. With it they brought their invisible entities and preyed on the superstitions of the folk that were easily converted in exchange for their lands. These white gods were soon seen for what they were very cruel, one only needed to look at their followers.
The rest is history and though they are ess. poor and helpless, it took but a few generations for them to lose their natural skills and really were not ready for the lifestyle of the westerners.
Before the missionaries, they were OK and survived just fine. The survival of the fittest worked. Now in 2011, the modern black man with education steps into the void of the departing white man but still w/o the benefit of hand me down experience of the modern world. They will get there.
What happened in the dark ages of Europe, the folk were pretty much in the same boat as the black man when the white settlers came. The powerful came and wanted the lands for their kings and these folk were denied their naturals in exchange for this new deity. Politics and religion have always been bedfellows.
In all this, there is no god, merely men pretending there is one and trying to use that "knowledge" to influence others. The idea of the purpose of life you alluded to does not exist. Back then it was surviving to the next day, that was the purpose. Folk really did not have time on their hands to ponder the ultimate question, they had their own folklore and that was it, rituals were introduced by the so called educated to control the illiterate. Kinda like the golden rule, "He who has the gold, rules" These rulers got us to abandon our small tribe mentality and created for themselves bigger and bigger tribes till all identities were lost.
Today, folk exist merely because the skill set of hunter gatherer has long been bred out of us. We are now captive to the system we are born into and really cannot revert to the hunter gatherer anymore as the kings still own the Sherwood forests of the world, it is now a crime to kill an animal unless you have a hunting permit and have paid for the pleasure of taking out an animal at a 100 yards with a really big gun. Of course these animals are bred in fish bowls and as such are really not that hard to find and track. We call those that want/need to hunt for food, poachers.
In spite of all the revolutions against aristocracy, we are still left with it today. Anyone that cannot see this pattern is blind or willfully stupid.
Last edited by june 7th; 03-21-2011 at 07:18 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
, however, when it comes to logic I am very open minded to understanding these things.
