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There I was on July 17 1996 at Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. It was about 2100 and the SAR alarm went off. They were telling us to launch the ready hu25 falcon and hh60 jayhawk for a SAR case. Little did we know then that a 747 had just 29 mins earlier exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York.
When we got on scene, all there was to be found were burning fuel and debris floating in an empty ocean.
All 230 people on board died.
Where was the evidence of prayers answered that night? Did no single person left behind not pray for the safety of anyone on board? Did not Jesus in his majesty and love that only a creator of everything would have, find anyone of those 230 people worth saving?
There were children amongst those that died. Did Jesus not care a wit that night to even save the life of an innocent child? Did not the prayers of those left behind matter to Jesus that night?
To me this was and is just further evidence of the absence of a deity.
There I was on July 17 1996 at Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. It was about 2100 and the SAR alarm went off. They were telling us to launch the ready hu25 falcon and hh60 jayhawk for a SAR case. Little did we know then that a 747 had just 29 mins earlier exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York.
When we got on scene, all there was to be found were burning fuel and debris floating in an empty ocean.
All 230 people on board died.
Where was the evidence of prayers answered that night? Did no single person left behind not pray for the safety of anyone on board? Did not Jesus in his majesty and love that only a creator of everything would have, find anyone of those 230 people worth saving?
There were children amongst those that died. Did Jesus not care a wit that night to even save the life of an innocent child? Did not the prayers of those left behind matter to Jesus that night?
To me this was and is just further evidence of the absence of a deity.
What a horrific job you had that day! Thank you for your service and courage!
The fact that people died in that crash however is not "evidence" of the absence of God.
I feel very strongly that God was right there waiting to receive those who were to come to him, and afterwards with the grieving families to comfort and console those who would let him.
See, God is not Santa Claus. Praying to him is not meant to be a wish list for all the things WE want to have or have happen.
And just because the thing we prayed for doesn't get answered the way we expected or wanted does not mean God didn't hear us or answer us.
Many people such as yourself struggle with this. I too wish that God would always intervene and protect the innocent, especially all children from pain and suffering.
But having given us the gift of free will and set a set of natural laws in to effect, there are just going to be times when God will not stop certain things from occurring. If he did, we would all be like puppets with a puppet master pulling our strings.
I encourage you to do more searching on this subject. Seek to understand God better. He is a loving father who truly wants a one on one relationship with you, with each of us.
It's so easy to just blame every bad thing on him, but it takes a strong person to actually go beyond that frame of mind to seek true understanding of our creator. I hope you will be that person!
thank you for your kind words.
While I trust in your devotion, the silence of god that humid dark night was evidence that he didnt care or doesnt exist.
thank you for your kind words.
While I trust in your devotion, the silence of god that humid dark night was evidence that he didnt care or doesnt exist.
Not trying to argue with you...just asking you to try to consider that the way you have chosen to frame what happened that night may not be accurate.
Do some reading too. If people in German concentration camps could hold on to their faith in the midst of all the horrors they endured, perhaps there is something more to God than you currently know. Just a sample:
The distribution of good fortune and calamity among the righteous and the wicked, between the just and the self interested, has always been random. There is no pattern which has ever emerged which suggests a consistent cosmic reward associated with good behavior or consistent punishment visited upon those who conduct their lives selfishly.
Consequently, these sorts of anecdotal presentations of a particular tragedy will never helpfully serve as any sort of evidence for the presence, or absence of presence, of a cosmic controlling entity. If they did then we would have serial changes of mind. "I won the lottery! There is a God!" " My dog got run over by a bus. There is no God!" "I found my lost umbrella! God lives!" "My car wouldn't start this morning, all is nil!"
Not trying to argue with you...just asking you to try to consider that the way you have chosen to frame what happened that night may not be accurate.
Do some reading too. If people in German concentration camps could hold on to their faith in the midst of all the horrors they endured, perhaps there is something more to God than you currently know. Just a sample:
Reading, Ive spent years with. What of those in the CC's that decided a deity did not exist due to thier experiences?
Still I ask, what is the point of prayer if it does nothing? Did not the parents of the Montoursville PA,high school french club pray for safe passage of their children to Paris? Was there not one person in the 230 that died worthy of a deity's interaction that night?
Should not the quest for a "god" be worthy of evidence that it exists? If the deity allowed genocide to happen, does the deity also not hold responsibility for the same? Would not a "god" be held to higher standards than mere mortals?
If indeed there is such a thing as a deity, it is a cruel one indeed that would spare some and allow others to die in horrific situations. Whenever I see disasters in which people do survive and I see the survivors thanking god I think to myself "Why them and not others? Was this a random rescue on god's part? How did he decide?"
I don't believe in a god that plays dice with people's lives, especially in situations such as these. That is cruel. I would much rather believe that the accident happened for no other reason than the circumstances that caused it to occur resulting in the deaths of the people involved.
In situations where people do walk out of holocausts alive, that too is something in which they were spared because of circumstances and not some grand design that favored them over others. That too would be cruel if a deity controlled a situation like that, picking and choosing who was to live and die.
The thought of that really makes me just shake my head in bewilderment. I don't see how people can believe that is part of some deity's plan that says "You go and you stay." No thank you.
Not trying to argue with you...just asking you to try to consider that the way you have chosen to frame what happened that night may not be accurate.
Do some reading too. If people in German concentration camps could hold on to their faith in the midst of all the horrors they endured, perhaps there is something more to God than you currently know. Just a sample:
There is no doubt of the efficacy of the Magic Feather delusion. That may be why he have evolved religious faith in the first place - as a very effective survival technique.
However, I would rather see what I can achieve without spiritual steroids and rather than have people retaining their faith inside concentration camps, not to have the concentration camps in the first place.
Cue the Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot were all atheists package.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 08-11-2013 at 04:12 AM..
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