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And it's weird how that changes to "How can you even compare God to a human/earthly parent? What makes you think God would have to act as a human parent would act?" when people ask why God doesn't take care of people in the same ways we take care of our children.
So I guess this is just another case of "whatever works to win an argument" v. "whatever the actual truth is, THAT'S what I want to know".
I can give my daughter a choice of 2 bowls: one containing raw liver, and one with ice cream and her favorite topping. I know which one she'll choose. That doesn't mean I choose for her.
Are you going to drive her from your sight and ensure she is punished and tormented forever if she chooses ice cream over liver?
Nonsense. She still would use her free will to make the choice of either, or nothing at all.
Do you put conditions like locking her up in the basement and turning the heaters up to just the right temp that it won't kill her but make miserable as hell for let say one week if she chooses incorrectly?
Last edited by The Last Amalekite 1Sam15; 07-27-2016 at 03:43 PM..
I remember, as a little girl, being in the waiting room of a doctor's office and picking up a children's Bible from the table. (It was there among the other books for children to read while they were waiting.) Based on my memory of where this was (what town) I must have been seven or eight years old.
It was a really COOL book...it was one of those pop-up things...right in the middle there was a pop-up rainbow that stood up when you opened those two pages. There were cardboard "doors" to open and shut and stuff like that. There was a cardboard wheel that you would turn and turn by flicking it with your thumb and a dove with an olive branch in its mouth would appear from, disappear back into, appear from, disappear back into a fluffy cloud over and over again.
Anyway, there was a picture of Noah closing a bear into a huge wooden trap. The trap had a door and when I pulled the little tab, Noah's arm opened and shut the door, trapping the bear so it could wind up on the ark.
I remember thinking then - in second or third grade - that it was IMPOSSIBLE that any person could trap two of EVERY land animal, much less transport them (I had a mental image of Noah trying to pull the bear from the trap to the ark, and the bear mauling Noah to death), and keep them alive for forty days and forty nights. That wasn't even counting the months after the waters receded - I wasn't savvy enough yet to even factor those in. I just knew the "forty days and forty nights" thing.
I kept trying and trying to believe it. It was obvious (or so I thought) that everybody else believed it. Why didn't I believe it? I think I asked my mother (I just can't remember the exact wording here) how Noah's ark was possible. I very very tentatively pointed out ONE inconsistency I saw - trapping every single animal. I was afraid to let her know just how much of this story I couldn't seem to believe. I was afraid she'd think I was a demon or something. She said maybe God put a spell on the animals so they wouldn't bite Noah.
I pretended that answer satisfied me and I "smiled huge" and walked away but immediately what popped into my head was something along the lines of: if God can literally do anything, even put a spell on animals so they don't act anything like animals, why couldn't God just put a spell on the animals for them all to go willingly to the ark and walk on board? Or why couldn't God just make the animals live through His spells without needing to be on the ark...or why couldn't He just use His powers to not let any animals, who never sinned, die?
I literally thought Satan was influencing me to keep coming up with these "evil" questions, especially since they popped so quickly into my head, completely against my bidding (as far as my perspective on them went, anyway) and I tried to FORCE myself to just believe anyway, and continued to do that for years, all the while deep inside thinking I was bound for hell and was gripped by the devil and he was having fun with me by making me not just be believing and happy like "everybody else" (again, from my perspective).
But when I look back on that now...I could cry. A little tiny girl of no more than eight, believing she was destined for hell and eternal screaming agonized torture because she couldn't believe one of THE most ludicrous, logically inconsistent stories EVER created.
It's cruel. It always makes me want to cry when I think of other children having similar thoughts...because they do. I'm nothing special. I'm not brighter than the next person (I have a very very average IQ). Other kids are having these thoughts and are terrified to express them for fear of going to hell.
And they're plastering a smile on their faces as they walk through Hamm's ark, pretending to believe it. They're looking up at Mom's and Dad's happy, shining faces and thinking, "I can't hurt their hearts and ask questions that show I don't believe like they do. Look how happy they are. How come THEY can believe but I can't? What's wrong with me? What happens when we're all dead, and they're in heaven for being able to believe, and I'm in hell, and I never see them again? Will they cry? Did I hurt them? Why can't I just be like them?"
It is just so sad to me.
I was about seven. I was at a friend's house looking at a book of Bible stories. When I got to the story about God sending a flood to drown bad people I thought, "That's not the God I know" and tossed the book back on the pile. I was especially appalled that kids were drowned. I knew a kind and loving God. Not this vindictive being who was drowning little kids.
So that, combined with the fact I already knew the Navajo flood myths, led my little seven year old self to decide it was one more flood myth. Nothing I've learned in the decades since has made me change my mind.
I remain grateful my parents took us to real museums and places like the La Brea Tar pits and the Grand Canyon. Not some side-show "museum" with hinky science and an agenda. They were big on education....not propaganda.
Last edited by DewDropInn; 07-27-2016 at 03:11 PM..
I remember, as a little girl, being in the waiting room of a doctor's office and picking up a children's Bible from the table. (It was there among the other books for children to read while they were waiting.) Based on my memory of where this was (what town) I must have been seven or eight years old.
It was a really COOL book...it was one of those pop-up things...right in the middle there was a pop-up rainbow that stood up when you opened those two pages. There were cardboard "doors" to open and shut and stuff like that. There was a cardboard wheel that you would turn and turn by flicking it with your thumb and a dove with an olive branch in its mouth would appear from, disappear back into, appear from, disappear back into a fluffy cloud over and over again.
Anyway, there was a picture of Noah closing a bear into a huge wooden trap. The trap had a door and when I pulled the little tab, Noah's arm opened and shut the door, trapping the bear so it could wind up on the ark.
I remember thinking then - in second or third grade - that it was IMPOSSIBLE that any person could trap two of EVERY land animal, much less transport them (I had a mental image of Noah trying to pull the bear from the trap to the ark, and the bear mauling Noah to death), and keep them alive for forty days and forty nights. That wasn't even counting the months after the waters receded - I wasn't savvy enough yet to even factor those in. I just knew the "forty days and forty nights" thing.
I kept trying and trying to believe it. It was obvious (or so I thought) that everybody else believed it. Why didn't I believe it? I think I asked my mother (I just can't remember the exact wording here) how Noah's ark was possible. I very very tentatively pointed out ONE inconsistency I saw - trapping every single animal. I was afraid to let her know just how much of this story I couldn't seem to believe. I was afraid she'd think I was a demon or something. She said maybe God put a spell on the animals so they wouldn't bite Noah.
I pretended that answer satisfied me and I "smiled huge" and walked away but immediately what popped into my head was something along the lines of: if God can literally do anything, even put a spell on animals so they don't act anything like animals, why couldn't God just put a spell on the animals for them all to go willingly to the ark and walk on board? Or why couldn't God just make the animals live through His spells without needing to be on the ark...or why couldn't He just use His powers to not let any animals, who never sinned, die?
I literally thought Satan was influencing me to keep coming up with these "evil" questions, especially since they popped so quickly into my head, completely against my bidding (as far as my perspective on them went, anyway) and I tried to FORCE myself to just believe anyway, and continued to do that for years, all the while deep inside thinking I was bound for hell and was gripped by the devil and he was having fun with me by making me not just be believing and happy like "everybody else" (again, from my perspective).
But when I look back on that now...I could cry. A little tiny girl of no more than eight, believing she was destined for hell and eternal screaming agonized torture because she couldn't believe one of THE most ludicrous, logically inconsistent stories EVER created.
It's cruel. It always makes me want to cry when I think of other children having similar thoughts...because they do. I'm nothing special. I'm not brighter than the next person (I have a very very average IQ). Other kids are having these thoughts and are terrified to express them for fear of going to hell.
And they're plastering a smile on their faces as they walk through Hamm's ark, pretending to believe it. They're looking up at Mom's and Dad's happy, shining faces and thinking, "I can't hurt their hearts and ask questions that show I don't believe like they do. Look how happy they are. How come THEY can believe but I can't? What's wrong with me? What happens when we're all dead, and they're in heaven for being able to believe, and I'm in hell, and I never see them again? Will they cry? Did I hurt them? Why can't I just be like them?"
It is just so sad to me.
Absolutely devastating witness against the stupid, irrational and insane ancient ignorance perpetuated as a sign of faith in God, JerZ!! My heart aches for that little girl and all such little girls and boys who are psychologically brutalized by the primitive and barbaric beliefs of our ignorant ancient ancestors perpetuated by religious leaders even today in the 21st century. It is a travesty!
I can give my daughter a choice of 2 bowls: one containing raw liver, and one with ice cream and her favorite topping. I know which one she'll choose. That doesn't mean I choose for her.
No you already made the choice for her by only offering her an option you knew she wouldn't take and an option you know she will choose. If you gave her two options she likes you wouldn't know which she would choose.
Plus there are other options you haven't taken into account. Maybe she feels unwell and doesn't want ice cream. Maybe she's just eaten and feels full already.
You can't KNOW everything.
What you're saying is different - that your god does know everything before people even made the supposed choice. That's not free will, it's a predetermined path.
You can't have it all ways. Either people have a choice or they dont.
No you already made the choice for her by only offering her an option you knew she wouldn't take and an option you know she will choose. If you gave her two options she likes you wouldn't know which she would choose.
Plus there are other options you haven't taken into account. Maybe she feels unwell and doesn't want ice cream. Maybe she's just eaten and feels full already.
You can't KNOW everything.
What you're saying is different - that your god does know everything before people even made the supposed choice. That's not free will, it's a predetermined path.
You can't have it all ways. Either people have a choice or they dont.
Exactly.
But logic, unfortunately, is no match for highly-buffed fundashield.
A little tiny girl of no more than eight, believing she was destined for hell and eternal screaming agonized torture because she couldn't believe one of THE most ludicrous, logically inconsistent stories EVER created.
It's cruel. It always makes me want to cry when I think of other children having similar thoughts...because they do. I'm nothing special. I'm not brighter than the next person (I have a very very average IQ). Other kids are having these thoughts and are terrified to express them for fear of going to hell.
And they're plastering a smile on their faces as they walk through Hamm's ark, pretending to believe it. They're looking up at Mom's and Dad's happy, shining faces and thinking, "I can't hurt their hearts and ask questions that show I don't believe like they do. Look how happy they are. How come THEY can believe but I can't? What's wrong with me? What happens when we're all dead, and they're in heaven for being able to believe, and I'm in hell, and I never see them again? Will they cry? Did I hurt them? Why can't I just be like them?"
When parents tell their children there is only one way to approach God and if they don't do it just that way, or believe things their intellects find nonsensical, or teach them they are a filthy sinner and are destined for eternal soul-torment if they don't follow steps A, B and C...
I call that child abuse.
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