I hope that you will find eventually that you were wronged by people, not by God or spirituality as a whole

indeed! Ghandi remarked, when asked about his intense interest in Jesus, that when he met a christian who followed the teachings of Christ he himself would become more interested in being a christian.

Fuzzy - you can't see, hear, smell, or touch gamma rays, but if a competent authority puts up barricades and a warning sign you'll react in "blind faith" like the rest of us and stay the hell away.

humorous note: ( to me, anyway ). we had four adamant atheists on our gunship crew during the vietnam war, and at various times i observed 2 of them praying aloud with great intensity when the anti-aircraft flack got so thick that we could have lowered the landing gear and set down on it.
that old saw "no atheists out in the forward foxholes" does have some truth to it.

I'd be glad to tell you how they loved using metal rulers to rip apart my knuckles. I'd love to tell you how they loved using the long wooden pointer across the back of my legs.

You must've been a baaaad boy...

Just kiddin'

motion I can relate more than you might know...

Bakerstreet, I've a few question's for you...

Your God is all powerful correct?

Then where was he when the child was abused and raped or murdered?
You God can see and knows all, correct?
Did your God not know this was taking place?
If your God knew this.
Knowing it was taking place why did your God not stop it?

ok, on to another few question and then the two sets combined.

If you and I were standing in a house and we looked into the door of a room where we heard a child screaming is pain, fear and total anguish only to find some Male raping the child while beating them in the face and you moved to enter the room but I put my hand to your shoulder to stop you. You turned to me and I put my finger to my lips and pulled you from the room where you asked me.

Why did you stop me?
and I replied ( suffer the children. )
What does that mean?
and I replied ( Free will. )

Would you listen ot me, would you have even let me pull you from the room?

If you wouldn't have stopped to listen to me, why not?

If you wouldn't let me pull you from the room, again why not?


--------------------

Now, if as another human being you would have absolutly nothing to do with a person who stood by and knew a child was being beaten,raped and or murdered.

Or you would have take action with violence against the person doing such a thing.

Would even see my lack of action as criminal and less than human.

How in the world can anyone justify your God's lack of pity, love, compassion and everything else of a positive nature in not ending such things from happening because of some really ignorant self serving phrases in some book that humans wrote?

Most will probably say that your God is above reproach, is not to be questioned, can not be known and all other kinds of mystical blather as if it is proof that it is the reason for such deference of what is right.

Free will
The earth is ours to rule
No one can hear the true voice of God because God's voice is so powerful all that heard it would die
No one can look upon God because his light is so bright they would burst into flame
No one can know God or his mind because he is all powerful and to attempt to do so would drive a normal mortal to insanity

and on and on and on

On another note, how can you claim to know that those who abuse under the banner of God are not in fact doing his work? You as I, would want to think so, that your God would never be such, but how do you know 100%? From a book and some stories passed down over generations with all the revisions and addendums applied?

I like the concept, but if the process is broken then the concept get's lost in the end.

I will say this much, if there is a God then they are not much more than a powerful child who creates and then turns it's back for something of newer and improved interest.

Or a child with an etch-a-sketch who spends hours upon hours making a picture only to shake it out of existance to doodle some more...

p.s. just so you know, I would have emailed this but for some reason verizons email servers are on the blink again after an improved upgrade and my email will not be online until tomarrow some time.

I do know that bow or broil and forever toil seems a bit to much for me to swallow. Also that if there is a God I really have a desire to ask some question and then to hell with him, or me, whichever doesn't really matter...

Ah but Bakerstreet, communism in China and in the Soviet Union WAS a religion too. I see no difference in the Cult of Stalin or Mao and the cult of Jehovah or Yaveh. Both tell you what you are allowed to believe in and what you are not.
Atheism can also be a religion, ironically. After all, isn't "Athiest" also a checkbox on forms next to "Christian", "Muslim" and "Buddist" when they ask for your religion?
When the French (those people you love so much ) crusified their priests on the doors of their churches after the 1789 Revolution, they did no better than the abuse the priests  had been doing for centuries.

Organised thought control is dispicable (hehehehe! I can't help but hear Silvester the cat as I typed this), whether it's not in the name of God, or in the name of no God.

I'd like to tell a little story here.  About 7 years ago or so, when I first started chatting online, I met a woman from Tennessee. We chatted often and I become relatively close to her, to the point where she started telling me some personal stuff. She was unhappy. She was married and had 4 children. You see, she believed that her place on earth was to obey her husband and make sure that he always had what he needed. God, she told me, made Man in his image.  Not humanity, no man. And he made woman just so the poor fellow wouldn't be so lonely. Women's role, is to have children, raise them to be good christians, keep the house clean and comfortable for hubby, and to always obey him. He was the boss. No discussions, no compromises. If he wanted to beat her, he had the right to do so, cause he was the boss, he was the law. And if she wasn't happy about it, divorce was not an option either. A good christian doesn't divorce. And what did her parents think of it? Well, they said that he he beat her, it was because he wasn't happy; and if he wasn't happy, it was her fault. Make him happy, and he won't beat you.
I could not believe it. This was a shock to me. This is the 20th century for goodness sake! Who trapped you in the middle ages? I kept telling her. Get out of there, take the children and run! Nope, can't do that, she said. I'm a Christian, and I can't leave my husband. 

And she told me that it was how it was where she lived. She wasn't some freak living in the woods; that's how it is here in Tennessee, she said.

Is that true? Any American here can confirm that in some US states, people are no better than fanatic islamists in Bagdad or Kaboul?

This is where religion gets you, imo. And that's why I'm so passionately against it.

humorous note: ( to me, anyway ). we had four adamant atheists on our gunship crew during the vietnam war, and at various times i observed 2 of them praying aloud with great intensity when the anti-aircraft flack got so thick that we could have lowered the landing gear and set down on it. that old saw "no atheists out in the forward foxholes" does have some truth to it.

yes it does for sure.

I have a friend who is a Minister that was a butter bar in Vietnam. He had an older brother who went into seminary and he went to college. Then he volenteered for Vietnam, 3 months before he came home he was at a small SF base with a Firebase down below the helo pads. They had been being probed at different time at night over the past few weeks and they got hit hard and almost over run. He said he promised God that if he lived he would finish up his tour and when he got home he would work for God until his dying day.

He was good to his word and to this day believes God kept him alive, couldn't have been the fast movers, spooky, medivacs and cobras, or the other men fighting and dying beside him, had to be God I guess...

He is a great guy and every time we get together he asks with a look and I refuse with a smile.

The man across the street is a priest who escaped from Poland before it broke away from the USSR. He was part of the origional Solidarity movement and one of the other guys he worked with just kind of vanished one night. THen he was picked up and taken to the police station and a Polish KGB man came to question him, it happened to be a friend os his from their days of youth. He went into the military after school and my neibhour went to the church, there wasn't much of a choice at the time. Anyway after a few hours of questions his childhood firend told the others to leave the room, he then was told to get his family together and leave, not just the city, but Poland because in 48 hours they would come for him. They now live in Canada and come here in winters, the church owns the house across the street and there is a B29 pilot who lives there which I help out with odd jobs and things when he needs it and someone from the church can not make it over quick enough...

he also made a deal with God in WWII...

paxx, yes we have some real ringers here also...

Not all of them live out in the woods playing at being Special Forces for the day that the government comes to take their guns.

We just put one to death who killed two people with a shotgun to stop abortions and claimed God would love him for it...

We have a General right now who is one serious religious fanatic who claims that it is a wolrd wide Religious War of Christianity against evil Muslims and that God put GW Bush into the white house to take up arms against the evil ones...

Matter of fact he has a commision with the Pentagon...

Boy that should really calm the Muslims of the world and ensure the Iraqi's know it isn't a crusade we have taken up against Islam.

EventH, somethings are not for joking about....

that topic happens to be one of them

That would be like joking that the Jews must have really pissed Hitler off...

here as in the states...

wanted to clarify that

IPlural said: "Your God is all powerful correct?"

I had a good friend in college whose mother was insane. He spend his childhood either taking care of her or visiting her in an institution. He told me that he finally decided that he had to chose whether God would allow such suffering, or that there was no God at all. I will never forget him looking me in the eye and saying that he had too much respect for the concept of God to accept that there could *be* such a God. It was one of the most 'holy' things I have ever heard anyone say. I have no fear for his soul. When people pose questions like yours, that is what i think of. That experience is why I don't fret too much about atheists.

We all find our answers or leave them blank as we choose. If you decide there is no God because of it, then I respect your opinion. "bow or broil and forever toil" is a bit much for me, too. There are as many interpretations of devotion as there are people. That was my point to Motion; you can't talk about 'groups', because the concept is meaningless in terms of spirituality.

Anyway, you know how many times questions like yours have been asked here. I don't think there is any reason to reiterate the numerous possible answers and annoy those that wouldn't accept them the first dozen times. If the questions are still being asked, then they'll just be asked again next month.


Paxx: I agree. I would go so far as to say that the only stance that requires no faith at all is Agnosticism. It takes faith to come to any conclusion. I think many Atheists here are more apt to fall into Montaigne's "Que sais-je?" category. I think a true Atheist would deny being one, just as August Comte said that to call himself an Atheist would mean he was taking religion too seriously.


I dunno why I fall so deeply into these discussions. I always break all my own rules.

paxx,

re Tennessee, etc.

Unfortunately, there's a pretty substantial number of such people here in the states, especially in the central parts. I live in Oklahoma, and there are people like that here, also. They aren't everywhere, and the whole state isn't like that (and neither is Tennessee), but sometimes that's what gets the attention.

Unfortunately, such attitudes are less about faith than about indoctrination. I'm not bashing anyone who truly believes, but even the true believers don't accept victimhood as the price of faith, only the indoctrinated can be convinced to bear that burden.

I may have teased Kona a bit when I asked him if he'd change his view if God told him to (I am curious about his response ), but I personally know people who cannot even consider the idea without dissonance (one girl I know was practically in pain at even having to think of the concept when I asked her the same question). If one cannot even consider questioning what they're taught (by anyone), that's a sure sign of indoctrination, rather than faith.

There is nothing wrong with the *concept* of religion as an avenue to faith, but unfortunately, there seems to be quite a bit of failure with religion in practice. Far too often, God and faith are used by humans to gain power for themselves instead of guiding faith in God. Bow or broil (as IPlural mentioned), is often the weapon used in such venues. The mantra is often, "You *must* believe as we tell you to believe or the most horrible things you can imagine will happen to you". My problem with that viewpoint is that it is the moral equivalent of holding a gun to someone's head and telling them what to do. You don't get true faith based in love and honor, you only get a weak analogue of faith, imposed by fear.

Motivation matters. Why one believes is at least as important as what one believes. I personally, have been told that it would be best if I 'believed' (followed their particular religion), JUST IN CASE! Does a person making such a statement not comprehend that were I to do so, God would see right through such a fraud? Even if I am wrong, I would rather face God honestly, instead of pretending to be something I cannot be.


IPlural,

The body of your previous post is usually summed up as 'Why bad things happen in the face of an all powerful God'.

Certainly, there is no easy answer. My own viewpoint stems from my belief about creation and growth. First, to clarify one point, I do not anthropomorphize God. To picture God as human like in form or quality is, IMHO, a vast underestimation. One thing that should be clear to most people is that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to truly concieve of or visualize a person or being that is fundamentally more wise or intelligent than we are. Even among humans, a genius is quite often smarter *in a different way* than others are. The difference is not merely one of degree. And a human genius is merely a microscopically small leap of ability when compared to what God must be.

Given such a vast gulf in knowledge and capability, what we see as harmful may actually be an integral part of the process, and may even be required for growth.

For human beings (as individuals), the periods in our lives where we made the greatest gains in wisdom and understanding and other forms of personal growth were virtually *always* directly tied to difficult or unpleasant or painful events.

For human beings (as a species), such growth we have achieved as a whole has also been predicated on the overcoming and learning from pain and challenge and hardship.

Free will and freedom to choose a course of action are required for growth. Experience comes, not from the circumstances we find ourselves in, but from the choices we make in response to those circumstances.

I make no assumptions about what the ultimate purpose is, whether God has some specific plan, or if He merely wants us to grow and learn to whatever ultimate limit may exist. For now, I am content with the need for growth, whatever the ultimate goal may be.

As for why God (despite all of the power He is reputed to have) does not intervene to prevent or ameliorate the pain and suffering we experience, the above seems to me to be at least part of the answer. Additionally, one of the other thought processes that I entertain in such a regard is that the act of intervention may be more harmful than what is being intervened against.

An example I often use is a house of cards analogy. Lets say that I have painstakingly constructed an elaborate, detailed, expansive structure from thousands or even millions of cards. There is no argument but that I have the ability (power) to reach in and alter the state or position of a card, or even remove it entirely. However, the act of actually doing so may very well prove catastrophic to the structure as whole. Depending on the purpose for which I constructed this edifice, the risk of catastrophe may be beyond my willingness to accept, and I would therefore not alter that card, even if it would create a local improvement at that point. I believe that it is possible that God has similar self imposed constraints on His actions.

BTW, to answer your question about acting against someone engaging in harm to another person (whether a child or not), I would consciously and willingly intervene, no matter if someone else decided I shouldn't. Such force would be applied as to assure that the act was clearly stopped. If the only force sufficient was lethal, then the attacker would die. I have no moral quandary in such a circumstance, as the attacker, having voluntarily engaged in that action, has freely relinquished any expectation of non interference. The life and / or well-being of the attacked supersede the life and / or well-being of the attacker.

part of the reason that evil is allowed to hurt others is free will given to all mankind, but sometimes it revolves around larger issues.

what appeared to be happening at Christ's crucifixion: a man who'd done no wrong was mocked, flayed with a roman flagellum, beaten beyond recognition, spat upon, and nailed to a cross to slowly suffocate as his burning chest muscles gave out. And yes, God could have easily stopped all of this abuse of His beloved son but did not intervene.
what actually happened was of so much greater import than Christ's immediate sufferings that He was willing to endure it, and a loving Father was willing to permit it and watch it.

Christ was sent here to suffer for others, and the servant does not get better treatment than his master.

The Sovereign of the universe is a loving God, but not a vending machine! You don't jump in a pew every sunday, sing a few hymns, say a few prayers, give a little money and then pull the handle demanding that health, wealth, and protection be dutifully doled out to you at your command! You get to choose whether to dance ( and be blessed ) when God plays the fiddle, but He doesn't take direction from you and dance to your tune - ever. He will grant your requests that are truly in the best interest of yourself and all others concerned ( on His timetable, not yours), but He never accedes to your demands or presumptuousness.

why children suffer is always a much harder, emotionally charged issue to deal with, and it's very hard to see any hidden, greater good that might come from it. i suffered in certain ways at the hands of my father. my wife and kids are in open accord that i am a loving, wise, insightful, and amazingly patient father. i am those things primarily because of what i suffered as a child, for those characteristics are the exact opposite of my natural nature.

thanks for your patience if you read my meanderings this far.

EventH, somethings are not for joking about.... that topic happens to be one of them

Correct, religion is not something to joke about, and I dont intend to make a mockery of it or others beliefs. Let me re-word what I have said...

motion:

Ive met plenty of nuns in my lifetime but none who were sadistic kid-haters.
Many kids have gone through Catholic schools such as the one you mentioned, but I have yet to meet a one who has had their finger(s) unwillingly amputated by a metal ruler.
Like I mentioned in my earlier post, you must've done SOMETHING to deserve the punishment. People dont go around whacking kids knuckles just becase they feel like it.

EH: I don't know where exactly motion was raised nor his age, but I know that here in Quebec such places existed before the 60's. A lot of them. We still have to this day people sue the Catholic Church for physical and psychological damages they went through in the 50's.
My opinion on this is that it's the reason why there has been such a turnaround in Quebec. The 60's is known in Quebec as the "Quiet Revolution", where such a drastic change occured that it might as well be called a Revolution although nobody took arms or anything. In just a matters of a few years, the Churches totally emptied, and people completely turned their back on religion. The baby boomers became adults, angry towards the abusive priests and nuns.
Today, in Quebec, many Churches are closing down, and you're lucky to find 12 people at Sunday service in the ones that are still opened.

paxx, yeah spare the rod and spoil the child and over zelous perceptions of what is evil can come into play with some. Here in the states it was quit common, another was the paddel. A 1 x 6 or 1 x 8 cut down in the shape of a modified cricket bat with holes drilled into it and then stained or clear coated was and still is used in some places. Once I had a teacher I had offended put one of those across my lower back when he missed my ass swinging it with both hands. My legs went totaly numb and my legs gave out causing me to drop straight to the ground. My chin slambed the desk top and ended up chipping two front teeth and biting a chumk out of my lip. All because it was not safe to sleep at night at home and I had fallen to sleep in class for the 5 time and he was going to make an example of me.

In Tampa Florida last month they gave the schools the right to make use of corperal punishment again. It will probably set a trend around the state to some degree over the next couple of years. If anyone and I mean anyone lays a hand on my child I will break them. Not beat them up, not argue with them, not run to the cops or try to sue them. I will locate them and beat them to within an inch of their life. Jails a joke and *no one* belongs touching my child, I do not even do that and there is not any need to.

EH,

Unfortunately, people do go around 'whacking kids knuckles' (and worse) merely because they feel like it. This behaviour is certainly not restricted to religion by any means.

There are people who are most definitely not qualified enough (or emotionally mature enough) to be placed in a position where they are allowed to supervise and / or discipline others (especially children). However, far too many of these people *do* end up in such positions, both inside and outside of a religious context.

To say that someone 'deserved' abuse at the hands of such people is clearly wrong. Discipline is one thing, and often, people do deserve that. Abuse is entirely different, and no one deserves that, regardless of the position of the abuser (or even what the abused may have done).

Aleatoric , exactly so...

Though for me there is a point that I have reached with each of my children only once that I swatted them on the butt. Only one time each and that is all it ever took. Each time was when they were between 4 and 5 years of age and throwing a complete tantrum, one swat, I ignored them for about ten minutes and then we calmly discussed it on a level they could grasp. They learned from that point forward I would always allow them to voice their thoughts on any subject as long as a level of respect was remember while doing so and I had the last say on any subject. I have always been completely honest with them about my past and the things that I have done such as using drugs. In being honest with them I circumvented the theory that it is best to lie to them and allow them to stumble through it without any fore warning of the truths envolved with it.

My Son Justin was 11 years old the first time a joint was offered to him at school and he delt with it without partaking of it or alienating his friends and then came home and asked me about it. I explained that he would do drugs eventually of some sort even if it was drinking and that only he could decide if he would rather have that be a part of his life or not. I could say NO until I turned blue in the face and it would not make much of a difference in the end. Then I went on to explain the money lost, trouble gained, jail time spent, friends that died and times I almost died and in the end what it did to me before I decided enough was enough.

He tried it out, did the circuit of common highs this generation has running around. Drank like a fish for a bit and then at 16 a close friend went to sleep one night and in the morning when his older sister went to wake him up for school, she found him dead. A few months later one was kidding around doing acid riding in a car down the Interstate heading to where the kids hang out near us and climbed up into the window and sat on the door. Someone told him to get in the car and for some stupid reason he bent into the car and smiled, then said I'll race you and jumped from a car doing 65 mph onto a 4 lane highway head first. There were a couple more, just as stupid but not exactly the same, the thing is my son came to me one night and said "you were right, I thought you were just talking, you know, like a parent does, but you were right" you see he has had 5 friends die and one is now in an institution and drugs of some sort had a part in each case.

That does not include the couple of suicides.

It is up to a parent on how they will raise their child in the end. But for me honesty and respect given to them always seems to have led them to like in retun with me. My boys were not angels and they were not always given fair treatment because of how they presented themselves in dress or the way they delt with others because they were and are out spoken and honest to a fault at times. But both are in the service now and are rated extreamly high on all reviews and the opinions held of them by their leaders.

My daughter, man... She is 8 years old, 4 foot tall, long blonde hair and has deep blue eyes. I am at a loss on what comes next with her (sigh)...

Though she is into martial arts, soccar, biking, in line skating, singing and drawing
She is also mommys trouble and daddys girl