I think a lot of people would benefit from believing that there is a higher power that will hold you accountable for the good and evil they do in this world. And, true or not, I think there are some good lessons and advice to be gleaned from the Bible, if you can avoid the wacky shit also contained therein.
The problem is that religion is a force that can be used for good or evil, and mankind isn't known for always choosing wisely.
Well sure. And the Unabomber's Manifesto probably has a few nuggets of very good information in it.
Hitler didn't create anyone. Hitler had no right to take any of the lives he did. And you can't compare God to any human who ever or ever will exist. God, by definition, is a supreme being who loves and cares for the humanity he created.
This hostile environment we live in, capable of killing many thousands of people in an instant, and causing the suffering of many others, is a rather odd way of expressing this love and care. He even arranged it such that we are reliant on certain substances for survival, yet those same substances can also be fatal. (Salt or water come to mind.) Yes, blame humanity for wars and whatever other problems we most certainly do cause ourselves.
What of venomous animals, volcanoes, hurricanes, and severe earthquakes?
Tough love, baby. Tough, fatal love.
He sent his only son to die for us so that, even though we are sinful beings, we would be saved and could go to heaven.
Yes...I can see why it's necessary for god to make a son who must then die, so that god will allow humans to find salvation. It's quite unreasonable to expect god to be able modify his own rules without the need for a human sacrifice.
😵
(Wait, I forgot: God doesn't like human sacrifice. Huh.)
He has every right to expect us to serve, obey and love him. It's why we were created in the first place, according to Christian beliefs.
So is anything else a waste of time then? Our lives serve only one purpose, to stroke god's mighty ego?
Again, try to understand at least the basic concepts of the religion you are bashing.
I think I covered that in my first post. People pray for all kinds of selfish things, but that doesn't mean God grants those things. His will is supreme, not ours. What we want or ask for just isn't germane in the end.
So again, if god's going to do what god is going to do, praying is a waste of time - attempting to move an unmovable force.
If you pray for something god doesn't want to do anyway, he won't do anything, so praying is a pointless waste of time.
If you pray for something that god was going to do anyway, he'll go ahead and do it, so praying is a pointless waste of time.
Another option is that god is extremely pliable, and will take whichever prayer he feels like.
Yet another option is that god is the greatest and most chaotic troll that humanity has ever known.
This is the essence of the paradox of that kind of Christian belief. If god's will and plan is so important then the driver that died had to be on that path to die on that day. He had no free will. Basically if god has a plan at that level of detail then free will goes out the window and everything is pre-ordained. That means when people sin and go to hell that was the plan, seems odd. This leads to that paradox of good things come from god and bad things come from man (see the WBC reply about Steve Jobs).
The free will thing is quite interesting. Somehow it's thought possible to have an entity that knows
everything about a person, which includes knowledge of exactly how the person would react in every possible scenario, and has a plan all laid out, yet that person is also able to choose to deviate from that plan. This would be called "impossible."
That kind of thing only works on Star Trek when the writers realize that they've painted themselves into a corner, and they've got to meet a production deadline for the script. At that point, a wizard pops out of the wall and resets everything back to the "All Better" setting, and the audience shrugs and hopes that next week's episode is better.
The second kind of belief talked about was the free will based one that does make sense. We are set down and can do whatever, there is no plan. When good or bad things happen they just happen. Maybe god intervenes on people's behalf and maybe not but there is no plan on the level of every single person (might be on a global/universe scale). I think this is closer to the typical Christian belief. This would be the kind of prayer that would take place at a race, essentially asking god to tip the odds and help ensure nothing bad happens. The problem only arises when people say this death was god's plan, god's will might be a better term, god didn't intervene rather than god decided this was meant to happen.
Or maybe god just wants a cheap laugh.
