Leave God out of the tsunami (from a non-believer)

I believe that God is writing this through me. Listen to what He is saying:

"HELLO DOWN THERE! THIS IS GOD SPEAKING. YOU CANNOT PROVE WHETHER OR NOT I EXIST, SO WHY NOT TALK ABOUT SOMETHING MORE PRODUCTIVE INSTEAD?"

I think we should obey.

 

What's the song and dance about? 30,000 people die in poverty every day and I doubt many people give it a second thought.

 

Many do tho' likewise with this. Some do, some dont. Some give, some dont.

This just happened all at one time, and could have been avoided.

 

It saddens me that it takes an event on this scale before most people put their hands in their pockets. And before most governments will act. Then we get told in the media what a wonderfully generous lot we all are and we feel so much better about ourselves. Meanwhile kids continue to starve to death while our governments continue to give out paltry amounts of 'aid' while reclaiming crippling debt repayments, and selling arms to fuel yet more conflicts which result in yet more misery and starvation.

I really do admire the way that people have responded to this terrible tradgedy in SE Asia. I just wish people would also respond to the long-term catastrophes which don't make the headlines as much. Like famine in the Sudan for example.

 

I agree with you whole heartedly Johnno. I think that we should make it a habit to give freely to all causes that are tragic. The Sudan is just one great example. Another would be little thought about orphans in Russia. There are hundreds of different ways to give. The reasons this tragedy has gotten so much air play is because of Tragedy TV. we all saw the devestation happening, it left us in awe of the disaster. If you give, great, if you don't that is fine too, but if you are going to be proud that you gave to this cause try to make a habit of giving to different causes. Just my opinion

Lets keep God out of this. He didn't cause it, he allowed it. He created the system of natural law and therefore he obeys that law. Could he have prevented it? Yes. But he chose not to. Why? Because he is God.

Here is a good analogy....

When we look at a Tapestry from the back, it is just a mess of thread and dyes. It looks like crap. But if you turn it over you can see the beautiful pattern that it creates. We see the back iof the Tapestry, God sees the front.

 

You mind if I 'steal' that from you?

 

hey Johnno

Talking of governments acting did you hear about Gordon Brown and Tony Blair's new iniative to write off some of the third world debt and try to get the Americans on board. Very noble of them don't you think?... Or could it be that their's an election due just round the corner... Or am I just being cynical..

 

Most deffinetly. Steal away. It's pretty cool isn't it.

 

There has been increasing pressure from charities and pressure groups for some time now for them to 'drop the debt'. I must have sent quite a few appeal postcards to Gordon Brown on this issue alone! (Not that I'm trying to claim the credit of course... the charities send them out to people to send to the politicians!)

I'm sure the next election will have affected the timing of the decision. That's how politics works, I'm afraid. But it's still a good thing if they do it. Plenty of previous governments haven't, even as a vote-winner, so let's give them some credit!

 

1-if there is a god he/she is not an omnipotent human who controls things, more a creative force which set our sphere in motion...hence once oceanic plate movement was created as a possibility then the tragedy we have just seen becomes possible...god can't mess about with the physical laws which hold our world together, otherwise he/she will threaten his/her own existence...the world spins, the plates move and humans like the beach...this is just a bad event from the human perspective...from the perspective of nature it is just an event

2-from the human perspective...we have all been reminded we are not the masters of this planet...nature is...we are all at risk from tragedy everyday...we just don't notice unless it happens...what happened is a terrible reminder that we are a fragile species and i can't begin to imagine how those left behind are coping with such trauma

3-from a political perspective...i commend the british govt for finding such huge funds to help these affected countries and am glad our country is in such a strong economic position and can offer such help...but i have to ask...tony, if you can find £100 million at the drop of a hat (or however much aid it will be) to help these people, why could't you find a fraction of that to help your own citizens with our recurrent domestic problems last year? do the maths for yourselves...it makes a mockery of all the rubbish we are told about why things like the NHS are still starved for cash!

 

Yup. I like it. :love:

 

I dont understand how people can defend god in this matter. Its not an act of free will, noone human made it happen...god either made it happen or allowed it to happen (personally i dont see a distinction between the two...'all that is needed for evil to prosper is that good men do nothing')

God just killed a load of people, you can reword it how you like it doesnt matter, thats what happened. An act that, by a definition of evil given to us by god, is evil.


On a more political note, everyone trying to raise money is nice but its worth remembering that we could have raised some money 5 years ago to pay for an early warning system which would have cost a tenth of what weve raised and noone would have died. But where was the publicity then?

 

You can choose to believe this or reject it totally. God never is happy about human death. He wept with the mothers and the Fathers that lost their children.

God is not man, so using a quote by men and trying to box God into that quote is a bit of a stretch.

I can understand your conviction though.

 

What more of a test of faith could there be than the tsunami? In the news coverage I've seen the followers of the religions believing in karma have coped far better because there is a system of logic, as well as a faith, to rely upon.

Theistic religions are left floundering. They can't understand how an omnipotent God created or permitted this cruel mass destruction, other than to say (as I heard a Moslem cleric state) that it must be a part of His plan we mere mortals cannot understand.. Most of the comfortable western religious leaders are totally lost once the real world jumps up and bites.
To fall back on the 'God moves in mysterious ways' argument is a total cop-out IMHO.

 

Well a good point that was raised, is to nature, this isn't a bad occurance. It is just the natural laws and cause/effects being played here.

It is our perspective that it is bad, because of our mortal fear of death, fear of loss, and fear of destruction. To us, it is very logical to say it is a very bad thing.

This leaves many options of faith to any Theist, depending on how they believe in God, and what their defintion of things are. I am theistic.

One way to see it, is to God, "who looks at the front" this isn't a bad thing, for whatever reasons he sees fit. Since no human is God, they cannot comprehend the reasoning of anything that is not human, and thus it is a matter of faith.

Another way is that God isn't the Controller, he is the Creator. I believe it like this. It is not his function to prevent these things, regardless wether he can or can't. His function was to create Laws of nature, that are to be consistant and for us to live within this nature as best as we can.

If terrible things happen in our perspective, all we can do is work our way towards bettering the circumstances for humanity and for ourselfs. Complaining to God about it, or to anyone is just delaying the process of doing something about it ourselves.

 

Seriously, grow up people. Its a story, a fable. The bible has good morales, yes, contridicts itself, yes, is based on some kind of truth, maybe... Those are facts. You refuse to question the first thing your told. You've been christian, or wutever religion, and have been told that is the truth, find your own truth, find your own way, and stop pretending you know everything.

The Red sea parting could have been the Reed sea, a shallow creek where if the wind blew hard enough it dried up the land... Miracle? And if it wasnt, fine, maybe it wasnt, but maybe it was... I dont rule out the existance of god, and i dont rule out the existance of greek gods... And i dont rule out that all of it is a load of crap. An open mind will find the truth, if your so stuck in your own way of believing, and defend god or dont defend god and fail to see there are other options like aliens coming and creating a tsunami, or little ninja midgets underground or the god of wind being mad at the god of earth,then you arent being rational, your being one sided.

This isnt meant to bash anyones belief, cuz i def am against that. But they arent YOUR beliefs... they are what you've been told, its different. I dunno, I dont know anything about anything either, but i still feel an open mind is the way to ones final truth

 

There is

Well...I try to look at it this way:

It happened.
If it happened it was destined to happen.
If it was destined to happen it was God's will to have it happen.
If it was God's will to have it happen, then there was a reason behind it.
If there was a reason behind it, it had to have been done.
So it happened.

Sadly, we don't know what that reason was .

 

Do yourself a favor and stop trying to figure out why God let the tsunami happen. Trying to figure out why somewhere around 100,000 people (I have few doubts the death toll will eventually end up there) having their lives wiped out in an instant is a good thing will only give you a severe headache.

And yes, I did read your post and I do realize that you did not state that God had a good reason, only that he had a reason. But either the reason was good or it was bad, and one thing I really don't want to contemplate is God having a BAD reason for this happening. Doing that would give me worse than a headache.

 

Take it on the mat, people.... feet together, bow.... fight!

 

It happened. AGREE
If it happened it was destined to happen. Destiny? More like a random earthquake
If it was destined to happen it was god's will to have it happen.

And the rest doesnt work, the first two were almost facts, the last ones are just beliefs, nothing more.