Giving God credit

a reply to: Bone75

How do you know he got an extension? Maybe it was God's plan all along for him to get cancer but then get better?

((I'm a Empirical Agnostic for the record))

a reply to: danielsil18

its my observation that the phenomenon of giving :

" spurious credit to a single factor or agency , while ignoring the all other factors / agencies "

is most certainly not limited to theists and their propensity for " thanking god "

originally posted by: borntowatch
Wow, you want to control how people think and act.
You want to dictate others lives.

I thank God for bad things as well, is that ok for you?

The simple fact is the Western world is built on the teachings of the bible.
crossandquill.com...


Thanking God for doctors, science and education isnt unreasonable, well to some.

Thank god you are only watching.

Western world built on the bible? no wonder its failing miserably.

Thank scientists for science.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: danielsil18

God is the only reason you took your first breath. I would show a little more respect.

god can kiss my plump little butt.

respect? Maybe I will let the easter bunny go second?

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

By the same token, I've noticed that when bad things happen, a lot of people get awful angry at God and then claim it means He must not exist.

I have heard this claim many times... interestingly, it's believers who make this claim, and not one atheist I know became so because they were "angry" at God. If they're "angry at God", then they're not an atheist. Maybe they've turned away from their religion, but if they believe he exists to be angry AT, then they're still believers.

If He doesn't exist, then by what standard do you measure those "bad" things?

By my own standard, of course. You may be surprised how, when free of all the external rules, guilt and shame that religion and belief in the biblical god impose in one's life, the human spirit can set standards for itself and have the strength and fortitude to live life to those standards. Some things may be iffy, but people killing innocent children is something I think most of us can agree is "bad".

a reply to: Sabiduria

God created man first. Then Ebola was created & man found a cure. ((Plus a whole bunch of steps in between but it was all started by God)

I see... You have a malevolent god.

Children are not innocent. Watch closely, the little unsocialized human. They are mean and evil.

a reply to: danielsil18

If you saw earlier, you would see that I'm an Empirical Agnostic.

What did I say that makes you think it would be malevolent? Do you mean benevolent? The god being good not evil, cause if god was evil, you would think there wouldn't be a cure. People would just suffer forever, the god wouldn't allow for anything good to happen ever.

a reply to: danielsil18

It is not god's job to do everything for us, free will was given for a reason. God set things in motion & then has been sitting back & watching things progress ever since then.

Think of it this way:

God set up a Rube Goldberg machine (which will say is life/everything) & then God started the machine. ((When playing with a Rube Goldberg machine, you only do one thing to start the crazy process & you don't do anything else but watch as it goes about hitting things, knocking things over, etc))

As things go along, God doesn't need to do anything, it's already set up to play out as it was created.

Anything & everything that will ever happen has been plotted out & we are just going through the motions. God only has to watch as we go about doing what we do & doesn't need to intervene.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not sure if that makes sense, I hope at least my analogy helps. If it doesn't make sense, I can try explaining it a different way. I'm not always the best at explaining my beliefs cause they can be quite complex. It'd be better if I could explain it face to face cause it allows for me to use my hands and/or other objects to help explain what I'm talking about

God is an absentee landlord. He's a douchebag.

a reply to: Sabiduria

If you saw earlier, you would see that I'm an Empirical Agnostic.

And I'm an Agnostic Atheist.

What did I say that makes you think it would be malevolent? Do you mean benevolent? The god being good not evil, cause if god was evil, you would think there wouldn't be a cure. People would just suffer forever, the god wouldn't allow for anything good to happen ever.

With an benevolent god I wouldn't expect to see kids suffering from starvation, diseases, torture, etc.

a reply to: Sabiduria

Anything & everything that will ever happen has been plotted out

I think I understand your belief.

If you said that god started the universe and let it progress by itself without interfering or plotting anything then I wouldn't be able to say anything about that god.

But once you said that he plotted everything then I can truly call that god malevolent. My answer is simple:

gods plot included the suffering of children.

Which makes him a creep.

a reply to: danielsil18

People need to suffer though. As horrible as that sound, bad suffering needs to exist. Bad things need to happen to people. If not, we would never truly grow. We'd be stuck at the same point in our lives & never progress, which is completely counterintuitive to life.

Also, if there is supposed to be this big power struggle between God & the Devil for our souls, then there needs to be bad things happening.

If there is good, there is bad. All of us are capable of evil, it is up to each individual to ignore the evil & do good.

Absurd. Create a creature who knows no evil and put them in the Garden without the Tree.

That would have been evidence of a benevolent God.

This guy was an SOB. He set them up to fail. If you believe that sort of thing.

a reply to: Sabiduria

Before I go any further I want to talk about a huge contradiction I found with your belief.

You mentioned this:

It is not god's job to do everything for us, free will was given for a reason.

In there you mentioned that we have free will. But then here comes the contradiction.

Anything & everything that will ever happen has been plotted out & we are just going through the motions.

In there you mentioned that everything has been plotted already.

Both quotes are inconsistent with each other because in one we have free will, we can do whatever comes in our minds. But how can we do whatever we want when everything has been plotted already?

If everything has been plotted then the decisions we make have been plotted already and, as you said, we are going with the motion. Which means we don't have free will.

Either we have the free will to change our destiny or everything has been plotted and we are doing exactly what god planned for us to do.

originally posted by: sn0rch

originally posted by: borntowatch
Wow, you want to control how people think and act.
You want to dictate others lives.

I thank God for bad things as well, is that ok for you?

The simple fact is the Western world is built on the teachings of the bible.
crossandquill.com...


Thanking God for doctors, science and education isnt unreasonable, well to some.

Thank god you are only watching.

Western world built on the bible? no wonder its failing miserably.

Thank scientists for science.

Here is a task for you.
Try work out exactly where your country turned the corner, or better yet reached its pinnacle, before its great and steep slide.
What happened, what didnt.

The West is being destroyed by the growth of selfishness.

a reply to: danielsil18

It can be both because I believe in multiple universes/parallel universes. There are many paths that we could take (all plotted out before hand) & we pick our course.