Originally posted by DirtyWater33
This is just a thought. Maybe God put these events into effect because he wanted to judge those parts of the world for whatever wrong they were doing. That might explain why all the animals lived because he wanted to teach the humans a lesson. Any thoughts on this.

My new years resolution is not to be too judgemental and to promote a "deny dogma" society here on ATS, as I suggested in the thread "do ATSers only read the first sentence of posts".
That being said, I see reasons for initial skepticism regarding this suggestion. The first and foremost is that many religions would agree that "sin" "unrighteousness" or whatever word a given religion chooses for bad stuff is not limited geographically. Many religions believe that more people are wrong than are right. That being considered, it is quite possible that this was not devine judgement. Why should devine judgement be so broad in a region yet localized in the grand scheme of things.

I do not see AIDS as God's wrath either, but the arguement for that is far stronger than the arguement for the tsunami being God's wrath, in my own humble opinion.
What say you?

Originally posted by Seekerof
What I do feel personally is that this act, along with other like natural occurances where not brought on by God or any type god.




seekerof

So in other words, God and natural occurrence are two separate things? Or there is no God and there is only natural occurrence?

For me God=natural occurrence, seamlessly, as a matter of one. I believe that something, somewhere, some force, controls the universe down to it's very last little shred. Consultations with the Akashic Record support this, otherwise, how could there be a record of all things that have ever been?

Many have tapped into it, and in various ways to deliver otherwise impossible information. The cases of Edgar Cayce and others should not be ignored.

God's judgement, as it is used in the title of this thread, is in a sense correct. Just unappealing to some for its religious implication. Natural occurrence, in your reply, is also in a sense correct. Just unappealing to others for its religious implication. The two of you are talking about the same thing.

imho

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
For me God=natural occurrence, seamlessly, as a matter of one.

God's judgement, as it is used in the title of this thread, is in a sense correct. Just unappealing to some for its religious implication. Natural occurrence, in your reply, is also in a sense correct. Just unappealing to others for its religious implication. The two of you are talking about the same thing.

imho

Might I humbly suggest that God could preside over a disaster without it being his judgement? Perhaps the disaster was a necessary consequence of a greater good, or even was in and of itself part of God's plan for the greater good of humanity.
For example, if the movement of the continents will eventually create a Utopian environment, force man to be work together to overcome disasters, or some other unforseen benefit, then disasters are not God's judgement but a necessary part of God's blessing.

Well, in Matthew and another one of the Gospels, it did say war, famine, earthquakes, natural disasters in general and the persecution of Christians by the authorities were all signs of the end of ages. But you could argue that it has been happenning for years, but depending on your beliefs you can choose whether to accept that or not.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Might I humbly suggest that God could preside over a disaster without it being his judgement? Perhaps the disaster was a necessary consequence of a greater good, or even was in and of itself part of God's plan for the greater good of humanity.

Lol, VB. The ways we can twist words around. Cause that's all we're doing here. In God's judgement, He needed to cause the catastrophy that He did, at that particular point in time, and I would not find myself qualified to venture at His reasons for doing so. Natural occurance, out of just sheer chance, acted at the exact same time. I am glad at least that God and natural occurence are in agreement, because all the rest of us can really do is just speculate.

.
to The Vagabond,
How is killing 10s of millions of Africans more of a justify rationale for 'God's' justice? [Is it because you see sex as a sin?]

In any event, God is an abstract notion that atempts to ascribe meaning to large [and small] events beyond our control. By thinking that everything has a purpose perhaps it helps people feel they have purpose, direction, meaning in their lives. It makes them feel more empowered/aligned. It makes them feel grounded rather than adrift in an ocean of ambiguity.

I am an agnostic/athiest and i haven't ever seen any such critter.
I just keep treading water in the sea of simple living.

The trouble with associating large random events with God(s) is that if it is incorrect then the explanations as more and more things happen get further and further away from the truth. At some point deity thinking just gets to a point of being completely deranged.

This would explain why very often extremely religious people do pretty horrible things, they just lose touch with reality.

PS. I think you can have a similar effect if you associate macro events with some large simple notioned idea. Eugenics, Racism, Fascism, Communism, unbridled capitalism. Large simple notions should be kept at arms length and handled carefully.

Is there anything stupider than a big simple idea?
.

Originally posted by DirtyWater33
This is just a thought. Maybe God put these events into effect because he wanted to judge those parts of the world for whatever wrong they were doing. That might explain why all the animals lived because he wanted to teach the humans a lesson. Any thoughts on this.

I have never heard such an obscene and ignorant idea!

Originally posted by slank
.
to The Vagabond,
How is killing 10s of millions of Africans more of a justify rationale for 'God's' justice? [Is it because you see sex as a sin?]

In any event, God is an abstract notion that atempts to ascribe meaning to large [and small] events beyond our control. By thinking that everything has a purpose perhaps it helps people feel they have purpose, direction, meaning in their lives. It makes them feel more empowered/aligned. It makes them feel grounded rather than adrift in an ocean of ambiguity.

I am an agnostic/athiest and i haven't ever seen any such critter.
I just keep treading water in the sea of simple living.

The trouble with associating large random events with God(s) is that if it is incorrect then the explanations as more and more things happen get further and further away from the truth. At some point deity thinking just gets to a point of being completely deranged.

This would explain why very often extremely religious people do pretty horrible things, they just lose touch with reality.

PS. I think you can have a similar effect if you associate macro events with some large simple notioned idea. Eugenics, Racism, Fascism, Communism, unbridled capitalism. Large simple notions should be kept at arms length and handled carefully.

Is there anything stupider than a big simple idea?
.

I read this in conversations with God. It was one of the most enlightening things I've read:

God says: Your will is my will; but my will is not your will

How this applies here? Acts of destruction are not god's will, but our will, that god accepts without judgement and makes it his own will and puts into action. However, if we followed god's will, the destruction would not occur.

Indigo says:"I read this in conversations with God. It was one of the most enlightening things I've read:

God says: Your will is my will; but my will is not your will

How this applies here? Acts of destruction are not god's will, but our will, that god accepts without judgement and makes it his own will and puts into action. However, if we followed god's will, the destruction would not occur. "

Man is the cause of his own destruction. The area of Thailand so many reports are broadcasting from is the "sex" trade capital of Asia. Sodom of the East. The last days are upon us all. If we do follow God's will none of the horrors before us need happen. But man is wicked and must be destroyed to purge EVIL from the universe once and for all time.

Originally posted by slank
to The Vagabond,
How is killing 10s of millions of Africans more of a justify rationale for 'God's' justice? [Is it because you see sex as a sin?]

I don't believe that the Tsunami or AIDS is the wrath of God. I personally see both ideas as absurd. I believe that it is more absurd to say the tsunami was God's wrath because the tsunami was completely random while AIDS is usually acquired by taking an action- sometimes a sinful action, but many times not sinful; that's beside the point.

In any event, God is an abstract notion that atempts to ascribe meaning to large [and small] events beyond our control.

If this is aimed at me it is aimed badly. I am not arguing for or against the truth of God's involvement in this catastrophe. My point is to argue that for those who do believe that God was involved that it need not be seen as a sign of God's wrath.
True American: I agree that I can not discern God's will. I'm just opposed to limiting the possibilities to "wrath of god".

The trouble with associating large random events with God(s) is that if it is incorrect then the explanations as more and more things happen get further and further away from the truth. At some point deity thinking just gets to a point of being completely deranged.

To have beliefs only becomes derranged when those beliefs are reached through blind faith or assumption. Even an incorrect belief based on faulty logic is at least mildly reasonable. I do not see the possibility of being wrong as a reason to abstain from believing in whatever you find to be most plausible.
If you see a reason for choosing your view of a given topic, perfect knowledge is not entirely necessary. This is why I am not an agnostic even though I do not know about God with any certainty and may be wrong in my beliefs.

This would explain why very often extremely religious people do pretty horrible things, they just lose touch with reality.

Beliefs (religious and other), rather well founded or not, are used in forming opinions which affect the way we interact with the world. Any belief, even a good one, will cause bad things if acted upon in an extreme way. You touched on this, but I disagree with your conclusion. It is not beliefs which should be kept at arms length in my opinion. It is the willingness to act violently or extremely in support of those beliefs; essentially lacking fundamental moral beliefs, or giving moral beliefs a low priority. When one encounters this problem, known in psychiatric circles as sociopathy, that is when beliefs become harmful.

If you honestly belief in communism, facism, capitalism, democracy, even racism- go ahead and believe it. Be true to yourself. What one must not do is prioritize such subjective beliefs over more objective necessities, such as respect for the life of others; to do so is akin to sociopathy and is the gateway to all attrocities which can be comitted in the name of beliefs.

Is there anything stupider than a big simple idea?

Yep- people who kill other people over such ideas.

[edit on 1-1-2005 by The Vagabond]

What could those people have done to deserve what happened to them????

Originally posted by DrHoracid
The area of Thailand so many reports are broadcasting from is the "sex" trade capital of Asia. Sodom of the East.

The sex trade is EVERYWHERE.

The last days are upon us all. If we do follow God's will none of the horrors before us need happen. But man is wicked and must be destroyed to purge EVIL from the universe once and for all time.

Man I hope this is meant to be satire. Even if the victims were all good god fearing christians.. this still would have happened.

To all those 'god dunnit' people who just HAVE to believe it was some sort of punnishment and not just a natural disaster.. perhaps.. instead of deciding that they were condemned for being evil.. they should consider that THEY are the ones that are up for judgement in the way they respond. God or not.. is it ethical to point the finger and decide all those kids who died deserved it? Anyone who thinks that are sadistic pigs.. are not moral and are more interested in their OWN self righteous egos than the welfare of their fellow human being.

People can quote the bible all they want.. it's not going to make them 'good' people.

Originally posted by Indigo_Child
I want to remind you all of something:

In 1970's the Indonesian Government murdered in cold blood 250,000 East Timoreans. In 2004 nature killed near 100,000(400,000 possibly) Indonesians.

Can you see how nature works and how we affect it.

The american government gave them the guns and bullets.

For those of you who believe this is a gods doing. Do you also believe that we should not help or give aid to the victims? Wouldn't you be getting in his way and stepping on his toes? This thread question is ridiculous. You can't say that a god makes all this stuff happen. These things have been happening on our planet since it's beginning and your gods didn't make these things happen. If you still believe he did this then I lable him a murderer everytime you say he caused thousands to die and how often is that? Makes me want to believe....!

I kind of have the belief that man (and probably women) were assigned the posistion of co-creaters with God. We were the medium God had chosen to care, nuture, and "develope" the earth into God's desires.....well, it didn't work out that well, since man quickly found his desires conflicting with Gods. But, that doesn't change the fact that we are still co-creaters (don't believe me, look at what we've done to this planet, with it's tall skycrapers, and massive roadsystems and such.)

Well, an interesting thing has been happening over the past several years, more and more people seem to be deciding that they just can't live on the same planet, in the same country, or be in the same room with people who don't think, have values systems, or beliefs that not as theirs....
My question is, could we be tearing our planet apart trying to accomodate everyone? The combined goals, intentions, and desires of the masses does control the powers of nature to an extent.

And, well, maybe that is what the rapture is.....a portion of our earth (in spiritual form as well as physical......breaking off into another dimension, since the conservatives and the liberals, the muslems and the christians, as well as the jews, the husbands and the wives, well, they all just can't live peacably in the same world anymore.....

I am so absolutely disgusted with people thinking natural disasters are from the god...how ridiculous can one be!? , Nature has earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, tidal waves....use your your brains people! "Natural" disaster.....you people sure don't think much of your own god!

I'm with LadyV on this as I had said. It disgusts me also.

If this was the act of God, how vengeful, merciless he is to have plotted and yes removed the freewill of the tourists his giant waves killed, and caused all of those he doomed and cursed to be in a place where he could smite them all.

How ridiculously preposterous the notion that this was his judgement! Judgement on whom? Surely not the muslem countries, for that does not explain the foreigners. Does no one remember his covenant to Noah? Why on earth would he destroy even one man again by flood waters? It is too easy and far too ignorant to place natural disaster at his doorstep, but to those who wish to do so, you should be thinking back to disasters in your own countries, or deaths of your loved ones by disasters elsewhere and ponder what judgement he has handed down to them and you. This invoking of God’s judgement for selective events makes no sense at all when one considers that any horrible fate, death applied either singularly or plurally can be seen as his judgement; car accidents; house fires; plane crashes; landslides and avalanches.

I can well imagine that there are those who died in this event who at one time pointed theirs fingers also at natural disasters elsewhere, declaring it to have been God’s judgement. They can't come back now and tell us how they feel to have made such a charge, pity, the God blamers would learn something I am sure.

Since many of the wrath of God crowd seem to be Christian, let me also point out a few pieces of Christian doctrine for them. ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and to break one commandment is to break them all. Under Christian Doctrine we are all equally under God's wrath.

I understand why it is appealing to attribute such a horrible and unfair tragedy to just cause, but this is not theologically sound. You need to accept that a lot of innocent people have died, probably for no good or understandable reason. I know thats depressing, but you need to deal with it.