To the deeply religious who feel god has made a change in their lives... answer this

reply to post by AlexG141989


Alex it is clear that you are truely lost and do not know Jesus or God for that matter. I have been to Sudan and it is a Godless Place meaning that the people who reside there do not know God or ask for his help. That is about all I can explain about the way God does things. I do know this for a fact, God has read your post and he knows that you are saying things that are not so nice about him.

I see this time and time again, Why does a man or woman ask another why God does something or why does he not do something? Well, its very strange for me to be up at 1:00am in the morning reading this site, while it is strange I did not ask why. I thing God told me to reply to this one and I think he put these words in my fingers.

Alex, do not ask man why God does this or that, Ask him yourself. I think he is waiting on you to ask him. His contact info is : JUST PRAY.

Yours truely,

Eye of Eagle

God has the ability to fix the planet. To rid the world of famine and disease, to make all non believers fall to their knees and praise him; and he will. But the time isnt now. In Jesus' last days he told his disciples to go and spread the word among nations, and in doing spreading the word, Christ also meant to help the nations in need. Christians do this wearing their faith on their sleeve without God having to prove his existence to them. God want people to believe in him on their own, and if God was to do something like cure all of Africa of famine and war, the world would believe in Him, and the idea of faith would crumble. But at the right time, known to God, and only to himself, faith will crumble because "every knee will bow and every tongue shall confess".
In evolutionary biology, Africa is said to be the place of the Garden of Eden, and the Garden of Eden is the place where Satan first influenced man to commit sin. Africa IS Hell. Africa is Hell on Earth. It is the closest place to Hell an individual can get without perishing. It is our job to help these people and many people have their lives dedicated to this very cause.

Originally posted by doctorex
[sarcasm] We all apologise for having an opinion, and we needn't have one at all, since we now bow at your feet, since you know best [/sarcasm]

1)-----you one line posted, didn't reply to anything about the OP and for some reason felt attacked and had to respond to me in a way that seemed to imply a cleverness but only resulted in dripping stupidity.

man, after seeing the very moment of this photo, it depressed me, notonly the condition that child is in, but hte mere fact the phot guy simply walked off...shame shame shame on him and his stupid meaningless prize trophey If it were me, like most if not all here, i would have taken that picture, then immediatly ran that kid to the UN camp, while giving himas much food and water if not all, i had on me. I wount have wanted any prize either, jsut to get the info out. i would have rejected that prize in any circumstance. Just a lifeless wooden and golden material object.
GOD, as i too believe, a Protestant, bu kinda on the catholic side, belive in him too. Alli can say is, god worksin ways were not to understand.... maybe, that child sufffering, was a test of the photographers faith, and since he failed... it was gods bidding, for him to off himself. I firly belive god tests us sometimes. Its not so much, what you can do, or will do, but what you feel inside,...are you worthy in spiritto pass the test. Its not for us ot understand, its to nbe done or carried out.
I truely hope that child made it, for what its worth.....

reply to post by Bigwhammy

I challenge you quote me saying that.

Hmmm...

I said people do know right from wrong because there is an absolute moral law written into our consciences by our creator. Evolution says the opposite

Well, that was tough.

You are saying that our moralities are based upon what God's word is, and if we remove God's word (evolution), our moralities are selfishly based. You say our creator inscribed these words into our consciences, and I say it's nature and nurture.

We raise children to see and understand what is good and bad and to use their logic. We give children morals in their upbringings. WE are the ones who inscribe this 'moral law', not God.

Look at people like Charles Manson.

By Darwinian thought what ever helps you get ahead and survive is all that matters. But if Darwinism is true then why do people feel guilty when they do something wrong - even when it is to there advantage?

Have you already forgotten everything we've gone over? Your post is making it so that it's either selfish Darwinism or charitable religion. Black or white. I'm referring to humanists main objective which I've already posted.

The ultimate goal is human flourishing; making life better for all humans

Survival is basic.

Again this is easy all you have to do is look at countries without religion and you see the humanitarian nightmare that is called secular humanism in action.

Wrong. You're classifying communist Ego-atheists with secular humanists. They're not the same things. I suggest you go back and see what humanism is all about again.

The point you keep missing is that the overwhelming majority of humanitarians of the world are religious people.

So, I'm guessing the reason you're saying this (the only reason I can think of, and I've been saying it over and over again), is because you assume that religion begets charity. I believe that to be part of it, but I think you are severely discounting the ability for humans to pull together, despite religion. Therefore, you are also saying that Christians are more willing to help others than atheist humanists, and with this I strongly disagree.

Here's a problem I'm seeing, if you are a theist humanitarian, you're putting God first, and not the people whom you're their to help.

So, here's what we apparently need to find to end this discussion.

1) Percentage of secular charities vs. religious charities.
2) Non-theist population vs. religious (only 1.1 billion vs. the rest of the world)
3) At what rate have secular vs. religious organizations been popping up.
4) Read my above post and see that it's much easier for a religious charity to get funding than a secular charity and take that info into account.

After we find these things, we can have a better estimate at who really is more motivated to help out their fellow humans. But I'm going to go ahead and take a guess here. Since I already know #2 and #4, my money says you're going to lose, but hey, I'm welcome to be proved wrong. I'm just having a hard time finding #1 and #3.

Ok, I'm going to bed now. Have a good night.

reply to post by AlexG141989


god does not intervene in the daily affairs of man, god cries for the needy including this child, it is tragic and awful. many things on this earth are tragic and awful, but it is not gods role to fix our problems. the question is not where is god, there in fact are multiple questions regarding this image. why didnt the un people go to this child, why didnt kevin carter help this child, why doesnt the us government divert the billions of dollars yearly spent on taking pictures of martian dirt and rocks to feeding children like this, why dont we spend as much money on curing aids and cancer as we do on curing erectile dysfunction.

reply to post by ziggy1706


The kid may or may not have died. Read the thread and plenty of reasons are given to why the child should not have possibly been helped.

Since most people don't read the thread as a whole, reasons can be:

1) there's 100,000 of them and taking that child a kilometer away my have been impractical. Unless you are in a situation like that then you don't know how to apply "practical" into such a situation that a photograph and a small blurb shows you.

2) it may have been dangerous. The famine there is also CAUSED by man. Those camps with food were watched. A foreighner carrying a kid to receive food that was purposefully being kept away from people could have placed a target on that man's head. I assure you that men with hatchets running wild around a country with little to no laws is a dangerous place.

3)If the guy photographed the child, then chances are someone that was around him may have helped the child.

4) he was TOLD not to interfere with a punishment held over his head to stop further journaling etc..

The child photograph is not the issue.. it's the issue of why such a calamity is allowed on a planet that was created out of apparent boredom from an all powerful god that needed some pets to bow and pray to him for answers for why such a calamity was allowed in a place he created.

I think what gets people to ask this question so many times is because it just doesn't make sense. WHY wouldn't you spank the people who were causing this when you were god instead of letting people suffer. As a lesson? that's such a weak explanation to me because it makes no sense.

Suffering is not even how I teach my own dogs. so IMO if you say a religious god is making people suffer as a lesson then there seems to be a serious flaw with that explanation.

b

reply to post by ben91069


so your trying to make me feel bad for using money, yet you are online and on a computer. i highly doubt your at a library. so you are saying you don't spend money? are you amish? but wait that wouldnt work out your on the internet. so.... i cry hypocrite!

god has a hand in this happenng for a reason, we all see ait and are all hurt. we live our lives and move on. but for one shameless kid next to you...god saved an extra seat or an extra ticket...becusae he is put on this world to change lives. you NEVER KNOW who is put here to do that. the lord give us our blessings and strikes us when we are down so that we can find our own way back up. ad the one thing always looked over is the those who have been touched by god are always the ones who are looked upon to help just a little bit more than the rest
even those kids to this dayh stil pray to god to help them through. so we can at least give them whatever hopew we can too.

Originally posted by bigbert81
reply to post by Bigwhammy

 

I challenge you quote me saying that.

Hmmm...

I said people do know right from wrong because there is an absolute moral law written into our consciences by our creator. Evolution says the opposite

Well, that was tough.

You just told a blatant LIE!!!!!!!!!!

You accused me of this

Originally posted by bigbert81
See, that's the problem I'm having. You are claiming that without the Bible and hopes of going to heaven, that people cannot determine what's good and bad. I take issue with that.

I challenged you to quote me saying that!! You quote this...

Originally posted by Bigwhammy
I said people do know right from wrong because there is an absolute moral law written into our consciences by our creator. Evolution says the opposite

you accuse me of saying "that people cannot determine what's good and bad." then verify with what I really said which means the exact opposite, " people do know right from wrong because there is an absolute moral law written into our consciences by our creator"

And then you sarcastically quip "That was tough". Yeah it is pretty easy to LIE Bert.

You are not representing your cause well by using dishonesty. You should be ashamed of yourself. The only reason to continue this conversation is because Secular Humanism destroys human morality - thus it is very dangerous to the world community. I personally feel a duty to God and my fellow man to at the minimum spend the time to refute this cancer of humanity.

If only 2 people read and are affected it was worth it.

Originally posted by bigbert81
You are saying that our moralities are based upon what God's word is, and if we remove God's word (evolution), our moralities are selfishly based.

"You are saying...." [insert BS that bert makes up]

I didn't say anything you just wrote.

You so rarely respond to what I actually write. It's called a straw man argument. It is intellectually dishonest.

Originally posted by bigbert81
You say our creator inscribed these words into our consciences, and I say it's nature and nurture.

Ok finally almost something I actually did say. "our creator inscribed these [NOT WORDS] - inserts what I actually said - [morals] into our hearts."

We raise children to see and understand what is good and bad and to use their logic. We give children morals in their upbringings. WE are the ones who inscribe this 'moral law', not God.

If it's just nature and nurture... and morality is only taught then there is no absolute truth. Its just the opinion of the parents. So morality is just the opinions and consensus of the majority. If WE do it then it can be changed. There is no absolute truth. So if the majority decide to wipe out all atheists then that is the moral thing to do. How do you like moral relativism now?

Also by pure deductive logic your philosophy is false. If there is no absolute truth then your absolute statement that "there is no absolute truth" - can not be true.
Q.E.D.

Have you already forgotten everything we've gone over? Your post is making it so that it's either selfish Darwinism or charitable religion. Black or white. I'm referring to humanists main objective which I've already posted.

I haven't forgotten, I simply do not believe it. I am unequivocally calling it a bald-faced lie.

The ultimate goal is human flourishing; making life better for all humans

That ultimate goal is irrefutably logically inconsistent with the philosophy behind the goal. The philosophy leads to moral relativism. Which amounts to no morality at all - only personal opinion.

Wrong. You're classifying communist Ego-atheists with secular humanists. They're not the same things. I suggest you go back and see what humanism is all about again.

No you are deluded by propaganda. I know it looks good on paper - reality is it does not work. Karl Marx envisioned a "workers paradise" not gulags and mass starvation. But that's what he got.

So, I'm guessing the reason you're saying this (the only reason I can think of, and I've been saying it over and over again), is because you assume that religion begets charity.

I am not assuming anything you are just denying reality. Religion does beget charity. You are blind! The word charity has a Christian origin. Christianity defines the term!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally in Latin the word caritas meant preciousness, dearness, high price. From this, in Christian theology, caritas became the standard Latin translation for the Greek word agapē, meaning an unlimited loving-kindness to all others, such as the love of God. This much wider concept is the meaning of the word charity in the Christian triplet "faith, hope and charity", as used by the King James Version of the Bible in its translation of St Paul's Letter to the Corinthians.

wiki

I believe that to be part of it, but I think you are severely discounting the ability for humans to pull together, despite religion. Therefore, you are also saying that Christians are more willing to help others than atheist humanists, and with this I strongly disagree.

I have never discounted that humans know right from wrong. That is the basis of my argument. You are in a logically inconsistent position and you re failing to realize it. Forget about me. And I challenge you as a human being to really think about it sometime when you are alone. If there is no absolute moral standard and man just makes it up. Then anything goes as long as we agree. Without an objective moral standard any objection to evil is just an opinion. But common sense tells us right and wrong is different from preference. Because morality is absolute. Not relative.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.(James 1:27)

Here's a problem I'm seeing, if you are a theist humanitarian, you're putting God first, and not the people whom you're their to help.

What is Gods greatest commandment?

The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' "The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

By putting God first you love your neighbor as you love yourself. So your perceived conflict is erroneous. There have been Christians laying down their lives caring for orphans, lepers, AIDS patients, the poor, destitute addicts and alcoholics, the dregs that no one else wants to deal with. You will never be able to get an accurate statistic of the humanitarian work accomplished by Christianity. It is the greatest the world has ever seen. it is common knowledge. The magnitude of the self sacrificing through out history would blow your mind.

I personally was led to the Lord by a missionary student who is now in a Muslim nation that executes Christians. He is a undercover missionary as a volunteer physical therapist. He will be beheaded if they catch him. He loves people so much he risks his life for them by being there. I only wish I could hold a candle to Dennis Till.

What you need to wrap your mind around is that there is an absolute morality. You can not explain that in darwinian terms.

Here's a final illustration:

~~~~~~~~ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ which line is straighter?

The first because it is closer to the absolute standard of a straight line which you know is this ---------------

Now if there was no objective standard for straightness then the question would be meaningless. BUT there is!

This exactly what you do when you compare the behavior of Mother Theresa and Hitler. You appeal to an absolute moral standard: The Moral Law. The moment you say one set of moral ideas is better than another it is because you are comparing both to a standard. Just like the line - logically there must be a "real" morality or you have NO basis to make a judgment by. If the moral law does not exist then there is no difference between the behavior of Hitler and Mother Theresa. Thank God we all know better! Because there is a standard, that standard is written on our hearts.

In summation, I think a reasonable person will concede that every law has a law giver. I have demonstrated by pure reason there has to be a Moral Law. Thus consider:

1. Every law has a law giver.
2. There is a moral law
3. Therefore there is a moral law giver.


Who else but GOD could it write on the hearts of all of humanity?









[edit on 5/27/2008 by Bigwhammy]

God in his omnipotence has given us/humans the tools neccessary to stop the social and economic injustices of the world.

Everything needed to stop the horrors we see is w/in all of us.

I don't think God "gives" material things to people - i like to think that one's faith may give strength to combat the seemingly impossible.

Although when i 'need' something i pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster - you should try it - works wonders

I haven’t read much of this thread but this is what I understand so far…..

Some people (even on ATS) seem to think they have had their prayers to god answered and fulfilled, they have had some sort of contact - communication with god and so believe in god because of this. AlexG141989 has asked why god has involved itself with you but not those who truly need god’s help? Why is god’s attention directed at you but not children starving in countries like Melawi? It makes no sense………..What kind of god do you worship!!

And if you still haven’t got the message I’ll break it down once more -why does god affect people’s lives but not those who actually need it?




[edit on 27-5-2008 by andre18]

I have been saved. I was baptised at age32. Our pastor taught us that until you are baptised, in the eyes of God you do not have a soul. So children who die without being saved are as if they never existed. However, before I was baptised I did believe.

reply to post by AlexG141989


If God did everything for us then we would have no purpose on this planet. God has given us the "tools" to help others and to make us better people. Yet, some people don't do as planned...

If I asked God for something, He wouldn't give me it straight up, He would give me the knowledge, etc, to get that thing. If He just gave me something, I would never learn how to achieve it, yet by showing me or giving me knowledge, etc, I can then get it...

It's like that old saying, "Give a man a fish, he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he can eat for a lifetime".

I hope that all made sense...

Another example of what I'm talking about:

When I was going through a really rough time, I asked God to help me and get through it. I went through Hell and back and I thought, "He hasn't helped me at all!" Yet now, when I look back, I am definately a much stronger person because of what I went through and I thank Him for that.

Most of us just look at the small picture when the bigger one is staring us right in the eyes.

reply to post by Bspiracy


You roast me about being offended, when I was nothing of the sort, if I was offended I would have spent 5 minutes on a lengthy reply, something like your effort. I even put in one of these ---->>> to show I was only kidding around, which you decided to remove when you quoted me, but I hope you feel better after that speil.

[edit on 27/5/08 by doctorex]

I haven't read through all the pages of replies, just the first. The only thing I see here is some guy (the original poster) mad at God for whatever reason. He simply forgets what man does with everything he/she gets their hands on. They practically ruin it. Give a man lots of money, he gets the taste of it, most of the time gets greedy. America is a prime example. Every culture, every generation, every religion, every non-Bible religion all get corrupted, all do things in the name of their deity or their belief and justify as so. The problem isn't God, the problem is humanity. We are all prone to make mistakes and very prone to being selfish. Why do you think there are millions of people dying from starvation every year? I would bet that half, or more of the people on ATS are from America and how much money do you think they contribute to world-wide starvation? In that same thought, how much money do you think they contribute to a nice car, big screen TV, cable TV, etc... Hey, I'm not judging the typical American. I have a nice newer car. I have an old restored car. I have a decent house, bigger than I truly need. I have an IPod, a laptop and home computer, etc... I would be willing to bet some money that while the original poster is bitching about God and why it's all his fault or why God won't do anything about this child, the original poster is probably sitting pretty comfortable at home, eating 3+ meals a day. I would almost doubt if he contributes even 1% of his income to ANY charity! Please prove me wrong OP. I see hypocrites all around on the ATS site and so many others on the web. The the original poster, two questions. Why such an anger at God? The other, what are YOU doing to help this world? For the first question, can you PROVE that God exists? If you can, then maybe you have right to some questions for him, but if you can't prove he exists, then you need to let go of your anger against God and people who believe in him. I'm not defending religion, but you're placing the blame in the wrong place. The blame belongs with humans, not a God that so far, no one has really been able to prove exists.

JPT

[edit on 27-5-2008 by justpassingthrough]

Originally posted by Elephantfluf
I have been saved. I was baptised at age32. Our pastor taught us that until you are baptised, in the eyes of God you do not have a soul. So children who die without being saved are as if they never existed. However, before I was baptised I did believe.

This sounds Catholic to me or something. This is one of the crazy ideas about religion. You mean to tell me that a child who hasn't been baptized and dies at age 1, goes to hell or just doesn't have a soul? Either way, both of these answers are completely moronic. I would personally find a new church. Sorry if I sound harsh, but this pastor seems a little whack to me. He might own a Bible but he isn't God. I don't even think it says anything remotely close to this in the Bible. Probably just a common fear tactic among the bad forms of religion.

JPT

Originally posted by Bspiracy

I think what gets people to ask this question so many times is because it just doesn't make sense. WHY wouldn't you spank the people who were causing this when you were god instead of letting people suffer. As a lesson? that's such a weak explanation to me because it makes no sense.

Suffering is not even how I teach my own dogs. so IMO if you say a religious god is making people suffer as a lesson then there seems to be a serious flaw with that explanation.

b

Even though I only quoted this part of your post, I tend to agree with what you are saying. To me, the problem arises in that if God truly exists and made EVERYTHING from scratch, we can never even begin to understand why he does what he does. If God is real, then there are most likely reasons beyond our comprehension. I have all the same questions everyone else does. If we need a lesson, why not teach us in a positive way, not with death or suffering, but again, I have to go back to square one, if God is real, we are not even a .00000000000000000000000000001% as wise, smart, genius as God is. So, with knowing that, I don't think we can question much. I mean, yeswe can question everything and should, but we can't be arrogant enough to think we know it all and God is wrong. We can't even prove ghosts exists and as a species just a few thousand years ago we believed crazy things and I'm sure a thousand years from now, mankind will be laughing at our generation and how we performed surgery and what silly things we believed were true. The funny thing is, so many people rail against God when God has nothing to do with it, except to put a name on what sick things humanity does. Take the Christians for example. If every Christian followed Jesus' words exactly as he says them, even just simply taking them literally, this world would be HUGELY different. Jesus never demanded violence. He never condoned judging people. I don't even know if I've read that he condoned anything negative. In fact, he taught one of the most peaceful philosophies ever known. Mankind is simply the problem. To explain God is to explain the future. We can all watch movies from 50 years ago that who what the 90's or even 2001 was supposed to be like. They can get a little silly and we are WAY off on some things. So, it goes to reason if God exists, we are WAY off about him as well. Anyhow, didn't mean to go off, was mainly replying to your post for all, not directly at you.

JPT

Originally posted by EYEOFEAGLE
reply to post by AlexG141989

 

Alex it is clear that you are truely lost and do not know Jesus or God for that matter. I have been to Sudan and it is a Godless Place meaning that the people who reside there do not know God or ask for his help. That is about all I can explain about the way God does things. I do know this for a fact, God has read your post and he knows that you are saying things that are not so nice about him.

I see this time and time again, Why does a man or woman ask another why God does something or why does he not do something? Well, its very strange for me to be up at 1:00am in the morning reading this site, while it is strange I did not ask why. I thing God told me to reply to this one and I think he put these words in my fingers.

Alex, do not ask man why God does this or that, Ask him yourself. I think he is waiting on you to ask him. His contact info is : JUST PRAY.

Yours truely,

Eye of Eagle

To say God told you to reply is probably wrong. You mean to tell me that kids in sudan who have never been introduced to God of the Bible and are probably told it's wrong if they have been introduced to it, that if they don't ask God for help, he's going to let them starve. You've got a lot of nerve I would say. So, what would you say to thousands of other people who die of starvation who do believe in God and ask for his help? Are you going to say they are living in sin? Even if they are, are they living in anymore sin than you? Probably not. Hey, I pray and feel that God is around me and I feel blessed for the things I have in life, BUT I know others who pray and they are not blessed the same way. What about kids stricken with disease who go to church and pray? What about those kids dying of luekemia (spelling?) who believe in God and who's parents are loving and live by the word? I don't think kids in Sudan are dying because they don't ask God for help or don't believe in him. If you are never introduced to it and always taught it is bad, you are not going to follow it. Somehow this is the kids fault and God doesn't care, even though the kid doesn't know any better? Sorry, I would have to say you are wrong here and if you think you are talking to God, you might actually be talking to a demon because your info doesn't seem right. There are plenty of people who are doing well in life who worship satan, which is the anti-God and they are not dying of starvation, in fact quite the opposite. They are wealthy and having a great life on earth. Please reread your bible some more and pray that you are speaking with God of the Holy Bible, not just some entity that speaks to you or you feel might be God.

JPT