How can religious people explain something like this?

Guardian ^ | Tuesday December 28, 2004 | Martin Kettle

[Giliad]

You don't get to heaven via a building with a name above the door, or even having membership in a certain religion. You get to heaven via Christ and you can find out how from the Bible.

Someone has to "corner the market" don't you think? It can't all be true. Hinduism and Christianity can't both be true. Christians believe in a God, and Hindus don't. Islam and Christianity can't both be true. Christians believe you have to believe in Christ to be saved and Islam teaches we're saved by works and they don't believe Christ has anything to do with it. See what I mean. There is absolute truth out there and you just can't call everything truth.

[Nachoman]

For cripes sake, the Bible is completely clear on this. Women are to blame for all bad things that happen.

[skylight4u]

(I will offer no Defence for acknowledging my Creator, I feel none necessary.)

Thats cool.
I feel the same way. Though it may not include needing to believe in JC as the son of God to get to heaven.

[bluebunny]

I feel the same way.

[Doofer]

There are hundreds of Tsunamis a year in Japan..

Really! I lived in Japan for 14 years and don't recall any........

[skylight4u]

I think you've got it.

The need to corner the market and to have the only way to "salvation" is a necessary thing.
thats where we differ.

It feels good to know you have the "only" way doesnt it?

[jennyp]

The question raised by this article highlights the fundamental internal contradiction inherent in an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving god.

Logical consistency cannot accomodate all three qualities. So when forced to choose, religious people tend to lurch from one of the dilemma's horns to the other. All the while insisting that the activity only makes God all the more powerful & belief in Him more compelling!

Bad things happen to good people because of the Fall. So it's our fault. Or not our fault, but instead our 5000-year ago ancestors' fault. Normally we'd say it's very wrong for the distant descendants of a criminal to be punished for their ancestors' crimes, but God doesn't have to play by the rules. Or maybe it's not because of the Fall, but instead it's just bad luck. In which case God lets people die horrible deaths because without the bad we wouldn't be able to recognize the good. But that makes him an all-indifferent god. Or maybe he does help those who pray to him. Except that devout believers can also die horrible deaths, and atheists can survive disasters as well. But regardless of these seeming problems, we can rest assured that it's all for the best, and it's all part of God's perfect plan. So we really should be thanking him for this tsunami, because in the long run the alternative would be much worse - whatever it was. In fact, we should celebrate the tsunami. You just gotta have faith. Oh, and pity the poor atheists who are going to spend eternity in the lake of fire because they aren't trying hard enough to understand our clear reasoning.

If this kind of logical squirming wasn't being done in the name of God & religious belief, we'd all be shaking our heads at how the person in question is deluding themselves. But since we're talking about God, only some of us are shaking our heads.

[Robert_Paulson2]

So the first two humans were tricked by a talking snake into eating an apple and this is the ultimate cause of all bad things?

---

no.

adam was not tricked.
we are told however that eve was deceived before adam's choice was made.

adam CHOSE to disobey God. And there is nothing about an apple in the story. Today that tree of knowing Good and Evil, has to do with any action and the 'fruit' it produces.

Disobedience produces the fruit of the tree that is evil, because it comes about through SOME form of disobedience to a KNOWN EVIL OR THREAT, producing the rotten fruit of disobeying that KNOWN truth... ergo, 'not moving out of the path of a KNOWN TSUNAMI warning,' which results in death...

A death adam apparently chose, in order to do what he wanted (allegedly, stay with his mate)... or whatever that was, we are NOT told specifically.

Had he obeyed, and not 'eaten' he would have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of knowing good and evil, by NOT doing what was known to produce evil, should it be consumed... and the good would be the avoidance of harm to himself and the human race.

God did not kill adam and eve for disobeying. And saying it was an apple, is NOT in the story. There probably WAS a real tree... but the death was not in some super secret poison... it was in the propensity of mankind, to do what he KNOWS is wrong and harmful... to satisfy his own will.

Freedom to choose Evil, is the flip side of our ability to choose good... and represents the nature of our life as humans.

the folks in Indonesia?
In some nations, they choose to respond to tsunami warnings aggressively. Those nations have a much higher survival rate. Same goes for hurricane warnings in other countries. People who CHOOSE to ignore, either as individuals or governments... rather than respond to the warnings appropriately are once again, DUPLICATING the acts of adam and eve in the garden...

Choosing to go against a KNOWN warning and danger, for reasons of their own, resulting in loss of life, property and health.

God did it?
No.
THEY did by NOT responding or forming a response mechanism to... the warning signs that were present.


btw...
if you are at the beach and the water begins to recede from you quickly and much further than the norma tide patterns?

run for your life towards the highest ground and most solid objects to cling to... it's a precursor to the tsunami.

folks near the oceans of the planet should know this by now.
over 110,000 learned this the hard way.

God may have saved a woman by her obedience to the instinct to run and cling to something solid... while others chose to go SEE the big wave... and died...

It's personal choice and individual responsibility, not an angry God smiting sinners for the hell of it.

[skylight4u]

God the almighty created everything.

Did god create sin?

did he create the fallen angel that became satan?

[fr_freak]

The idea that, if we don't exist forever, existing at all is worthless, is just so much crap. Let me express my position apothegmatically:


Sufficient unto the day is the experience thereof.

Spoken like a man whose daily existence is not all that bad at the moment. My point was that if your daily existence was a miserable experience, such as in the case of the 20-year-old quadraplegic, how would you justify your continued existence without the concept that there is more beyond this life? How would you justify continuing? It is easy to say that the experience of each day is sufficient, as long as those days are pleasant, or that there is at least the hope of pleasant days ahead. However, when you know that each day ahead will be as miserable as the last one, how would you justify your continued existence without the belief in a hereafter, and therefore a Creator? Given a choice, would you rather believe that each miserable day hooked to machines was the result of random events or a divine plan?

We have it relatively easy in the US. Sometimes we forget how hard life can be, and so many forget why a belief in God may ever have filled a need, or have given a necessary purpose.

And, I'm afraid, math is of no use here.

[Tristram Shandy]

Had he obeyed, and not 'eaten' he would have enjoyed the fruit of the tree of knowing good and evil, by NOT doing what was known to produce evil, should it be consumed... and the good would be the avoidance of harm to himself and the human race.

Why is an entire species punished because of the actions of two of its members? That is both unjust and absurd. A judge who punishes children for the crimes of their parents is a cruel tyrant.

[fr_freak]

That would be hard for most people to except. To except that we just don't know! ! So man tells stories closely related to internal processes so as to FEEL better about the unknown.

Does it make you feel better to believe that there is no God, rather than to believe that there is one, and boy is He pissed!?

[skylight4u]

(Why is an entire species punished because of the actions of two of its members? That is both unjust and absurd. A judge who punishes children for the
crimes of their parents is a cruel tyrant.)

Well said.

[skylight4u]

I belive in a higher power, I commune with the spirit daily for inspiration.

Why is he pissed?

[fr_freak]

Why is he pissed?

That was sort of a joke. I was trying to make a point about the intimidating thought that there is a God, and He will hold you accountable for your actions.

[Robert_Paulson2]

you missed the moral of the biblical story.
all actions have reactions that are opposite and equal.
Earthquakes causing a wall of deadly water is just such a law asit relates to tsunamis. God functions in line with the laws of physics.


I told my kid not to ride his bike barefoot, because he could really hurt his feet. He did not listen. He cut his foot wide open.

But like a smart kid, he did not say "Dad, why did you allow me to cut my feet, in fact father, why do you allow all children to cut their feet, when they ride barefoote on the bike? Don't you care you no good father of mine?!?"

He rides with his shoes on now... and listens to other facts that can impact his health, as I offer them. That's the way of learning and growth on planet earth, get used to it.

Blaming God for things like this is just plain stupid.
You can blame the people, blame their government for not investing in or responding to a KNOWN danger...

But using this as a VERY ridiculous argument for God being unjust or punishing anyone... is just being stubborn. Blame God? He scratches his head and says, "I don't know what that nut is talking about, it's not my fault! THEY should have gotten out of the water, learned to swim, trained each other in cpr, put out a warning, left the area, gone to higher ground... and probably a few hundred other things too."

This is about one act of ignorance causing massive deaths.
eartquake->tsunami->potential for death
staying in water->stupidity->curiosity to see the big waves coming in->leading to death for those ignoring their self preservation instincts, which should be KNOWN as a necessity for those living nigh unto the ocean.

The sovereign God, has invested his omnipotence, in preserving our right to act or not, choose and determine what we will or will not do with our lives. And blaming him for our choices is wrong. In this case, dead wrong.

"I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: " Deuteronomy 30:19 - If it were up to God, he would INSIST that we all choose life right now...

but seeing as he has determined we should be free to make our own choices and engage in various activities... he sovereignly continues to leave them to us... blessing or cursing, life or death, UP TO US.

and some times as a result, people do things that harm them, their children and their souls. this time, it cost us in a big way.

Some folks really enjoy trying to find ways to develop their own controversies about God, faith and the bible, every time there is a disaster. Morbid opportunism. God is NOT responsible. Blame somebody else.

[oceanperch]

That is my opinion on the rapture too.

Every time someone dies it is a rapture.

A huge one just happened in India.

Poof in a blinking of an eye, gone, they are now in eternity.

Just my opinion.

[Lonely Bull]

FWIW, this went up just in the past few hours:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006097

Tremors of Doubt
What kind of God would allow a deadly tsunami?

BY DAVID B. HART
Friday, December 31, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

[Robert_Paulson2]

from that link you posted.

"no Christian is licensed to utter odious banalities about God's inscrutable counsels or blasphemous suggestions that all this mysteriously serves God's good ends. We are permitted only to hate death and waste and the imbecile forces of chance that shatter living souls, to believe that creation is in agony in its bonds, to see this world as divided between two kingdoms--knowing all the while that it is only charity that can sustain us against "fate," and that must do so until the end of days."

nice article

[Tristram Shandy]

There's an underlying assumption in many religious discussions that's just wrong: humans are expected to come to a rock-solid conclusion regarding the origin of the universe, the purpose & destiny of mankind, and the metaphysical structure of reality (to name a few). In addition, there is the implication that failure to do so will have grave consequences of eternal proprtions.

Aw c'mon! I don't know what the "purpose" of the human mind is, but the solution of those questions isn't it. I couldn't get through algebra; but I'm supposed to figure out which of several thousand metaphysical systems gets things right? I practically have an anuerism each year trying to file my own taxes; but I'm supposed to figure out that my soul is eternal and tainted by Adam's sin? My VCR has been flashing "12:00" for going on twenty years; but I'm supposed to figure out...you get the picture.

Of course nobody really figures any of these things out. We inherit our religious beliefs from our folks (and so do Hindus, Moslems, and the rest). I'm starting to ramble. My point, which is often overlooked/ignored is that it's silly to even expect people to have opinions on these things. It's like expecting first-graders to have an opinion on relativistic physics and punishing them if they get it wrong. Skepticism is a virtue because it's a form of honesty.