AIDS at 25

There's always a reason.

Such as settling a bet with Satan. Frankly, cranky seems preferable. Killing your family to settle a bet is just cold.

Second, we're suposed to love Him because that is why He created us.

Like I said, we're God's pets. Lick his hand and maybe he won't beat us. Maybe. After all, Job's sons were also righteous.

We love them for who they are.

Which is, apparently, someone who will kill our families to settle a bet, or kill 6 million Jews to teach them a lesson. So, just what was that lesson?

"Agreed. But it's not out of the question. Job lost his entire family (except for his wife) just so God could prove what a righteous man he (Job) was.

Our lives may be all-important to us, but not to God. After all--He created us, and He can do with us what He wills. Life belongs to Him, and He can do whatever He wants with it. It's not up to us to dictate to God what He can and cannot do with it."

The consensus among biblical scholars is that Job was not a real person. But either way, a petty and sadistic God like the one you describe isn't worthy of my worship. A God who would create and then destroy a man's family just to prove a point to the Devil, knowing it would come to this at the time in which he created them? To acknowledge such a God should only serve to debase us, not make us great or holy or righteous or loyal or in any way better as human beings. I'll take my original sin over that any day and risk the consequences.

I still can't see this variety of faith as anything but a throwback to ancient, unfounded dogmas and an attempt at appeasing the great power in the sky. And my dad is a pentecostal minister, I've grown up with this stuff my whole life.

So in essence we're God's pets, the equivalent of his ant colony. He'll kill our families to teach them a lesson, or to prove some other point (Job's righteousness), or just because he's feeling cranky. And for this we're supposed to love him?

I don't know about this God you speak of, and frankly I don't care to.

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