OK, how does God fit into this?

[KateandtheElves]

Personally I am agnostic (I think that's the right word. I don't believe in God but I can't say for sure that He doesn't exist.). But I have the utmost respect for people who do believe in God and use that belief to help them be better people (as my late husband did).

For those of you who do believe in God, and I know this a question that has been asked many times before, why would God let so many people (children even) be killed last week? I just can't understand how you could reconcile this enormous tragedy with a loving God.

I don't want to start an argument, but I'm genuinely interested in a believer's point of view.

[Nutcracker]

I don't believe either probably for the reason that my mom never believed due to her mom dying when she was 8, she couldn't understand how a god could let that happen.

I think people who do believe must have their faith severly tested when something like this happens.

I think things like this (and the above with my mom) are the reasons why i don't believe, it doesn't make sense to me.

I personally don't agree with the saying "things happen for a reason".

[KateandtheElves]

Lockets, are you saying that you believe that events such as earthquakes are beyond God's control?

[Chandra]

I have had this argument before, I don't believe that God makes goods and evils to bother us or because he was distracted... I just think these are only things that happen as the rain or the sun coming out every morning, not our fault, not anyone's fault, not a punishment... just something that has happened but that some religious people may consider as the way of God to test our faith... however, I don't imagine God playing with our feelings to see if we are true to him, that would make him quite imperfect and I don't think God is that kind of God, in terms as one inflicting pain to test who followes him. However... many may disagree with me...

[aloha]

But the Bible is full of instances of God 'testing' people, often very cruelly - think of Isaac and Abraham - a really disgusting story. I don't believe in any God, but if I did believe in the Christian or Jewish God I would despise and fear rather than worship him, I'm afraid.

[Chandra]

someway I feel that the image of God depend in what we and our contemporaries made out of him. For example the image of God of the middle ages was a terrible punishing God while the one we have today is the one of a loving father. Similarly, people tend to put a great emphasis in certain characteristics of the time, maybe the time of Isaac and Abraham was one where a very "strict" figure was worshiped, I don't imagine that being accepted in our days either.

[pantomimEDAMe]

I'm not a churchgoer but I think the Christian argument would be that God is in the actions of those trying to help others. Not sure if my understanding of CofE theology is correct, but aren't natural disasters something that happen as a result of the expulsion from Eden? Clearly very, very hard to reconcile this with a loving God, so I'll be very interested to hear what believers have to say.

[Chandra]

Why do we need to blame somebody for something that we can't control?

[JanH]

If you believe in god, then you believe that god made the earth with all its imperfections (and man with all his) and that always seems to let him off the hook nicely.

I tend to believe that man made god, which pretty much covers things the other way. Like aloha, I find the Christian/Jewish god a fairly vengeful creature and can live happily without him.

[MarsLady]

maybe because blame allows us to make sense of something

[aloha]

I don't blame anyone for an earthquake or a tsunami. It's just nature, which is not sentient. There may be some questions to ask about warnings etc, but unlike, say, 9/11, there isn't anyone to blame for the disaster itself.

[SueW]

why do we need to blame anyone? why does it have to be someone's fault?

[myermay]

Message withdrawn

[Chandra]

PRobably in the case of a natural disaster we may look for natural causes? movement of tectonic plates rather than the will of a god?

After all if the effect of evoulution is so widely accepted "over" the Adam and Eve story... why we can't just blame this on natural causes?

[KateandtheElves]

I guess that's what I'm not clear on. I always thought that people believe that God micromanages everything. In other words, He would personally push the tetonic plates together to cause an earthquake. But are you saying that God originally created the world, and then kind of left it to get on with it?

[Chandra]

Ooops a direct question... I like the storhy of Adam and Eve but don't know where to place it into the history of evolution, which I find more credible.... I would never imagine God pushing the tectonic plates... probably I'm more agnostic than I thought...

[joash]

????????????????????????

[codswallop]

I think its that god doenst intervene and that we are the makers of our own misfortunes

[KateandtheElves]

What joash?