To not understand how these people still believe in God

[Deskboundsally]

ITV news just now reporting on the drought in Somalia. Children dying from starvation, cholera and dehydration. One woman who has lost 7 children. Another woman with a baby in a ramshackle hospital bed, literally skin and bones. The worst drought in 100 years and still they believe Allah will come and help them.

How? How do people have that kind of faith? In the face of dying children, dead crops and cattle and presumably god/allah whomever could just make it rain....how do they still believe that he's going to intervene or even that he's actually real?

Is it some extreme brainwashing that you can only see if you're on the outside? I genuinely do not get it.

Which is why I love the ancient mythologies. They did not shy away from showing awesome but also flawed and petty gods. Far more realistic imo.

Stephen Fry puts my thinking into words here..
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11381589/Watch-Stephen-Fry-brands-God-utterly-utterly-evil.html

The newly married broadcaster was asked what he would do if he found himself at the “pearly gates” after his death.

"I'll say: bone cancer in children, what's that about?” he said.

"How dare you. How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that's not our fault? It’s not right. It's utterly, utterly evil.

"Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?"

"Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. Why? Why did you do that to us? It is simply not acceptable.

Good grief op! That poor woman has lost everything else why on earth would you want to take her faith? It is all she has left and you and your fellow atheists want to take that....why? What else can you give her right here right now? Nothing? Then leave it alone. Her belief does not diminish your lack of belief

Notthemessiah sorry, but tough luck, you already do.

Of course our lives and deaths are dependent on other people's free will already. Free will of those who vote people into power. Free will of those in power. Free will of the person sitting next to you on the train not to blow it up. We are on the bloody brink of another world war, how do you think you live and die solely by your own decisions? No man is an island.

The whole point of free will is that he is not 'making' people suffer because of other people's decisions. As I said, if you believe in God and free will you must also see that a deity could not step in every time free will didn't go 'the right way' a) because the right way is going to be different depending on who you are, what you think, where you live and b) because that would remove all consequences, and therefore make free will irrelevant.

user1234567 you asked who is berating God
In my opinion, their god is a cunt
if God exists, he is deeply flawed, and sometimes a bit of an asshole.
God is a sadist seemingly.

There you go

Some people aren't very good at understanding people not like themselves. Some just don't want to. This is seen on threads on MN where an OP will claim to not understand a particular viewpoint and when it's explained, instead of taking that on board, will post a lot of "yeah, but..." responses.

My df died slowly in considerable pain. He had a horrific childhood but found religion and was a good man. I remember him going to an elderly neighbours house every time there was heavy rain as the sewers would overflow into her house. He would be wading through the shit trying to stop it getting into her house. Above and beyond normal neighbourly kindness.

His suffering made my dm cling to her faith but made me reject it. I can't make the free will arguments stack up although I desperately wanted to share my df's faith.

A loving god would not allow such suffering. It doesn't make sense.

@ExPresidents, please, inventing things people have said is surely beneath you.

alltouchedout I'm sorry you find the mention of free will offensive, I'm not sure I understand why

I don't find it offensive (I find your pretending I did to be quite offensive, however, as well as ridiculous). I said I found it an inadequate response to people questioning why a supposedly omnipotent god allows such suffering yet expects to be worshipped. I will happily repeat myself to you every time you pretend I actually said something else entirely .

I actually wonder how people in developed countries believe that God answers prayers when they see people like that suffering. So God decided to answer their prayers for their son to pass his driving test and just ignored that woman's prayers for food/her children's lives?

Because their faith is probably the only thing helping them get through their shit life. Believing that something better awaits them is a lot better than believing that life is crap and that's the end...

ExPresidents

I didn't say I wasn't at the mercy of other peoples decisions - I obviously am (as are we all). I'm just saying 'free will' is a piss poor excuse for those who believe in god to explain why such horrible things happen to people who don't deserve it. It's also a piss poor reason for a supposedly benevolent deity to allow it to happen - you have to admit it's a fairly shit system for him/her/it to come up with. Fairly sure I could come up with something better that still allows for people to make mistakes without starving infants to death and I'm no god - doesn't such much about their ability does it.

I assume you are playing devil's advocate though, given your last post (credit for taking a tricky position as there really isn't a decent argument to make here - or at least one that doesn't make god out to be an even bigger arsehole ).

alltouchedout what a weird overreaction to me saying 'offensive' as opposed to 'inadequate'. A thousand apologies for misquoting you my dear. I hope you're able to overcome the offence you are NOW feeling. Please do feel free to repeat yourself as often as you like, I'm sure you only become more interesting upon re-reading

I second BarbarianMum.

'God' doesn't mean nice chap who makes sure everything goes well.

Interesting that God/Allah is blamed when if humanity shared the world's resources of food, medication etc fairly there would be enough to go round. Maybe those of us who use far more than our share should accept some of the blame.

notthemessiah WHY is it piss poor though?

Can we agree, for example, that there is enough food in the world to go around, so that no one is hungry?

If so, why are people hungry? It boils down to the fact that people choose to be arseholes. That much is true.

So if you believe in God, you believe he has (for example) provided us with the means of feeding everyone on earth. We don't, because some of us are greedy and selfish and power hungry. We COULD, if we all chose to do so.

It's like, I don't want my DC to smoke because it's fucking awful for them and bad for other people and the world in general. I tell them not to smoke. I beg them not to smoke. I break their cigarettes when I find them and stop their pocket money. I don't allow them to socialise with friends who smoke. I show them videos of people dying from lung cancer.

But at the end of it all, they smoke. I cannot walk with them through life watching them every second to stop them smoking. Do I love them any less? Absolutely bloody not. Do I accept they have free will and if they're going to kill themselves I can't stop them? Yeah.

The above is not true btw - my kids are not old enough to know what a fag is. But I hope it illustrates my point that you can be a loving parent providing all the right choices and information but you can't force people to make them.

God has give everyone free will so if we choose to starve ourselves to death its our choice. This women is just exercising the free will that her God has given her.

What a stupid thing to say Anon.

I think anon you have somewhat missed the point.

ExPresidents

That's all very well if you see 'humanity' as one large group, collectively making bad decisions (like not feeding everyone) but we aren't. Most decisions on anything approaching this kind of scale (feed the world, stop war) are made by a tiny, and every shrinking, minority or elite. It is therefore fatuous to say that 'we' have the free will to do these things because most of us don't and presumably, god being god, he/she/it designed us this way.

Most people don't choose to be arseholes.

Most people would, given the choice, feed the world but unfortunately not all and therefore it does not happen - blaming everyone and allowing massive suffering of those not even capable of even understanding (i.e. children) for the failure not to do so is, in my opinion, a pretty piss poor thing to do, especially for a deity.

By your example, the similar thing would be to inflict cancer on your children's friends, not because they smoked, but because your children did (and the friends weren't even aware of it at the time.) Doesn't sound much like a loving parent to me.

I was pointing out how ridiculous it is to say any god has given us free will. Its a stupid thing to say.

Perhaps if this woman had not spent her life putting her faith in a god saving her, she would have been able to work on more sensible solutions to her situation.

notthemessiah if the majority of people in the world, the overwhelming majority, want an end to world poverty and starvation, how are we not making it happen? We all (humanity as a collective) need to do more to force that tiny minority to agree, if that's really the case.

We are allowing this system to continue and voting these people into power. Vive la revolution and all that.

And to come back to your response on the smoking example - if my children's friends got cancer passively from my kids smoking - would it be my fault as a parent from not following him round taking the cigarettes from his mouth every waking second for his whole entire life? Or my child's, for choosing to smoke around his friends despite knowing the risks?

anon the only person blaming this woman for her own fate is you, then

if this woman had not spent her life putting her faith in a god saving her, she would have been able to work on more sensible solutions to her situation

Do you honestly believe that??

Perhaps if this woman had not spent her life putting her faith in a god saving her, she would have been able to work on more sensible solutions to her situation.

The most callous remark I have ever read.

Oh yes, if she didn't have faith she could undo hundreds of years of colonialism, civil war and droughts.

It doesn't work that way.

ExPresidents

Remember, in this example your children's friends don't know they even smoke - no passive smoking here.

Humanity is not a collective. Treating us as one while creating us to think and act in almost exactly the opposite way is therefore god's greatest trespass against us (or it would be if either god or their 'free will' existed anyway).

Anyway, it is vanishingly unlikely but it cannot be ruled out that god does exist and thinks in exactly this way. That he likes creating impossible targets and then punishing people before they even have a chance not to live up to them. That he could step in but chooses not to because, well, where is the lesson in that, despite the fact that we have spectacularly failed for thousands of years already (and have no real idea what we supposed to be aiming for anyway so that the punishment will stop). That he creates us as individuals but then punishes us for our individuality.

If so, would you really want to spend eternity with a being like that? Would you love and worship them? How is it different to an an abusive spouse who beats you but then tells you it's your fault. They don't enjoy it, but the beating is all for your own good and it will make you a better person in the long run. God therefore is just an abusive husband, but on a cosmic scale and yet some people love and worship him - that's just messed up.