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.

That's what faith is, believing despite everything you can see telling you otherwise. To me it's about preserving hope because once that is gone what is there? I really think that atheists envy this in religious people. This world is crap most of the time, if this was all there is then it saddens me. Also in a life and death situation after the doctors tell you there is nothing more they can do...believer or not you are likely to try calling on a higher power. Maybe it's just about accepting that we can't control anything but our own actions really..

BigBangTheory789 the ME has always been an area where there has been a lot of conflict

From tribal wars, Ottoman Empire to the now modern days wars with Israel are just to name a few

As you are Muslim you must be aware of the conflicts in the area when the Koran came about they didn't suddenly stop becuase many converted to Islam as Islam itself split

Christians and Jewish people (especially Jewish people) have been persecuted in the ME and so have the Kurdish people

Just becuase a faith might instruct followers to accept others and to treat all as equal (and that some might say is questionable in all faiths) it doesn't mean those that follow that faith are always so willing to accept other as equals

Angelreid14

but, surely, hoping something is true and it being true are different things?

I am one who thinks life with God would be more miserable, but that doesn't prove God doesn't exist. what we want has no affect on what is.

mellast which 'religious people'? I read a letter from the pope the other day where someone had asked him something like this and he said I don't know. He doesn't claim to know everything. Are you telling me you've asked other religious people 'why does god allow cancer' and they smile beatifically and say 'because he's all-loving'?

You lumping together all religious people and saying we claim to have the answer to everything is as ignorant as me saying all atheists are arrogant and think they are more intelligent than the rest of us. I'm sure not ALL of you think like that. Just some of the ones I know.

Just becuase a faith might instruct followers to accept others and to treat all as equal (and that some might say is questionable in all faiths) it doesn't mean those that follow that faith are always so willing to accept other as equals

the problem is when faith tells people to treat others worse. To varying degrees (and those degrees matter), religions privilege their own members.

You said that in order to become a proper person, you require free will. But that free will comes at a cost (usually to other people). Take away free will (but also all the suffering) and you are not a proper person. Therefore you must be willing to let other people suffer in order to become a proper person. What would you choose?

Mellast is right in also saying that while free will accounts for all of the man-made misery, what about the stuff that isn't caused by our choices? Could god not have been a little kinder with all of the diseases or Stephen Fry's eye-burrowing parasite? In fact why throw that in at all ? Even if we all got together to rid the world of hunger, it's not going to stop all the non man-made misery in the world.

I am also very open to the fact that there are many things that we do not know and I have no understanding of - I'm just not going to go around making up stuff to fill the gaps in my knowledge.

Finally, If it's not a choice between autonomy and the holocaust, then what is the choice between - surely you have been arguing that very point? Either we have the choice to make any horrible decisions or we have no true free will at all? Our free will led to the holocaust - god could have stepped in but chose not to, presumably to preserve it. I'd be quite happy to give up some of my free will to stop that kind of stuff happening - seems like the human thing to do.

I would also say there is a difference between having faith and believing in God to a certain extent. I believe in God but I don't belive in churches or organised religion. I don't go to mass or a 3 hour pentecostal revival to feel the presence of God. That's where you go to congregate. I talk to God like he can hear me in my kitchen after a bad day, I ask for a break from a bad situation I feel I can't control. I get angry and frustrated at times but the key is to ask... have faith and when you recieve to be thankful.

You say you don't believe interfering in someone's actions removes their free will. If your dog bites people and you muzzle it thereafter, is it then not biting people because of free will or our actions?
If a serial killer is put in prison do they stop killing people because of their free will or because of our actions?
Of course we can affect free will.

I read a letter from the pope the other day where someone had asked him something like this and he said I don't know. He doesn't claim to know everything.

I am glad he doesn't claim to know everything. But even if he did, would people call his bluff?

I am not saying that people know why god allows cancer (clearly they don't). I am saying that (some) people (adherents to abrahamic religions) claim god is all loving, knowing and powerful. How they know that is unclear, but it's endlessly claimed nonetheless.

I am saying given that "knowledge", how do we have cancer? and if you don't know, how do you square that with god's "known" properties.

If a serial killer is put in prison do they stop killing people because of their free will or because of our actions?

a jailed serial killer still has the will to kill, he just doesn't have the means. that's different.

Angelreid - I totally do envy religious people and their ability to put aside rational thought and believe in something fantastic. It must be great if you really can believe in this stuff - such a comfort in a confusing world. It is hard to live with the belief that we just wink out when we die and there is no life after death - it's scary. Thing is, I just can't do it - I'm just not capable of turning off that part of my brain that requires something other than a warm feeling and wishful thinking to believe in something. I can totally see why people would want to though.

messiah your logic isn't making sense to me.

Which freedoms do you propose we should sacrifice in order to prevent genocide ever happening again? I think you are confused about what I mean by free will or you have tied yourself up in knots a bit.

Do you not believe you currently have free will? Even though you don't believe in God? What's stopping you? I don't understand what you're saying.

So mellast his will is ineffective. He can't do anything with it. What's the point in him having it?

That's what I mean about god giving free will then stepping in whenever people get it wrong. It wouldn't really be free will in the true spirit of what that phrase means.

mellast yes I agree it is questionable

But, in any case, I will happily grant your interpretation of free will.

but surely just a little creative thinking on god's part is needed to help those people without trampling on people's free will. Just beam down some food? Make it rain? create lots of plants that don't need a lot of water? He's God! In fact, he doesn't need to be that creative at all. Just create the same natural conditions that have allowed other people in other parts of the world have enough food.

humans help other humans daily. They don't need to interfere with free will, even by your definition, to do it.

So mellast his will is ineffective. He can't do anything with it. What's the point in him having it?

I don't think there is a point to him having it. that is, I don't think there is a reason why we have free will. We just do. the point is he still has free will, and our serial killer (I am sure we could have come up with a happier example, but here we are), will not only have the will to kill when freed, but also the means.

You must agree there is a distinction between having the will to do something and having the means? I have the means to do a lot of things I don't have the will to do, and I have the will to do a lot of things that I don't have the means to do. they are different.

Again - we have got enough food. We don't need to grow anymore or beam anything down. We throw shitloads of it away as it is. We need to stop being selfish cunts and wasting tons of it here while people starve to death elsewhere.

I remember reading a book written by a holocaust survivor: he observed that people who coped best had some kind of belief in so etching outside themselves and that many turned to faith. Countless people in the most hideous of circumstances have found it has been faith that has sustained them through this. Now; you could then say that's because they had nothing else so faith was simply a crutch, or you might in fact make the observation that their faith was something more: it enriched them. And to say that people in these situations cling onto something because of suffering and thus are irrational and deluded is supremely arrogant; these people may say that they have thought about it very thoroughly and come to that place despite, rather than because of, their situation.

Hope is not a bad thing. Hope is needed in these circumstances; if hope is sustaining this woman then why snatch that hope? It's like telling eighteenth century slaves to stop singing their spirituals and holding out for the great by-and-by - telling them instead that this life is all we have and thus we should make the most of it.

It's my observation that people in situations of great suffering have glimpsed the reality of pure evil and the result of human free will at its worst, and therefore lean on something which is pure good for the one necessitates the other. I believe in God, firmly and wholeheartedly. I'm lying here in abject pain from chronic disease I've had all my life. Does this make my perception skewed, my rationality irrational? Perhaps, but all I can relate is my experience of a God of great compassion, a God who loves fiercely and utterly and radically and who weeps at the suffering of this woman.

Do I have answers for why? Not really. But I believe because of my experience and because I believe Christianity is well founded and rational.

I'm not sure what is confusing? You are saying that god doesn't step in to prevent horrible things in order that we might have free will (i.e the choice to stuff without gods interference). I'm saying that I would happily welcome some interference, especially in truly awful events, even if it meant I did not truly have free will.

What do you understand as free will then? As a non-believer I don't recognise it as a concept that applies to me so I'm trying to approach it from the way you understand it - may be I have that wrong though.

Also, why is free will so important that it is worth so much suffering that god could otherwise prevent? You say to become a proper person, but I'm not sure that god occasionally stepping in would make us any less 'proper' - is my child less 'proper' because I don't let him stick his fingers in the plug socket? Personally I'd welcome a bit of benevolent dictatorship from an omnipotent deity sometimes.

Again - we have got enough food. We don't need to grow anymore or beam anything down. We throw shitloads of it away as it is. We need to stop being selfish cunts and wasting tons of it here while people starve to death elsewhere.

We should certainly stop being selfish. I agree that we should help those people and by helping those people we would alleviate their suffering.

But that's different from our selfishness being the cause of their starvation. We aren't stealing their food (well, in this case we aren't).

Of course, your answer using free will has nothing to say about the situation 100 years ago when we didn't have enough food (or certainly the technology to get everyone the food).

But what people are suggesting is that god removes the means, wherever he feels it is appropriate, thus rendering the will completely ineffective.

Yes sure have free will, think whatever you want, you're free to do it, but I'm going to stop you.

Yep you can do that, but I'm going to reverse it. You're free to think you can do it though! Nice idea.

Yep sure, that one you can do too, except in June, I don't like that happening in June. And not if you live in London.

If you believe in God giving free will, what's the point of him giving it under such restrictive covenants. It doesn't MEAN anything in that scenario. Either we as humans are free to run our own lives or we're controlled and everything is pre destined.

100 years ago - like the Irish potato famine for example? We didn't have the technology to get food from England to Ireland then?

Or we did, and we were just as selfish then as now.

Anyway I'm off to bed, enjoy this circular discussion as much as you can on your own

Why is it either total freedom or total pre-destination? Why can't some things be controlled, but within certain boundaries (just like raising children).

Hope is not a bad thing.

Hope is also not observation, or reason, or experimentation - the only tools we have to know more about the world.

We can hope all we want for things. But hoping doesn't make them so.

But what people are suggesting is that god removes the means, wherever he feels it is appropriate, thus rendering the will completely ineffective.

as I said, god doesn't need to remove free will or even shackle people physically to get those people food. How about a river? Like the danube? He did it before in Europe, why not africa? Everyone still has their free will, and the people in africa have a river. Win-win.

100 years ago - like the Irish potato famine for example? We didn't have the technology to get food from England to Ireland then?

Was the potato blight a result of our free will? who willed that into existence? I actually doubt england had the technology to ship food to ireland at that time, but let's assume they did. What about India or Africa? england certainly didn't have the technology get all those people the food.

Or just back up another 100 years. Our history, as evidenced by our biology, is full of times when food was not plentiful. Free will wasn't the problem then.