Did God create Coronavirus?

[NowSissyThatWalk]

I'd really like to have a respectful discussion if possible!
I'm an atheist. I've seen a lot of churches etc posting on our local pages offering live services/ prayers etc.
I have to ask and I'm too scared to ask them directly
Surely if God created all, and is master of all our fates, he created Coronavirus? Or is it one of those 'We are in charge of our own destiny, he can't stop bad things from happening' situations?
Genuinely interested and hope this is taken in the vein it's intended.

You can ask Jesus, we have the four horseman of the apocalypse so there will be a second coming.

I've seen people on Facebook showing photos of them joining in an on-line prayer. Prayer seems so bizarre; it's just a wish. An extreme version of crossing ones fingers. Some people seem so excited when lots of people pray together; almost like it's a petition and if enough people join in, it will work. I understand that religion brings comfort to many; but do they ever question it?

Why is it that when things go bad god is blamed, when there good he isn’t mentioned. Some believe, some don’t but nobody usually knows.

I am a card-carrying Catholic and I find myself questioning my faith more and more.

To the argument that man caused this by his stewardship of the earth, there is the example of the Black Death in the fourteenth century. Man wasn’t destroying the earth then.

There are so many diseases that cause so much suffering, for example ALS. If God is our father, he permits terrible pain and misery.

It makes more sense to see the earth as a place where life forms are in competition to reproduce. That is why human women were doomed to have a baby a year and lose many of them at an early age. And that is why this virus is spreading - it searches for a host and then another and so on.

It is human ingenuity that has produced vaccines, medicines and painkillers. People used to endure unimaginable pain when dying. Children were paralyzed from polio and blinded by scarlet fever. Death in child-birth was common. We have forgotten how absolutely awful life used to be for most people, a back-breaking battle to get enough to eat every day.

I want Christianity to be true. I want to believe I will see my parents again and that when I die, it is not the end. But when I look at the evidence for God’s existence, I can’t find it. Prayer does not work. It provides a comfort but if you pray about everything, some of it will work out as a matter of chance.

Try asking God himself. Seriously. In prayer. If you heartfelt ask him you will get a response. Don't expect a booming voice from the heavens though, it will be guidance either from someobe you know who God uses or someone God brings to you. You might of course get the booming voice from the heavens - it's not impossible I suppose!
The bible foretells much. Psalm 91 is for a time such as this.
IMO it was created by man.

Really? Have we not moved any further on from Galileo or Dawin?
Yet still it moves...

Poor hygeine, overcrowding and globalisation caused this.

Many are putting lives on the line again because of religion.

I suggest they watch the BBC's Contagion to learn more about the Science of a virus.

I know the Pope thinks he's immortal. His actions really pissed me off as they put others at risk. To be fair, the old timer didn't catch it.

I believe in God and this is something I've been thinking about a lot over the past few days and I don't know the answer at all.

My mum is very religious and she believes God sent this. She referenced a passage in the bible that promised fire but no rain, locusts and a plague that will go when God knows we are sorry for our sins. She believes this references the Australian and South American wildfires, the locusts in East Africa and Covid-19.

If there is some kind of overarching intelligence behind creation, I don't think it would have a 'humans good' and 'viruses bad' perspective, but would be altogether less partisan about what's happening.

However, it's understandable that from a narrower human point of view it looks like a punishment from an angry anthropomorphised god, since human morality, the understanding of what constitutes good and bad, stems from an identification of actions which preserve - or don't preserve - the integrity and safety of the species.

TL;DR - It's God's fault. I reckon this fucked up world proves that if there is a God it's a bloke. No woman would fuck up a project so badly.

So for OP, what you are referring to is often called the mystery of evil. And there is an apparent contradiction. There are many responses to this, but the one that I think makes the most sense is from the creation story- man in his freedom chose evil, and this perpetuates a broken world. But why can God simply not undo this? Because if an omnipotent ex-temporal God exists, then freedom (and choice for that matter) cannot exist. So the only way that freedom can exist is if God is constantly and perpetually causing our freedom. And this is because (as St Augustine said) in freedom the choice to love God, and his Son and the redemption from this is greater than the evil suffered as a result (oh happy fault, that deserved so great a saviour). That is, the hope that God has in the redemption of man is so great that he is prepared to permit evil, because our freedom and evil are necessarily connected.

This is highlighted again in the parable Jesus told about the lost lamb- God prefers to risk the security of the 99 good lambs for the sake of the salvation of the 1 lost- just as he preferred to sacrifice His Son for the salvation of the world.

Such things are not really something we can comprehend-thus the term mystery. Not that it is a contradiction, but does anyone here understand loving others so much that you would sacrifice your own child for their sake? This is something beyond us, even if it isn't necessarily inherently contradictory.

God prefers to risk the security of the 99 good lambs for the sake of the salvation of the 1 lost- just as he preferred to sacrifice His Son for the salvation of the world.

To be honest, that sounds like a rather nasty social experiment to me.

Two of the best posts I have read on this:
m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10221589370180958&id=1154125675

mbird.com/2020/03/is-the-lord-among-us/

Why is it that when things go bad god is blamed, when there good he isn’t mentioned.

My brother always claimed the opposite. Whenever he did well in an exam, it was thanks to god whereas when he did badly it was his fault.

@LilQueenie - OchonAgusOchonO it wasn't long ago we were all made aware of it during the ebola outbreak.

Some of us were aware of an instance of that happening during the ebola outbreak. However, that would not necessarily extrapolate in most people's mind to the idea that eating any wild animal could result in something like this. People eat all types of animals, both wild and domesticated, with no problem. How is someone to know that eating a pheasant is fine but eating a bat isn't? There is no difference between the two other than what is normalised in different societies.

As @mostlydrinkstea says, this is the age old theodicy question and has been batted round a million times. As a Christian I don't pretend to find it easy, I join with many of the psalmists in scripture when they ask where God is, and then also join with them in their active decisions to remember and to trust, and find a peace beyond anything I can comprehend in doing so.

I do find the free will argument helpful, because what some are saying is in essence this: you have a child who commits a crime; therefore you caused that crime. Can this be said to be true? Possibly, in terms of how you shaped the child, but all children have their own free will to do whatever they want to do, whatever you have inputted as such.

For me, the question at present isn't about whether God caused it - as the cause of everything one could argue indirect cause - but how God responds to it and how we respond to it. As one of the 'shielded' group who got a text yesterday saying I am at serious risk I am starkly aware of the horror and reality of this and what it could mean, and my own stress and panic about it as someone with severe respiratory disease. However, having suffered pain all my life, I've come to know a God who enters into that with me because this God does not stand separate and aloof, but demonstrated this great and ultimate love in Christ's life, death and resurrection. I live in the knowledge that Jesus did not shy away from pain and suffering but took it all, every single thing, upon his body and soul on the cross, and so knows what we suffer. Instead of a God on some distant cloud-throne we have a God in the mess with us, weeping with us, weeping at the mess we've brought upon ourselves and at the pain it causes, the pain we go through.

For me, the hope I've found amidst my own pain has meant that I can take hold of something even greater than the questions that I still ask, and it's a hope that sparks joy in me even in darkness, that brings life to me even when I hurt. It's a hope which means even now, so starkly aware of my own mortality, I can say that I wait with anticipation for what will come if I do die, with longing and with a sense of knowing the pain will be done and who I am will be utterly freed and utterly fulfilled. That does not mean I eagerly embrace the possibility of death - far from it. I do not want to leave my family. I am scared of that. I am scared because I have a sore throat and chest pain today. But hope still sustains through my fear and carries me forward through my isolation.

It is human ingenuity that has produced vaccines, medicines and painkillers. People used to endure unimaginable pain when dying. Children were paralyzed from polio

Can I pick up on this actually because I think it's fascinating. There are very few examples of polio in antiquity. Polio is predominantly an infection in the gut caused by poor sanitation, only in about 0.5 % of cases does the virus affect the nervous system. Historically (pre-19th century) people were exposed to the polio virus in infancy and had some protection from their mother's milk while they developed their own immunity, continual exposure maintained immunity. There were tiny numbers who were exposed to it at later ages who then developed paralysis. However, once we introduced sanitation in cities people weren't exposed to polio in infancy at the same rate and so children started getting polio. For the majority of cases this was a mild infection of the gut. But for 1% it led to an infection of the nervous system and paralysis. So polio as we now think of it is a very modern disease (the peak of infections was the 1950s) caused by humankind's ingenuity. Not sure where a God fits in there but all our actions can have positive (clean water!) and negative (polio!) effects and it can be difficult to predict those. Who could have predicted sewers would change a mild gut infection into a disease that paralysed millions in the 20th century?

Isiah 26,20 go my people, enter your rooms and close your doors behind you. Hide for a little while until the wrath has passed.

I don't know, but there's his advice.

Devlesko, do you think this virus is punishment for our "sins" then?

I wouldn't like to say tbh. I'm a Christian and find it so interesting that whatever we are faced with, the answer is always in the Bible, somewhere.
I know we shouldn't worship more than one God, but for those that don't believe in God, maybe they think mother nature is responsible.
For whatever reason and by whoever, I think this has been sent.

It was created by Disney to coincide with the release of their new Disney streaming service......millions stuck at home with their kids their customer base just went through the roof

For whatever reason and by whoever, I think this has been sent.

Then whoever sent it is a dick.

It was created by Disney to coincide with the release of their new Disney streaming service......millions stuck at home with their kids their customer base just went through the roof

They've probably lost a lot more money with disneyland and cinemas being closed.

"And yet many people only have the gaul to recognise him when something bad happens in their lives"

The gaul? What have you got against the French?

I wouldn't like to say tbh.

It's right after the verse you quoted.

"Go, my people, enter your rooms
and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until his wrath has passed by.
See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed on it;
the earth will conceal its slain no longer."

My catholic mum always used to say "the Lord works in mysterious ways" a handy, catch all and meaningless platitude..

@OneFootintheRave

Ah not so bad! Kept many a woman sane in the old days, I expect. They had a lot to deal with.