Ask Miranda a theological question!

[miranda2]

Since the other thread is getting long, I thought I'd start another in case anyone was still interested. (Am I mad??....) Won't be offended if no-one posts!!

Brief point about ' bad ' things in the world, suffering etc.
Who causes the suffering? We do.
Why, you ask, doesn't God stop it or prevent it from happening? He gave us free will, to do good or bad. If God stepped in every time to stop something from happening, what would be the point of free will?
If you want to change the world, start with yourself.

don't normally wade into these debates, but...

We don't cause all of the suffering. Childbirth, disease, natural disaters etc are all beyond humankind's control.

Also, who is 'we' - I didn't herd children into concentration camps, or invent malaria. Did 'we' cause malaria? What about babies who die of horrible genetic diseases - are 'we' to blame for that? Or for volcanos erupting? The free will argument doesn't cover the victims IMO. The children who were gassed or starved or experimented on in concentration camps weren't there out of their free will, were they?

Why does God think women should be subjected to their husbands? What sort of mind does our creator have that he is so obviously unreasonable?

I think I'll back out of this one before I upset anybody, as I'm not sure about this question either! I know that most of the suffering in the world is due to us, but as for the rest....I know there is a theological answer, but I don't think I know enough to go into it and I don't want to give the wrong answer!

KS, I just don't believe it is true. Like I don't believe in Zeus, or Thor or goblins. I am certainly interested in why people believe and why it is so important to people. I don't want to die tomorrow but have no interest in living for all eternity either.

But are you fundimentalist agnostic or reform?

Why do people believe,ks? It's down to Man creating God, isn't it? "Someone watching over me"?

If god created everything then why did he give humans free will to do good or evil as we choose? If s/he is so good, why not restrict human beings to only being good? This idea of a being creating everything then giving free will to humans and then punishing them for using the ability for being evil makes it sound like the world was created as some sort of experiment/game by god.

Looks like we've scared miranda off!

Message withdrawn

Has no-one mentioned dinosaurs yet?

Re suffering: yes mankind does have free will. A murderer can choose whether or not to kill, they can choose good over evil just as we can. No-one has the right, even for a murderer, to step in and take away their free will. It is a choice we can all make. Why do some people choose to dedicate their lives to others? Why do some people choose to put their own lives at risk to save others? You can't take away their choices just as much as you can't take away the murderer's choices.

A lot of natural disasters are due to mankind meddling with nature. It has been proved that freak weather has been on the upsurge since the global warming threat came to light. This is a case of man reaping the consequences of their actions. Yes innocent people do die and it is awful, but we can't make it so that only the horrible people die in these disasters. Nature is not selective.

God is not sexist. Ruth was a respected female prophet, and there were others. Plus to whom did Jesus first reveal his true identity? It was to a Samaritan woman at the well. A woman who admitted that she was sleeping around. He didn't judge her or condemn her, he had a theological discussion with her - he respected her! The way I read these things, I think God is asking us to respect each other, male and female.

I believe in God, or a highter intelligence, because I believe that we are so different. Man does have this struggle with good and evil, none of the other animal species does, so what makes us so different? We have consciences, intricate relationships, morals, etc. Yes you can call that evolution, but how come no other animal species have evolved in this way? And we are surrounded by tiny miracles in nature all the time, the result of a big bang? Nature smacks of a higher intelligence, not just some unknown chemicals from nowhere banging into each other in space. Also I feel him sometimes in day to day life. You can put that down to psychology, but I sometimes get a surge of hidden strength when I'm at my lowest, a kind word from a stranger or some written words that leap out at me from a book. I've also have a voice in my head, a voice that is reassuring and calm and comforting. All of this is personal to me, if it happened to an atheist they would put it down as something else. Faith is like that, it is personal and not something you can learn. This thread is great for theological debate, but noone will be converted on here because of faith, you need faith to believe. And for some people that is just too much, it's not scientific, or logical, there is no evidence for it and it is very easy to dismiss. But there you go, maybe we all need a little magic in our lives!

Just to add to what Rhubarb said, I think faith also transforms people - former drug addicts would be an obvious example but there are much more sutble ways transformation takes place. Faith has a very practical outworking which for me shows that it is more than just something created by man.
I would also agree that questions can be asked forever but that eventually a leap of faith is required. Think of the parable of the prodigal son. The son makes the move to go back to his father but before he is even half way there the father (God) runs to greet him. There is a short cut through all these questions which is just to ask God to show you the truth.

I hope you won't be offended by this, bloss, because it's a kind of twisted compliment in a way but for me your writing on Christianity is always a stark reminder of why I shall try never, ever to catch the religion bug. There you are, clearly an articulate, intelligent woman with normally liberal moral instincts. And then there is this awful stumbling block - for reasons I don't understand, though, believe me, I have tried, you actually believe the words in the bible to be binding on your life, trumping and crushing all clashing moral instincts of your own. Instead of concluding that some of the ancient teachings of the bible could be difficult to apply, or even lead to acting in ways that may be silly, inappropriate or plain wrong in our modern age, you believe that your liberal instincts cannot be right and search for ways to twist, reconcile or subdue these to the bible's message as you see it. I shudder to see your feminism and your tolerance of sexual orientation, for example, so reconciled/subdued because I think the world is a slightly worse place with your thinking on these issues changed.

But the trouble is that in some ways I see your interpretation as the logical conclusion of a Christianity that takes the bible as its starting point. And surely the bible IS integral to Christianity- you either more or less "buy" what the bible says in all its inadequacy (IMO) and thus are a Christian who follows its teachings or you don't and are not? Miranda's wishy washy liberalism with a bit of God thrown in is more attractive to me (apart from the fact that I'm an atheist so not the God bit so much) but must be hard to square with accepting the bible as a key spiritual text. Again, I'm not trying to be deliberately provocative here so much as blunt, Miranda, and would be interested to hear your thoughts.

As I say, I hope I haven't got the tone of this post terribly wrong and offended people left right and centre. I'm finding this thread v fascinating anyway.

ScummyMummy - I agree with your post so much.

ks - I am a non-believer because, after being brought up as a catholic, I felt as though everything became clearer during my 20's or so. Stopped going to mass at 18 when I left home but the indoctrination takes some time to leave - that fear that 'they' may be right after all and I may be punished for questioning/non believing. but as I have got older, it just seems so ludicrous, to me, to believe. The notion of believing in god seems as non-sensical as believing fairies etc (I know that's a cliche). and yes, like you , I am very wary of anyone who is so sure of what they believe. I'm sure that argument could be turned against me, in that I am sure that there is no god but that is an absence of belief. And even now, I still have the odd 'What if they're right' moment about god but I really don't think I would have them if I'd never been brought up as a catholic.

i agree with scummy to some degree.
i think the bible can be dangerous. it was written in an age different from ours, there are contradictions - blatent stupid contradictions. if god was writing through man the bible he would have certainly have been more accurate.

however - if you take the stories the general gist of the thing - its a good set of rules to live by - used in conjunction with common sense.

there is no way i believe adam and eve existed, i believe its a story.

i dont believe god created everything in a few days - i believe its a story that some people wanting to explain how everything came about - made up as an explaination.

i believe that god created everything though.

the bible carries good messages of how to live a good life.

*most importantly you cannot argue the bible with someone who believes its every word applies today. its is the same people who look at my view and say - you pick and chose what you want to believe - your not a "real" christian.

it is this then i would like to reiterate Religeon and faith are different

i love to discuss god and find out about different belief systems but whenever we get into this here on mumsnet it turns into one faction saying its ridiculous ( becuase of the bible usually and understandably) and one faction defending the bible and turning into preachers.

and ofcourse my opinion i the only right one here anyway!

Blimey ScummyMummy!!

I hope miranda gets through all these posts and has the energy to defend herself!

As someone who appears (to me) to be at the same end of the spectrum, I do take exception to your "wishy washy liberalism with a bit of God thrown in " description. How can an atheist comprehend someones faith or the basis for it? My faith is important to me, and I am all too aware that I still have much to learn, but I do understand where bloss is coming from, even though at present for me it is more of a gut feeling, than intellectual conviction. I take the bible, like custardo, and try to apply it to my life, where I can. I do think that some of the teachings are difficult to apply to a 21st Century world, and still hold true to "love thy neighbour as thyself", but I am open to argument. It's just that so far the "it says it in the bible, so it must be true" type of argument hasn't convinced me.

But wishy washy liberalism is a GOOD thing in my book, Tissy. I myself am wishy washy and proud. And faith is fine by me too, though you are right to remind me that as an atheist I can't comprehend it and I'm sorry if my last post was too flippant. The problem, as custy has said so well, is that religion and faith are different and I was concerned that it might be difficult to have religion- specifically in this case Christianity- and tolerance of difference as bedmates and wondered what others thought. I think you and custy are right though that there may well be enough of the bible shouting out the right messages to be going on with...

OK, misunderstood you

Poor Miranda, she's going be very busy when she looks at this thread!

Glad to see you here, bloss, eloquent wisdom, as usual.

Help - just looked at this thread!!! Haven't read it yet, am about to do so. But I don't think I'll be making much headway this evening - preaching at 8am tomorrow (first time in new church - help!), so early night needed. But maybe when I read it I'll find you've all answered each others questions already??
OK, off to the bottom to start reading...