The Book of Job

[Machadaynu]

I mentioned my thoughts on The Book of Job in the 'Back to Church' thread, and it was suggested that I start a new thread about it. So here it is.

The story of the book of Job is (to quote myself from the other thread):

God is chatting to Satan and mentions how Job is his best follower and would never lose faith. Satan essentially has a bet with God that Job would turn on God if his life wasn't so great. God, for some reason, accepts this deal with the proviso that Satan doesn't kill Job. It's not explained why God is chewing the fat with Satan rather than, say, destroying him completely, what with God being omnipotent and Satan being pure evil.

Anyway, Satan sends all sorts of illness to Job, kills all his animals, destroys his farm and kills his entire family. God, being omniscient, knew this would happen when he took on the bet - he knew Job would suffer, and he knew Job would remain true to him. Quite why he needed to prove this to Satan (pure evil, remember) is something of a mystery.

In the end God gives Job twice as many animals as before, and 10 new children, including 3 daughters that were prettier than the ones God allowed Satan to kill.

Christians see this as a story of how faith is rewarded (even if you're only suffering because God is trying to prove a point to Satan) I see it as a story of how God will use us as he sees fit, is insecure and vain and is apparently either unable, or unwilling, to resist being influenced by Satan.

I contrast God's treatment of Job, his wife and children - all "God's children" used as pawns in a game, and suffering terribly for it - and wonder what we'd make of a human father treating his children in such a way. I expect the MN opinion would be rather damning to say the least. Yet when God does it, it becomes an inspiring story, and God is love, apparently.

Christians, I am told, see the book as a lesson in why the righteous suffer. The answer, it seems, is that their all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent holy father is sometimes prone to abandoning people to the worst excesses of Satan to try and prove some kind of point to God knows who.

Seems odd to me. God does not show love in that story. God shows himself to be deeply unpleasant. Or not God.

What are your views on Job?

What do you mean by renounced? Do I believe their is a god who was ever interested in me or any other human? Not now. Just can't reconcile people who believe that with the reality of the world. Believers coming on here saying 'I feel god is directing me to attend a different church to my current one' while babies starve. That's just abhorrent to me. To think that I used to think this all powerful force was interested in the minutia of my life while
unspeakable things happen to swathes of people day in day out. I don't like to offend but I am disgusted with myself that I thought he gave a crap about me but not millions in the third world. Somehow I justified it. Don't know how. I think it's why I haunt these boards. I want to know how I thought it was okay that he was poking about in my life and giving me daily guidance while children are raped.

You are not offending me.

I have been trying to find what I want to say in the bible but I cant find it for now.
Somewhere it says that after you have become a Christian, if you throw it away,you cannot reenter,as you have tasted the Heavenly Banquet or somesuch,and thrown it away. At least,that is how I read that particular passage. In short,if you say to God ,thanks but no thanks,that is it. But if you say,and even say for many years "hang on,I'm not so sure about x y and z,",that is ok.

But night I can see how nice it is to think what you think but there's no evidence. There's no evidence that god hears the prayers of people suffering any quicker than anyone else's. Is he a bit deaf? As I said there are many instances of people on here thanking god for answering their prayer about their kid sleeping well last night etc. So it seems god has no trouble seeing to the minor stuff. How come there are so many more people suffering real life and death stuff in poorer countries? If god had some hierarchy to the order of prayers he deals with why would the quality of life be so vastly disproportionate according to different countries etc?

But million what else is a barbaric, middle eastern, bronze aged religious text going to say? It's hardly going to advocate critical thinking is it!

headinhands you are doing a great job. I just wish I had the time and intellect to respond as thoughtfully as you have done.

I do believe in a divine energy behind the Universe, I just don't think it is particularly bothered by what we do. I do like the suggestion that we are the Divine exploring its own existence, and as a hedonist I quite enjoy that thought because it makes it okay to experience all the wonderful things that life offers.

Like you, I can't get my head around why a loving God would allow such suffering to exist. And don't any Christian pipe up with promises of an after-life because that just smacks of a regime that says "Put up with all this shit because it doesn't matter as you get Paradise when you die". What a great way to control the masses.

I also think the "kill lots of people but truly repend on your deathbed and you get into heaven" versus "did a lot of good in the world but never believed so is going to hell" is a crock of shit. I feel very sorry for those Christians who believe that everybody except their breed of Christianity is going to hell. What a sad way to live your life.

There are several places in the bible that indicate that not all people are able to go to Heaven.

Chrisitians dont like the suffering of others any more,or even more than non Christians. It is awful. Some Christians would like to leave earth early.

Do you think I want to be sat here doing this right now? No. Sometimes I do,but other times I dont. But I have an obligation. Christians are not allowed to judge non Christians, and we do not have much of an idea who might end up in Heaven and who wont. So we talk to all non Christians equally.

I get sickened by the whole suffering thing too, headinhands, and get cross at Christians (including myself) who often don't do anything about it. Part of Jesus' ministry and example was to look after the poor, and his followers should be taking this very, very seriously. Many do, and it's heartening to see the number of churches involved in alleviating this suffering.

Also, I understand your abhorrence to someone saying that God answered their prayer about a parking space or whatever, when there are babies dying in the third world. However, upon talking with people in the third world, many, many of them say that God answers their prayers in amazing ways, and that they firmly believe in a God of love and justice. So I feel kind of arrogant in a way if I say that God does not concern Godself about the small things, when in people's lives across history and in the most hellish of conditions their experience has been that God does. It's difficult...

I wish I had the answer to the suffering thing, here and now. This was on my mind the other night. I have lung disease and and had an attack, the pain was so very bad I wanted to be knocked out, I did not know what to do with myself, it was absolutely horrendous - very difficult to describe. I was crying and screaming at God, asking God to take it away and why God allows pain and suffering, while knowing my pain is so little compared to so much of the suffering in the world. A friend prayed with me and the pain disappeared, evaporated, while a warmth came over me, and a whisper, like it's ok, keep with it. It was a few minutes in the storm of a consciousness of God loving in the midst of it. Then the pain came back, and went on another 2 hours before I got some relief. What was that all about? Was it a God who'd cruelly ease pain then send it back, just for a giggle like, or was it a God giving a moments reassurance, that there is all this crap in the world, but God is there in it with us? I know this is all very subjective, and could be construed as coincidence, whatever else, but it is moments like this that Christians all over the world would testify to as a peace, a knowledge that God is there and is so, so concerned, and that little things do matter.

Not that I understand it all...but I find myself still so utterly compelled by it, so satisfied to the depths of who I am.

mad you can't change statistics. Someone further down said god does answer the more serious prayers quickly. Facts do no support that at all. If god is meddling in the lives of people in desperately poor countries why are the figures for infant mortality etc always so much lower than the west. To look at the statistics there is nothing supernatural going on. It looks like no god is involved. There's no evidence of miracles anywhere. That's the upshot. Believe in god by all means but don't claim he is a hands on one as there is not one shred of evidence.

Maybe madhairday that your act of praying was a form of meditation which allowed your mind to combat the pain signals. There is a lot of pain research that shows the brain has a huge amount of power to reduce the pain signals it receives. Hypnobirthing for example.

I don't have any quibble with people using forms of prayer or meditation to help them to find the strength internally to deal with difficulties or suffering, or even little daily trifles, but the idea that some people get special favours doled out by some Devine being because they perform a certain ritual so that Devine being sees them as special and deserving, is something I find deeply unattractive.

I also wonder how people of religion perceive god apparently granting prayers to people who don't believe in god?

I had a situation a few years ago where I had worked really hard for years to complete my professional qualification, and soon before I was due to complete it, I had a stroke of misfortune that threatened to mean I could never get it completed. Years of hope and hard work would have come to nothing. I put in a huge amount of physical effort (sending out dozens of letters and CV) and calling everyone I could possibly think of to ask for favours. I even sent a mental plea to my deceased grandfather who had worked in the same profession to ask for some help. Eventually, I got a break, and one organisation went outside their normal procedures to help me, and in the end it worked out better than what I had planned in the first place.

If I was religious, I would undoubtedly said that my prayers had been answered. As I am not, I reason that it mostly came good because I had done all that I needed to do to make it happen, perhaps with a stroke of good luck that there were people who were prepared to be generous and try to help me.

If you are religious, would you say that I had prayers that were answered? If so, why would God answer prayers of someone who has no belief? If it was just a case of my own efforts and good luck, then does that mean that non-religious people are just luckier than those who are religious, as people with religion need to have Devine interference to have good things happen, whereas good things just 'happen' to people who don't believe?

mad I'm glad you got some comfort from your prayer but how do you cope with the dissonance? That god was soothing your pain while simultaneously ignoring the pleas of a mother whose child is dying. I wouldn't want to love a god like that. Honestly, just tell me you look at that and think 'fair enough'?

I wouldn't really say I got comfort from it, more an inner kind of reassurance. I knew perfectly well I have a chronic illness that is degenerating. I find a peace in knowing God is with me; that doesn't mean I don't struggle with why stuff happens. People I know find the same in even the worst of circumstances. It's subjective and impossible to quantify, thus not a logical argument in and of itself. I do not think that I performed any kind of 'ritual' which released divine blessing, not at all, I know God is not like that, I can see that because of what Jesus is like. I wouldn't want to worship any god like that either, or one who soothes one pain while ignoring another. My own stance on it is that there is a tension, a now and not yet. That the complete perfection of how things are meant to be and will be, the end of suffering, the justice that encompasses all things, is glimpsed, echoes of what will be almost.

Aware this is all somewhat un pin downable...

That's it, though. Experience. For me, my faith is both intellectually rigorous and emotionally and spiritually satisfying at great depth.

Thistledew having a ponder on your interesting question - first response is that God is much bigger than we think and does stuff we cannot comprehend, and is much more far reaching. We cannot put God in our pocket and fit God into our cosy way of thinking. 'Prayer' for me is more communion with God than expecting problems to be solved (though have to say God does do stuff, amazingly sometimes...) but who am I to say that God doesn't intervene in stuff and in people who don't know it...happy to be open on this one.

You can't have it both ways mad. You're claiming to simultaneously know and not know. On one hand you're saying 'god does this and that for me' and then 'god is all mysterious and we can't fathom him'. The goal posts are all over the place and are moved every time a counter argument is levied.

Christians, I am told, see the book as a lesson in why the righteous suffer. The answer, it seems, is that their all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent holy father is sometimes prone to abandoning people to the worst excesses of Satan to try and prove some kind of point to God knows who.

This is why I cannot commit myself to any Abrahamic religion. I find this show of "love" to complete contradict love. To me it conveys that people are unimportant, disposable, pawns in a soap opera. Even if that kind of god existed, I can't for the life of me think why anyone would bother to worship someone who values them so little.

Oops first para' was meant to be a quote of initial post

God values Christians and potential Christians hugely.
And yes,we may need to be disciplined,which may involve suffering.
In this case,Job didnt need to be diciplined. But even then he was used by God.
Yes I do sometimes feel like a pawn. Actually, I more often feel like a puppet on a string. But I understand why He does it and needs to do it. Though sometimes we only get to find out at a later date,which can be frustrating.

I don't think the value comes across in these tales. If we are used as pawns or puppets then it seems more like our purpose is entertainment.

Many that do not have any need to be "disciplined" are.

amillion how do you treat the people you really value?

I love them. I care for them. I listen to them. I value them. I look out for them. I try and protect them. I discipline them. I sometimes have to point out their mistakes.

Right I am going to have to post something I dont really want to post,and for which I will get blasted.
And some Christians may not agree with me to boot.

There is the parable of the weeds.
There is also a verse in the bible that says something like, "God also made the wicked for the day of trouble."

I do not believe that everyone is able to go to Heaven.
But I dont know who is,and who isnt.
I cannot look into people's hearts.

A honest questions for Christians.

How do you feel about what amillionyears said
"God also made the wicked for the day of trouble."

Personally I don't understand how someone who gives "choice" also "made wicked". If god made wicked are we at fault for our sins? Are we somehow meant to defy the wicked god made us? This kind of thing just confuses me.

I agree amillon sometimes we do have to discipline our kids and maybe point out errors in other peoples thinking. What is a fair way to do that?