insulting religions

[IneedAgoldenNickname]

Hi, I've never posted on this topic before, I tend to hang out in aibu, but don't want to start a bun fight!

So, I am a liberal Christian. I firmly believe that everyone had to right to believe (or not) whatever they want, provided that belief doesn't hurt anyone else.

Earlier today I posted a lighthearted status on Facebook, which had led to me being called mindless, stupid, stuck up, thinking I'm better than everyone else. I've been told God is a c**t (sorry I hate that word so much I won't type it) and that the Bible is only God for loo roll!

I'm just really angry that people think its ok to insult me/my religion like that, when I haven't once preached or insulted others.

Obviously the easy solution would be to delete them off of Facebook, but they are people I get on with other wise.

Don't really know the point of my post, just hoping id feel better writing it down.

Has God been told about a particular child?

Are you suggesting that there can be children dying and God doesn't know?

Or are you suggesting there's some threshold of prayers below which God does nothing and above which He might?

Amillion

Has God been told about a particular child?

Wouldn't God already know given that he, you know, planned all along that that child would get cancer?

amillion - why would the God need telling about a child?

Matthew 10:29 - two translations, not sure which is better meaning:
New International Version (©1984)
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.
New Living Translation (©2007)
What is the price of two sparrows--one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.

I do believe we see God working intimately in our lives, sometimes in the mundane, through seeming coincidence, which can indeed be written off as coincidence, often. I don't think this stands against the fact that children die of cancer. I believe God knows about each and every one and stands with each and every one. It's hard to see this, when they still die, and still suffer. I see that, and know in my own pain people look at me and say 'how can you believe in a loving God when he leaves you in such pain?'

How indeed? I think it goes back to something of what I was trying (and probably failing) to express before, about seeing 'healings' and other miraculous interventions almost as precursors of how it is meant to be - of glimpses of heaven, as it were, where all will be made well and there will be no cancer and no pain. It seems we live in this time of the now and the not yet, and the 'not yet' occasionally invades the now. Some more enthusiastic (and somewhat toxic, unfortunately) people would say that all can be healed, you just need faith. In my experience this is not the case. In my experience we see glimpses of glory and how it should be.

So I've seen these myself, many times, and yet live in that place of pain where I'm left to suffer and where children die. Do I understand it? No. Do I believe God is loving, just and will make everything new? Yes. Cognitive dissonance? Quite possibly Experience in waves of this love? Absolutely.

Never mind curing cancer, if God designed the world why do people get cancer in the first place? And most other mammals with the curious exception of mole rats.

This anomaly is one which is explicable in scientific terms - the hows and whys of natural evolution. It is not explicable with reference to a supposedly loving, omniscient, omnipotent God.

You know what I'll say on that one, Grimma

God did create the world perfectly, through evolution, or whatever < I do wish I was more of a science person, but I'm too arty farty, hence tend to shy away from the more technological discussion> but something went wrong. The creation story does a fair job I think in describing how people decided to go against God and do it all for themselves. 'The fall' was not merely the fall of mankind but the fall of creation. Hence disease, death, fault lines, etc etc. The world is not how it is meant to be. Something is askew.

I know it all sounds a bit trite. I wish I could advocate more efficiently! But it makes sense to me that something is terribly wrong. And that one day all will be made right again.

Yes, exactly. A God who is so pained & distressed by the thought of suffering deliberately designs the kind of life that depends on this for it's survival?

Mad Are those "healings" and "miraculous interventions" actually anything of the kind, though? A miracle is, as I said, an event that defies natural explanation. If there had been something like this then it would have been on the front page of every newspaper in the world - it would most certainly have made the science journals and I expect Grimma & LeBFG would have heard about it.

And to those of you who pray - can I ask why you never pray for anything genuinely miraculous (ie impossible) to happen? Have any of you prayed at a funeral for the dead person to come back to life? Or prayed for someone who has lost a limb to regrow another one spontaneously? Or prayed to have the sun switched back on in the middle of the night?

You haven't. You only ever pray for things that could & do happen in the natural order of things. To an omnipotent God there would be no such thing as "impossible" - he could cause a limb to grow back just as readily as he could cure pneumonia. But doesn't - and you don't ask him too.

I think you know that actual miracles don't happen.

The world is not how it is meant to be Then God is a failure - and shouldn't he have predicted it would all go wrong given that he's meant to be omniscient? And if he's not omniscient, then neither is he omnipotent.

But Mad - all those 'askew' things started happening long before there was mankind around to start sinning. Oh well, I suppose if God is outside time he could retroactively allow things to be messed up starting billions of years before Homo Sapiens....except some of that 'imperfection' is fundamental - fault lines show how the world was built physically; humans almost certainly wouldn't exist if there hadn't been previous mass extinctions of other lifeforms. That argument may make sense to a Young Earth Creationist who reject reality but it doesn't hang together well for anyone else.

I don't know that at all, Ellie. I have and do pray for the impossible. Most of the time I don't think it would happen. But I know it does. I've seen it.

A friend was healed of terminal skin cancer. A scan showed all the cancerous cells had disappeared. Doctor was flummoxed. I guess you can say this occasionally happens.

I know of people (usually in third world countries) who have prayed for the dead to rise. I've heard of it happening, too. BUt no, I wouldn't pray for that. I'm far too English

A good friend, who I trust implicitly, prayed for a lady in Kenya with breast cancer. She felt the lump go. The lady was healed.

It seems that there is much more of this in countries like this, and in places like China especially. Interesting to work out why. Of course, you can put it down to hearsay, wishful thinking, many things. The things I've seen are small compared to this. I did watch my cousin's eye change colour from red raw back to white in seconds after a botched up eye operation, funnily enough when a man from Kenya prayed for her. He was the type who was so full of faith it was spilling over. I'd never seen anything like it and will never forget it.

I know this will cause faces far and wide. And fine, I can see why, I really can. But you say I would never pray for the impossible. I do, and have seen it, and continue to believe it, experience it and love it.

Oh Grimma you know I'm useless at the whole evolution process thingy. Perhaps Holo or someone will come along and do it better

Plus I'm utterly drugged up to the nines on painkillers

I flew to work on the back of an invisible unicorn today. I'd lost my car keys.

I'd like to prove it but no one saw me & I forgot to take my camera.

Do you believe me, Mad?

If not, why not?

Wish we could occasionally hear from these "flummoxed" doctors themselves from time to time. They seem remarkably disinclined to share their astonishing observances with the wider community - which is odd from men & women of science. It's all about sharing generally.

It comes down to relationship, I guess. You don't know me personally so of course you can think I'm making this stuff up. I don't know you personally so I cannot comment on your invisible unicorn - but yes, I understand the point you are making.

As for the flummoxed doctors etc, I was reading somewhere about one who tried to get something published but was refused along the lines of it being too subjective or something despite hard evidence, ie scans etc. I can't remember the details. I agree with you, I don't know why there isn't more out there. A quick google comes up with some interesting stuff though like this though I'm fully aware this is from a Christian site. I'd be interested to look into this more actually, I might have a search, because I have experienced some of this and there must be some stuff out there which is not getting generally published for whatever reason.

I'll never forget seeng scan pictures of a foetus who had cleft lip and palate and a hole in the heart, then after prayer a normal scan. I guess you could say it was set up but friends of mine knew the couple involved and we were at their church, though it was a church of 1,000 or so, so not easy to know everyone properly!!

Interesting article on 'before and after' healing records, and the possible explanations as to why they are not prolific

All of this though does not help reach any conclusions about why there is suffering and why people are not healed, like me, like many children with cancer like my friend's baby. I believe the world is off balance and when there is healing it's like heaven touching earth, a glimpse into how it is meant to be.

Good question about God not being omnipotent if God allowed the world to go off axis as I contend. Is God not all powerful? I believe so, but also firmly believe in the freedom of humanity to do as they please. It's like us as parents - we cannot keep our dc wrapped in cotton wool, cannot protect them from life, cannot stop them going their own way, even when we know it's a bad way for them. But we love them still, so very much.

amillionyears "DadOnIce, your mum is a Christian. Some of your friends are Chrisitians. Do you think you are trying to turn your back on it in some way?"

Er, no. Why would you think that? That's a slightly offensive suggestion. Do you not see that, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing to "turn my back" on? That I am no more rejecting the Judeo-Christian god than I am (or indeed you are) rejecting Zeus, Thor, Ra, etc.?

I don't think you're making anything up. But we are all highly suggestible particularly when it comes to things that support what we already believe.

Of course you know I'm making the unicorn up (maybe!), but the point is you are using the rational part of your mind and your understanding of how the world works to realise that, actually, I almost certainly didn't fly to work on a unicorn - no matter what I say and no matter how strongly I might personally believe it.

I'm using the exact same process to make judgements about your claims. I will change my mind gladly if evidence was presented (which it never, ever is, by the way) but in the meantime, anecdote does not equal evidence.

This is why Christians get huffy when we dismiss claims like this (not saying you are, but lots do react like that). It's not because we necessarily think they're making it all up but because it would be a ridiculous thing indeed to just take their word for it and say, "Wow" That's amazing" - as ridiculous as you just believing my unicorn story.

Anyway - hope you're having a nice relaxing day & looking after yourself. Feet up and lots of

:)

It's like us as parents - we cannot keep our dc wrapped in cotton wool, cannot protect them from life, cannot stop them going their own way, even when we know it's a bad way for them. But we love them still, so very much

It's not a good analogy. We do love our children - but would we plan for them to get cancer or have a terrible accident? God has. If we knew it was going to happen, wouldn't we try to stop it? God doesn't.

And if God is omniscient then free will is impossible. If he knows in advance what we're going to do, then we don't have the freedom not to do it. We're just playing out his plan according to his script.

Oh - and I would prefer an article on that subject to be written by either a medical professional or a scientist, not a religious studies professor.

And if God is omniscient then free will is impossible. If he knows in advance what we're going to do, then we don't have the freedom not to do it. We're just playing out his plan according to his script.

Oh no....predestination...

Though taking a different tack, its not entirely clear to me that we do have free will anyway - I know it feels as though we do, but its hard to disprove the idea that we're not essentially extraordinarily complex machines responding to inputs (one of which is itself the notion that we have free will )

Ah yes the eternal predestination/freewill thing. I haven't got it sorted in my head, not at all

I know the analogy falls down, but I also don't believe God planned anyone to have cancer/get knocked over by a car, or whatever. The God I know and believe in isn't like that.

I understand all the suggestible argument, I totally see where that comes from and in many ways go along with it. Sometimes with my reason I wish I could simply say - yep - you're right, it's all completely unbelievable. But time and again I know with all that I am that God is loving, and here, and longing to be in relationship. I know it doesn't make sense in the light of so much. I'm sorry to be so contradictory!

Thanks - I am indeed having lots of tea and chocolate to help recover. I'm feeling a bit better every day, which is fantastic. Can't wait to get out and about again.

Not all religious studies professors are religious - I was quite pleased to find a neutral site!! But yes, I know what you're saying. I'll dig some more. :)

I'd love to think more about the God being omniscient/free will thing. My head might explode a bit soon

Thank you crescentmoon