The Naked Mage

Are you trying to get me to repeat myself, Amie?

Amie

I base that on an experience I had where I went through a windshield when I was 19, now I wear my seatbelt everywhere I go, i did not always do that. Although I believe in God I still think we have to be accountable. One of the priests was telling me that someone came to the church to have his car blessed and within a month he crashed it, he was going 80mph and he was frustrated and when he attended Mass so he said "some blessing, my car is totalled" and the priest just said "God does his part you have to do yours"
seatbelts help save lives and are very important.

Wyz_sub10

I think this has a detrimental effect on society because it advocates missatribution of responsibility or accountability through attribution to other sources.

For instance, I have heard people say that it was part of god's plan for someone to be killed by a drunk driver. I think, instead, that the driver of the vehicle is to blame and that god had nothing to do with it.

I knew a women who blamed herself for 30 years for having a child that died young. Apparently she believed it was a punishment from god for using birth control.

There are countless examples of damage that arises from people attributing things to god. Society functions better when people adopt accountability for their actions. And, IMO, functions better when we seek to understand the causes of events, rather to attribute them to something beyond our comprehension.

Amie

name calling: Quite possibly the last bastion of somebody who has absolutely nothing intelligent to say.

Amie

Hi Wyz
I disagree to an extent since any time in my life I felt that God helped me out, I just felt he guided me. Obviously the things that have happened in my life I can thank many people for, but I see nothing wrong with be thankful to God for them as well. I feel that sometimes God puts people in our lives at the moments we need them the most.
Guilt, That would be a horrible way to live.
I agree that people need to be accountabe but I see nothing wrong with someone feeling that God was in control over a situation on their lives.

The Naked Mage

Nothing intelligent to say, eh?

Where's that damn "You Are Black" picture when I need it?

brighid

The problem is no person actually KNOWS that God performed any intervention, or if that intervention was performed by say ... Satan in order to keep said person alive so He might be able to use him at a later date?

If this man had said, "Thank the Gods, specifically the Almighty Ra for saving my life" people who think he was loony and obviously not employing his rational faculties. If he had given thanks to Satan this man would be demonized and their would be a public outcry, or the commentary might be that perhaps he should not have come out unscathed.

So who intervented - God, Satan, Ra, Zues and Hera ... or is it more likely that no God did anything and attributing this forunate outcome to any God, without any thing but a "feeling" is silly when placed in context of reality and the alternative possibilities.

Brighid

Amie

Hi brighid
yes nobody really "knows" we can just speculate...
I agree it is more socially acceptable to say "Thank God" than to say "Thank Ra"
ultimately he *believed* it was God and his saying so does not take away from anyone else. When I helped someone who later went on to say it was God, I never felt that took away from my help in any way. I was just doing my job.

I just feel that some people are put in our lives for purposes we may not yet know.

Amie

Lets see. You came into a thread and said absolutely nothing about the OP, contributed nothing to what the thread was about, and posted just to call me an idiot?!
I'd say yeah not exactly a thought provoking, on topic gem but such is life...

brighid

I can appreciate your perspective Amie, but let�s say you helped said person but he gave credit to some anonymous stranger, who in fact didn�t actually help him � how then would you feel?

The fact is that you and this gentlemen happen to believe in the same idea of an anonymous stranger in the concept of your shared god belief. You do not find offense in it because of that shared belief, but I think a reasonable person who be hurt or offended if credit for a task (especially saving the life of another) was given to any person or thing that did NOT in fact contribute to the actual rescue/situation.

If you apply that same standard to a situation that has no evidence that the attributed, anonymous stranger intervened in any way to the concept of an unknowable, or verifiable presence of God, Satan, or Ra � or whomever within the Pantheon of humanly constructed Gods perhaps you can then understand why people who do not share your god belief find it either offensive, or ignorant to give credit where none is due because of a conditioned social-religious custom.

Who or what ACTUALLY intervened? We have evidence that a trained, rescue professionals arrived on the scene and skillfully and carefully removed this man from his perch on the electrical wires. We have evidence that this man thought enough to reach his arms out to grasp the electrical wires as he was catapulted through the air because of his own negligence and stupidity. He was fortunate enough not to be a few inches in any direction that would have made that catch impossible. Divine providence you might say, but there is no evidence. The circumstances were simply correct and any number of things, wind speed, a different trajectory, a desolate location would have very likely caused the death of this man. He and the rescue cue are all the supporting evidence that we have to determine WHO rescued this man. We do not know that it wasn�t Satan�s hand who intervened because he desired to manipulate this man in the future for dastardly purposes. We do not know it wasn�t any other God, or the Christian God either.

This man was fortunate and he should feel so, but to attribute his good fortune to a non-existent entity, regardless of his belief is logically flawed. It might make him feel better. It might even make you feel better, but it does not however make the belief and the attribution correct � simply believed.

Brighid