lpetrich

rw: Hey, some good always comes out of suffering...especially over the long haul...so don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

So if you get mugged, you think "Hooray! Something really good will happen as a result!"?

rw: Why is it not benevolent for him to leave us alone and let us work it out?

Because it's just plain inefficient. If you wish to teach your kids how to read and write, do you give them a lot of books and let them work it out for themselves?

You want a god doing everything for us? I don't.

I don't have any objection, because an omnimax being would always do a perfect job.

You think man would be satisfied if a god stepped in and started healing folks? Hell no...we'd be clamoring for everything from getting the Bushies outta the hothouse to making bird shit turn into icecream. Sooner or later we'd become useless...or that is to say...more useless than we are now.

So what? An omnimax being would have no trouble doing these things.

BigBadShrubbery

TomboyMom

And of course, people who do go to him and look for him, that is, christians, do not suffer.

Rene

Calzaer

So who created Satan?

Even assuming the unsupported claim that he, for some odd reason, rebelled against God.. (A) God knew that long beforehand, and (B) Satan was not "man".

agnawstick

Everything bad is Satan's fault, or ours. That solves this mess.

The bad things we do to each other like Hitler did to the jews. God doesn't prevent because it would interfere with out free will.
Earthquakes, hurricanes, floods(except the big one), are all satan's fault.

I can actually see an intellectual argument, in a world with God, for him being hands off, and letting us sort out our own bad people, but hot magma burning somebody to death because God couldn't or wouldn't devise a system that didn't require monsoons, earthquakes, and tornados doesn't cut it. Laying it all off on satan is pretty pathetic. What, God can't stop him? Allowing satan to tempt us is one thing, but allowing him to blow a roof over on a church filled with AARP members and babies is not quite ethical.

It's pretty convenient to blame everything bad on everybody but God, even though God is the only person with the power to stop it all. God created people who were born sociopaths too. Or is that satan again.

Theli

Yeah, that's a great argument.
And being a jew held prisoner and then executed by the nazis doesn't interfere with your free will?

markfiend

I REALLY take exception to that comment, having been homeless myself. Unscrupulous landlords are quite common.

Just hope it never happens to you, OK?

Deacon Doubtmonger

(1) A barber doesn't demand that a customer abase himself before a haircut: "O Holy Tonsorial Father, my hair is as filthy rags in Your sight; I have sinned against Your Word. Please receive me, a poor and wretched sinner, into Your care. I humbly accept You as my Lord and Personal Savior and give You control over my life. Cut and style my hair in the manner of righteousness, that I may be a light unto You before all men."

(2) You don't see members of the Church of the Eternal Permanent Wave and the Church of the Straight and Narrow Cheveux arguing and going to war over whose interpretation of Milady's Standard Textbook of Professional Barber-Styling is holier.

(3) A barber doesn't get to shriek at long-haired people on the street about the dire consequences that will befall them if they don't get a haircut. Nor does the Barbers' Union get to unleash a Tonsorial Inquisition.

(4) And a barber certainly doesn't demand 10% of your income as a condition of his favor.

There's another point that hasn't been touched on in this thread yet: the nature of the answer. A truly good and valuable answer would explain, clarify, and shed new light on the question, and would show respect for both the questioner and his ability and right to question. In contrast, I hold that the "answer" cited here is equivalent to (and morally no better than) the salesman's "objection stopper" phrase. Some parallels between the sales world and the boob-again fundy world:

(1) Take a look at any textbook on salesmanship and you'll find scads of material on what objections a prospect might raise and what sort of tricky verbal traps one can use to overcome them. However, you will not find the slightest hint of an inkling of an iota of the idea that a prospect's objection might -- GASP! -- be valid, or that the prospect is wise to question the purchase. The salesman presumes himself to be right and the prospect to be wrong -- nothing more than a bundle of objections to be overcome, by sleight of mouth if need be. Tell me this doesn't describe the boob-again fundy attitude toward us atheistic "bundles of sin."

(2) The above attitude is, of course, grossly condescending toward the prospect. In fact, one of Zig Ziglar's books actually has snide labels for objectors: Sidney Skeptical, Hostile Helen, Indecisive Ivan, and the like. The fundies do the same thing when they call us heathens, infidels, heretics, sinners, degenerates and atheists -- never as neutral descriptive terms, but always with a sneer attached.

(3) A salesman will never go to his employer and say, "This prospect's found a serious problem with our product; how can we correct it to better serve his needs?" -- his effectiveness as a salesman would be doubted. Likewise, you'll never see a pastor go to his bishop/deacon/prelate and say, "This prospective worshipper's found a serious problem with our doctrine; how can we correct it to better serve his needs?" -- his own faith would be questioned, and he'd be wide open to charges of sin and heresy.

(4) Finally, the salesman's focus is strictly narrow: Get the order! He bears no responsibility if something goes wrong after the purchase. The fundy's focus is also narrow: Win the soul! Oral Roberts goes on TV and says God will kill him if he doesn't raise millions fast. Some poor widow falls for this and mails in her life savings. She then suffers a spate of unexpected, uninsured medical bills, falls behind on her housing payments keeping up with them, and faces eviction. Oral Roberts will most assuredly NOT send a check to the landlord, mortgage officer, and/or property tax collector to keep the poor woman housed -- nor does he have to. All she'll get if she seeks help from any clergyman will be the usual stale platitudes about "God will provide," "Trust in the Lord," and "O ye of little faith."

Given all this, I must ask you, JERDOG: where did you see this "answer"? We should all take a closer look at the source, and the pejorative view the author no doubt has of us and our intelligence. If that's a high-quality answer, I'm Bernard Cardinal Law.

Deacon Doubtmonger