ex-preacher

What kind of a sick God would create such disasters for the creatures he loves? Christians explain "moral evil" with the free will argument. I challenge any theist to defend God against the charge of negligence and homicide in the following case of "natural evil."


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India Heatwave Kills 178, Toll Expected to Rise
Wed May 15, 2:24 AM ET

HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - A heatwave has killed at least 178 people in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and the toll is expected to rise, officials said on Wednesday.

The temperature in the worst-hit district along the Bay of Bengal coast has hit a high of 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) in recent days compared with an average temperature of 40 to 45 Celsius.

"We are advising people to stay indoors between noon and 4 p.m.," D.C. Rosaiah, the state's relief commissioner, told Reuters.

"Those who venture out should cover their heads with white cloths and take water with them."

Th heatwave is the worst in four years and comes ahead of the annual monsoon rains.

Most of the victims are from the rural belt where farmers and street hawkers have suffered heatstroke and dehydration.

"The forecast is that heatwave conditions will prevail in the coastal districts in the next 24 hours and abate thereafter," C.V. V. Bhadram, director of the Indian Meteorological Centre in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh's state capital, said late on Tuesday.

The first monsoon rains normally fall in the southern coast of Kerala state in early June and then fan out over the subsequent three months.

abe smith

This major Doubt has been around a long time {cf the Lisbon Earthquake; the Black Death; Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald; the beatings-to-death of infants ..... and all the other instances of non-sensical evil "done to" the innocent.]. This is probably the unanswerable , atheist's argument for the non-existence of "god" <<<<< a human-thumbsucker's fiction. "This HAS to be *punishment*; otherwise nothing makes sense; EXPIATE! EXPIATE!.... becuz I cain't STAND it if the Cosmos, and we in it, are meaningless." Suck on.

RJS

We know for certain that on average, over 200,000 people will die per day. We know that some will die of old age, some will be murdered, some will have cancer, etc. Some will die of heat stroke in India.

We also know for certain that we will all die - so over the next 80 years or so, over 6 billion people will die (i.e. God will kill us all - to use your terms). Staggering when you think about it, but this is not new news - life on earth is temporary. We also know that during our lives, we will experience both great joy and tremendous suffering.

The problem you are running into is that you don't credit God with creating you - you have likely never humbled yourself before Him and thanked Him for all of your blessings. And part (or all) of your reasoning for not believing in God is that a Loving God would never let us die - either painfully or otherwise. You are too attached to this temporal existence. If you, for one moment, accept that God did create you, you might be able to rid yourself of your belief that earthly death is, in and of itself, a bad thing.

It has been my experience, for what its worth, that athiests that make arguments like you are making really want to believe in God, and will at some point turn their lives over to Him.

So watch out

free12thinker

You said:
The problem you are running into is that you don't credit God with creating you - you have likely never humbled yourself before Him and thanked Him for all of your blessings.
My Reply:
That's because he did not create us, and there is no god to humble over.

You Said:
And part (or all) of your reasoning for not believing in God is that a Loving God would never let us die - either painfully or otherwise.
My Reply:
Our reasons for not believing in God is that there is no logic or reasoning to back-up such a belief. Though I will agree with you that some people (incl/ Christians and other theists) get angry at the idea of god or at the god they know, because of things that go wrong, which is unhealthy and unfair. It's unfair in that reality is reality : like getting mad at your parents for not having enough money to buy you a new car. If they don't have the money, it's not fair for you to be angry at them. It's also unhealthy because people develop such a reliance on the idea of god that the mere legend of god, with all of his attributes, can actually lend to people boiling their emotions over, when such attributes are actually untrue.

You Said:
You are too attached to this temporal existence. If you, for one moment, accept that God did create you, you might be able to rid yourself of your belief that earthly death is, in and of itself, a bad thing.
My Reply:
How are we to accept that god created us, when there is nothing out there to back-up such a claim?

You Said:
It has been my experience, for what its worth, that athiests that make arguments like you are making really want to believe in God, and will at some point turn their lives over to Him.
My Reply:
Once again, why would we turn our lives over to a god we do not know of? Or better yet, how would you expect us to change our perspective on it? Can you provide any "help" in this department. Theists make it seem like a simple transformation. If we click our heels and believe "really really hard", we will suddenly develop a belief in god.

We're watching out (we have been for thousands of years), to no avial.

[ May 15, 2002: Message edited by: free12thinker ]</p>

Philosoft

This is a problem? He's more likely to indiscriminately wipe me out if I don't do what you suggest?

<strong> Damn right. It's all we've got.

<strong> If death is so great, why do so many experiences that immediately precede it involve pain? Why not just end it all now and go straight to the heaven you're so sure is waiting for you?

<strong> Sounds like these folks have some intellectual honesty issues. Anyway, I'd like to believe in God too except for the fact that the very concept is one big contradiction.

<strong> I'll try.

RJS

So last Spring, some starlings built a nest in one of the vents to a bathroom in my house. The nest was in the middle of a 10 foot metallic tube running from the vent down to the fan in the bathroom. I didnt realize it was there until the eggs hatched, and I could hear the chirping every time the mother (father?) brought in a new batch of food. I imagine those baby birds were quite happy and content every time they got their food. But they had no idea of what flying in the open was.

But after a couple of weeks, they became big enough to move around, and three of them fell to the interior fan in the bathroom - gravity at this stage was stronger than their ability to fly or crawl up the tube. At this stage I had the ability to take off the fan and free them. So I took off the fan, and they fell to the ground, flapping around. Needless to say, noting that they had been born in a dark tube, this was a fairly big event for them. My presence scared them tremendously.

They would not let me catch them - they flapped around and one even started to bleed. If they only knew, that if they let me grab them, I could put them out in the open - where they could be free. It was really frustrating to me to have to scramble around to free them - but ultimately I did. I guess if I hadnt been able to grab them, they would have died after the fight.

As it turns out, they were free. Of course they are back this year building nests again.

You probably wont get anything out of this story, but it came to mind as I was thinking about your reply.

[ May 15, 2002: Message edited by: RJS ]</p>

Autonemesis

This is not a problem. There is no reason to thank god or give him credit even if he did create me. God had his own sufficient reasons for doing what he did, if he exists and did what is credited to him. My consent or approval was/is irrelevant. God didn't ask me if I wanted to be created, he created me for his own reasons, so he could have someone upon whom to impose this burden you call the gospel, to his greater glory or whatever. Were it otherwise, I would not be here to argue the point, because I would not have consented to such a ludicrous, subservient existence as god's plaything were I given the choice.

No, he wouldn't, for all the most popular meanings of the word "Loving." What does god's love mean if it is insufficient motivation for him to stop or lessen suffering? It does not seem to mean as much as real human effort and compassion, which can actually mitigate some suffering in tangible ways.

That's the very same line of thinking that rationalizes what the Sept 11 hijackers did, and the bombers that came before and the ones that will come after. No, I refuse to go down that path. Your position is morally bankrupt on its face, corrupt from its conception. Nothing good or just can come from devaluing this life for the sake of the next. Your philosophy is not an answer to the world, it is a retreat from it, and a repudiation of it.

[ May 15, 2002: Message edited by: Kind Bud ]</p>

RJS

Kind Bud says

That's the very same line of thinking that rationalizes what the Sept 11 hijackers did, and the bombers that came before and the ones that will come after. No, I refuse to go down that path. Your position is morally bankrupt on its face, corrupt from its conception. Nothing good or just can come from devaluing this life for the sake of the next. Your philosophy is not an answer to the world, it is a retreat from it, a repudiation of it.

For a human to intentionally end the life of another human is horrific. It sounds like you and I share the same Christian values. The difference is, I guess, that I accept that the Lord can (and will) end everyone's life here in accordance with His will. Once you come to the conclusion that God did create the universe, including 100 billion galaxies, most larger than the Milky Way, you kinda have to humble yourself before Him

Hobbs

Speaking for myself, I used to do so. But then I realized that what I was taught to call "God" isn't some externally existing objective entity with intelligence and personality, as I had for so long quite fervently and sincerely believed. I eventually realized that I had wildly misunderstood and misinterpreted reality and my experiences of it.

I'm still very grateful for all the good things about life in general and my life in particular; but I no longer see good reasons to conclude that there is some person out there to thank for it. The attitude of humble gratefulness does not need a conscious, personal target to be felt.

For me, that is one reason that I conclude that if a god does in fact exist, then that god is not a loving and just god.

Which I guess is why believers pray so fervently for God to cure them of potentially fatal diseases when they get a diagnosis from a doctor, and why they so readily share such prayer requests, and why a believer would be so grateful for being "miraculously" saved from what seems like it should have been a fatal car accident, so happy and relieved are these believers that they don't have to be in heaven experiencing perfect bliss yet.

Have you ever prayed for God to cure a loved one from a potentially fatal disease? Has such a person recovered, and did you thank God for bestowing his healing power? Why?

I really have to wonder whether believers, deep down in their mind of minds, really believe all this stuff they claim to believe. Or, do they realize, perhaps somewhere deep on a subconscious level, that this is the only life they have, and that is precisely what makes this life so valuable and important?

(And those religious types who really don't think there's anything valuable or important to this life are the ones who are potentially very frightening and dangerous.)

It has been my experience that those religious types who really think carefully and honestly about their beliefs, who honestly investigate other sides of the issues in a sincere and geniune effort to find truth, very often come away at least much less sure of their former beliefs if they don't give them up entirely. So perhaps you should do some watching out yourself.

RJS

So perhaps you should do some watching out yourself.

That's why I'm here.

[ May 15, 2002: Message edited by: RJS ]</p>