Yellum Notnef

Yes to all questions except for possibly the very last two.

schu

I guess if one just chooses to believe even against the evidence anything is possible.

HelenM

Fwiw, I'd say the New Testament is quite clear that godly people are not exempted from suffering by God just because they are godly people...

James 1:2 My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; 4 and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

"Whenever" assumes that they were going to suffer.

Heb 11:35b Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented-- 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. 39 Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect.

This implies that some godly people do suffer throughout their lives on earth.

Helen

scombrid

In Central America there were Catholic priests that were tortured by having their testicles hooked up to jumper cables because they were trying to protect innocent civilians in conflict between rebel fighters. Of course you probably don't think that Catholics are true Christians anyway.

abe smith

ALL "gods" are human fictions; and "they" do NOT DO ANYTHING!

scombrid

I take that some theists are tempted to take your asking how god could let these happen as meaning that you acknowledge gods hand here and are just angry at him/her/it.

Lets put these tragic events in perspective.

1. Space shuttle explodes:
Engineering and maintenance error.

2. Club fire:
Irresponsible club owner and stupid band coupled with human instinct and fear.

3. Barge fire:
possibly static electricity. Ever notice the sign on fuel pumps that advises you to discharge static from your body before pumping fuel. You folks in the humid south have less of a problem with this.


4. Club stampede:
More stupidity and irresponsible club operation. If this is the result of god lifting his curtain of protection, he must really hate football in Europe. Look at some of the stadium stampedes there.

5. Freakishly cold:
Not even. This is perceptual given last year's extreme warmth. Last year at this time the water behind my house was approaching 10C, 5C above average. In over a century of record keeping this winter might squeak into the top ten coolest. We've yet to approach a record low temp on any given night in my home area. In my life '78, '80, '89, and '96 were colder here. '76 was a lot colder but I wasn't alive then. A lot of deaths attributed to the cold are the media looking to hype the situation. When Joe cholesterol dies of a heart attack shoveling show, it's not the storm's fault.

6. Duke accident:

Being Hispanic, they were probably catholic. We know how god feels about catholics.
This was still human error. It's better to revise the clerical system to prevent future errors than to pray and hope god whispers in your ear next time you've got the wrong organ in your hand.

7. Toy'sRUs:
If you've got 18" of snow on a flat roof so that the drains are clogged. You might want to remove some of it before it rains.

Anyway, all of these are the result of human action, mistakes, and natural phenomena. The hand of god is conspicuously absent. I know that some say, that's because we ignore God when he does act. However, his actions are so covert as to be indistinguishable from nature. What to do? What to believe?

We could go on attributing earthquakes as acts of god but it's hard to when we see that they occur in predictable locations. We didn't solve the problem of lightening striking tall structures by giving god the glory every time a storm passed without the steeple getting hit. We installed lightening rods. Praying won't stop the roof from collapsing. Sturdier construction or heeding the weather forecast and getting the frappin snow off the roof before the rain would probably do the trick.

Godless Dave

I still don't see it.

openeyes

Amie saidWhat sort of plan would allow for nearly 100 people to be burned to death and many more maimed and in horrible pain? I'd have to conclude that because of incidences like the R.I. nightclub fire and other tragedies that if there is a "plan" it must be one that doesn't involve most of us. Personally, I fail to detect any pattern at all.

I found life a lot easier to explain when I quit looking for any kind of intervention or meaning from "above." In addition, it's sure a more direct and useful way to use explanations such as those scombrid outlined when trying to deal with life tragedies and children. I agree with Amie in that life just sucks sometimes, but I try to teach my kids how to make it suck less if possible but giving them good information and a realistic outlook.

Yellum Notnef

It does indeed seem that some theists here have misunderstood my question to mean that *I* think there really is a god who has deserted us or just doesn`t care about us.

I have since clarified that *I* do not believe there are any gods. Any theist who still thinks I think otherwise is not someone you can have a worthwile conversation with.
A few names already come to mind.

Radorth

I'm sure we agree with you Scombrid, given certain sweeping assumptions. The question which goes unanswered is how these could have been avoided in the first place by more godly people, or why these things exist at all. Nor does your theory answer how some people are "luckier" than others. You cannot fairly assert that natural processes explain everything, and then just attribute anomalies to "good luck."

God's plan was trashed long ago IMO, but a "passive plan" might include one or more of the following:

1. People don't drink and look for sex in huge numbers, so slimy night-club owners don't have unsafe clubs to keep open. During the "Great Awakening" salloons were mostly empty.

2. There is no space shuttle, or crews pray before designing/installing insulation. Engineers and managers never become arrogant, nor do they simply say "There was no way to get the crew home if the tiles were damaged, so we won't bother inspecting them." Is that what Gene Cranz said about Apollo 13? It was "impossible" to get Apollo 13 home, but a "miracle" solution was devised.

3. There are no Toys R Us because parents don't buy billions of toys as passifiers for children, or God's preferred building codes make such a disaster impossible, or people have more active consciences so that they keep the roof clean.

I could go on with examples where your theory falls short. What if Arnold's plot wasn't discovered when it was? How was it discovered without, as Washington said, the help of Providence? You cannot explain a thousand turn of events which benefitted mankind. You cannot prove that God doesn't help when and where he can, or in major historic events. You cannot explain dumb luck. You cannot negate the evidence that gangs make peace when Christians intercede even though we cannot prove it. You cannot prove that God doesn't allow certain disasters and prevent others. You can try to show he is too arbitrary, but that's about it.

And of course you can't prove that God intended such a world as ours, and I think the Biblical evidence is overwhelming that he never would have, but he still tries to do what he can. If we have reached the spiritual point where only suffering causes us to turn to God, then it makes no sense at all for God to alleviate it anyway.

And even you must admit we are at the mercy of circumstances created by us and our own decisions- crappy roofs, terrible shuttle designs IMO without a protective crew compartment which would have saved the Challenger crew (left out of design to save weight as it turns out). Yes these are "natural" events in one way- but the natural result of our own choices which leave God very little wiggle room.

Some skeptics here would effectively assert we can build airplanes out or scap iron, and God should keep all the passengrs safe anyway. That is a fair conclusion from some arguments made here.

He could say "I'm not letting you build a space shuttle because people will get killed and you should be spending the money on better buildings" but nobody would listen. At least not now.

Rad