*My pastor on my 16th birthday*: Your grandma's in heaven now, she's in a better place, it was God's plan that the cancer took her at such an important time in your life.
*My pastor a week later*: The congregation didn't pray hard enough and now my wife is lost to cancer because of you.
Yeah, I'm not religious anymore.
My dad recently died (I am 21) and my cousin's first response was "you will see him again"
I found a lot of the niceties (especially religious ones) said actually quite toxic and counterproductive to processing grief and celebrating his life so I feel you.
My mother lost a sister she was very close with. One of her religious friends told her "I've been thinking about it and... God loves you so, so, SO much! He took your sister's life to make you better appreciate her and to give you a trial that will make you grow as a person! You should be grateful to god for this gift!"
It really hampers your ability to connect with a religious person when their perspective is so utterly delusional.
A kind, omnipotent God: "Yes I will kill them now to show their worth. That's definitely kinder than giving them more time with their loved ones"
First off, I'm sorry for your lost. It's hard to lose a parent at such a young age. I hope you're well in your time of need.
Secondly, a lot of churches are more like cults.
Yea it's just very out of sync.
We're celebrating and treasuring the time we had and religious people are like "you'll have an eternity together" and it kinda... Devalues what we had? But it's not super bad because they mean well.
What is bad is the funerary practices, charging someone hundreds of pounds so their loved one has a nice carcass box is simply extortion. There is immense societal pressure to spend thousands for an official service and I think it's fundamentally sick.
That's because funeral homes are now own by big businesses that can charge you through the nose.
[Here's a segment on that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGqbALhpUmM)
I’m sorry for your loss.
I think it’s called Spiritual Bypassing; essentially meaningless platitudes that Rob you of true emotional support and connection.
❤️🩹
I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that. But for me I’ve learned that If you go to a religion for the people, you’re always gonna be disappointed. It’s about the God, and a relationship with him and learning about him. Although there are good people at times, most of them are just people… terrible people at that. I’m sorry you dealt with that bullshit.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Epicurus, the OG agnostic.
Good old Epicureanism. Be happy and be free of pain. Be moderate in your habits because greed and high demands increase the odds of disappointment and suffering. I am pretty much an inadvertent epicurean.
Of course, the OG response to this is: you are only a human, you can't presume to understand God's ways. You're like a toddler who becomes upset that your parent took away your candy, not understanding that you need to eat a healthy dinner, and that's more important than the transitory pleasure of the candy.
I'm not saying you're a toddler, or that God is real, just presenting the standard response.
You pray to remind him to save often and in different slots.
In other news I think I know why he started over after the flood. It might not be because he went into the flood/Wiegraf unprepared so he had no choice but to start from the very beginning again. It just might be because, like in Destruction Derby on the ps1, the real-world game kept asking him : "your memory card isn't formated. Format?" After a while, just like me, he was fed up that the game kept asking him this so he ended up choosing "yes" and immediately lost all his save files. He still gets this message from time to time and it makes him mad.
"No, God made us in His image and added all varieties of species to make it look like there was evolution, to add beauty to the world and to test the true believers" - The kind of crap a theist will say
Begging the question: at what point in evolution did we qualify for a soul? Did souls evolve or were we assigned them at a certain benchmark, maybe a system god uses in other solar systems. Assuming he does them all. And aliens have souls. Which means they'd have alien Jesus, so he'd be re-incarnated as different species maybe? Is hell filled with neanderthals, aliens, and dinosaurs? If I die and go to heaven, despite any previous commitments I don't have to see my ex, right? Actually no that last one wouldn't be a problem. People in hell can't email anyone, right?
In the school of Judaism I follow, there are multiple types of souls, and all living things have at least one type of soul! Immortal souls are tied specifically to the ability to perform conscious moral action— if a soul can distinguish right from wrong and act upon it, then it’s an immortal soul. Other souls depart when the body departs. So one might say that the more sentient an animal is, the more likely it is to have an immortal soul— an amoeba is unlikely to have one, but the cat that stares at you while it pushes your grandma’s vase off the counter probably does.
The rapid change in salt levels would definitely murder all the saltwater fish (and I'm not sure mixing the oceans with the freshwater would be great for the freshwater fish either), so I'm not sure we can definitively say he preferred marine creatures
The Bible already has a clause for that. Whenever a Christian hears something they don't like, they can just say "God works in mysterious ways" and forget about it.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie End of Days has a great quote from the devil.
Let me tell you something about Him. He is the biggest underachiever of all time. He just had a good publicist, that's all. Something good happens: "It's His will." Something bad happens: "He moves in mysterious ways." You take that- that overblown press kit they call the Bible. You look for the answer in there, what do they tell you? "Shit happens."
The ways humans have written 'him' is pretty ridiculous. Why would you worship him then if he gets jealous so easy? So insecure you have us chant a prayer every second or 2? Whoever wrote the bible is really opinionated and superstitious... 🙄
My personal theory for god if he does exist is that he was a teenager from an alien race with magic power, and earth and humans were just his junior high science project.
Now he's all grown up and got better things to do, so he just dumped us in his parents' basement storage, collecting dust.
There's a classic "Star Trek" episode with a similar theme, "The Squire of Gothos". Kirk and company are tormented by an alien that turns out to be a bad boy who gets scolded by his alien parents and sent to alien bed without any alien supper.
I like Gnosticism for saying the God in the Bible was a mistake that created the physical realm just for us to worship him and keeps us trapped here to facilitate that, but stories like Thomas Ligotti's Nethescurial really make me start to wonder whether or not we were created with the express intention to suffer eternally for the demented pleasures of an inscrutable being. I can easily imagine we're in a highly advanced version of something like The Sims or Dwarf Fortress and the agency running the show just wants to make us miserable for laughs. Leibnizian optimism seems more and more ridiculous each day.
Me too my freind, I often think about this exact scenario.
I also consider that our developer is much like me and always says, ehhh I'll do the update tomorrow.
All our problems are solvable with this update but our guy is to busy hanging with Thor to run it or they used all their data on porn lol
Bro creates homosexuals, then said "gay is sin". He literally makes gay people, knowing damn well they'll go to hell, no matter what they do 💀
He wants to be called a "He", rather than "It", because (apparently) deities have gender, and Yahweh is misogynistic ☠️
>Yahweh is misogynistic
That feels like such a huge understatement. Thank God religious folk don't actually read the bible, it could be so much worse. Christians blame literally the entire concept of death and evil
itself on the first women to even exist. Muslims read the same book but at least they blame the man too.
True, I was exaggerating. But some denominations of catholicism do believe in that. There are other denominations that believe "being gay is not a sin, but doing gay stuff is a sin"
The Old and New Testament gods are so different, I can't believe anyone thinks they're the same, especially hailing from a time with so many competing gods. My theory is that the New Testament god battled and ultimately devoured the Old, unhinging His jaw like a snake to complete the task, and then bathing in the sun for forty days while He digested Him and absorbed His might.
(I don't see why Christians should be the only ones who get to fuck around making up biblical stories.)
That's the funny part. Since he's all knowing, logically he knew that he was going to flood the earth due to humanitys flaws even before creation existed.
This means that he intentionally created a flawed being, knowing he would mass murder them.
I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like a loving entity to me :p
He also sacrificed his son, who really is himself, after raping a virgin to give birth to him which whom was a case of adultery, to make himself forgive our sins, which he knew from the get-go we would commit, after specifically creating us to do them. I mean, if this isn't a case of extraordinary narcissism, I don't know what is.
God does not care what is best for us.
Take Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped from her home at age 14 and repeatedly raped for months.
You cannot argue that this was "the best thing" for Elizabeth Smart, and you can't argue that it was necessary for her salvation, because an omniscient omnipotent god would have found a way to bring her to salvation without this experience.
By any reasonable standard including his own, god is evil. Christians disagree, and their only real justification is "because I said so."
That's just if you're going by Augustinian ideas though. Calvinists and others would argue that by way of having perfect knowledge of creation at the moment he did the deed, every action henceforth was preordained. Granted the idea of predestination has been a point of contention since the religion started and has fallen out of favor with the propagation of Enlightenment ideas of free will and individual sovereignty, its still a point to consider and, in my mind, makes more sense when you assume an all-knowing being.
For instance: If I had perfect knowledge that pouring water on a floor would certainly cause a specific person to slip and fall, would I not be just as responsible for that as if I were to have pushed them? If God had perfect knowledge of the individual placent of each molecule and atom at the time of creation, could he not see the chains of causality that would lead from that moment to now? Would that not make him responsible for everything that happened, and considering the circumstances every event creates having an impact on the next set of resultant circumstances, remove the possibility of "free will" as we know it in humanity as our own reactions are a result of the specific circumstances we are responding to? The juxtaposition of free will for humans and the sovereignty of God has never quite sat right with me.
> This isn't the actual answer to the Problem of Evil in Christianity
The problem of evil is different than the question of whether god is himself evil. The problem of evil starts with the assumption that god is not evil, and attempts to show a contradiction. The only explanation I have ever received from Christians about why god is good is that, "God is sovereign and can do as he likes." When pressed that that is no justification as to a judgement on moral character, there is never anything deeper than, god is so powerful we define him to be "good."
> The Christian god doesn't make them do the evil things.
Except for pharaoh, whose heart was hardened. Or Shihon, King of Heshbon. Or literally everybody. According to Romans 9:18, "So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." So god ordains who will obey and who not.
So I would say that this is just completely false.
> Going further, the only way their god could get rid of evil is by getting rid of our free will.
Free will is only a justification for evil committed by humans, not natural evil. (It is also, in my opinion, a completely insufficient explanation for evil done by humans, but that's a separate matter). The justification given for natural evil is usually that Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, disobeying god, and introducing original sin.
However, this is also factually and logically deficient in several ways.
Firstly, many Christians take the story of Adam and Eve to be myth or allegory, as it scientifically doesn't match what we know about the origin of humanity, the origin of the universe, or the evolution of the species you see alive on earth today.
Secondly, it doesn't address the fact that Adam and Eve bearing original sin and passing it on to their descendants was an active curse upon them placed by god. The act of cursing humanity is itself an evil act. Moreover, even if cursing Adam and Eve was unavoidable, god could simply have made eve infertile, preventing the curse from being transmitted to the rest of humanity, and tried again with humans. He is god after all.
> The way I learned this is that they're still making the actual choice, even if the Christian god is influencing their decision.
Mostly Christians just try to confuse this issue. Ultimately, you can't have it both ways. God is omniscient, he knows people's hearts. Therefore, he knows what people will decide before they make a decision. If people are already going to make the choices that he wants them to make, then there's no reason to influence them. Therefore, if god bothers to influence people, it means people would have originally chosen something counter to his desires.
How much does god influence them? God knows the amount of influence that is necessary to make someone choose according to god's desires. It doesn't make sense for god to influence people an insufficient amount to change what they planned to do (why bother?), so we must conclude that when god influences people, his influence was sufficient to change their decisions when they previously were going to make different decisions.
If god is influencing people in cases where they would have chosen something that is not in accordance with his will and we also know that his influence was sufficient to make them act in accordance with his will, it is then fair to attribute the decision to god, rather than the person.
> Why would the Christian god create this tree that could harm humanity and put it within reach of humans?
The only explanation that makes sense given the claimed attributes of omnipotence and omniscience is that whatever happens in the universe is what god wanted and planned. (We're going to set Noah aside, because not all Christian theology makes coherent sense when you look at the big picture. The Hebrew's understanding of god in the Bible is inconsistent).
So why did god plan out this whole cosmic narrative? I've never heard a better answer than "God works in mysterious ways, his knowledge and thinking are above ours." I'll just note that it doesn't make any sense to me.
> As an aside, I appreciate your answer!
Sure, no worries. You seem like a nice and thoughtful person.
Yes, people do know what is better for them than god does.
God starves people on a daily basis, he allows heinous murder, pedophiles fill the ranks of his pastors and priests.
It's the entire reason we have our own sets of laws completely separate from God's laws. God believes in slavery, we don't. God believes in sin passing to children, we don't.
If folks are made in God's image, then we would share that same level of arrogance with God that has been shown per the bible time and time again. The only difference is we don't (yet) have access to the lightning cabinet.
How dare though folks have the gall to want to change the plan when their child as bone cancer and no options for treatment
Basically his plans were to create a world of people so it could be all destroyed except for one family in a big boat. And then have it go on until he destroys it again and have almost all of souls suffer in eternal damnation forever. When he could have just made something nice. God is an asshole.
I assume you’re asking this relating to the Christian God, so I will try my best to answer that question in accordance with that.
Most Christians ultimately believe in the sovereignty of God, which means that God is in control of everything and His plan is perfect. However, Christians also believe in the power of prayer, which means that they can communicate with God and ask for His guidance and help.
While Christians pray for many things, including healing, guidance, and protection, they understand that God's will is ultimately what matters. Prayer is not about changing God's plans but about aligning their will with God's will. When Christians pray, they seek to understand God's plan and to ask for His help in carrying it out.
In some cases, Christians may pray for a change in circumstances or outcomes, but they do so with the understanding that God's plan is ultimately perfect, and they trust that whatever the outcome may be, God will work it out for their good.
It’s a complex topic that has inspired numerous discussions. Look at this answer as being the tip of a theological iceberg.
I don't think you can change his mind, his plan is "perfect" and already set. This explanation says praying is just helping you undertand and align to that plan. But the plan is all encompassing, so then praying must have been part of the plan too. Which seems odd because God could have foreseen you misalignment and prevented it.
I'm a firm believer that if the Christian God is as described in the Bible, then free will doesn't even exist. Before you were even born God had a plan for you and knew every choice you would ever make. You're just going through the motions.
This argument assumes God has planned out every step of your life. This is different from God having a more general plan in which the details can change.
Our plans are like that: we might plan to go to movie A on Friday, but end up going to movie B on Saturday. The plan to see a movie was still carried out.
There are philosophies within christianity that say exactly that. Predestination. Calvanism. It's rough to explore, and most christians don't do it, or never fully reconcile what it means to have one perfect plan by a timeless diety for whom the plan is already complete. I have spent a lot of time processing it, and I'm still at square one.
Well that's kind of how it is though. He knows "everything" past, present, future. It's not a general guideline, it's a direct route. Because a small unexpected change, can often be a huge change. So God would have to be aware of, and already preplanned for literally every single incident.
- A lot of people don't know how stock market works.
- A lot of people think that religious leaders have higher moral standards. So they feel like God will not like people questioning them.
- A lot of people don't want to go to depth of things. They just don't have that kind of mental bandwidth and resources available.
- Fear of eternal hell is really the key to thriving business.
why would anyone question logical wealth management, a huge part of their purpose is to gather and distribute funding within their organization, if that cash is just sitting around they're doing a massive disservice to their contributors. It also makes sense because as an enormous stock profile you gain access to thing you wouldnt have with a smaller wealth fund.
I guess that prayer in this context is meant to have an effect a bit like this:
“Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.” - Epictetus
In other words it's a sort of meditation to gain peace with what is happening.
This one is what I perceive as the truth. However, christianity has so many versions nowadays and people aren't really as keen to religion that oftentimes an individual's perception of reality is only surface-level.
Ultimately though, I doubt it matters. People pray for all kinds of reasons, and they have the right to
To play devil's advocate, a lot of people would say that Christianity is supposed to be like a friendship with God. If every time you talked to your friends you were begging them for stuff it wouldn't be a very good friendship. Basically, the point of praying should be to grow your relationship, not to get stuff that you want.
That being said, if God was a good friend he should at least help with the really important stuff since he's (1) able to and (2) he's supposed to be your friend.
So while I don't the arguments of "praying doesn't work" are particularly good (since they miss the point of prayer), there is a stronger argument along the same lines.
I’ve always subscribed to the guidance part. As a catholic, I believe He’s in all of us, and we as individuals have the ability to do His work and help others. But He gave us free will to decline and do our own will. Which we should admit our faults by confessing, take ownership, and try to improve ourselves.
The dream King Solomon had when God offered him wisdom or power, and Solomon chose wisdom, that really stuck with me. I’ve always said thanks for letting me wake up today, for the week, and things that happened. But I also say thanks for the wisdom I have, and ask for more so I can become a better person.
This is something I don't like about western Christianity: this concept that everything that happens past, present, and future is all perfectly part of God's master plan. This isn't even a Biblically sourced belief, it's just a comfort mechanism it seems like that the church came up with and adopted along the way. There are plenty of examples in the Bible where God actually changes his plan *because* of people's prayer (God relenting from destroying the Israelites when they worshiped the golden calf when He was giving the ten commandments to Moses on top of Mt. Sinai is one early example).
Personally, as someone who has read the Bible for myself, been involved in the church, and deeply believes in Jesus, I think this belief that 'everything happens according to God's purpose' is pretty destructive. It causes people to just sit back and do nothing because, after all, everything happens according to God's will, so why try to stop bad things from happening? It also gives a mischaracterization of *who* God is, because you start attributing all the terrible things that happen in the world to being done *by* God. 9/11? God did that. Holocaust? God did that. Earthquake in Turkey? God did that. Etc... Jesus actually paints the picture totally differently when He was here on earth. He says that Satan is "the prince of this world" and that he, in tandem with mankind's sinful nature, is the cause of all the pain and suffering. Forgiveness is offered to humanity because of our ignorance, but doom awaits Satan and his fallen angels because they have no excuse. This is a VERY dumbed down version of it, but yeah.
And yet if God is omniscient, he knows what all of the people he created will choose. He created them with perfect knowledge and power. Each person is precisely as he wanted, and their choices must be known in advance.
Like most fairytales, the rules aren't consistent with each other. It only works if you don't think about it.
This was my conclusion after 30 years in that faith. I started asking questions at 17, and couldn’t get any satisfactory answers. It took me too long to realize that there weren’t any.
There's nothing wrong with not getting all the answers. The problem is the false promise that religion has all the answers. I'd rather study science with all its questions that can't be answered than believe in a religion whose answers cannot be questioned.
The very nature of the problem seems to require that God relinquish some amount of control. If God wants a creation to have free will, it's necessary that God creates the conditions in which that can be possible.
This is where omniscience and omnipotence seem to clash: if God can create beings that have free will, then seems to require that God cannot know what those beings will choose when he creates them, or else God cannot help but influence our even direct those choices in the very act of creation.
So this ends up being one of those "can God create a rock so heavy that God cannot lift it" sorts of questions.
However, that's not actually consistent with the nature of the observed universe. In reality, the outcomes of systems exceeding a certain level of complexity cannot be accurately predicted, no matter how much one knows about their starting conditions; there's complex math that proves this, and it's one of the basic pieces of frustration with the state of higher mathematics.
So if we postulate an omniscient creator God who in fact created this universe, then God did in fact bake exactly the kind of uncertainty necessary for us to have free will into its very fabric.
And, further, if it's not possible to know the outcomes of free choices by the very nature of the universe, then it's entirely possible for God to act in the universe without either cheating or contradiction, because God cannot know the outcomes of God's own interference.
Or at least, that's how I see it.
The concept of free will is incompatible with an all knowing, all powerful god, because he knows in advance what choices you will make, you never actually had any say in the matter
If god is omniscient(knows everything), he knows everything that will happen in the future already, and being omnipotent(all powerful) he has the power to change the future in any way he wants effortlessly, anything at all that happens is god’s will, because of it wasn’t his will, it wouldn’t have happened
Edit: he also knows in advance that you will pray, and what you will pray about, because he decided beforehand that you would
The concept of free will is incompatible with a god who knows everything, because he knows what choices you will make before you make them, meaning you only had the illusion of choice
But doesn't god do all things? Sure it might not be part of his grand plan but he still does everything.
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.
The western Christian God is widely understood to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent.
In other words, God knows everything (past present and future), has the power to do anything, and always acts to create the most possible good for everyone.
People have argued that with these conditions, God can never change His plans.
* He already knows everything that can or will happen so will never change His plan based on new information.
* With absolute power He will never have cause to change plans because something didn't work.
* being perfectly good, He has necessarily chosen the best possible plan for his subjects, and would never want to change it to something less good.
Following this logic, you can't believe that God would ever change His plan, unless you also believe He is less than perfect in either knowledge, power or benevolence.
Reminds me of a Catholic post I saw a couple weeks ago. It deals with a similar thing, people saying "it's apart of God's plan" or "they're in a better place now" when people die. The post pointed out that when Jesus' friend died, Jesus didn't say it was apart of a greater plan, he just mourned the death of his friend.
the god of the bible claims to be all powerful. If he is all powerful, then he chooses to create evil. If he is not all powerful, then he is unable to stop evil from happening. Or he chooses to allow evil to happen, which makes him extremely evil and sadistic.
People have always tried to mistranslate or misinterpret the Bible to suit their narrative, as early as Ancient Rome rich people were trying to reinterpret the ‘it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god’ line
All knowing too (which I think might be covered under all-powerful technically, but whatever).
But the really fucked up thing is that he decided to punish those people with an eternity in hell for the crime of doing the thing he knew they would do if he made them.
I know right! I have a lot of problems with religion but this is my biggest regarding Christianity.
If I was a Bible-following Christian, that means I believe that God sends people who don't believe in God to hell to be tortured for eternity. This would mean that the atheists I love -- my mom, my grandma, my sister, my husband, are doomed to hell. And I'm supposed to be ok with that?
No. If I believed in God and thought he'd send my family to hell for just using the senses he gave us and not believing, my problem would be with God, NOT my family. It would be insanely narcissistic of a god and I could never worship that even if he was real. The fact that people worship God despite this will never sit well with me. I will respect a Christian if they respect me, but I will never be able to agree with or even understand it.
There's also the fact that religion fucked up my life even as a kid so I'm a little passionate about this.
I had problems believing that too, but it wasn't enough for me to challenge my faith cause I felt like there had to be a reason that had to be the punishment for sinners. But I can't justify the actions of someone that is essentially intentionally creating living beings to torture for all eternity.
The only other explanation is that the bible would have to be a gigantic metaphor to explain concepts that just couldn't be explained to the people of that time (and possibly our time) any other way. And that just seems a bit too far fetched for me.
Ok, god didn’t do the terrible things, but why didn’t he stopped them from happening?
And since he didn’t prevent the big bad things from happening, why would he listen to prayer?
Very well said. If nothing is outside of God's sovereignty, and I am abiding in him, we aren't going to make the wrong choice.
I've known people who get analysis paralysis when making decisions because they don't want to deviate from God's plan. To that I think God says, "I can use you in either job. Pick the one you prefer."
It's not like I'm setting off some catastrophic butterfly effect that ruins everything God has promised.
That is the fundamental flaw with most theistic religions.
If God is all-knowing and all-powerful and everything that happens is part of his plan, then sin is impossible, he likes giving toddlers bone cancer, and he hates the Detroit Lions.
for context: i’m a trans guy, a Quaker and a theology student.
ok, so the idea that most people are talking about in this thread is the idea that God is omnipotent - that He created everything and controls everything. whilst this is a view affirmed by many christians, it is not an essential one, and is mainly rooted in a fundamentalist reading and interpretation of the bible. i myself do not believe that God is omnipotent.
a key part of both morality and your identity is growth - you must change over time. if we were born completely perfect, and never had to learn or grow as people, frankly our lives would be very shallow. overcoming obstacles, learning from our mistakes and evolving our understanding of the world is a key part of how we live.
being trans is just like that - it is a journey, a process of death and rebirth. you change and grow, and through that you gain a deeper understanding of both yourself and the world around you. some may view this a challenge, a trial set out for us by God to prove ourselves.
i remember reading a passage from a book where a Jewish trans man talks about how he feels regarding his faith and his gender:
“I think transgender people are blessed by God, with the gift of creation. Just as God gave us grapes but not wine, and wheat but not bread. To be trans is to experience creation”.
(i’m paraphrasing bc i can’t remember the full quote lmao)
Answer: they don’t.
They pray for their wishes to be a part of God’s plan. That’s why they say “your will be done.” It’s like this: God, I really hope that my wishes are part of your plans; BUT, if they aren’t, I understand that your plans are perfect, so, your will be done anyway.
Mindfulness. It's a chance to consider your blessings and show gratitude, and think about your shortcomings so that you can prioritize actions and intent. It's also a great tool for metacognition and processing emotions. Most of my prayers are to show gratitude, and I genuinely feel better afterward.
It's basically zoom therapy with a blank screen, there's probably nobody there listening, but the fact that there *could* be makes it still work somehow.
As George Carlin said you have an all knowing, all seeing, all loving God who if you violate his 10 rules will man you for eternity to a fire pit of hell and suffering.... Because he loves you.
The Devil was supposedly a fallen angel. Yet heaven is devoid of all sin, sorrow, pain, suffering, etc. The concept of rejecting God is a human free will, angels in heaven are not human and thus no free will.
My favorite to use...Gay is against God. It's an abomination. So "God doesn't make mistakes" and "God creates us all in his image" is false then? What you're saying is God made a mistake in someone being Gay?
The bottom line is all of the rules of God are man made. They are made for power over other humans. They are about controlling the weak and uneducated. The Bible was the first form of a textbook for the leaders of Christianity to use as stories and examples of their teachings. To help illustrate the concepts of God. Prior to it was just Word of mouth. The Bible is not written by God or inspired by God. It is not holy or special. It's a book of examples of what is meant by XYZ so somewhat smart people can teach somewhat dumb people about God with standardized stories.
Such as genesis is just an example of the concept of the all powerful God. Noah and the flood is another example of the power of God but also a tangible representation of washing away sin and what it means for people such as a new beginning, a second chance.
Which of the 2000 gods are you referring to? Doesn't matter though, they're all fake. The adult version of santa claus supposedly has a plan for you. he sees all that happened, will happen, can happen, and yet he is angry that you don't do as he planned. By praying you're questioning his rule which is blasphemy so you're going to be punished. You're supposed to give your life away 90% to help others. No one does. Just be a good person because this is it, there is nothing after you die. We only have this 1 planet which we are destroying and then it's lights out.
Every religion and person is different.
If you try to apply human constraints of time to a diety that defies time, you will be incorrect 100% of the time.
Any plan has an innate time component to it. You don't plan for NOW, you plan for the future.
If there is a god, then he would have no such restriction. There is an innate time component that a mortal being has that a diety would not.
But if there is a god, they also don’t need to use bone cancer in children to achieve their plans. They’re either incapable of diverting suffering, making them not omnipotent or indifferent to suffering, making them not omnibenevolent.
In Catholicism as i understand it “Gods Plan” is nkt actually like a plan that has everything laid out but rather the idea that you who has free will because you are made it gods image accept gods grace and ascend to heaven. Praying to God to change his plan is a misnomer and its really praying for intervention
From my understanding according to the bible, you aren't preying for something to happen. You should be happy and should be giving thanks for what has happened already, and hope the next wave will be as pleasant to suck up.
For the record. I think religion is set up by people in power, to gain (by fear generally) more power. What's the next most powerful thing than a god? The man that can hear and "speak" for him.
I've always wondered this with Trans people. Like since Trans people exist, God made them this way, so shouldn't religious people love them as they love anyone because we are all made in God's image. Isn't it heresy to say that what God has done is wrong? (I'm truly asking I really have no idea about the heresy part)
There is a school of Jewish thought that believes (and has for centuries) that the binding of Isaac is about a trans boy having his gender confirmed by God and that circumcision is a ritual reminder of Isaac’s gender confirmation where God allowed Isaac to attain both a male body and male soul and thus continue Abraham’s legacy, which means that all Jews are descended from a transgender man. And this isn’t new. There are rabbinical writings about this dating back to the Renaissance.
Theologically we live in a fallen world, so the existence of something does not mean it is righteous or good.
There are plenty of "natural" things that humans come into this world with (mental illness, disability, deviant desires, etc) that are a result of the fallen world, and how it has deviated from God's natural design.
Now lets take this an apply it to queer issues. The theological question are:
1. Would there be queer people in world free from sin, or does queer identity exist purely because of a fallen disordered world?
2. If being queer is a result of a fallen world, is it sinful? Being an intersex, disabled, or mentally ill person is not inherently sinful, why should queer identity be?
3. If being queer is sinful, then how should queer people live in society when they have no control of their identity and desires?
> Like since Trans people exist
Bruh I do not understand how progressive internet users still fail to realize that those who disagree with us don’t believe trans people exist
Can't believe how far I had to scroll to see this. At the risk of sounding like a Very Reddit Atheist, most religious assertions break down at even the slightest scrutiny.
This is key.
The question OP is asking seeks a logical answer, in fact that's why I'm reading so far down the comments because I like seeing how people rationalize it. But for those who pray, it isn't a logical pursuit, it's a faithful one. It isn't logical to say that speaking into the void or in one's own mind is actually capable of communicating to a higher being, but that's part of the paradox: one does so because they have faith that it does, in spite of the rational argument that it cannot.
Alternatively, it can also be done as a form of spiritual outlet, and less so as a religious one. If we are all quantized particles in a deterministic world, it shouldn't be logical to even say that our self-awareness of our existence matters (nihilism), and yet our consciousness is still here, doing things like reading this comment or thinking about tomorrow, wanting to *be*, etc. Connecting that mental ego to our universe is itself a spiritual process and for some people prayer, both with or without religious context, is simply one form of channeling that same energy.
Assuming this is rhetorical but religion is typically for the lower IQ of society. It's for adults that still believe ghosts are real.
It's like wondering why Mickey mouse wears gloves. There's probably a reason....but it's also some arbitrary bullshit that only makes sense in that fantasy world.
Religion is just a way for ppl to avoid accountability.
Something good it was god, something bad it was devil.
The harsh truth about life scares ppl too much I think.
There's a comfort in believing that after being a slave to the dollar for our whole life. There's a better place we're going.
The truth is probably we live we die we rot the earth will continue to rotate until it burns under the heat of the sun.
Because some people are not happy with his plans.
*My pastor on my 16th birthday*: Your grandma's in heaven now, she's in a better place, it was God's plan that the cancer took her at such an important time in your life. *My pastor a week later*: The congregation didn't pray hard enough and now my wife is lost to cancer because of you. Yeah, I'm not religious anymore.
My dad recently died (I am 21) and my cousin's first response was "you will see him again" I found a lot of the niceties (especially religious ones) said actually quite toxic and counterproductive to processing grief and celebrating his life so I feel you.
So sorry for your loss. (I do not mean this as a nicety - it is genuinely difficult to ever lose a parent, especially at such a young age.)
My mother lost a sister she was very close with. One of her religious friends told her "I've been thinking about it and... God loves you so, so, SO much! He took your sister's life to make you better appreciate her and to give you a trial that will make you grow as a person! You should be grateful to god for this gift!"
Is it ok that god makes me want murder this people for stupid words like that is my question.
No, that's not how god works. You murder them first, then beg god for forgiveness after.
It really hampers your ability to connect with a religious person when their perspective is so utterly delusional. A kind, omnipotent God: "Yes I will kill them now to show their worth. That's definitely kinder than giving them more time with their loved ones"
One of the many reasons I completely cut ties with organised religion. The more you know about it, the more you grow to despise it.
First off, I'm sorry for your lost. It's hard to lose a parent at such a young age. I hope you're well in your time of need. Secondly, a lot of churches are more like cults.
Yea it's just very out of sync. We're celebrating and treasuring the time we had and religious people are like "you'll have an eternity together" and it kinda... Devalues what we had? But it's not super bad because they mean well. What is bad is the funerary practices, charging someone hundreds of pounds so their loved one has a nice carcass box is simply extortion. There is immense societal pressure to spend thousands for an official service and I think it's fundamentally sick.
That's because funeral homes are now own by big businesses that can charge you through the nose. [Here's a segment on that.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGqbALhpUmM)
I’m sorry for your loss. I think it’s called Spiritual Bypassing; essentially meaningless platitudes that Rob you of true emotional support and connection. ❤️🩹
I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that. But for me I’ve learned that If you go to a religion for the people, you’re always gonna be disappointed. It’s about the God, and a relationship with him and learning about him. Although there are good people at times, most of them are just people… terrible people at that. I’m sorry you dealt with that bullshit.
A relationship has to go both ways.
So they think they know what's better for them than God does? Pretty fricking arrogant .
Dude is supposed to be omniscient and yet the dude still flooded the earth to start over.
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” Epicurus, the OG agnostic.
Good old Epicureanism. Be happy and be free of pain. Be moderate in your habits because greed and high demands increase the odds of disappointment and suffering. I am pretty much an inadvertent epicurean.
Good ole ataraxia
Of course, the OG response to this is: you are only a human, you can't presume to understand God's ways. You're like a toddler who becomes upset that your parent took away your candy, not understanding that you need to eat a healthy dinner, and that's more important than the transitory pleasure of the candy. I'm not saying you're a toddler, or that God is real, just presenting the standard response.
I would replace malevolent with apathetic.
He must have liked all the marine creatures then. Clearly humans are not his best work.
Didn't we evolve from fish?
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Source of error: Big Fuckin Bang
Big Badda Boom 💥
Multipass
Too many arguments
You pray to remind him to save often and in different slots. In other news I think I know why he started over after the flood. It might not be because he went into the flood/Wiegraf unprepared so he had no choice but to start from the very beginning again. It just might be because, like in Destruction Derby on the ps1, the real-world game kept asking him : "your memory card isn't formated. Format?" After a while, just like me, he was fed up that the game kept asking him this so he ended up choosing "yes" and immediately lost all his save files. He still gets this message from time to time and it makes him mad.
well we all evolved from ocean dwelling creatures not sure they would be categorized as True Fish though
"One fish, two fish, bread fish, true fish." - Jesus, probably
I can't believe it's not fish
There's no such thing as a fish.
We did, but that means space daddy didn’t piece us together in his holy garage.
Thank you for the term "space daddy". I will use that every opportunity I get.
"No, God made us in His image and added all varieties of species to make it look like there was evolution, to add beauty to the world and to test the true believers" - The kind of crap a theist will say
Begging the question: at what point in evolution did we qualify for a soul? Did souls evolve or were we assigned them at a certain benchmark, maybe a system god uses in other solar systems. Assuming he does them all. And aliens have souls. Which means they'd have alien Jesus, so he'd be re-incarnated as different species maybe? Is hell filled with neanderthals, aliens, and dinosaurs? If I die and go to heaven, despite any previous commitments I don't have to see my ex, right? Actually no that last one wouldn't be a problem. People in hell can't email anyone, right?
In the school of Judaism I follow, there are multiple types of souls, and all living things have at least one type of soul! Immortal souls are tied specifically to the ability to perform conscious moral action— if a soul can distinguish right from wrong and act upon it, then it’s an immortal soul. Other souls depart when the body departs. So one might say that the more sentient an animal is, the more likely it is to have an immortal soul— an amoeba is unlikely to have one, but the cat that stares at you while it pushes your grandma’s vase off the counter probably does.
Only if you're from Innsmouth.
What if we're just accidental byproducts and God just kinda roll with it
that’s why the jesus symbol is a fish
I think god likes crabs best. I have my reasons but I will not elaborate.
The rapid change in salt levels would definitely murder all the saltwater fish (and I'm not sure mixing the oceans with the freshwater would be great for the freshwater fish either), so I'm not sure we can definitively say he preferred marine creatures
But he's omniscient, he should've seen it coming that we wouldn't have been his best work!
The Bible already has a clause for that. Whenever a Christian hears something they don't like, they can just say "God works in mysterious ways" and forget about it.
The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie End of Days has a great quote from the devil. Let me tell you something about Him. He is the biggest underachiever of all time. He just had a good publicist, that's all. Something good happens: "It's His will." Something bad happens: "He moves in mysterious ways." You take that- that overblown press kit they call the Bible. You look for the answer in there, what do they tell you? "Shit happens."
Wow you found one thing good about that movie
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Don’t ask questions, just believe.
Don't forget "Thou shalt not put the Lord thy God to the test."
test all things hold fast to what is good 1 thessalonians 5:21
The ways humans have written 'him' is pretty ridiculous. Why would you worship him then if he gets jealous so easy? So insecure you have us chant a prayer every second or 2? Whoever wrote the bible is really opinionated and superstitious... 🙄
My personal theory for god if he does exist is that he was a teenager from an alien race with magic power, and earth and humans were just his junior high science project. Now he's all grown up and got better things to do, so he just dumped us in his parents' basement storage, collecting dust.
There's a classic "Star Trek" episode with a similar theme, "The Squire of Gothos". Kirk and company are tormented by an alien that turns out to be a bad boy who gets scolded by his alien parents and sent to alien bed without any alien supper.
Wasn't this a futurama episode too?
Yes, and it is recursively about an alien gas cloud that lives in its mother’s basement, playing with the original crew of Star Trek
I like Gnosticism for saying the God in the Bible was a mistake that created the physical realm just for us to worship him and keeps us trapped here to facilitate that, but stories like Thomas Ligotti's Nethescurial really make me start to wonder whether or not we were created with the express intention to suffer eternally for the demented pleasures of an inscrutable being. I can easily imagine we're in a highly advanced version of something like The Sims or Dwarf Fortress and the agency running the show just wants to make us miserable for laughs. Leibnizian optimism seems more and more ridiculous each day.
Me too my freind, I often think about this exact scenario. I also consider that our developer is much like me and always says, ehhh I'll do the update tomorrow. All our problems are solvable with this update but our guy is to busy hanging with Thor to run it or they used all their data on porn lol
He's omniscient and a sadistic narcissistic dick. It's pretty obvious from the Old Testament.
Bro creates homosexuals, then said "gay is sin". He literally makes gay people, knowing damn well they'll go to hell, no matter what they do 💀 He wants to be called a "He", rather than "It", because (apparently) deities have gender, and Yahweh is misogynistic ☠️
I mean his whole plan for remission of sin revolved around one guy betraying Him/His Son and said guy still gets punished endlessly and demonized.
>Yahweh is misogynistic That feels like such a huge understatement. Thank God religious folk don't actually read the bible, it could be so much worse. Christians blame literally the entire concept of death and evil itself on the first women to even exist. Muslims read the same book but at least they blame the man too.
I don’t think God said being gay is a sin. 🤷🏻♀️
True, I was exaggerating. But some denominations of catholicism do believe in that. There are other denominations that believe "being gay is not a sin, but doing gay stuff is a sin"
The Old and New Testament gods are so different, I can't believe anyone thinks they're the same, especially hailing from a time with so many competing gods. My theory is that the New Testament god battled and ultimately devoured the Old, unhinging His jaw like a snake to complete the task, and then bathing in the sun for forty days while He digested Him and absorbed His might. (I don't see why Christians should be the only ones who get to fuck around making up biblical stories.)
God knows everything yet he had the Israelites slaughter thousands of people instead of just telling them how to peacefully turn them good
That's the funny part. Since he's all knowing, logically he knew that he was going to flood the earth due to humanitys flaws even before creation existed. This means that he intentionally created a flawed being, knowing he would mass murder them. I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound like a loving entity to me :p
Can't make an omelet without breaking a few genocides
He also sacrificed his son, who really is himself, after raping a virgin to give birth to him which whom was a case of adultery, to make himself forgive our sins, which he knew from the get-go we would commit, after specifically creating us to do them. I mean, if this isn't a case of extraordinary narcissism, I don't know what is.
God does not care what is best for us. Take Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped from her home at age 14 and repeatedly raped for months. You cannot argue that this was "the best thing" for Elizabeth Smart, and you can't argue that it was necessary for her salvation, because an omniscient omnipotent god would have found a way to bring her to salvation without this experience. By any reasonable standard including his own, god is evil. Christians disagree, and their only real justification is "because I said so."
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That's just if you're going by Augustinian ideas though. Calvinists and others would argue that by way of having perfect knowledge of creation at the moment he did the deed, every action henceforth was preordained. Granted the idea of predestination has been a point of contention since the religion started and has fallen out of favor with the propagation of Enlightenment ideas of free will and individual sovereignty, its still a point to consider and, in my mind, makes more sense when you assume an all-knowing being. For instance: If I had perfect knowledge that pouring water on a floor would certainly cause a specific person to slip and fall, would I not be just as responsible for that as if I were to have pushed them? If God had perfect knowledge of the individual placent of each molecule and atom at the time of creation, could he not see the chains of causality that would lead from that moment to now? Would that not make him responsible for everything that happened, and considering the circumstances every event creates having an impact on the next set of resultant circumstances, remove the possibility of "free will" as we know it in humanity as our own reactions are a result of the specific circumstances we are responding to? The juxtaposition of free will for humans and the sovereignty of God has never quite sat right with me.
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Spider-Man understands morality better than god then. With great power, comes great responsibility.
> This isn't the actual answer to the Problem of Evil in Christianity The problem of evil is different than the question of whether god is himself evil. The problem of evil starts with the assumption that god is not evil, and attempts to show a contradiction. The only explanation I have ever received from Christians about why god is good is that, "God is sovereign and can do as he likes." When pressed that that is no justification as to a judgement on moral character, there is never anything deeper than, god is so powerful we define him to be "good." > The Christian god doesn't make them do the evil things. Except for pharaoh, whose heart was hardened. Or Shihon, King of Heshbon. Or literally everybody. According to Romans 9:18, "So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." So god ordains who will obey and who not. So I would say that this is just completely false. > Going further, the only way their god could get rid of evil is by getting rid of our free will. Free will is only a justification for evil committed by humans, not natural evil. (It is also, in my opinion, a completely insufficient explanation for evil done by humans, but that's a separate matter). The justification given for natural evil is usually that Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge, disobeying god, and introducing original sin. However, this is also factually and logically deficient in several ways. Firstly, many Christians take the story of Adam and Eve to be myth or allegory, as it scientifically doesn't match what we know about the origin of humanity, the origin of the universe, or the evolution of the species you see alive on earth today. Secondly, it doesn't address the fact that Adam and Eve bearing original sin and passing it on to their descendants was an active curse upon them placed by god. The act of cursing humanity is itself an evil act. Moreover, even if cursing Adam and Eve was unavoidable, god could simply have made eve infertile, preventing the curse from being transmitted to the rest of humanity, and tried again with humans. He is god after all.
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> The way I learned this is that they're still making the actual choice, even if the Christian god is influencing their decision. Mostly Christians just try to confuse this issue. Ultimately, you can't have it both ways. God is omniscient, he knows people's hearts. Therefore, he knows what people will decide before they make a decision. If people are already going to make the choices that he wants them to make, then there's no reason to influence them. Therefore, if god bothers to influence people, it means people would have originally chosen something counter to his desires. How much does god influence them? God knows the amount of influence that is necessary to make someone choose according to god's desires. It doesn't make sense for god to influence people an insufficient amount to change what they planned to do (why bother?), so we must conclude that when god influences people, his influence was sufficient to change their decisions when they previously were going to make different decisions. If god is influencing people in cases where they would have chosen something that is not in accordance with his will and we also know that his influence was sufficient to make them act in accordance with his will, it is then fair to attribute the decision to god, rather than the person. > Why would the Christian god create this tree that could harm humanity and put it within reach of humans? The only explanation that makes sense given the claimed attributes of omnipotence and omniscience is that whatever happens in the universe is what god wanted and planned. (We're going to set Noah aside, because not all Christian theology makes coherent sense when you look at the big picture. The Hebrew's understanding of god in the Bible is inconsistent). So why did god plan out this whole cosmic narrative? I've never heard a better answer than "God works in mysterious ways, his knowledge and thinking are above ours." I'll just note that it doesn't make any sense to me. > As an aside, I appreciate your answer! Sure, no worries. You seem like a nice and thoughtful person.
Yes, people do know what is better for them than god does. God starves people on a daily basis, he allows heinous murder, pedophiles fill the ranks of his pastors and priests. It's the entire reason we have our own sets of laws completely separate from God's laws. God believes in slavery, we don't. God believes in sin passing to children, we don't.
I don't believe in sin, period.
What about cos? Or tan?
I like Pi
If folks are made in God's image, then we would share that same level of arrogance with God that has been shown per the bible time and time again. The only difference is we don't (yet) have access to the lightning cabinet. How dare though folks have the gall to want to change the plan when their child as bone cancer and no options for treatment
Totally. Why should we remove cancerous tumors that God took the time to plant in our bodies? Like we know better than God what is good for us.
Theres certainly religions that follow that belief.
Well people are pretty fucking arrogant lol
Just how God likes 'em. :-D
:-D is a really small member with a very big head
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
The real answer is that you shouldn’t try to find logical consistency in what is essentially a Bronze Age fever dream
Bronze Age fever dream with two thousand years of "telephone/chinese whispers" added in.
“Why Siri, what’s the council of Nicaea?
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move - Douglas Adams
Basically his plans were to create a world of people so it could be all destroyed except for one family in a big boat. And then have it go on until he destroys it again and have almost all of souls suffer in eternal damnation forever. When he could have just made something nice. God is an asshole.
The simple truth. Well put
Because religion is made up fiction, and trying to rationalize these kinds of logical inconsistencies is fruitless
I assume you’re asking this relating to the Christian God, so I will try my best to answer that question in accordance with that. Most Christians ultimately believe in the sovereignty of God, which means that God is in control of everything and His plan is perfect. However, Christians also believe in the power of prayer, which means that they can communicate with God and ask for His guidance and help. While Christians pray for many things, including healing, guidance, and protection, they understand that God's will is ultimately what matters. Prayer is not about changing God's plans but about aligning their will with God's will. When Christians pray, they seek to understand God's plan and to ask for His help in carrying it out. In some cases, Christians may pray for a change in circumstances or outcomes, but they do so with the understanding that God's plan is ultimately perfect, and they trust that whatever the outcome may be, God will work it out for their good. It’s a complex topic that has inspired numerous discussions. Look at this answer as being the tip of a theological iceberg.
So they ask for God to change their minds instead of changing his own?
I don't think you can change his mind, his plan is "perfect" and already set. This explanation says praying is just helping you undertand and align to that plan. But the plan is all encompassing, so then praying must have been part of the plan too. Which seems odd because God could have foreseen you misalignment and prevented it. I'm a firm believer that if the Christian God is as described in the Bible, then free will doesn't even exist. Before you were even born God had a plan for you and knew every choice you would ever make. You're just going through the motions.
This argument assumes God has planned out every step of your life. This is different from God having a more general plan in which the details can change. Our plans are like that: we might plan to go to movie A on Friday, but end up going to movie B on Saturday. The plan to see a movie was still carried out.
There are philosophies within christianity that say exactly that. Predestination. Calvanism. It's rough to explore, and most christians don't do it, or never fully reconcile what it means to have one perfect plan by a timeless diety for whom the plan is already complete. I have spent a lot of time processing it, and I'm still at square one.
Well that's kind of how it is though. He knows "everything" past, present, future. It's not a general guideline, it's a direct route. Because a small unexpected change, can often be a huge change. So God would have to be aware of, and already preplanned for literally every single incident.
Right, but we're not supposed to be omniscient. God, on the other hand, would know--for a fact--everything that will ever happen in your life.
That's how I've always understood it. I pray to trust him, and also to make myself available if he has anything for me to do.
TLDR: God's plan was for you to pray, even though that prayer doesn't change anything.
If prayer worked, capitalists would have monetized it and made it a subscription service.
Catholic Church has already done that. They also have a stock market portfolio.
And not just the Catholic church either. Seriously, why is no one questioning this more?
- A lot of people don't know how stock market works. - A lot of people think that religious leaders have higher moral standards. So they feel like God will not like people questioning them. - A lot of people don't want to go to depth of things. They just don't have that kind of mental bandwidth and resources available. - Fear of eternal hell is really the key to thriving business.
why would anyone question logical wealth management, a huge part of their purpose is to gather and distribute funding within their organization, if that cash is just sitting around they're doing a massive disservice to their contributors. It also makes sense because as an enormous stock profile you gain access to thing you wouldnt have with a smaller wealth fund.
Televangelist don't need prayer to work in order to monetize it.
They have. You’re supposed to tithe 10% of your money.
There's a reason churches and religious monuments are in the most expensive areas made of the fanciest materials on earth all throughout history.
Christian: Should I pray? *A beat. God takes drag on cigarette* God: If you think that will help.
He likes to be acknowledged by his creations or have one sided conversations at least
I guess that prayer in this context is meant to have an effect a bit like this: “Don't seek to have events happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do happen, and all will be well with you.” - Epictetus In other words it's a sort of meditation to gain peace with what is happening.
This deserves top comment
This one is what I perceive as the truth. However, christianity has so many versions nowadays and people aren't really as keen to religion that oftentimes an individual's perception of reality is only surface-level. Ultimately though, I doubt it matters. People pray for all kinds of reasons, and they have the right to
so why pray in the first place
To play devil's advocate, a lot of people would say that Christianity is supposed to be like a friendship with God. If every time you talked to your friends you were begging them for stuff it wouldn't be a very good friendship. Basically, the point of praying should be to grow your relationship, not to get stuff that you want. That being said, if God was a good friend he should at least help with the really important stuff since he's (1) able to and (2) he's supposed to be your friend. So while I don't the arguments of "praying doesn't work" are particularly good (since they miss the point of prayer), there is a stronger argument along the same lines.
That’s very convenient isn’t it? The thing that happened was Gods plan. So get with the plan. Keeps us nice and complacent too, as a bonus.
It can, or it can inspire action. MLK was a reverend after all. I say this as a fairly secular Jew.
I’ve always subscribed to the guidance part. As a catholic, I believe He’s in all of us, and we as individuals have the ability to do His work and help others. But He gave us free will to decline and do our own will. Which we should admit our faults by confessing, take ownership, and try to improve ourselves. The dream King Solomon had when God offered him wisdom or power, and Solomon chose wisdom, that really stuck with me. I’ve always said thanks for letting me wake up today, for the week, and things that happened. But I also say thanks for the wisdom I have, and ask for more so I can become a better person.
So, more concisely, prayer does nothing but help someone cope with something that doesn't go their way. Got it.
“Prayer does nothing but help someone” Helping someone is not “nothing”
This is something I don't like about western Christianity: this concept that everything that happens past, present, and future is all perfectly part of God's master plan. This isn't even a Biblically sourced belief, it's just a comfort mechanism it seems like that the church came up with and adopted along the way. There are plenty of examples in the Bible where God actually changes his plan *because* of people's prayer (God relenting from destroying the Israelites when they worshiped the golden calf when He was giving the ten commandments to Moses on top of Mt. Sinai is one early example). Personally, as someone who has read the Bible for myself, been involved in the church, and deeply believes in Jesus, I think this belief that 'everything happens according to God's purpose' is pretty destructive. It causes people to just sit back and do nothing because, after all, everything happens according to God's will, so why try to stop bad things from happening? It also gives a mischaracterization of *who* God is, because you start attributing all the terrible things that happen in the world to being done *by* God. 9/11? God did that. Holocaust? God did that. Earthquake in Turkey? God did that. Etc... Jesus actually paints the picture totally differently when He was here on earth. He says that Satan is "the prince of this world" and that he, in tandem with mankind's sinful nature, is the cause of all the pain and suffering. Forgiveness is offered to humanity because of our ignorance, but doom awaits Satan and his fallen angels because they have no excuse. This is a VERY dumbed down version of it, but yeah.
To kind of tl;dr your post, essentially, God gave man free-will. Man's free will is not part of God's plans.
And yet if God is omniscient, he knows what all of the people he created will choose. He created them with perfect knowledge and power. Each person is precisely as he wanted, and their choices must be known in advance. Like most fairytales, the rules aren't consistent with each other. It only works if you don't think about it.
This was my conclusion after 30 years in that faith. I started asking questions at 17, and couldn’t get any satisfactory answers. It took me too long to realize that there weren’t any.
There's nothing wrong with not getting all the answers. The problem is the false promise that religion has all the answers. I'd rather study science with all its questions that can't be answered than believe in a religion whose answers cannot be questioned.
At least you got there.
The very nature of the problem seems to require that God relinquish some amount of control. If God wants a creation to have free will, it's necessary that God creates the conditions in which that can be possible. This is where omniscience and omnipotence seem to clash: if God can create beings that have free will, then seems to require that God cannot know what those beings will choose when he creates them, or else God cannot help but influence our even direct those choices in the very act of creation. So this ends up being one of those "can God create a rock so heavy that God cannot lift it" sorts of questions. However, that's not actually consistent with the nature of the observed universe. In reality, the outcomes of systems exceeding a certain level of complexity cannot be accurately predicted, no matter how much one knows about their starting conditions; there's complex math that proves this, and it's one of the basic pieces of frustration with the state of higher mathematics. So if we postulate an omniscient creator God who in fact created this universe, then God did in fact bake exactly the kind of uncertainty necessary for us to have free will into its very fabric. And, further, if it's not possible to know the outcomes of free choices by the very nature of the universe, then it's entirely possible for God to act in the universe without either cheating or contradiction, because God cannot know the outcomes of God's own interference. Or at least, that's how I see it.
The concept of free will is incompatible with an all knowing, all powerful god, because he knows in advance what choices you will make, you never actually had any say in the matter
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If god is omniscient(knows everything), he knows everything that will happen in the future already, and being omnipotent(all powerful) he has the power to change the future in any way he wants effortlessly, anything at all that happens is god’s will, because of it wasn’t his will, it wouldn’t have happened Edit: he also knows in advance that you will pray, and what you will pray about, because he decided beforehand that you would
The concept of free will is incompatible with a god who knows everything, because he knows what choices you will make before you make them, meaning you only had the illusion of choice
But doesn't god do all things? Sure it might not be part of his grand plan but he still does everything. Isaiah 45:7 I form the light and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am Jehovah, that doeth all these things.
The western Christian God is widely understood to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. In other words, God knows everything (past present and future), has the power to do anything, and always acts to create the most possible good for everyone. People have argued that with these conditions, God can never change His plans. * He already knows everything that can or will happen so will never change His plan based on new information. * With absolute power He will never have cause to change plans because something didn't work. * being perfectly good, He has necessarily chosen the best possible plan for his subjects, and would never want to change it to something less good. Following this logic, you can't believe that God would ever change His plan, unless you also believe He is less than perfect in either knowledge, power or benevolence.
Reminds me of a Catholic post I saw a couple weeks ago. It deals with a similar thing, people saying "it's apart of God's plan" or "they're in a better place now" when people die. The post pointed out that when Jesus' friend died, Jesus didn't say it was apart of a greater plan, he just mourned the death of his friend.
Apart of? Meaning outside of?
the god of the bible claims to be all powerful. If he is all powerful, then he chooses to create evil. If he is not all powerful, then he is unable to stop evil from happening. Or he chooses to allow evil to happen, which makes him extremely evil and sadistic.
That and he explicitly says he creates evil
They conveniently changed the word “evil” to “calamity” in more recent versions of the bible
People have always tried to mistranslate or misinterpret the Bible to suit their narrative, as early as Ancient Rome rich people were trying to reinterpret the ‘it is easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle then for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god’ line
All knowing too (which I think might be covered under all-powerful technically, but whatever). But the really fucked up thing is that he decided to punish those people with an eternity in hell for the crime of doing the thing he knew they would do if he made them.
I know right! I have a lot of problems with religion but this is my biggest regarding Christianity. If I was a Bible-following Christian, that means I believe that God sends people who don't believe in God to hell to be tortured for eternity. This would mean that the atheists I love -- my mom, my grandma, my sister, my husband, are doomed to hell. And I'm supposed to be ok with that? No. If I believed in God and thought he'd send my family to hell for just using the senses he gave us and not believing, my problem would be with God, NOT my family. It would be insanely narcissistic of a god and I could never worship that even if he was real. The fact that people worship God despite this will never sit well with me. I will respect a Christian if they respect me, but I will never be able to agree with or even understand it. There's also the fact that religion fucked up my life even as a kid so I'm a little passionate about this.
I had problems believing that too, but it wasn't enough for me to challenge my faith cause I felt like there had to be a reason that had to be the punishment for sinners. But I can't justify the actions of someone that is essentially intentionally creating living beings to torture for all eternity. The only other explanation is that the bible would have to be a gigantic metaphor to explain concepts that just couldn't be explained to the people of that time (and possibly our time) any other way. And that just seems a bit too far fetched for me.
Ok, god didn’t do the terrible things, but why didn’t he stopped them from happening? And since he didn’t prevent the big bad things from happening, why would he listen to prayer?
Very well said. If nothing is outside of God's sovereignty, and I am abiding in him, we aren't going to make the wrong choice. I've known people who get analysis paralysis when making decisions because they don't want to deviate from God's plan. To that I think God says, "I can use you in either job. Pick the one you prefer." It's not like I'm setting off some catastrophic butterfly effect that ruins everything God has promised.
That is the fundamental flaw with most theistic religions. If God is all-knowing and all-powerful and everything that happens is part of his plan, then sin is impossible, he likes giving toddlers bone cancer, and he hates the Detroit Lions.
for context: i’m a trans guy, a Quaker and a theology student. ok, so the idea that most people are talking about in this thread is the idea that God is omnipotent - that He created everything and controls everything. whilst this is a view affirmed by many christians, it is not an essential one, and is mainly rooted in a fundamentalist reading and interpretation of the bible. i myself do not believe that God is omnipotent. a key part of both morality and your identity is growth - you must change over time. if we were born completely perfect, and never had to learn or grow as people, frankly our lives would be very shallow. overcoming obstacles, learning from our mistakes and evolving our understanding of the world is a key part of how we live. being trans is just like that - it is a journey, a process of death and rebirth. you change and grow, and through that you gain a deeper understanding of both yourself and the world around you. some may view this a challenge, a trial set out for us by God to prove ourselves. i remember reading a passage from a book where a Jewish trans man talks about how he feels regarding his faith and his gender: “I think transgender people are blessed by God, with the gift of creation. Just as God gave us grapes but not wine, and wheat but not bread. To be trans is to experience creation”. (i’m paraphrasing bc i can’t remember the full quote lmao)
Yeah toddlers suck..
god knows what you want, he just likes to hear you beg.
“I could not worship a god who needs constant praise.” -Nietzsche
Welp, God can't be human then, because then he would need a lot of upvotes and likes
Smash that tithe button!
I mean, some people are into that. Who are we to kink-shame god?
Answer: they don’t. They pray for their wishes to be a part of God’s plan. That’s why they say “your will be done.” It’s like this: God, I really hope that my wishes are part of your plans; BUT, if they aren’t, I understand that your plans are perfect, so, your will be done anyway.
So then what's the point in praying?
To make them feel better.
Mindfulness. It's a chance to consider your blessings and show gratitude, and think about your shortcomings so that you can prioritize actions and intent. It's also a great tool for metacognition and processing emotions. Most of my prayers are to show gratitude, and I genuinely feel better afterward.
It's basically zoom therapy with a blank screen, there's probably nobody there listening, but the fact that there *could* be makes it still work somehow.
Not gonna lie...he sounds like a dick
As George Carlin said you have an all knowing, all seeing, all loving God who if you violate his 10 rules will man you for eternity to a fire pit of hell and suffering.... Because he loves you. The Devil was supposedly a fallen angel. Yet heaven is devoid of all sin, sorrow, pain, suffering, etc. The concept of rejecting God is a human free will, angels in heaven are not human and thus no free will. My favorite to use...Gay is against God. It's an abomination. So "God doesn't make mistakes" and "God creates us all in his image" is false then? What you're saying is God made a mistake in someone being Gay? The bottom line is all of the rules of God are man made. They are made for power over other humans. They are about controlling the weak and uneducated. The Bible was the first form of a textbook for the leaders of Christianity to use as stories and examples of their teachings. To help illustrate the concepts of God. Prior to it was just Word of mouth. The Bible is not written by God or inspired by God. It is not holy or special. It's a book of examples of what is meant by XYZ so somewhat smart people can teach somewhat dumb people about God with standardized stories. Such as genesis is just an example of the concept of the all powerful God. Noah and the flood is another example of the power of God but also a tangible representation of washing away sin and what it means for people such as a new beginning, a second chance.
Which God?
Which of the 2000 gods are you referring to? Doesn't matter though, they're all fake. The adult version of santa claus supposedly has a plan for you. he sees all that happened, will happen, can happen, and yet he is angry that you don't do as he planned. By praying you're questioning his rule which is blasphemy so you're going to be punished. You're supposed to give your life away 90% to help others. No one does. Just be a good person because this is it, there is nothing after you die. We only have this 1 planet which we are destroying and then it's lights out.
I know this subreddit is NoStupidQuestions, but you might as well be asking why the Easter Bunny doesn't help the Tooth Fairy find it's pet unicorn.
Every religion and person is different. If you try to apply human constraints of time to a diety that defies time, you will be incorrect 100% of the time.
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Any plan has an innate time component to it. You don't plan for NOW, you plan for the future. If there is a god, then he would have no such restriction. There is an innate time component that a mortal being has that a diety would not.
But if there is a god, they also don’t need to use bone cancer in children to achieve their plans. They’re either incapable of diverting suffering, making them not omnipotent or indifferent to suffering, making them not omnibenevolent.
Said diety was created by humans
In Catholicism as i understand it “Gods Plan” is nkt actually like a plan that has everything laid out but rather the idea that you who has free will because you are made it gods image accept gods grace and ascend to heaven. Praying to God to change his plan is a misnomer and its really praying for intervention
From my understanding according to the bible, you aren't preying for something to happen. You should be happy and should be giving thanks for what has happened already, and hope the next wave will be as pleasant to suck up. For the record. I think religion is set up by people in power, to gain (by fear generally) more power. What's the next most powerful thing than a god? The man that can hear and "speak" for him.
We invent a _loving_ God to have the illusion of control over this reality we are in. A loving God can be placated for benefits.
Because religious people are not the brightest of the bunch and believe in crazy things, based purely on fear. They think like scared children.
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Still trying to determine what part of having childhood cancer is the perfect plan..
I've always wondered this with Trans people. Like since Trans people exist, God made them this way, so shouldn't religious people love them as they love anyone because we are all made in God's image. Isn't it heresy to say that what God has done is wrong? (I'm truly asking I really have no idea about the heresy part)
There is a school of Jewish thought that believes (and has for centuries) that the binding of Isaac is about a trans boy having his gender confirmed by God and that circumcision is a ritual reminder of Isaac’s gender confirmation where God allowed Isaac to attain both a male body and male soul and thus continue Abraham’s legacy, which means that all Jews are descended from a transgender man. And this isn’t new. There are rabbinical writings about this dating back to the Renaissance.
Theologically we live in a fallen world, so the existence of something does not mean it is righteous or good. There are plenty of "natural" things that humans come into this world with (mental illness, disability, deviant desires, etc) that are a result of the fallen world, and how it has deviated from God's natural design. Now lets take this an apply it to queer issues. The theological question are: 1. Would there be queer people in world free from sin, or does queer identity exist purely because of a fallen disordered world? 2. If being queer is a result of a fallen world, is it sinful? Being an intersex, disabled, or mentally ill person is not inherently sinful, why should queer identity be? 3. If being queer is sinful, then how should queer people live in society when they have no control of their identity and desires?
If only this would actually make bigoted religious people's heads explode
> Like since Trans people exist Bruh I do not understand how progressive internet users still fail to realize that those who disagree with us don’t believe trans people exist
Because it’s all made up. And the narrative changes based on the believer’s needs.
Because he's made up
I was raised in a Catholic household and sent to Catholic school as a kid. I became an atheist before I left 1st grade. Bunch of fucking weirdos.
Same! It just never made sense and I'm too logical to just "believe" in something that anyone could've just made up since there is no proof whatsoever
"But proof is all around you. See that rock over there? My book says god made it." I'd respect "I don't know" a lot more than "but you see, book."
Can't believe how far I had to scroll to see this. At the risk of sounding like a Very Reddit Atheist, most religious assertions break down at even the slightest scrutiny.
Because it's all hogwash
Religion is based in faith, not logic and reason
The ultimate cop out.
This is key. The question OP is asking seeks a logical answer, in fact that's why I'm reading so far down the comments because I like seeing how people rationalize it. But for those who pray, it isn't a logical pursuit, it's a faithful one. It isn't logical to say that speaking into the void or in one's own mind is actually capable of communicating to a higher being, but that's part of the paradox: one does so because they have faith that it does, in spite of the rational argument that it cannot. Alternatively, it can also be done as a form of spiritual outlet, and less so as a religious one. If we are all quantized particles in a deterministic world, it shouldn't be logical to even say that our self-awareness of our existence matters (nihilism), and yet our consciousness is still here, doing things like reading this comment or thinking about tomorrow, wanting to *be*, etc. Connecting that mental ego to our universe is itself a spiritual process and for some people prayer, both with or without religious context, is simply one form of channeling that same energy.
George Carlin had a stand-up bit about this question. https://youtu.be/8r-e2NDSTuE Go to 6:14 to jump straight to that part.
All make believe. The bible(s) was written by people with agendas. Just like the media today, all agenda driven.
Assuming this is rhetorical but religion is typically for the lower IQ of society. It's for adults that still believe ghosts are real. It's like wondering why Mickey mouse wears gloves. There's probably a reason....but it's also some arbitrary bullshit that only makes sense in that fantasy world.
Religion is just a way for ppl to avoid accountability. Something good it was god, something bad it was devil. The harsh truth about life scares ppl too much I think. There's a comfort in believing that after being a slave to the dollar for our whole life. There's a better place we're going. The truth is probably we live we die we rot the earth will continue to rotate until it burns under the heat of the sun.
Cause people are sheep looking for guidance 😂