by elder-schmelder 58 Replies latest jw friends
"These kids are now with their loving God, and are not sad at all. They are in a wonderful place right now, seeing more amazing things and meeting more amazing people than any of us ever have."
For example the millions of babies who starved to death.
For example the millions of babies who starved to death.
God's mans religious explanations are just not holding water anymore are they?
These kids are now with their loving God, and are not sad at all. They are in a wonderful place right now,
This makes the crime seem meaningless. Why are the parents even upset, do they just not have enough faith?
Religion has nothing useful to say.
Please Share with me this.......
"What has God done in the last 2000+ years of man's existence on earth?"
Religion is, at its core, the grout that fills in the spaces in our understanding of the physical world and a psychological survival mechanism that reduces that discomfort we feel when something we can't comprehend happens.
Thousands of years ago, the sun was a god riding across the sky, and that was an ummutable fact. It had to be, because we had no frame of reference to even begin to comprehend was the sun actually is. But, eventually man's knowledge of the world grew through science and observation, and god retreated.
Just a few centuries ago, sickness was caused by evil sprits, and some people were cured by god through ritual and prayer. Then, we learned about microbes, bacteria and infection and god retreated again.
A side effect of our unique intelligence is that our brains try to find logical patterns in everything we observe. Pattern recognition is how our brains operate every day, from recognizing faces of people we know, to making scientific discoveries. It is the key component in our intelligence. Because of this, we don't like chaos. We don't like randomness. So, when something tragic happens that has no logical reason, no meaning, we try to comprehend it by applying comfortable patterns to it. 20 children shot dead in a random act of violence. Something that is incomprehensible to us. Rather than accept that it just happened for no greater reason than one person's mental instability, we have to try and comfort ourselves by saying that there must be some greater purpose, some higher reason.
God allowed it to happen because...
God needed more little angels...
God is punishing us because...
These beliefs, as flawed as they are, are a salve which soothes our brains, which are working overtime trying to fit an incomprensible event into a pattern we can recognize.
Not everyone needs these beliefs to make sense of things. There are people who can deal with an event like this for what it is. But for those who still can't, it helps to understand why. It's not their fault, its how the brain works. The more understanding we have of the world around us, the more we grow out of it, but we're not quite there yet.
im not wanting to get into this whole god thing , but i can only imagine how the parents feel ,if i who lives hrs away am waking up with tears in my eyes how horrible the parents feel. all i can say and this is not to try to say why god allows bad things,but rather just the facts. the bible shows that the father send his son to die,and the father did not intervne or stop it and jesus was without sin,so yeah he does not interven today,i cant speak beyond that,as for me personally i wish we would learn some way to stop all these tragidys from rape to gang murders to abortion to mass killings ,life is to valueable.and not only the kids but the adults who were protecting the kids and there familys.ohh so senseless. the kids who die from not taking blood,its all the same ,senseless!
"FRom 2 Posts Above"
Not everyone needs these beliefs to make sense of things. There are people who can deal with an event like this for what it is. But for those who still can't, it helps to understand why. It's not their fault, its how the brain works. The more understanding we have of the world around us, the more we grow out of it, but we're not quite there yet."
My Question WHO needs to believe in a GOD that does NOT exist?
Actually, per JW doctrine, what the gunman did was far more effective than 120,000+ hours of preaching.
It takes 4000+ hours of preaching to net one JW baptism.
Those 30 people dead were all slated to be slaughtered by God at Armageddon "soon". Now they've got a free pass to the "new world" via a resurrection.
Net increase into the "new world society" is plus 30, and it didn't take 120,000 hours of preaching to get them there.
Exactly the point I started making when the WTS switched the judgment period to after the GT instead of between 1918 and the GT. Thus non-jws who died then would be resurrected.
*** w55 4/1 p. 200 Judgment Day—Just a Joke? ***
Since 1918 the enthroned King Christ Jesus has been judging the peoples of the nations.
*** w08 7/15 p. 20 par. 17 You Do Not Know Where It Will Have Success! ***
Does this separating refer to the final judgment of the sheep and the goats that Jesus said would occur when he arrived in his glory? (Matt. 25:31-33) No. That final judgment will occur at Jesus’ coming during the great tribulation
*** w00 1/15 p. 13 “Keep on the Watch” ***
In the parable of the sheep and the goats, the Son of man arrives in his glory in the period of the great tribulation and sits in judgment. He judges people on the basis of whether they gave support to Christ’s anointed brothers. This standard for judgment would be meaningless if at the time of judgment, all of Christ’s brothers had long since left the earthly scene.—Matthew 25:31-46.
Aguest: THANK YOU FOR THIS MOMENT OF CLARITY in an otherwise worthless thread.
I think the best thing is that if one cannot tell a parent who is in such a situation what that parent wants/NEEDS to hear at a time like this (which could be either, the atheist POV or the "christian" POV... or none of these - what of any Jewish or other folks affected??)... one should just say something along the lines of:
"I am SO sorry! HOW can I help? Is there anything YOU need/anything I can do [for you]?"
Anything beyond that, regardless of one's faith, belief, religion, lack thereof, whatever... is not only unkind and unloving... it's absurd, even ridiculous.
