Where is God when it hurts?

theistichedonist

I recently read a riveting, but heartrending story in this forum by "TJ". Although the story at many points tears at your heart, TJ's post is an exceptionally well-written story of his life growing up as a Witness. If you have not read it yet, I would encourage you to do so. The post is titled, "Pop Goes the Circuit Breaker".

One of the things that has caught me since joining this forum is how many times religious abuse repulses people from God. It very difficult to read about people's journeys into atheism after having experience such deep perversion of religion (I am not referring here to TJ's persuasions, as I am not clear as to where he is - I am simply making a general observation about the journey from belief to atheism that often follows on the heels of religious abuse.). Reading TJ's post (and the comments that follow) has reminded me of several major themes that seem to show up as one cotemplates embracing or rejecting atheism:

1. How, in an atheistic worldview does a person who persists in abuse (particularly religious abuse), mind-control, evil, etc... get repaid for the evil that they have sown? One of the odd features of this life (if indeed our three-score-and-ten is all that there is), is that we as people have the frightening capacity to sow more evil than our physical bodies can possibly pay for. There was a man just a short distance from where I live who raped and beheaded a teenage girl . When I think of the evil that he has done to this girl, her family and his culture, my mind scrambles trying to discover a fitting physical punishment that would be appropriate to met out to this guy. Old Sparky would be far too kind. (BTW, I get tired of hearing about how these guys get 20-years)

It seems as though "tijkmo" (in an excellent comment / post on TJ's story) was wrestling with this question as well. After recalling on a difficult time in which tijkmo was seriously wronged / betrayed, tijkmo wrote, "...the damage they did turned me against not just them but god himself. i still believe in god but mainly cos someday I think he will demand an explanation from them."

If you have journeyed towards atheism as a result of religious abuse, do you sense that atheism satisfies an innate cry for the satisfaction of justice in the face of the evil you or others have experienced?

I am not raising this question because I want to gaggle at someone who is hurting (like the disciples who asked, "Which one sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?...). I raised this question because TJ's story, tijkmo's post, and so many other conversations here have touched on this theme - a theme that is well worth exploring...

...AFTER you have read, Pop Goes the Circuit Breaker!

theistichedonist

Mincan

No, it satisfies my cerebellum.

Oh, and when it hurts, God is up ur ass.

WTWizard

God is too busy trying to force me into doing His will (which takes lots of preparing and behind-my-back planning on His part to make it work) to give a rat's axx about helping people where it really counts, and possibly doing His own work by demonstrating actual caring about people. He would rather (1) Enforce my celibacy for the delusion of getting me to fix His congregation, (2) Plan the next mass genocide of people that are not freely willing to give up value for His stupidity, and (3) Prepare a stagnant new order where every move requires His permission, instead of actually helping anyone.

And (4) Getting pxxxed off when I bash Him or refuse to go back to the Kingdumb Hell. Or pray to Satan that more difficulty be made for Him.

Mincan

You shouldn't let people force you to take their will... even if they are planning it "up your backside"

LouBelle

Personally I don't think God has anything to do with it. God doesn't cause these hurts - it's people. Look to where the hurt is coming from, that is where the blame lies.

I do however totally understand why people become athiests because ""how can God allow this"" ""Why didn't he help me""

There is a book with that exact title ""where is God when it hurts"" It spoke a lot on physical pain and how that is needed in order to survive...it brushed over emotial pain and said something to the effect that even though we go through that kind of pain, one can take great lessons from it...

still that doesn't justify adults hurting kids or any deliberate kind of hurt.

Satanus

Where is god, when hyenas eat a cape buffalo while it's alive, starting from the back end? Should the hyenas suffer for suffering caused by their lifetimes of predation and domination?

Where is god, when the wasp paralyses spiders and stuffs them into cells w a wasp egg, leaving them there to be devoured alive by the baby wasp?

Where is god, when the majestic, maned young lion kills in cold blood the kittens of the defeated male? When the weeks old kittens see death approaching, they do not beg, or whimper. Stout of heart, they mount the best counter attack that their little bodies are able, fangs bared and claws fully extended. Not that it means a thing to the monster that casually crushes their littles skulls as if they were tomatos, then tosses them aside. Thereafter the the lionesses have sex w the muderer of their children, repeatedly, and bear his children.

Where is god, when male monkeys attempt to rape female monkeys? Where is god, when chimps systematically hunt and kill, make war on other monkeys?

Where is god, when fish change sex?

S

Satanus

Where is god, when male garter snakes pretend to be female?

S

serotonin_wraith

I don't see how anyone can become atheist if they think God's being unfair. They may not like this God character, but they would still believe in him. An atheist lacks belief in a god, so they're hardly going to wonder where he is in their time of need. Though I suppose not wanting there to be a cruel god may START people on their journey to becoming atheist. Often people are theists because they want there to be a god so they're not willing to listen to reason.

How, in an atheistic worldview does a person who persists in abuse (particularly religious abuse), mind-control, evil, etc... get repaid for the evil that they have sown?

There is no atheistic worldview. Not believing in Ra tells you nothing about what a person does believe and what their views are, and it's the same with the Biblical god.

Satanus covered it well. Sometimes sh*t happens. It may seem unfair, but it's the way it is in the natural world.

Finding fitting punishments can be hard, I think that's why people still debate issues like the death penalty. Maybe torture is the answer, maybe just getting them to feel guilt and then living with that guilt is enough. There's no clear cut answer, but if God was going to dish out the suitable punishment at the end of the day, why have punishments from other humans on earth?

BurnTheShips

I think this captures the mindset of a great many on this site:

NVICTUS by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

Gopher

Theistic-hedonist,

You ask whether the existence of evil brings about the necessity of some sort of deity who can somehow punish a heinous wrongdoer.

(Full disclosure - I am atheist.)

Your presentation addresses the consequences of evil after it happens. I still fail to believe in the existence of a god (or one who is still concerned with planet earth) because this god should have taken care of the existence of heinous evil before it even begins. Get it at its source, and not wait to clean up the after-effects.

I posted this quote from Epicurus yesterday on the "50 Atheist Quotes" thread, and it bears repeating here:

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?

Where is God when it hurts?

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